Wilson-Apostle To Islam.pdf - Radical Truth

CHAPTER THREE
GIRDING ON HIS ARMOUR
"At about the time of the graduation of the first class, in 1866, a theological
seminary was started in the little city of Holland, which remains
today under the name of Western Theological Seminary. So great was
the "enthusiasm for higher education that the people dared almost anything,
under the spur of the eloquence of their leaders. It was Dot considered
fantastic to establish a post-graduate school the moment the college
turned out its :first class. The whole system - academy, college, seminary-was
thought of as one training school. So great was the people's
zeal that at one of the early commencement exercises sa hundred persons
assembled to listen to the oratory. The program that faced them1 and
that apparently they absorbed with relish, began at eight o'clock in the
evening and continued till two in the morning!"
..111UnCa1tS from Holland,
BY AR...~OLD !vfliLDElt,
p. 209.
Henry van Dyke in his S firit of America says, "The typical American is
a person who likes to take care of himself, to have his own way, to manage
his own affairs .... He is an individual, a person, and he feels very strongly
that personal freedom is what he most needs, and that he is able to make
good use of a large amount of it." This was certainly the feeling of the
Dutch pioneers and much of this spirit in American life came from their
contribution. \:Vl1iIe certain forces operated to keep them within their own
community and to maintain the language and the ways of the Netherlands,
there was always more than enough of individualism to balance the former
spirit; it has been aptly said that "stars were constantly shooting out into the
life of the lusty young nation grO\ving up around them."
These men from Holland were for the most part extremely conservative;
however, the one adjective most often used to describe them is possibly
"solid." Their historian Mulder has remarked that like the Scotch, they
have often been charged with penuriousness or parsImony, or they haye been
called plain "tight." But their attributes in this regard may better be linked
to 'lcommon sense. 11
They were ready to support the cause in "\vhich they
believed and they would give with liberality and self sacrifice to education, to
missions, and to their church.
Dr. Zwemer himself paid them tribute in an address he gave in 1937 at an
anniversary of Hope College. He said, "They never steered by the weathervane
of public opinion, but by the com'pass of conviction . . . The whole
policy in the new colony was based on thrift and industry, on education and
self reliance, on a home and a church and a state where true liberty was
enthroned!'
The pioneers in Michigan redeemed the wasteland as well as the good,
and from the black ooze of the swamps they cut out year after year the roots
that had grown through centuries and finally gave celery to the American
table and to much of the world. Arnold Mulder tells us in his book Americans
from Holland,' that almost before they had a roof over their heads they
would begin to build their church. Of the specific project which resulted in
the schools at Holland, Michigan, he goes on to say that the famous Dutch
pastor, Dr. A. C. Van Raalte, began talking of a college as the first blows of
the a.."{ fell in the wilderness. .
Soon he was instrumental in getting an academy under way. This he
wished to eularge looking toward a college. When a call came for him to go
1. Amerie:o..ns from Holland. by Arnold Mulder; J. B. Lippincott Co., New York, 1947, pp. 320.
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