culture displayed in the
country. In the vast number of cities, towns, and villages which were
crowded upon that narrow territory, there had been, from circumstances
operating throughout Christendom, a great accumulation of ecclesiastical
wealth. The same causes can never exist again which at an early day
covered the soil of Europe with those magnificent creations of Christian
art. It was in these anonymous but entirely original achievements that
Gothic genius; awaking from its long sleep of the dark ages, first
expressed itself. The early poetry of the German races was hewn and
chiselled in atone. Around the steadfast principle of devotion then so
firmly rooted in the soil, clustered the graceful and vigorous emanations
of the newly-awakened mind. All that science could invent, all that art
could embody, all that mechanical ingenuity could dare, all that wealth
could lavish, whatever there was of human energy which was panting for
pacific utterance, wherever there stirred the vital principle which
instinctively strove to create and to adorn at an epoch when vulgar
violence and destructiveness were the general tendencies of humanity, all
gathered around these magnificent temples, as their aspiring pinnacles at
last pierced the mist which had so long brooded over the world.

There were many hundreds of churches, more or less remarkable, in the
Netherlands. Although a severe criticism might regret to find in these
particular productions of the great Germanic school a development of that
practical tendency which distinguished the Batavian and Flemish
branches,--although it might recognize a departure from that mystic
principle which, in its efforts to symbolize the strivings of humanity
towards the infinite object of worship above, had somewhat disregarded
the wants of the worshippers below,--although the spaces might be too
wide and the intercolumniations too empty, except for the convenience of
congregations; yet there were, nevertheless, many ecclesiastical
masterpieces, which could be regarded as very brilliant manifestations of
the Batavian and Belgic mind during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. Many were filled with paintings from a school which had
precedence in time and merit over its sister nurseries of art in Germany.
All were peopled with statues. All were filled with profusely-adorned
chapels, for the churches had been enriched generation after generation
by wealthy penitence, which had thus purchased ab