All doors were open. The little brick farmhouses and cottages with
their gayly painted window-shutters; the long rows of city houses
with their steep gables; the prim and placid country mansions set
among their high trees and formal flower-gardens--all kinds of
dwellings, from the poorest to the richest, welcomed these guests
of sorrow and distress. Many a humble family drained its savings-bank
reservoir to keep the stream of its hospitality flowing. Unused
factories were turned into barracks. Deserted summer hotels were
filled up. Even empty greenhouses were adapted to the need of human
horticulture. All Holland was enrolled, formally or informally, in
a big _Comite voor Belgische Slachtoffers._

But soon it was evident that the impromptu methods of generosity
could not meet the demands of the case. Private resources were
exhausted. Poor people could no longer feed and clothe their
poorer guests. Families were unhappily divided. In the huge flock
of exiles driven out by the cruel German Terror there were goats as
well as sheep, and some of them bewildered and shocked the orderly
Dutch homes where they were sheltered, by their nocturnal habits
and negligible morals. Something had to be done to bring order and
system into the chaos of brotherly love. Otherwise the neat Dutch
mind which is so close to the Dutch heart could not rest in its bed.
This vast trouble which the evil of German militarism had thrust
upon a helpless folk must be helped out by a wise touch of military
organization, which is a good thing even for the most peaceful
people.

So it was that the City of Refuge (and others like it) grew up
swiftly in the wilderness.