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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 17, 1983
PAGE 12
Regarding the Dutch, it is very obvious, in reading Barzini's account, that
they are peace-loving Israelites, typified by the beautiful and tranquil
seventeenth-century landscape and still life paintings of their great
artists.
As soon...as they had consolidated the complex structure of their
economic prosperity in the seventeenth century, they avoided
militar :i,: adventures, which they disliked, and concentrated on
preserving the peace of Europe.
T
1
hey became universal peace
makers•.•. All initiatives encouraging perpetual peace•..and to
make wars more humane, [ moves toward] disarmament, or arbitra
tion--found at all times enthusiastic champions among the
Dutch•••• [A major European peace conference] was convened in The
Hague in 1899 and reconvened in 1907. It generated the Permanent
Court of Arbitration with its seat in The Hague which still dozes
undisturbed in the same place today.
Zebulun-�modern day Netherlands--we were told long ago (Gen. 49:13) would
"dwell by the haven of the
sea:
he shall become a haven for ships•.•." Con
firms Barzini:
This passion for the sea drove them [the Dutch] to conquer not
neighboring provinces, in order to become one of Europe's great
nations, as Prussia and France had done, but to set up distant
trading points all over the world.••• They ·settled in New Amster
dam [which became New York City ], a vast natural port, cluttered
with flat sandy islands large and small, at the mouth of a big
river, which evidently reminded them of home: in South Africa,
Japan, Formosa, Brazil, Ceylon, Indonesia, the West Indies, and
many other profitable places.
It is furthermore interesting to note where the modern day Israelites
settled in Europe--along the seacoasts, which helped foster a sense of
freedom, liberty and tolerance not subscribed to by gentile powers locked
deeper into the continent. Dominance of seaborne commerce--hence the need
to control seagates--has been a vital key to the modern day power of Israel
ite nations. Continues Barzini about Holland:
It is Germanic by race and language, but it is not really a
thoroughly Germanic country. The sea brought it closer to the
British (and to the Hanseatic people and the Scandinavians, who
were also influenced by the sea and the British). English is the
second language of the country...• Furthermore, they, like the...
British, for analogous moral but also mercantile and sea-going
reasons, cultivated the cult of liberty and toleration, dear to
the heart of Christians and progressive liberal thinkers, but
also essential for the free flow of commerce. This opened the
country at all times to refugees from everywhere.
Oh, but now we've left out the Italians and another vital European country,
the one occupying "le coeur de l'Europe"--the heart of Europe. What Mr.
Barzini says of "The Flexible Italians" and "The Mutable Germans" will have
to wait for another "On the World Scene."
Meanwhile, it should be more obvious than ever that in today's Europe,
"partly of iron and partly of clay" (Dan. 2:33), it will take more than a