Things Seen in Holland
feels some sympathy with Castelar, who said: “Well, yes, I am a freethinker; but if some day I were to return to a religion, I would return to the splendid one of my fathers, and not to this squalid and nude doctrine that saddens my eyes and my heart.” At 'S Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc) is one of the largest churches in Holland, and perhaps the finest architecturally; it is the only one well preserved within, as it is the centre of a Catholic province, but its inner decoration, is in poor taste. This is the Cathedral of St. John, one of the three most important medieval churches in the land, the other two being the Cathedral of Utrecht, and the Church of St. Nicholas, at Kampen. Haarlem, Leyden, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam possess Gothic churches, but all of them have suffered from the effects of bigotry. Here and there remains a carved
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