USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > Albany bi-centennial. Historical memoirs > Part 9
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the midst of the conflict, they died while it was going on, and they beqeathed the fight to their children. Through the firmness and perseverence of successive generations peace and prosperity came at last. Where, in this wide world, could a training school like this have been found at that time for men and women who were to be intrusted with the founding of a State or city in this western world ? We can never cease to abhor and to execrate the infamous tyranny of Spain ; but what if she had taken a different course and had readily allowed to her Dutch subjects the liberty they had to fight for ? Who can tell what the result would have been ? Would the Dutchmen of the opening years of the seventeenth century have been what they were ? Would they have had the faith, the firmness, the enterprise, the sim- plicity, the frugality, the energy and the tolerant spirit which they now possessed ? Would they, in a word, have been so well qualified to be the pioneers in the founding of a new state ? Did not God use the wrath and folly of Spain for the good of America, for the good of New Netherland, for the good of Albany ? "They," says Dr. Storrs, " brought the patience, the enterprise and the courage, the indomitable spirit and the hatrid of tyranny into which they had been born, into which their nation had been baptized with blood." Would it not have been a pity if they had missed their severe training ? And they came not as men who were escaping from raging fires and seeking for safety and rest, but after these fires had been put out, and peace and prosperity filled the land, and their homes were undisturbed, and yet before prosperity had bred the enervating influences which always in time spring from it. They came of their own accord, simply to advance their temporal interests, but they could only care for these interests in accordance with the character that had been formed by the experiences of the century. They came as acknowledged freemen, bringing the virtues into which they had been disciplined, and also the church which had been to them and their fathers so tender a nurse, so true a mentor and so efficient an educator.
THE WALLOONS.
While we thus speak of the early Dutch colonists and their training, we must not forget the French element con- nected with them, and which was of great value. The first
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company that came in 1623, with Capt. Cornelius Jacobson May, to make an agricultural settlement in New Netherland, was composed of thirty families, chiefly Walloons; and of this company eighteen families were brought to Fort Orange. The Walloons were the Protestants of the Southern Nether- lands, or Belgium, who, driven by prosecution across the border, made their homes in Northern Netherlands, and formed churches in which their native French was used. The Huguenots came from the northeastern provinces of France and joined their Walloon brethren in Holland. Many of these who had been domiciled in Holland came to New Netherland. Agreeing with the Dutch in doctrine, church polity and ritual and being familiar with their lan- guage, they identified themselves with them. While in a few places, as Staten Island, New Paltz and Hackensack in New Jersey, they maintained worship in their own tongue for a time, in New York alone they were able to maintain it permanently. The French Protestants were as true and loyal members of the Reformed Dutch churches as were the native Hollanders themselves. Almost every church had more or less of them. They were more refined, grace- ful, versatile and vivacious than the Dutch, and what they brought of national characteristics and peculiar culture was so much added to the very solid material furnished by the Dutch. "Their influence has been compared to the gold which some one cast into the mould filled with the melted metals which were to compose the great bell of Moscow - the gold was not much in quantity, but it gave to the great bell a fineness of tone and a melodious ring it would not have possessed without it."
THE WIVES AND MOTHERS.
