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You
were born in Zundert, a small village of the South-Brabant on the Belgian
border.
A landscape of moor and heath. A very flat and very poor country where rye,
oats and potatoes are cultivated. These landscapes would leave their mark
on you forever. We will always keep something of the heath and the Brabant
ploughed fields.
Zundert is a small village of the South-Brabant with 4000 inhabitants, most
of whom are Catholics. Your father is the Protestant parish minister of 150
souls, only one-third of whom really goes to church. A very poor, small country
village. Quite a bad place for the son of Breda’s brilliant preacher
and the brother of great art dealers. But your father Dorus liked the quiet
and simple way of life of the Brabant countryside.
Your granfather was a famous preacher in Breda. He played an active part in
the Brabant church, and was the leader of an association giving aid to the
most impoverished.
A serious economic crisis was rife, impoverishing the countries and leading
to an exodus to the North. The Brabant Protestants found themselves isolated,
surrounded by a growing and threatening Catholicism. The association “Société
du Bien-Etre” (“Society of Well-Being”) was mostly fighting
to keep Protestantism alive in those regions. Each village was considered
to be important. In the North, in Groningen and Utrecht, more radical associations,
like Unitas questioned and criticized the moderate political and religious
stances of the grandfather’s association which was accused of not struggling
against the Catholics threatening to take power in Brabant.
As a teenager, your father Theodorus attended the numerous meetings which
were held at his place. He knew very early how difficult the South-Brabant
Protestants’ situation was. Nevertheless, he wanted to follow in his
father’s wake. In 1840, he enrolled at Ultrecht school of theology.
As the son of the President of the association, he had to endure Ultrecht
religious authorities and students’s hostility and suspicions during
his five-year course. He found it hard to find a post. After several failures,
he was put in touch with the old minister of Zundert community where he was
eventually admitted.