energy of one, divine spirit, had not yet been born.  Of the treasures which existed the destruction was complete.  Yet the rage was directed exclusively against stocks and stones.  Not a man was wounded nor a woman outraged.  Prisoners, indeed, who had been languishing hopelessly in dungeons were liberated.  A monk, who had been in the prison of the Barefoot Monastery, for twelve years, recovered his freedom.  Art was trampled in the dust, but humanity deplored no victims.

These leading features characterized the movement every where.  The process was simultaneous and almost universal.  It was difficult to say where it began and where it ended.  A few days in the midst of August sufficed for the whole work.  The number of churches desecrated has never been counted.  In the single province of Flanders, four hundred were sacked.  In Limburg, Luxemburg, and Namur, there was no image-breaking.  In Mechlin, seventy or eighty persons accomplished the work thoroughly, in the very teeth of the grand council, and of an astonished magistracy.

In Tournay, a city distinguished for its ecclesiastical splendor, the reform had been making great progress during the summer.  At the same time the hatred between the two religions had been growing more and more intense.  Trifles and serious matters alike fed the mutual animosity.

A tremendous outbreak had been nearly occasioned by an insignificant incident.  A Jesuit of some notoriety had been preaching a glowing discourse in the pulpit of Notre Dane.  He earnestly avowed his wish that he were good enough to die for all his hearers.  He proved to demonstration that no man should shrink from torture or martyrdom in order to sustain the ancient faith.  As he was thus expatiating, his fervid discourse was suddenly interrupted by three sharp, sudden blows, of a very peculiar character, struck upon the great portal of the Church.  The priest, forgetting his love for martyrdom, turned pale and dropped under the pulpit.  Hurrying down the steps, he took refuge in the vestry, locking and barring the door.  The congregation shared in his panic:  “The beggars are coming,” was the general cry.  There was a horrible tumult, which extended through the city as the congregation poured precipitately out of the Cathedral, to escape a band of destroying and furious Calvinists.  Yet when the shock had a little subsided, it was discovered that a small urchin was the cause of the whole tumult.  Having been bathing in the Scheldt, he had returned by way of the church with a couple of bladders under his arm.  He had struck these against the door of the Cathedral, partly to dry them, partly from a love of mischief.  Thus a great uproar, in the course of which it had been feared that Toumay was to be sacked and drenched in blood, had been caused by a little wanton boy who had been swimming on bladders.