Then there were the little villages, clustering around the
protecting church which once, many years ago, had been the
home of their Patron Saints. In the distance we could see the
leaning tower of Delft. Within sight of its high arches,
William the Silent had been murdered and there Grotius had
learned to construe his first Latin sentences. And still further
away, the long low body of the church of Gouda, the early home
of the man whose wit had proved mightier than the armies of
many an emperor, the charity-boy whom the world came to
know as Erasmus.
Finally the silver line of the endless sea and as a contrast,
immediately below us, the patchwork of roofs and chimneys
and houses and gardens and hospitals and schools and railways,
which we called our home. But the tower showed us
the old home in a new light. The confused commotion of the
streets and the market-place, of the factories and the workshop,
became the well-ordered expression of human energy
and purpose. Best of all, the wide view of the glorious past,
which surrounded us on all sides, gave us new courage to face
the problems of the future when we had gone back to our daily
tasks.
History is the mighty Tower of Experience, which Time
has built amidst the endless fields of bygone ages. It is no easy
task to reach the top of this ancient structure and get the benefit
of the full view.
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