the notables, as well as the humbler artisans and laborers, all had received the infection.  The professors of the Reformed religion outnumbered the Catholics by five or six to one.  On Sundays and other holidays, during the hours of service, Tournay was literally emptied of its inhabitants.  The streets were as silent as if war or pestilence had swept the place.  The Duchess sent orders, but she sent no troops.  The trained-bands of the city, the cross-bow-men of St. Maurice, the archers of St. Sebastian, the sword-players of St. Christopher, could not be ordered from Tournay to suppress the preaching, for they had all gone to the preaching themselves.  How idle, therefore; to send peremptory orders without a matchlock to enforce the command.

Throughout Flanders similar scenes were enacted.  The meetings were encampments, for the Reformers now came to their religious services armed to the teeth, determined, if banished from the churches, to defend their right to the fields.  Barricades of upturned wagons, branches, and planks, were thrown up around the camps.  Strong guards of mounted men were stationed at every avenue.  Outlying scouts gave notice of approaching danger, and guided the faithful into the enclosure.  Pedlers and hawkers plied the trade upon which the penalty of death was fixed, and sold the forbidden hymn-books to all who chose to purchase.  A strange and contradictory spectacle!  An army of criminals doing deeds which could only be expiated at the stake; an entrenched rebellion, bearding the government with pike, matchlock, javelin and barricade, and all for no more deadly purpose than to listen to the precepts of the pacific Jesus.

Thus the preaching spread through the Walloon provinces to the northern Netherlands.  Towards the end of July, an apostate monk, of singular eloquence, Peter Gabriel by name, was announced to preach at Overeen near Harlem.  This was the first field-meeting which had taken place in Holland.  The people were wild with enthusiasm; the authorities beside themselves with apprehension.  People from the country flocked into the town by thousands.  The other cities were deserted, Harlem was filled to overflowing.  Multitudes encamped upon the ground the night before.  The magistrates ordered the gates to be kept closed in the morning till long after the usual hour.  It was of no avail.  Bolts and bars were but small impediments to enthusiasts who had travelled so many miles on foot or horseback to listen to a sermon.  They climbed the walls, swam the moat and thronged to the place of meeting long before the doors had been opened.  When these could no longer be kept closed without a conflict, for which the magistrates were not prepared, the whole population poured out of the city with a single impulse.  Tens of thousands were assembled upon the field.  The bulwarks were erected as usual, the guards were posted, the necessary precautions taken.  But upon this occasion, and in that region there was but little danger to be apprehended.