ity, determined, as they said, to separate Christ from Belial and,
meditating the triumph which they had at last secured, now drove the
Arminians from the great churches. Very soon it was impossible for these
heretics to enjoy the rights of public worship anywhere. But they were
not dismayed. The canons of Dordtrecht had not yet been fulminated. They
avowed themselves ready to sacrifice worldly goods and life itself in
defence of the Five Points. In Rotterdam, notwithstanding a garrison of
fifteen companies, more than a thousand Remonstrants assembled on
Christmas-day in the Exchange for want of a more appropriate place of
meeting and sang the 112th Psalm in mighty chorus. A clergyman of their
persuasion accidentally passing through the street was forcibly laid
hands upon and obliged to preach to them, which he did with great
unction. The magistracy, where now the Contra-Remonstrants had the
control, forbade, under severe penalties, a repetition of such scenes. It
was impossible not to be reminded of the days half a century before, when
the early Reformers had met in the open fields or among the dunes, armed
to the teeth, and with outlying pickets to warn the congregation of the
approach of Red Rod and the functionaries of the Holy Inquisition.

In Schoonhoven the authorities attempted one Sunday by main force to
induct a Contra-Remonstrant into the pulpit from which a Remonstrant had
just been expelled. The women of the place turned out with their distaffs
and beat them from the field. The garrison was called out, and there was
a pitched battle in the streets between soldiers, police officers, and
women, not much to the edification certainly of the Sabbath-loving
community on either side, the victory remaining with the ladies.

In short it would be impossible to exaggerate the rancour felt between
the different politico-religious parties. All heed for the great war now
raging in the outside world between the hostile elements of Catholicism
and Protestantism, embattled over an enormous space, was lost in the din
of conflict among the respective supporters of conditional and
unconditional damnation within the pale of the Reformed Church. The
earthquake shaking Europe rolled unheeded, as it was of old said to have
done at Cannae, amid the fierce shock of mortal foes in that narrow
field.

The respect for authority which had so long been the distinguishing
characteristic of the Netherlanders seemed to have disappeared. It