It is said that events shape the characters of men rather than men shape the events. If ever this be true, it was the case with Henri Arnaud. His character was the outcome of that hard struggle for existence that had made the Vaudois what they were. Past years of oppression and blood-shedding had nerved his heart and armed his hand; and the purity of the truth for which he and his had suffered had sunk into his soul as the sun’s warmth penetrates the surface of the earth.
The Vaudois were as sheep having no shepherd. That very need was a spur to Arnaud. He stood forth, and with one voice they hailed him as their captain. Reverently, and in God’s strength, he accepted the trust.
CHAPTER IX.
ARNAUD’S first care was to gather up the scattered threads of the Vaudois powers, and to unite them, as far as might be, into one cord—a cord which should be firm enough to hold out against the sharp tension that must come.
He had himself been to Holland to confer with William of Orange, the hope of the Protestant world. To him he had unfolded the Waldenses’ darling project, a project that seemed wild and hopeless enough when put into words. But Dutch William’s soldierly heart warmed as he listened, and for once he threw his diplomatic caution to the winds, as he said: ‘Try it, and may God prosper you! If events that I foresee come straightly off the reel, I may be presently in a position to give you aid, a better position than I have now. Go on! trust in yourselves, and trust in God!’
Arnaud recalled those concluding words many and many a time in the months that followed. It would not be timorous and divided hearts that would win the end they held in view; it must be brotherly trust in one another, devoted trust in their fathers’ God, that alone could lift them on victoriously.