e very schools attended by the English children), when the lad
made it clear to all men that he had no head for Latin and a very decided
talent for drawing. So it came to pass that at the time Bradford and his
friends set their faces toward America, and per-force turned their backs
upon that "goodly & pleasante citie which had been ther resting place near
twelve years," Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn, the youngest son of a miller of
Leyden, turned his face, too, from the old toward the new. They sought
liberty to live and to worship according to the bright light in their
hearts: he, too, sought liberty to follow in a no less divinely appointed
path, impelled thereto by an irresistible force which, after half a
century, retained all its early vigor. They broke from the ways of their
fathers and bore an important part in the development of the great
American nation; he emancipated himself and his art from the thraldom of
tradition and conventionality and became the first of the great modern
masters of art.

The twelve-years' truce between the humiliated Dons and the stocky
Dutchmen was now nearing its end, and Bradford says, "There was nothing
but beating of drumes, and preparing for warr." This was one of the
reasons why the peaceable Pilgrims sought a new home beyond the sea. But
Rembrandt, already absorbed in his art-studies, saw nothing, heard nothing
of these preparations; his ears were deaf to the drum-beats, his eyes were
seeing better things than the "pride, pomp and circumstances of glorious
war". There can be no question about his utter lack of interest in things
military. When, at long intervals, he tried war-subjects (as most men
sooner or later try their hand at the thing they are least fitted for) he
failed pitifully. He could create a masterpiece of a "Man in Armor," or a
"Night Watch," where the problems were purely artistic, and swords and
flags were simply bits of fine color, but the painting or etching that
breathed the actual spirit of war he could not produce. There is matter
here for rejoicing. War and her heroes have had their full quota of the
great artists to exalt their work. And now comes one who loved the paths
of peace. With brush and etching-needle he made record for all time of
the dignity and rare beauty which he found in ordinary hum-drum walks of
life. We may even say that he exalted doctors and artists, housemaids and
shopkeepers, yea even the very street-beggars, into such importa