To return to Amsterdam’s sights, the church which I remember with most pleasure is the English Reformed Church, which many visitors never succeed in finding at all, but to which I was taken by a Dutch lady who knew my tastes.  You seek the Spui, where the electric trams start for Haarlem, and enter a very small doorway on the north side.  It seems to lead to a private house, but instead you find yourself in a very beautiful little enclosure of old and quaint buildings, exquisitely kept, each with a screen of pollarded chestnuts before it; in the midst of which is a toy white church with a gay little spire that might have wandered out of a fairy tale.  The enclosure is called The Begijnenhof, or Court of the Begijnen, a little sisterhood named after St. Begga, daughter of Pipinus, Duke of Brabant,—­a saint who lived at the end of the seventh century and whose day in the Roman Catholic Calendar is December 17.

The church was originally the church of these nuns, but when the old religion was overthrown in Amsterdam, in 1578, it was taken from them, although they were allowed—­as happily they still are—­to retain possession of the court around it.

In 1607 the church passed into the possession of a settlement of Scotch weavers who had been invited to Amsterdam by the merchants, and who had made it a condition of acceptance that they should have a conventicle of their own.  It is now a resort of English church-going visitors on Sunday.

Most of Holland’s churches—­as of England’s—­once belonged to Rome, and it is impossible to forget their ancient ownership; but I remember no other case where the new religion is practised, as in the Begijnenhof, in the heart of the enemy’s camp.  In the very midst of the homes of the quiet sweet Begijnen sisters are the voices of the usurping Reformers heard in prayer and praise.

One little concession, however, was made by the appropriators of the chapel.  Until as recently as 1865 a special part of the building the original Roman consecration of which had not been nullified was retained by the sisterhood in which to bury their dead.  The ceremony was very impressive.  Twelve of the nuns carried their dead companion three times round the court before entering the church.  But all that is over, and now they must seek burial elsewhere, without their borders.

One may leave the Begijnenhof by the other passage into Kalverstraat, and walking up that busy street towards the Dam, turn down the St. Lucien Steeg, on the left, to another of Amsterdam’s homes of ancient peace—­the municipal orphanage, which was once the Convent of St. Lucien.  The Dutch are exceedingly kind to their poor, and the orphanages and almshouses (Oudemannen and Oudevrouwen houses as they are called) are very numerous.  The Municipal Orphanage of Amsterdam is among the most interesting; and it is to this refuge that the girls and boys belong whom one sees so often in the streets of the city in curious parti-coloured costume—­red and black vertically divided.  The Amsterdamsche burgerweesmeisjes, as the girls are called, make in procession a very pretty and impressive sight—­with their white tippets and caps above their dresses of black and red.