on a charitable construction being placed upon all points in his
favour. The severe placards, for instance, against the public
celebration of any form of worship but that of the Reformed religion,
according to the decrees of the Synod of Dort, were notoriously not
enforced. Those who were able and willing to pay for a dispensation
found a ready and judicious toleration.

This toleration was not entirely due to the venality of the officials,
but rather to the spirit of materialistic indifference that was abroad
among the orthodox Calvinists, who were alone eligible for public
office. Large numbers of those who professed the established faith were
in reality either nominal conformists too much immersed in affairs to
trouble about religious questions, or actually free-thinkers in
disguise. It must never be forgotten that in the United Provinces taken
as a whole, the Calvinists, whether orthodox or arminian, formed a
minority of the population. Even in Holland itself more than half the
inhabitants were Catholics, including many of the old families and
almost all the peasantry. Likewise in Utrecht, Gelderland and Overyssel
the Catholics were in the majority. The Generality lands, North Brabant
and Dutch Flanders, were entirely of the Roman faith. In Holland,
Zeeland and especially in Friesland and Groningen the Mennonite Baptists
and other sects had numerous adherents. Liberty of thought and to a
large extent of worship was in fact at this time the characteristic of
the Netherlands, and existed in spite of the unrepealed placards which
enforced under pain of heavy penalties a strict adherence to the
principles of Dort.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XII

LETTERS, SCIENCE AND ART

The epithet "glorious"--_roemrijke_--has been frequently applied by
Dutch historians to the period of Frederick Henry--and deservedly. The
preceding chapter has told that it was a time of wonderful maritime and
colonial expansion, of commercial supremacy and material prosperity. But
the spirit of the Holland, which reached its culminating point of
national greatness in the middle of the 17th century, was far from being
wholly occupied with voyages of adventure and conquest on far distant
seas, or engrossed in sordid commercialism at home. The rapid
acquisition of wealth by successful trade is dangerous to the moral
health and stability alike of individuals and of societies; and the
vices which follow in its train ha