Early in the development of 16th century reform the people of Holland showed marked preference for the doctrinal system of Zwingli and Calvin rather than that of Luther. This may have been partly due to their long-time neighborly intercourse and friendship with the Evangelicals living on the banks of the Rhine, and partly due to their sympathy with the per secuted disciples of Calvin in France; but chiefly due, it may well be urged, to the dear, convincing and fearless propaganda of Wessel Gansfort —a man of such culture, conviction and persuasive power that his two years' pro fessorship at Heidelberg University established a virile and abiding evangelical influence in those academic halls which had marked effect upon Ursinus and Olivianns and the Heidel berg Catechism. Without doubt also Gansfort directly, or indirectly, helped to shape the Bel plc Confession as truly as that great symbol influenced the countrymen of Gansfort in later years. It may be remembered that Martin Luther himself wrote concerning the writings of Gansfort: *If I had read his works earlier, my enemies might think that Luther had ab sorbed everything from Wessel, his spirit is so in accord with mine? The persecutions for heresy under Charles V of Spain (1519-55), and his son Philip II (1555-98), brought long-continued distress and suffering to the Netherlands people, and con tinued with occasional brief intervals for more than half a century. The period of horrors, par excellence, was the bloody six years' regime of Alva (1567-73), during which time, as the princely butcher boasted, there were more than 18,000 authorized executions; and it is claimed that in this little country more than 100,000 persons gave up life rather than faith. The more cruelly they were persecuted, however, the more inflexibly the Hollanders refused the obedience their Spanish king demanded. In 1584 William of Orange, the shrewd, self-sac rificing, invincibly fearless and confident de fender of Holland's faith and .freedom, was treacherously assassinated by Balthazar Gerard yet his son Maurice proved himself a skilful military leader, and with some little help from England the struggle with the oppressor con tinued for some years; but finally in 1609 the 'twelve years' truce* was agreed upon and Holland's long-protracted agony for con science's sake was over. Yet during the dark est days of persecution proscribed evangelists continued their fervent preaching in the fields, and the people prayed and sang praises to God, after the example and spirit of the imprisoned apostles — the appeals of the field-preachers and the inspiring hymns of Beza and Marot continually strengthening them all to persevere in 'witnessing a good confession.* Just before the coming of Alva, in 1566, a few Dutch and Walloon pastors organized the first evangelical Church Synod at Antwerp; and with the aid of a few noble laymen a complete Church organization was effected. The Belgic Confession, written by Guido de Brey five years before, was adopted, with slight changes; and the Heidelberg Catechism, now for three years the authorized symbol of the Palatine reformers, was accepted tenta tively, to be fully and finally adopted a few years later. Yet it was distinctly professed, whatever doctrinal standards were honored or endorsed, that the Word of God was the only recognized rule of faith. The Synod of Wesel in 1568 somewhat modified and adopted Calvin's Presbyterian polity; the necessity for a learned and consecrated ministry, loyal to the Word of God and the Church standards, was plainly set forth, and the various classes and duties of church officers were clearly defined. In 1571 came the Synod of Emden, which endorsed the acts of previous synods and formulated cer tain new features of church government. The first Synod of Dort, 1576, defined the four' grades of ecclesiastical bodies as fol lows: the General Synod, the highest court, its members delegated from the Classes, and meet ing once a year; the Particular Synod, also a delegated assembly of ministers and elders, meeting annually; the Classis, a permanent body including the pastors and one elder each from a number of nearby churches, and meet ing twice a year, and the Consistory, the court of the individual church, consisting of an equal number of elders and deacons elected by the church, with the pastor as president. The same Synod also limited certain conditions of church membership. Five years later the Synod of Middleburg assembled in 1581 to complete the organization of the Church and to deter mine certain matters relating to schoolmasters, professors of theology, liturgy and creed. A month later the sovereignty of Philip H was formally renounced, and the Reformed Church v, as declared the established Church of the Netherlands. The great Arminian controversy early in the 17th century made necessary the calling of the second Synod of Dort in 1618, to which all the Reformed Churches of Europe were invited, and most of them con sented, to send delegates. James I commis sioned as England's representatives the bishop of Llandaff, Samuel Ward, professor of Cam bridge, and Joseph Hall, afterward a bishop of Salisbury. Foreordination, perseverance of the
saints, man's 'conversion and free will and the divine atonement were elaborately discussed; under the leadership of Episcopias (Arminius having died before the Synod convened), the Remonstrants warmly favored the system of Arminius, which, in certain points, was finally adjudged contrary to sound doctrine; the Arminian Remonstrants were excluded from office in the Reformed Church, as consciously and wilfully traversing their own solemn pledges of loyalty to the Church and its standards; and in an elaborate formula known as the 'Canons of the Synod of Dort,' the Synodal decisions concerning the great doc tnnes of grace were carefully defined. The 'Post Acta' of the later sessions of the Synod set forth authoritatively certain important de tails concerning the call to the ministry, festival days, hymns for worship, baptism of adults and the sick, professors of theology and their relations to the Church, a new translation of the Bible into Dutch, foreign missions, the Litwigy and ministers' salaries. The Heidel berg Catechism was again heartily adopted, and a "Compendium* of its teachings was prepared that it might be included with the other standards of the Church.
