Page:Religious Thought in Holland during the Nineteenth Century James Hutton Mackay.djvu/14

 THE REVOLUTION AND THE REVEIL

IN beginning a series of lectures on Dutch Theology, 1 can claim to be merely following a Dutch academic fashion if I say a few words about my personal connection with the theo- logian in memory of whom the Lectureship I now hold was founded. Beneath their some- what formal ways the Dutch are a warm-hearted and an open-hearted people, and on certain occasions—the delivery of an opening academic lecture is one—they allow themselves more liberty in expressing their personal feelings than is customary among ourselves.

The nature of my subject—an historical sketch of the course of religious thought in Holland during the last century, in which I Will leave the Dutch theologians, for the most Part. to criticise one another—absolves me from the necessity of conforming to another custom. In Holland, where theological interest

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