These 'Modern' Protestants came to the fore during the last fifty years. The University of Groningen taught a humanism, which created a reaction towards the ancient confessors of the creed, the 'reveal,' or awakening. Subsequently modern cosmosophy tried to adjust its opinions to modern science and the results of modern research in every branch of human knowledge. This was a great blow to the ancestral faith and the venerable Confession. In those days Coenraad Busken Huet published his 'Letters on the Bible,' popularizing the scientific criticisms of the Sacred Book. Gradually Leyden's University took the lead, Johannes Henricus Scholten, Abraham Kuenen, and the Utrecht philosopher Cornelis Willem Opzoomer assisting the new movement by their profound knowledge, their irresistible logic, their brilliant style, and their high enthusiasm. In those years Holland went through ail the throes accompanying the appearance of new life; it was a time of intellectual stress and strain, a time of controversial storm in which unrelenting criticism and critical research carried away everything that could not exist in the light of exact science and exacter thinking. Jacobus Izaak Doedes, Johannes Jacobus van Oosterzee, Chantepic de la Saussaye, the successors of Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Jan Rudolf Thorbecke's greatest opponent, and Isaäc Da Costa, Willem Bilderdyk's famous pupil, defended the ancient creed, but the General Synod was 'Modern' and the 'Orthodox' had a difficult time. In numbers of places the 'dominees,' or preachers, were Orthodox, and in order to provide their own followers with spiritual fare, the 'Moderns' established in 1870 the 'Nederlandsche Protestantenbond,' or Netherlands Protestant League. This League sees that all over the country 'Modern' sermons are preached, 'Modern' Sunday Schools instituted, meetings of Protestants arranged, and everything is done that can support or promote religious life. Besides these two large bodies of Protestants, the Orthodox and the Moderns, Holland has a good many Lutherans, Baptists, or Mennonites, and Remonstrants. Of the Lutherans the most numerous are the Evangelical Lutherans, who faithfully maintain the Augsburg Confession, while the Moderns, known as Reinstated Lutherans, abandoned that organ of doctrine. There is not, however, much animosity between the two sects at the present time, neither making a strong point of dogma, but both giving a prominent place to the demands of Christian practice.