The attitude of the Dutch to their churches is in fact very much that of Quakers to their meeting-houses—­even to the retention of hats.  But whereas it is reasonable for a Quaker, having made for himself as plain a rectangular building as he can, to attach no sanctity to it, there is an incongruity when the same attitude 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 to Gutenburg by his servant Faust.  Be that as it may—­and the weight of evidence is in favour of Gutenburg—­it is interesting as one stands by the statue of Coster under the shadow of Haarlem’s great church to think that this was perhaps the true parent of that great upheaval, the true pavior of the way.