ince of Holland, to which his allegiance was due and whose servant he
was. That there was but one church paid and sanctioned by law, he
admitted, but his efforts were directed to prevent discord within that
church, by counselling moderation, conciliation, mutual forbearance, and
abstention from irritating discussion of dogmas deemed by many thinkers
and better theologians than himself not essential to salvation. In this
he was much behind his age or before it. He certainly was not with the
majority.

And thus, while the election of Ferdinand had given the signal of war all
over Christendom, while from the demolished churches in Bohemia the
tocsin was still sounding, whose vibrations were destined to be heard a
generation long through the world, there was less sympathy felt with the
call within the territory of the great republic of Protestantism than
would have seemed imaginable a few short years before. The capture of the
Cloister Church at the Hague in the summer of 1617 seemed to minds
excited by personal rivalries and minute theological controversy a more
momentous event than the destruction of the churches in the Klostergrab
in the following December. The triumph of Gomarism in a single Dutch city
inspired more enthusiasm for the moment than the deadly buffet to
European Protestantism could inspire dismay.

The church had been carried and occupied, as it were, by force, as if an
enemy's citadel. It seemed necessary to associate the idea of practical
warfare with a movement which might have been a pacific clerical success.
Barneveld and those who acted with him, while deploring the intolerance
out of which the schism had now grown to maturity, had still hoped for
possible accommodation of the quarrel. They dreaded popular tumults
leading to oppression of the magistracy by the mob or the soldiery and
ending in civil war. But what was wanted by the extreme partisans on
either side was not accommodation but victory.

"Religious differences are causing much trouble and discontents in many
cities," he said. "At Amsterdam there were in the past week two
assemblages of boys and rabble which did not disperse without violence,
crime, and robbery. The brother of Professor Episcopius (Rem Bischop) was
damaged to the amount of several thousands. We are still hoping that some
better means of accommodation may be found."

The calmness with which the Advocate spoke of these exciting and painful
events is remarkable. It was exac