is maintained amid
beautiful Gothic arches. The result is that Dutch churches are more
than chilling. In the simplest English village church one receives
some impression of the friendliness of religion; but in Holland--of
course I speak as a stranger and a foreigner--religion seems to be
a cold if not a repellent thing.

One result is that on looking back over one's travels through
Holland it is almost impossible to disentangle in the memory one
whitewashed church from another. They have a common monotony of
internal aridity: one distinguishes them, if at all, by some accidental
possession--Gouda, for example, by its stained glass; Haarlem by its
organ, and the swinging ships; Delft by the tomb of William the Silent;
Utrecht by the startling absence of an entrance fee.

At Haarlem, as it happens, one is peculiarly able to study cause and
effect in this matter of Protestant bleakness, since there stands
before the door of this wonderful church, once a Roman Catholic
temple, drenched, I doubt not, in mystery and colour, a certain
significant statue.

To Erasmus of Rotterdam is generally given the parentage of the
Reformation. Whatever his motives, Erasmus stands as the forerunner
of Luther. But Erasmus had his forerunner too, the discoverer of
printing. For had not a means of rapidly multiplying and cheapening
books been devised, the people, who were after all the back-bone of
the Reformation, would never have had the opportunity of themselves
reading the Bible--either the Vulgate or Erasmus's New Testament--and
thus seeing for themselves how wide was the gulf fixed between Christ
and the Christians. It was the discovery of this discrepancy which
prepared them to stand by the reformers, and, by supporting them and
urging them on, assist them to victory.

Stimulated by the desire to be level with Rome for his own early
fetters, and desiring also an antagonist worthy of his satirical
powers, Erasmus (or so I think) hit independently upon the need for
a revised Bible. But Luther to a large extent was the outcome of his
times and of popular feeling. A spokesman was needed, and Luther
stepped forward. The inventor of printing made the way possible;
Erasmus showed the way; Luther took it.

Now the honour of inventing printing lies between two claimants,
Laurens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem (the original of this statue) and
Gutenburg of Mayence. The Dutch like to think that Coster was the man,
and that his secret was sold