History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

were watering with their blood and strewing with
their corpses the plains of their native land! The
Prince of Orange opened his eyes on blank
desolation; he saw the campaign ending in
inevitable failure, and the dark night of Spanish
oppression again closing in around a country which
he had believed to be as good as emancipated. The
shock was terrible, but the lesson was salutary.
Those instruments whom Providence selects to
fight the holy battles of religion and freedom need
a higher training than ordinary warriors. To genius
and courage heroes of this class must add faith; but
this quality they can acquire only in the school of
repeated disappointment. They can never learn this
virtue in the midst of numerous and victorious
hosts, where success is won by mere numbers, and
where victory is of that ordinary and vulgar sort
which the worst as well as the best of causes can
command.
The fate of his second campaign had been
decided at Paris when the St. Bartholomew was
struck, but William still continued to prosecute the
war. His attempts, however, to stem the swelling
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