Thorold Eogers, that for a long time in the industrial
history of modern civilisation the English were " the
stupidest and most backward nation in Europe." Holland,
on the other hand, was the instructor of Europe in the

> most advanced kind of agriculture, the most enterprising
commerce. It was the pione^ in navigation and in
discovery, in physical research, in medical knowledge
and skill, and produced the greatest_jurists and the most
learned scholars of the seventeenth century. It was

/"a centre of varied literary activity when England lay
enveloped in the gross darkness of ignorance, and more

i books teemed from its presses than from all other parts
of the Continent.
But the greatest service which Holland rendered to
our own country in the sixteenth centiuy was the dis-
semination of Protestant convictions and sentiments — the
right of private judgment, the duty of toleration, and
liberty of co nscience^ The Netherlanders became mis-
sionaries to the p.ei3.ple wherever they settled down,
instructing them in the truths of the Bible, quickening at
once their intelligence and aspirations, and leading them
into th&~l£ffie _ and practice of virtue, which seemed indeed



lofty and austere when compared with the morals of our



206 PUEITANISM

own countrymen. The chief strongholds of Enghsh
Puritanism were London and^ Norwichj_and these were
just the two cities where the Dutch community and \
influence were the most widely represented. It was in
Norwich, as we have seen, that Eobert Browne gathered
the first Separatist or Independent Church, a church'''
mainly composeji_jDf_jDeople_jrx>m the ISTetherlands, who
at that time foraieiJJie-jnajority of the population of
the city.