I must not leave this part of my subject without speaking of the wives and mothers who came hither, having been trained in the same school with their husbands. Who can tell how much Albany owes to these wives and mothers ? The Dutch husband treated his wife with what one has called " respectful adoration." He did not often " com- mence any undertaking, whether public or private, without first consulting the partner of his cares; and it is even said that some of the statesmen most distinguished for their influence in the affairs of their own country and Europe in general were accustomed to receive instructions at home to
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which they ventured not to go counter. But the diminion of these lordly dames, all dispotic though it were, was ever exerted for the benefit of those who obeyed. It was the earnest and undaunted spirit of their women which encour- aged the Dutch to dare, and their calm fortitude to endure the toils, privations and sufferings of the first years of the war of independence against Spain ; it was their activity and terift in the management of their private incomes that sup- plied them with the means of defraying an amount of na- tional expenditure wholly unexampled in history; and to their influence is to be ascribed, above all, the decorum of manners and the purity of morals, for which the society of Holland has at all times been remarkable." (Davie's Hol- land and the Dutch, vol. 3, p. 381.) Broadhead says : " The empire which the sex obtained was no greater than that which their beauty, good sense, virtue and devotion well entitled them to hold. They mingled in all the active affairs of life and were always consulted with deferential respect. Their habits of business enabled them to manage with skill and advantage the interests which their husbands confidently entrusted to their care. They loved their homes and their firesides, but they loved their country more. Through all their toils and struggles, the calm fortitude of the men of Holland was nobly encouraged and sustained by the earnest and undaunted spirit of their mothers and wives." (History of New York, vol. I, p. 263.)
II. THE SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE.
The system brought hither by the colonists was that in which they had been trained from childhood, and which they were teaching to their children, the system whose cor- ner-stone is the doctrine of God's sovereignty in grace as well as in nature and providence, called Calvinism, not be- cause Calvin originated it, but because he most successfully formulated it and put upon it the impress of his masterly genuis. It is a system just as far removed from fatalism on the one hand as from sentimentalism on the other. It is not in place to-day, even if we had the time to expound this system, nor to give the proofs of its scripturalness, nor to answer the objections brought against it. And yet I may be allowed to suggest that it is possible that some who de- nounce it may not understand it as well as they might, that a caricature is a very different thing from a true likeness,
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and that the study of the carefully and beautifully-expressed articles of the synod of Dort on the five controverted heads of doctrine will well repay every thinking man, even though he should decline to accept them. But this we are bold to affirm, that it is a system which has produced many of the world's most profound thinkers and most glorious heroes, that it has developed all the manly virtues and made sturdy Christians and sturdy citizens, and produced the stuff of which not only martyrs to the faith are made, but also incor- ruptible magistrates, and people who can be neither bought nor sold. Surely we need not, in the light of history, be ashamed of the doctrine taught in the articles of the church of England, the canons of Dort, and the confession of West- minister, and which lie at the foundation of the New Eng- land commonwealth, and of this Empire State. How could it be otherwise, since the whole tendency of the system is to exalt God, and man is lifted up toward God, when God is exalted in his conceptions. When God is brought down, man sinks so much the lower. Would we then have true manliness and the highest type of civic virtue, let us have the highest possible conceptions of God, and let them with- out hindrance shape our lives. The tree is known by its fruit. Be not afraid to test a doctrinal system by its prac- tical effects. " It is enough," says Froude, " to mention the name of William the Silent, of Luther -for on the points of which I am speaking Luther was one with Calvin - of your own Knox and Andrew Mellville, and the Regent Murray, of Coligny, of our English Cromwell, of Milton, of John Bunyan. These were men possessed of all the qual- ities which give nobility and grandeur to human nature ; men whose life was as upright as their intellect was com- manding, and their public aims untainted with selfishness ; unalterably just where duty required them to be stern, but with the tenderness of a woman in their hearts ; frank, true, cheerful, humorous, as unlike sour fanatics as it is possible to imagine any one, and able in some way to sound the key-note to which every brave and faithful heart in Europe instinctivety vibrated." (Froude's Calvinism, p. 7.) A prom- inent writer of the Methodist Episcopal church has said of Calvinism : " It is the clearest and most comprehensive sys- tem of doctrine ever formed. *
* * We concede to the Calvinistic churches the honor of having all along directed the best religious thinking of the country. Some of the best
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fruits of religious life and the noblest specimens of the Chris- tian character have been exhibited among those who have been, at least in theory, Calvinists." This faith was alike the inspirer and the bulwark of civic and religious liberty. " We may," says our great historian, George Bancroft, " as republicans remember that Calvin was not only the founder of a sect, but foremost among the most efficient of modern republican legislators. More truly benevolent to the human race than Solon, more self-denying than Lycurgus, the genus of Calvin infused enduring elements into the institutions of Geneva and made it for the moral world the impregnable fortress of popular liberty, the fertile seed-plot of democracy * *
* Alone in the world, alone in a strange land, he went forward in his career with serene resignation and inflex- ible firmness. No love of ease turned him aside from his vigils ; no fear of danger relaxed the nerve of his eloquence ; no bodily infirmities checked the immediate activity of his mind ; and so he continued year after year, solitary and feeble, yet toiling for humanity, till after a life of glory, he bequeathed to his personal heirs a fortune in books and fur- niture, stocks and money not exceeding $200, and to the world a purer reformation, a republican spirit in religion, with the kindred principles of republican liberty." (Ban- croft's miscellanies, p. 406.) The fathers of Albany were disciples of Calvin.
III. THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.
The Dutch of the 16th and 17th centuries appreciated the incalculable importance of the education, both religious and secular, of the young, and they made the wisest and fullest provision for it in their power. Their universities founded for the training of young men in the classics, philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine and theology soon became famous, but provision was also made for popular, universal education in the fundamentals of religion and also in the primary branches of secular studies. Count John of Nassau, the ' elder brother of William the Silent, said : "You must urge upon the states general that they should establish free schools where children of quality as well as of poor families for a small sum could be well and christianly educated and brought up. This would be the greatest and most useful work you could ever accomplish for God and Christianity, for the Netherlands themselves." (Cent. discourses, p. 209.) Thus
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we see that our free, public school system, of which we justly boast, and for which we proudly claim an American origin, was in its germ and essential features anticipated by the Dutch in the Netherlands three centuries ago. "The New England pilgrims," says Motley, " during their residence in the glorious country of Holland found already established the system of free schools which John of Nassau had recom- mended." (Letter to St. Nicholas society, 1869.) The church took her share in this matter of education and worked in harmonious co-operation with the State. While the schools were provided and supported by the state, and the children were taught the ordinary branches of secular education, the church saw to it that in their schools the truths of religion were taught. The schoolmaster was usually also the voorleser who performed certain parts of the service in the Church on the Lord's day, and, of course, was required to be a member of the church. He was by no means an unimportant person in a Dutch com- munity, and was amenable to church and state for the per- formance of his duties. We may add that the state was not indifferent to the religious education, and that the church was quite as deeply concerned for the secular education as was the state. Says Brodhead : "Neither the perils of war, nor the busy pursuits of gain, nor the excitement of political strife ever caused the Dutch to neglect the duty of educating their offsprings to enjoy the freedom for which their fathers had fought. Schools were everywhere provided at the pub- lic expense, with good schoolmasters to instruct the children of all classes in the usual branches of education; and the consistories of the churches took zealous care to have their youth thoroughly taught the catechism and the articles of religion." (History of New York, vol. I, p. 462.) If any one will take the pains to examine the acts of the early synods of the churches of the Netherlands, beginning with that of Wesel in 1568, he will find that by every one of them great stress was laid upon the religious education of the children and the youth. The baptismal dedication of the infant was accompanied with the explicit and solemn promise that it should be instructed in the truths of the Christian religion. The method of religious training established by the synod of Dort in 1618 cannot but excite admiration for its complete- ness. That august body of learned divines did not consider it beneath them to formally adopt a primary catechism for
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the use of the youngest children, also to provide the "com- pendium for the instruction of candidates for the Lord's supper " and to enjoin the use of the Heidelberg catechism in teaching more advanced pupils and for regular exposi- tion from the pulpit to the congregation on the Lord's day. The agencies for carrying out this method were threefold, and the church was to see to it that every one performed his work. I. Parents: They were to be enquired of in the pastorial visitations whether they faithfully and diligently instructed their children and households in the Christian religion; whether they maintained family worship; whether they placed their children under the preaching of God's word, and earnestly and carefully exhorted them to the cul- tivation of true piety. Parents who were negligent were to be admonished by the minister and, if necessary, censured by the consistory. 