control, forbade, under severe penalties, a repetition of such scenes.
It was impossible not to be reminded of the days half a century before,
when the early Reformers had met in the open fields or among the dunes,
armed to the teeth, and with outlying pickets to warn the congregation of
the approach of Red Rod and the functionaries of the Holy Inquisition.

In Schoonhoven the authorities attempted one Sunday by main force to
induct a Contra-Remonstrant into the pulpit from which a Remonstrant had
just been expelled. The women of the place turned out with their
distaffs and beat them from the field. The garrison was called out, and
there was a pitched battle in the streets between soldiers, police
officers, and women, not much to the edification certainly of the
Sabbath-loving community on either side, the victory remaining with the
ladies.

In short it would be impossible to exaggerate the rancour felt between
the different politico-religious parties. All heed for the great war now
raging in the outside world between the hostile elements of Catholicism
and Protestantism, embattled over an enormous space, was lost in the din
of conflict among the respective supporters of conditional and
unconditional damnation within the pale of the Reformed Church. The
earthquake shaking Europe rolled unheeded, as it was of old said to have
done at Cannae, amid the fierce shock of mortal foes in that narrow
field.

The respect for authority which had so long been the distinguishing
characteristic of the Netherlanders seemed to have disappeared. It was
difficult--now that the time-honoured laws and privileges in defence of
which, and of liberty of worship included in them, the Provinces had made
war forty years long had been trampled upon by military force--for those