The noblest and richest temple of the Netherlands was a wreck, but the fury of the spoilers was excited, not appeased.  Each seizing a burning torch, the whole herd rushed from the cathedral, and swept howling through the streets.  “Long live the beggars!” resounded through the sultry midnight air, as the ravenous pack flew to and fro, smiting every image of the Virgin, every crucifix, every sculptured saint, every Catholic symbol which they met with upon their path.  All night long, they roamed from one sacred edifice to another, thoroughly destroying as they went.  Before morning they had sacked thirty churches within the city walls.  They entered the monasteries, burned their invaluable libraries, destroyed their altars, statues, pictures, and descending into the cellars, broached every cask which they found there, pouring out in one great flood all the ancient wine and ale with which those holy men had been wont to solace their retirement from generation to generation.  They invaded the nunneries, whence the occupants, panic-stricken, fled for refuge to the houses of their friends and kindred.  The streets were filled with monks and nuns, running this way and that, shrieking and fluttering, to escape the claws of these fiendish Calvinists.  The terror was imaginary, for not the least remarkable feature in these transactions was, that neither insult nor injury was offered to man or woman, and that not a farthing’s value of the immense amount of property destroyed, was appropriated.  It was a war not against the living, but against graven images, nor was the sentiment which prompted the onslaught in the least commingled with a desire of plunder.  The principal citizens of Antwerp, expecting every instant that the storm would be diverted from the ecclesiastical edifices to private dwellings, and that robbery, rape, and murder would follow sacrilege, remained all night expecting the attack, and prepared to defend their hearths, even if the altars were profaned.  The precaution was needless.  It was asserted by the Catholics that the confederates and other opulent Protestants had organized this company of profligates for the meagre pittance of ten stivers day.  On the other hand, it was believed by many that the Catholics had themselves plotted the whole outrage in order to bring odium upon the Reformers.  Both statements were equally unfounded.  The task was most thoroughly performed, but it was prompted:  by a furious fanaticism, not by baser motives.

Two days and nights longer the havoc raged unchecked through all the churches of Antwerp and the neighboring villages.  Hardly a statue or picture escaped destruction.  Fortunately, the illustrious artist, whose labors were destined in the next generation to enrich and ennoble the city, Rubens, most profound of colorists, most dramatic—­of artists; whose profuse tropical genius seemed to flower the more luxuriantly, as if the destruction wrought by brutal hands were to be compensated by the creative