2. Schoolmasters : They were required to be of upright and pious life, to subscribe to the confession of faith and the Heidelberg catechism ; to teach and care- fully expound the catechism twice a week; to bring their pupils to the hearing of God's word preached and to examine them on the matter of the sermons heard by them. 3. Min- isters and Elders: These were to visit the schools, to counsel, encourage, and, if necessary, admonish the teachers and to examine the children. The ministers were to expound the catechism from the pulpit in short sermons, suited for chil- dren as well as adults. We cannot but see that as a result of this system faithfully carried out it was next to impossible for a child to grow up in Holland ignorant of the ordinary ele- mentary branches of a secular education. Scarcely could one be found unable to read, or to sign his name to a docu- ment, or to work out a problem in simple arithmetic. And as to religious education we cannot well see how any one could escape an indoctrination that qualified them to under- stand the sermons of their preachers, to argue with them on disputed points, and to fill the office of elders, whose duty it is " particularly to have regard unto the doctrine and con- versation of the ministers of the word," and to see to it, that " no strange doctrine be taught." No other country in the world could at that time show such a general diffusion of secular and religious education among the whole people as was found in Holland. The emigrants who came hither had not only the benefits of that system, but they brought it with them and established it here, so far as was possible
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under different circumstances. The West India company was pledged to maintain it. The church and school worked to- gether in this matter. The church inquired into the fidelity of parents, schoolmasters were here required to perform the same service that schoolmasters were performing in the fatherland, ministers and elders made their visitations and had their catechetical classes. Think you that this was a detriment to the infant community here ? Situated as we now are, with state and church completely divorced, with heterogeneous religious elements in every community, we encounter serious problems in this work of education, and which are very diffi- cult of solution. But can we fail to see that an indissoluble marriage tie, binding together the religious and secular, is the desirable ideal, which, alas! it seems impossible for us now fully to realize. Let us be thankful that our fathers had it. It has been thought by some that the tendency of this system of catechetical instruction was to fill the church with orthodox formalists, since persons were received to the communion who could recite the catechism, while vital and experimental religion was lost sight of. Let me correct this by quoting from the acts of the synod of Dort, as follows : " Those who desire to unite with the church shall, three or four weeks before the administration of the Lord's supper, be more carefully and frequently instructed that they may be better qualified and be more free to give a satisfactory account of their faith. The ministers shall employ diligent care to ascertain those who give any hopeful evidence of serious concern for the salvation of their soul and invite them to them, assembling those together who have like impres- sions and encouraging to friendly intercourse and free con- versation to each other. These meetings shall commence with appropriate prayer and exhortations. If all this shall be done by the ministers with that cordiality, faithfulness, zeal and discretion that become those who must give an account of the flock committed to their charge, it is not to be doubted that in a short time abundant fruit of their labors shall be found in growth in religious knowledge and holiness of life, to the glory of God and the prosperity to the church of Christ." Could anything be more admirable ? Have we, by our modern methods of gathering people into the church, improved on that singularly complete, safe and effi- cient system ? Like every other system it was liable to abuse by careless and unfaithful ministers, but by means of it defi-
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nite knowledge of fundamental truths at least was secured, and of it the learner could not be dispossessed.
