The result is that Dutch churches are more than chilling.

In the simplest English village church one receives some impression of the friendliness of religion; but in Holland--of course I speak as a stranger and a foreigner--religion seems to be a cold if not a repellent thing.
One result is that on looking back over one's travels through Holland it is almost impossible to disentangle in the memory one whitewashed church from another.

They have a common monotony of internal aridity: one distinguishes them, if at all, by some accidental possession--Gouda, for example, by its stained glass; Haarlem by its organ, and the swinging ships; Delft by the tomb of William the Silent; Utrecht by the startling absence of an entrance fee.
At Haarlem, as it happens, one is peculiarly able to study cause and effect in this matter of Protestant bleakness, since there stands before the door of this wonderful church, once a Roman Catholic temple, drenched, I doubt not, in mystery and colour, a certain significant statue.
To Erasmus of Rotterdam is generally given the parentage of the Reformation.

Whatever his motives, Erasmus stands as the forerunner of Luther.

But Erasmus had his forerunner too, the discoverer of printing.