CHAPTER VI.

ON THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY AND CONDITION OF

BELGIUM.

BELGIUM, although one of the small European States, has much to recommend it to our warm sympathy, from its past history, its present condition, and its vicinity and general relations to this country.

It is of inconsiderable extent, being less than two hundred miles in length, and little more than half as much in breadth; but its population is very dense, amounting to about four millions.

From the position of Belgium, having the great States of France and Germany on its confines, it has experienced great changes of condition, and has been for ages the theatre of vast and well-known military movements, with a full share of their usual accompaniments-devastation and carnage. In the time of Cæsar, the Belgae, whom he denominates "the bravest of all the Gauls," were pre-eminently distinguished among the barbarous nations for their resolute resistance to the power and pretensions of Rome, although

ultimately they too were compelled to yield to the discipline and strength of the Roman Legions. When the empire was broken by the incursion of its uncivilized neighbours, Belgium was overrun by fierce tribes from the north-east, principally Saxons and Franks. Subsequently, Charles the Great of France appended it to his empire. It was afterwards held for a time by various independent chiefs, of whom the most powerful were the Dukes of Burgundy, from whom it passed, by marriage, to the house of Austria, in the sixteenth century; and when, on the abdication of Charles the Fifth, that empire was divided into two branches, the German and Spanish, Belgium had the misfortune to fall under the latter power, at that time held by a gloomy and savage bigot, Philip II. When the yoke of Spain was broken by the Seven United Provinces, Belgium failed in her struggle for liberty and remained under the Spanish power till the beginning of last century, when it was ceded to Austria, under whose dominion it remained, till seized by the armies of republican France in 1794. With that country it continued incorporated till the downfall of Napoleon. It was then constituted into one kingdom along with the Northern Provinces; until, finally, in 1830, the Belgian Provinces revolted from the Dutch sovereign under whom their neighbours had placed them, detached themselves from the Northern States, and formed the separate kingdom of Belgium, as it now exists.*

*Malte Brun.

The internal condition of this long abused and down-trodden region has been very remarkable. Although so often the prey of power-handed over unceremoniously from one master to another-the chosen arena for the contests of other nations in the game of war, Belgium is distinguished in the annals of Europe by early civilization-by the extent and splendour of its cities the astonishing enterprize of its energetic community-its eminence in the fine arts, and its almost unrivalled agriculture. Brussels, Bruges, Ghent, Louvain, and above all, Antwerp, stand conspicuous among cities in that period when Europe was but beginning to awake from the slumber of ages. Of Antwerp, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, it is related that "the city contained two hundred thousand inhabitants; but the floating multitude, the world, which pressed toward it on every side, almost exceeds belief. About five hundred vessels entered and left its harbours daily; about two hundred carriages daily passed through its gates; upwards of two thousand waggons arrived weekly from France, Germany, and Lorraine. The exports and imports seem infinite in variety and immense in quantity."* This state of prosperity was crushed beneath the tyrannic power of Spain; but Belgium has risen again, and presents, at this day, a picture of national enterprize and rapid progression in the arts of life probably unequalled by any European state, our own excepted. Its agriculture rivals the best examples which England, or even Scotland, can

* Edin. Ency.-Art. Netherlands.

present. The face of the country, long intersected by roads and canals, now presents every where the life and stir of the modern railway. Its towns are now rivalling our own busiest marts in the variety and extent of their manufactures. In ascending some of its lofty towers the chief means of commanding an extensive view of a country so flat-the vast cultivated plains, the rich woodlands, the spacious rivers, and the towns and villages in thick succession, can be equalled only in the richest portions of England, betwixt which and the Belgic scenery the resemblance is striking.* Of other and more important views of the condition of this interesting country at this day, I shall have occasion to speak afterwards.

By far the most important aspect of Belgic history is that which relates to its connexion with the Protestant Reformation. From its proximity to that country in which the Reformation had its birth, and to those other States in which its influence was felt the earliest - from the intercourse with those nations which its commercial character produced, and from the general intelligence diffused among its active and enterprizing people, preparations existed, under the providence of God, for the early introduction into Belgium of the doctrines of the reformers. And, indeed, it was so. Belgium was not insensible to that new power by which the rest of Europe was about to be stirred and shaken; strong rays of evangelic light now pierced the darkness, in which, like other

Chambers's Tour.

lands, it had been so long involved; and in the towns and villages, in the colleges, and even the convents, of Belgium, there were many whose bosoms glowed with the same sacred fire that burned with so much strength in the great German reformer. There, as elsewhere, the Scriptures were brought forth from their long imprisonment; their divine doctrines, accompanied by the grace of the Spirit of God, were received by many with faith and love, and became the power of God unto salvation; men awoke, as if from a dream, to an indignant detection of the errors, the fables, the pollutions, the absurdities, which the Romish church had accumulated and imposed; what was clearly seen and strongly felt, was zealously taught and proclaimed; converts multiplied on all hands; in all the chief cities-Mons, Tournay, Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp-churches were gathered; and, in spite of the outcries, the threats, the violence of the blind and interested votaries of the falling superstition, it appeared, for a time, doubtful whether Popery would be able to maintain itself much longer in Belgium; and, to the eye of man, it seemed, that the prospects of the Southern Provinces of the Netherlands were not less auspicious than those of the Northern.

In the sovereign arrangements of providence, however, when Holland rose, Belgium fell; by a train of events the most disastrous, the cause of evil triumphed; and, after a season of noble but fruitless conflict, the light of the Belgic Reformation was quenched in blood. I question whether we have in modern history a narrative more touching, and more revolt