Four years before this time the Hollanders began emigrating to America; for that new discovered world became increasingly attractive year by year, since the Holland government had formally annexed the country discovered and partially explored as 'New Netherland,* and had issued a charter to the East India Company, with specified rights of trading, set tling and colony improvement. Within a half dozen years after Henry Hudson, in 1609, had discovered the river that bears his name the Dutch trading posts at New York and Albany had the services of specially qualified and or dained Christian laymen (Jan Huyck and Sebastiaen Jansen Krol by name) as 'Com forters of the Sick' and leaders of public worship on Sundays. A distinctly aggressive religious influence was also due to the con secrated personality of the first director of the colony, Peter Minuit, who had been for years an ordained elder of the French Reformed Church of Wesel.
In seeking their comfort and growth, spiritual as well as temporal, at both Albany and New York, these three Christian laymen served their fellow-colonists for some years before the com ing of the first missionary minister of the Dutch colony, the Rev. Jonas Michaeius, in the year 1628. Soon after the coming of this minister the first Reformed church was or ganized with 50 communicants. Many of the early settlers of New Netherland were French Huguenots, more commonly called "Walloons.* The name of the Long Island locality,, 'Walla bout' shows the nationality of most of the people who settled there. In 1642 the people of Albany (Fort Orange) were no longer obliged to content themselves with the spiritual ministry of the 'Comforters of the Sick,* for Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the first patroon of Rensselaerswyck, secured for them the services of a well-qualified minister, the Rev. Johannes Megapolensis, and in August of 1642 the first minister of Albany began his seven years' pastorate. It is worthy of note that the Classis of Amsterdam (having sole ecclesiastical juris diction over New Netherland), which commis sioned Megapolensis for his work, also speci fied in his *call* that his duty was to minister to the spiritual needs of the Indians as well as the Dutch, and the same duty was prescribed in many other Classis ((calls,' which served as official commissions of the ministers for their work, whether on the Hudson River, the Dela ware, the Mohawk or the Raritan. Early in his ministry at Albany Megapolensis prepared and published a detailed account of the Mohawk Indians, which is the earliest trustworthy book on the life, customs and characteristics of the American Indian. In 1654 a third Reformed church was organized at Flatbush, L. I., with Polhemus as pastor; and other churches were established during the next 10 years, so that at the time of the English occupation in 1664 they numbered 13 in all.
During the next century the need of minis ters for the steadily growing American church became more and more urgent ; there were no American colleges and seminaries available to prepare students for ministerial service; but few young men could afford the time and ex pense necessary for seven years of academic and theological study in Holland; and the Re formed Church was thus hindered and dwarfed in the most important stage of its growth. Another condition limiting the increase of the Church was the continued and exclusive use of the Dutch language for more than half a century after it should have been clear to any thoughtful person that this persistent stand of the-Dutch Church was a steadily losing policy which must finally bring disaster. Whether among Dutch settlers in America of the early 17th century or among German settlers in America of the early 20th century to make the language of the street, and social life and business, the language of the school, the news paper and the Church is evidently a policy profitable, sensible, Christian and patriotic.