IV. REVERENCE FOR THE EXTERNALS OF WORSHIP.
The habits of the people in regard to public worship have a great forming influence on a new community, as well as a con- serving influence on one established. In all new settlements in the West this is well understood by the most godless people. It was a happy thing for Albany that provision was at once made by its founders for the public worship of God. We do not claim that they all were devotedly pious people. They came hither for gain, not for conscience's sake, and a living faith was doubtless wanting in some of them. But they were of one mind in reverence for the externals of religion. When the Sabbath came worldly work ceased, and while they were not so precise in their observance of the day of rest as were the Puritans, who professed to be scan- dalized by some things they witnessed in Holland, yet they insisted on the observance of public worship. It might be held in a private house or barn, and without a minister, but it must be held, and all the men, women and children must attend it; and often they walked miles to attend it, for it was the ordinance of God. Thus every child grew up into this invaluable habit of attendance on the ordinances of God's house. And if there was no preacher, yet the attendant was sure to hear God's word read, and his praises sung, and prayers to him offered, and to hear the three things which are prominent not only in the catechism, but in all the liturgies of the reformation, viz .: the ten commandments, the Lord's prayer, and the apostolic creed. The services were simple, decent and appropriate, containing considerable of the liturgical element, yet not so as to interfere seriously with the liberty of the minister in presenting the wants of the people before God. Respect for the externals of religion, for the church, her laws, ordinances, ceremonies, and even customs is by many not duly appreciated at the present day. It is true that we may respect them for their own sake, may confound the observance of them with true religion and measure our piety by the number and imposing charac- ter of the ceremonies observed. But may we not, on the other hand, abuse the truth that spirituality is of the essence of religion, by entirely setting aside the externals of worship as useless or even harmful ? And so men claim that they
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can worship God without attending church, for nothing is needed but that the heart be right. Now know this, that when the outward and visible which has been established by God is despised and neglected, the inward and spiritual will soon disappear. The Holy Spirit chooses the divinely-ap- pointed ordinances as his channels for communicating his blessed influences. The man who disregards them does it at his peril, for he dictates to the Holy Ghost the methods of his working. How this habit of the early Albanians, formed also in their children, must have told upon the gen- erations that followed them. Doubtless many of you can see the traces of it at the present day. And I am very sure that no greater blessing could come to your city now than a baptism of the Spirit of God which should lead every one to determine that never shall his seat in the house of God be vacant, except when God himself has by his providence shut him out, and when the sad sight shall be no more witnessed of fathers and mothers occupying the family pew, while sons and daughters are seeking their pleasure.
V. THE FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
In this we find the two elements of ministerial parity and popular representation. Elders and deacons were elected as representatives of the people, to serve for the limited pe- riod of two years. The Dutch people had come from a country of large freedom in the municipalities, and they were jealous of their rights. Their situation here was pecu- liar. For the promotion of the settlements of the country, large grants of lands were given to certain persons, who were then called patroons, and were clothed with certain rights and powers like feudal chieftains. With these rights and powers were connected corresponding duties and obli- gations. Among other things they were to provide minis- ters and schoolmasters. And accordingly the first minister in this place was engaged by the patroon Van Rensselaer. This quasi-feudal system had its advantages and disadvan- tages, and its practical workings were greatly affected by the character of the patroon, who, if wise, just and humane, was as a father to his tenants. But the system did, doubtless, at the first operate against a rapid increase of the population. In 1652 Beverwyck was declared to be independent of the patroon's colony, and the germ of the present city of Al- bany was released from feudal jurisdiction. Now, while the
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church was by her teaching and discipline promotive of order and content among the people, at the same time she by her form of government kept alive in their breasts the love of individual liberty, to be restricted only by the general good. After the province had passed into the hands of the English it was impossible but that jealousies should arise. The power had passed into the hands of aliens, men of another country, another language, another form of religion. The governors were representatives of the English crown, they had English ideas, and favored English institutions. The will of the people was not always respected to the fullest extent, and even good measures were likely to be misrepresented or mis- understood. In time policies were adopted, which not only the Dutch people, but those of all nationalities and in all the colonies, regarded as intolerably oppressive, and thus the way was gradually prepared for the assertion of independ- ence. Is it not fair to claim for the Dutch church some in- fluence in this matter ? Had not her polity stood forth for nearly a century and a half as the representative of the rights of man ? We are not surprised to find that her ministers and people were almost to a man true to the cause of na- tional independence. In our representative republican form of government we find the principles of our church polity which we believe to be not only scriptural but in accord with sound views of popular rights.
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