Bible and the French Revolution
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At the opening of the Revolution, by a concession of the king, the
people were granted a representation exceeding that of the nobles and
the clergy combined. Thus the balance of power was in their hands; but
they were not prepared to use it with wisdom and moderation. Eager
to redress the wrongs they had suffered, they determined to undertake
the reconstruction of society. An outraged populace, whose minds
were filled with bitter and long-treasured memories of wrong, resolved
to revolutionize the state of misery that had grown unbearable and
to avenge themselves upon those whom they regarded as the authors
of their sufferings. The oppressed wrought out the lesson they had
learned under tyranny and became the oppressors of those who had
oppressed them.
Unhappy France reaped in blood the harvest she had sown. Terrible
were the results of her submission to the controlling power of Rome.
Where France, under the influence of Romanism, had set up the first
stake at the opening of the Reformation, there the Revolution set
up its first guillotine. On the very spot where the first martyrs to
the Protestant faith were burned in the sixteenth century, the first
victims were guillotined in the eighteenth. In repelling the gospel,
which would have brought her healing, France had opened the door to
infidelity and ruin. When the restraints of God’s law were cast aside,
it was found that the laws of man were inadequate to hold in check the
powerful tides of human passion; and the nation swept on to revolt and
anarchy. The war against the Bible inaugurated an era which stands in
the world’s history as the Reign of Terror. Peace and happiness were
banished from the homes and hearts of men. No one was secure. He
who triumphed today was suspected, condemned, tomorrow. Violence
and lust held undisputed sway.
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King, clergy, and nobles were compelled to submit to the atrocities
of an excited and maddened people. Their thirst for vengeance was
only stimulated by the execution of the king; and those who had de-
creed his death soon followed him to the scaffold. A general slaughter
of all suspected of hostility to the Revolution was determined. The
prisons were crowded, at one time containing more than two hundred
thousand captives. The cities of the kingdom were filled with scenes
of horror. One party of revolutionists was against another party, and
France became a vast field for contending masses, swayed by the fury
of their passions. “In Paris one tumult succeeded another, and the