ny part of his
sermon, which consisted principally of revilings against popery. Here
the sacraments were administered after the Calvinistic fashion, and
water was procured from the nearest river to baptize infants without
further ceremony, after the practice, it was pretended, of the earliest
times of Christianity. Couples were also united in wedlock, and the
marriage ties dissolved between others. To be present at this meeting
half the population of Ghent had left its gates; their example was soon
followed in other parts, and ere long spread over the whole of East
Flanders. In like manner Peter Dathen, another renegade monk, from
Poperingen, stirred up West Flanders; as many as fifteen thousand
persons at a time attended his preaching from the villages and hamlets;
their number made them bold, and they broke into the prisons, where some
Anabaptists were reserved for martyrdom. In Tournay the Protestants
were excited to a similar pitch of daring by Ambrosius Ville, a French
Calvinist. They demanded the release of the prisoners of their sect,
and repeatedly threatened if their demands were not complied with to
deliver up the town to the French. It was entirely destitute of a
garrison, for the commandant, from fear of treason, had withdrawn it
into the castle, and the soldiers, moreover, refused to act against
their fellow-citizens. The sectarians carried their audacity to such
great lengths as to require one of the churches within the town to be
assigned to them; and when this was refused they entered into a league
with Valenciennes and Antwerp to obtain a legal recognition of their
worship, after the example of the other towns, by open force. These
three towns maintained a close connection with each other, and the
Protestant party was equally powerful in all. While, however, no one
would venture singly to commence the disturbance, they agreed
simultaneously to make a beginning with public preaching. Brederode's
appearance in Antwerp at last gave them courage. Six thousand persons,
men and women, poured forth from the town on an appointed day, on which
the same thing happened in Tournay and Valenciennes. The place of
meeting was closed in with a line of vehicles, firmly fastened together,
and behind them armed men were secretly posted, with a view to protect
the service from any surprise. Of the preachers, most of whom were men
of the very lowest class--some were Germans, some were Huguenots--and
spoke in the Walloon dial