Threats appear to be of all times, perhaps a little less massively, but still.
Occupation
Three days earlier, on 6 January, Abraham Kuyper, founder of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and initiator of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, together with VU professors F.L. Rutgers and A.F. de Savornin Loman, among others, had the door of the consistory room of the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam broken open and the room occupied. In the consistory the church archives were kept together with the safes containing money from church guardianship and deaconry. Rutgers, as president-church guardian assumed that he and his supporters had thereby taken lawful possession of the church. The occupation, which became known as ‘The Panel Sawmill’ was a special moment in the church struggle that came to be called 'Doleantie' and led to the formation of the Reformed Churches.
Opposition
With the violent occupation, the conflict came to a head. Liberal and conservative newspapers spoke out outrageously and feared that what was now happening in the church struggle could easily spill over into the political arena as well, with Kuyper and his nota bene ‘Antirevolutionary Party’ as agitator. In that atmosphere, a resident of Utrecht put the postcard in question on the letterbox, but fortunately left it at words.
Goldmine for historians
The postcard once again became part of the Abraham Kuyper archive thanks to a donation from Dr A.G. Honig. A more than 9-metre archive kept at the HDC | Protestant Heritage Collection. It is one of almost 9,000 letters in that archive, which despite the fact that much has already been written about Kuyper, is still a goldmine for historians.
Literature: including Jan de Bruijn, Abraham Kuyper. Een beeldbiografie, Amsterdam 2008
