[Speech of Rev. Dr. George R. Van de Water at the eighth annual dinner of the Holland Society of New York, January 15, 1893. The President, Judge Augustus Van Wyck, said: "The next toast is: 'Holland--a lesson to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, and a sanctuary for the rights of mankind.' This toast will be responded to by one of the greatest stars in New York's constellation of the Embassadors of Him on High--Rev. Dr. George R. Van de Water, rector of St. Andrew's Church, Harlem."] MR. PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE HOLLAND SOCIETY:--One loves to observe a fitness in things. There is manifest fitness in one coming to New York from Harlem to speak to the members of the Holland Society and their friends. There is also manifest fitness in taking the words of this country's earliest benefactor, the Marquis de Lafayette, and, removing them from their original association with this fair and favored land, applying them to that little but lovely, lowly yet lofty, country of the Netherlands. Geologists tell us that, minor considerations waived, the character of a stream can be discerned as well anywhere along its course as at its source. Whether this be true or not, anything that can be said of the fundamental principles of liberty, upon which our national fabric has been built, can be said with even increased emphasis of the free States of the Netherlands. From the Dutch our free America has secured the inspiration of her chartered liberties. Of the Dutch, then, we can appropriately say, as Lafayette once said of free America, "They are a lesson to oppressors, an example to the oppressed, and a sanctuary for the rights of mankind."