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thunders. Who after this will believe in Your existence?”—Lacretelle,
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History 11:309; in Sir Archibald Alison, History of Europe, vol. 1, ch.
10. What an echo is this of the Pharaoh’s demand: “Who is Jehovah,
that I should obey His voice?” “I know not Jehovah!”
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
Psalm 14:1
. And
the Lord declares concerning the perverters of the truth: “Their folly
shall be manifest unto all.”
2 Timothy 3:9
. After France had renounced
the worship of the living God, “the high and lofty One that inhab-
iteth eternity,” it was only a little time till she descended to degrading
idolatry, by the worship of the Goddess of Reason, in the person of
a profligate woman. And this in the representative assembly of the
nation, and by its highest civil and legislative authorities! Says the his-
torian: “One of the ceremonies of this insane time stands unrivaled for
absurdity combined with impiety. The doors of the Convention were
thrown open to a band of musicians, preceded by whom, the members
of the municipal body entered in solemn procession, singing a hymn
in praise of liberty, and escorting, as the object of their future worship,
a veiled female, whom they termed the Goddess of Reason. Being
brought within the bar, she was unveiled with great form, and placed
on the right of the president, when she was generally recognized as
a dancing girl of the opera.... To this person, as the fittest representa-
tive of that reason whom they worshiped, the National Convention of
France rendered public homage.
“This impious and ridiculous mummery had a certain fashion; and
the installation of the Goddess of Reason was renewed and imitated
throughout the nation, in such places where the inhabitants desired to
show themselves equal to all the heights of the Revolution.”—Scott,
vol. 1, ch. 17.
Said the orator who introduced the worship of Reason: “Legisla-
tors! Fanaticism has given way to reason. Its bleared eyes could not
endure the brilliancy of the light. This day an immense concourse
has assembled beneath those gothic vaults, which, for the first time,
re-echoed the truth. There the French have celebrated the only true
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worship,—that of Liberty, that of Reason. There we have formed
wishes for the prosperity of the arms of the Republic. There we have
abandoned inanimate idols for Reason, for that animated image, the
masterpiece of nature.”—M. A. Thiers, History of the French Revolu-
tion, vol. 2, pp. 370, 371.