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The Great Controversy 1888
nobles, and maintain the laws, that the sword of persecution was first
unsheathed in France.”
Little did the rulers of the land foresee the results of that fateful
policy. The teaching of the Bible would have implanted in the minds
and hearts of the people those principles of justice, temperance, truth,
equity, and benevolence which are the very corner-stone of a nation’s
prosperity. “Righteousness exalteth a nation.” Thereby “the throne
is established.” [
Proverbs 14:34
;
16:12
.] “The work of righteousness
shall be peace;” and the effect, “quietness and assurance forever.”
[
Isaiah 32:17
.] He who obeys the divine law will most truly respect
and obey the laws of his country. He who fears God will honor the
king in the exercise of all just and legitimate authority. But unhappy
France prohibited the Bible, and banned its disciples. Century after
[278]
century, men of principle and integrity, men of intellectual acuteness
and moral strength, who had the courage to avow their convictions,
and the faith to suffer for the truth,—for centuries these men toiled as
slaves in the galleys, perished at the stake, or rotted in dungeon cells.
Thousands upon thousands found safety in flight; and this continued
for two hundred and fifty years after the opening of the Reformation.
“Scarcely was there a generation of Frenchmen during that long
period that did not witness the disciples of the gospel fleeing before the
insane fury of the persecutor, and carrying with them the intelligence,
the arts, the industry, the order, in which, as a rule, they pre-eminently
excelled, to enrich the land in which they found an asylum. And in
proportion as they replenished other countries with these good gifts, did
they empty their own of them. If all that was now driven away had been
retained in France; if, during these three hundred years, the industrial
skill of the exiles had been cultivating her soil; if, during these three
hundred years, their artistic bent had been improving her manufactures;
if, during these three hundred years, their creative genius and analytic
power had been enriching her literature and cultivating her science;
if their wisdom had been guiding her councils, their bravery fighting
her battles, their equity framing her laws, and the religion of the Bible
strengthening the intellect and governing the conscience of her people,
what a glory would at this day have encompassed France! What a
great, prosperous, and happy country—a pattern to the nations—would
she have been!