History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

withstood. Some sturdy image-hater would swing
his hammer against the closed portal, and with one
blow throw it open. The mob would rush in, and
nothing would be heard but the clang of axes and
the crash of falling pictures and overturned images.
A few minutes would suffice to complete the
desolation of the place. Like the brook when the
rams descend, and a hundred mountain torrents
keep pouring their waters into it, till it swells into a
river, and at last widens into a devastating flood, so
this little band of iconoclasts, swelled by recruits
from every village and town through which they
passed, grew by minutes into an army, that army
into a far-extending host, which pursued its march
over the country, bursting open the doors of
cathedrals and the gates of cities, chasing
burgomasters before it, and striking monk and
militia-man alike with terror. It seemed even as if
iconoclasts were rising out of the soil. They would
start up and begin their ravages at the same instant
in provinces and cities widely apart. In three days
they had spread themselves over all the Low
Countries, and in less than a week they had
plundered 400 churches.[3] To adapt to this
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