Page:Religious Thought in Holland during the Nineteenth Century James Hutton Mackay.djvu/18

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case, it would be a fatal mistake for a student of theology to neglect the writers of his own country. Most of Dr Hastie's literary work had for its aim to make us acquainted with the thought of other lands, and 1 need not say that he regarded this as of great importance ; but he would have agreed with the saying of Chantepie de la Saussaye the elder—perhaps the most thoughtful of the Dutch theologians of the last century, and at present, by his writings, perhaps the most inﬂuential—that " a people as well as an individual loses the capacity of being en- riched with the endowments of others when they make light of their own.” Dr Hastie did not believe in exotic theology—his Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Divinity in this University made that very plain. Of the fact that he was deeply interested in Scottish theology and in our national religious life and hiStory, in which our theology must be rooted, the ﬁrst series of the Hastie Lectures, Dr Macmillan's Aberdeen Doctors, is a lasting memorial. In studying Dutch theology I was Often reminded of the early lesson I learned from my Old friend. The chief characteristic