Page:Religious Thought in Holland during the Nineteenth Century James Hutton Mackay.djvu/40

 AND THE REVEIL v.9

people, apart from a common reverence for the Highest Law—Giver, there is nothing that can unite freedom and authority.” In his Oua’ere szdgenoozfen Pierson describes how Groen looked on the Holland of his day through the eyes of Plato—the conservative Plato who professed to admire the unchanging wisdom of the Egyptians. The Platonic theo- cracy was the union of Church and State; the Greek city or state was the Dutch Re- formed Church; the eternal ideas, the infallible Word of God, and the light of philosophy the Testimoniqu Sfirz’z‘us Sandi; the Laws was the Confession of Faith; the Platonic regulations, ecclesiastical discipline; while Plato’s elders, training the young in measured dance and song, were the Dutch clergy in- structing them in the Heidelberg Catechism. There are two points in connection with Groen van Prinsterer’s leadership which I Propose to consider in what remains of this lticture. The ﬁrst, although not in order of time, was the question of religious education in the elementary schools, and I notice it merely as an indication of the change in religious