I feel it growing within me, and you too feel and ought to feel it.

But don't misunderstand me! 'Hither Spain--hither Netherlands!' is the cry, and not: 'Hither Catholics and hither Protestants.' Every faith may be right in the Lord's eyes, if only the man strives earnestly to walk in Christ's ways.

At the throne of Heaven, it will not be asked: Are you Papist, Calvinist, or Lutheran?
but: What were your intentions and acts?
Respect every man's belief; but despise him who makes common cause with the tyrant against the liberty of our native land.

Now pray silently, then you may go home." The scholars rose; Van Hout wiped the perspiration from his high forehead, and while the boys were collecting books, pencils, and pens, said slowly, as if apologizing to himself for the words already uttered: "What I have told you perhaps does not belong to the school-room; but, my lads, this battle is still far from being ended, and though you must occupy the school-benches for a while, you are the future soldiers.
Lowing, remain behind, I have something to say to you." He slowly turned his back to the boys, who rushed out of doors.

In a corner of the yard of St.Peter's church, which was behind the building and entered by few of the passers-by, they stood still, and from amid the wild confusion of exclamations arose a sort of consultation, to which the organ-notes echoing from the church formed a strange accompaniment.
They were trying to decide upon the game to be played in the afternoon.
It was a matter of course, after what Van Hout had said, that there should be a battle; it had not even been proposed by anybody, but the discussion that now arose proceeded from the supposition.
It was soon decided that patriots and Spaniards, not Greeks and Persians, were to appear in the lists against each other; but when the burgomaster's son, Adrian Van der Werff, a lad of fourteen, proposed to form the two parties, and in the imperious way peculiar to him attempted to make Paul Van Swieten and Claus Dirkson Spaniards, he encountered violent opposition, and the troublesome circumstance was discovered that no one was willing to represent a foreign soldier.
Each boy wanted to make somebody else a Castilian, and fight himself under the banner of the Netherlands.