Tags: Ellen
G. White, The Great Controversy, Satan vs God; persecution
of Christians during the French and Russian revolutions; chapter 15 of
her book; current persecutions
The same forces behind 1789, 1917 and 2020 onwards?
On
Saturday, while I was in a large open space in Geneva to mark my symbolic
opposition to the curtailing of civil liberties here in Switzerland too, I
was offered three or four times a free copy of a revised French
translation of Ellen G. White’s The Great Controversy [Between Christ and Satan: The Conflict of the
Ages in the Christian Dispensation]. Although I was not really
interested in receiving a copy, I accepted the lady’s kind offer in part
because one of the two former neighbours of mine I had met up with in
Geneva had referred to this book in our discussion of what our societies
have had to go through for now more than 14 months. In French, the title
of The Great Controversy is The
Great Hope, in line with what seems to be the book’s underlying
message, which is that God has a plan for humanity. On Sunday, as I was
taking a few minutes of direct sun exposure on our balcony (for the
purpose of getting an infinitesimal amount of vitamin D), I read two
chapters: chapters 32 (Satan’s snares) and 15 (the Bible and the French
Revolution). Even though I am no longer a Christian, I
certainly did come across many points which did not leave me indifferent
(i.e. with which I would either agree, disagree or I am still unsure
about). As Ellen G. White died in 1915 (https://whiteestate.org/about/egwbio),
The Great Controversy is in the
public domain and I therefore decided to share with anybody who might
stumble across this page some of the most salient ideas as far as I am
concerned, this either through simply putting them in green
or through a
combination of using green and bold
characters and then underlining them. Please note
that I have used italics to emphasise the Biblical nature of the quote –
if I recall correctly, there is only one citation in italics in the
original text: the highly ironical ‘Vive
la Raison!’
As for the historical
validity of the thesis presented in Mrs White’s excerpt, I have not done
any research myself, so I cannot fully embrace this point of view or even
reject it. Given that I have heard the same interpretation being made for
the Russian revolution (Russia, a country where only three decades ago
Christianity was still being – shall we say – ‘opposed’ by the State) and
as contemporary China certainly harbours a deep suspicion of religions in
general (it might not simply be anecdotal that on the recent bicentenary
of the birth of Karl Marx, the Chinese government paid for a new statue of
the man whose ‘philosophy’ has proven to be the most deadly ‘-ism’ so far
to be erected in his town of birth and claimed on that occasion that they
were still Marxist: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44009621)
as well as it seems adamant on persecuting some religious faiths in
particular. In the light of the hurdles (in some cases, downright
persecution) the goers of churches, of mosques or of whatever other
building for religious congregation purposes have had to face for more
than a year now, and if the ongoing inoculation of experimental drugs ends
up proving genocidal over, say, the next ten years, one will then
unfortunately have been vindicated in their claim that it was the same
dark forces behind 1789, 1917 and 2020-2030…
One last point, the text
reproduced below of White’s The
Great Controversy (chapter
15)
is from the edition published in 1911, which you can find at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.153256/page/n269/mode/2up.
Chap.
15—The Bible and the French Revolution
In
the sixteenth century the Reformation, presenting an open Bible to the
people, had sought admission to all the countries of Europe. Some nations
welcomed it with gladness, as a messenger of Heaven. In other lands the
papacy succeeded to a great extent in preventing its entrance; and the
light of Bible knowledge, with its elevating influences, was almost wholly
excluded. In one country, though the light found entrance, it was not
comprehended by the darkness. For centuries, truth and error struggled for
the mastery. At last the evil triumphed, and the truth of Heaven was
thrust out. “This is the
condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men
loved darkness rather than light.” John 3:19. The nation
was left to reap the results of the course which she had chosen. The
restraint of God’s Spirit was removed from a people that had despised the
gift of His grace. Evil was permitted to come to maturity. And all the
world saw the fruit of willful rejection of the light.
The war against the Bible, carried forward for so many
centuries in France, culminated in the scenes of the Revolution. That
terrible outbreaking was but the legitimate result of Rome’s suppression
of the Scriptures (#1).
It presented the most striking illustration which the world has ever
witnessed of the working out of the papal policy—an illustration of the
results to which for more than a thousand years the teaching of the Roman
Church had been tending.
The suppression of the Scriptures during the period of papal
supremacy was foretold by the prophets; and the Revelator points also to
the terrible results that were to accrue especially to France from the
domination of the “man of sin.”
Said
the angel of the Lord: “The
holy city shall they tread underfoot forty and two months. And I will
give power unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two
hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. . . . And when they
shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the
bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and
kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great
city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord
was crucified. . . . And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice
over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because
these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after
three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and
they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw
them.” Revelation 11:2-11.
The periods here mentioned—“forty and two months,” and “a thousand two hundred and threescore days”—are the same, alike representing the time in which the
church of Christ was to suffer oppression from Rome. The 1260 years of
papal supremacy began in A.D. 538, and would therefore terminate in 1798.
(note2). At that time a French army entered Rome and made
the pope a prisoner, and he died in exile. Though a new pope was soon
afterward elected, the papal hierarchy has never since been able to wield
the power which it before possessed.
The persecution of the church did not continue throughout the
entire period of the 1260 years. God in mercy to His people cut short the
time of their fiery trial. In foretelling the “great tribulation” to befall the church, the Saviour said: “Except
those
days should be shortened, there should no
flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be
shortened.” Matthew 24:22. Through the influence of the Reformation the
persecution was brought to an end prior to 1798.
Concerning the two witnesses the prophet declares further: “These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before
the God of the earth.”
“Thy word,” said the psalmist, “is
a lamp unto my feet, and a light
unto my path.”
Revelation 11:4; Psalm 119:105. The two witnesses represent the Scriptures
of the Old and the New Testament. Both are important testimonies to the
origin and perpetuity of the law of God. Both are witnesses also to the
plan of salvation. The types, sacrifices, and prophecies of the Old
Testament point forward to a Saviour to come. The Gospels and Epistles of
the New Testament tell of a Saviour who has come in the exact manner
foretold by type and prophecy.
“They
shall
prophesy a thousand two hundred and three-score days, clothed in
sackcloth.”
During the greater part of this period, God’s witnesses remained in a
state of obscurity. The papal power sought to hide from the people the
word of truth, and set before them false witnesses to contradict its
testimony. (note3) When the Bible was proscribed by religious and secular
authority; when its testimony was perverted, and every effort made that
men and demons could invent to turn
the minds of the people from it; when those who dared proclaim its sacred
truths were hunted, betrayed, tortured, buried in dungeon cells, martyred
for their faith, or compelled to flee to mountain fastnesses, and to dens
and caves of the earth—then the faithful witnesses prophesied in
sackcloth. Yet they continued their testimony throughout the entire period
of 1260 years. In the darkest times there were faithful men who loved
God’s word and were jealous for His honor. To these loyal servants were
given wisdom, power, and authority to declare His truth during the whole
of this time.
“And
if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and
devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this
manner be killed.” Revelation 11:5. Men cannot with impunity trample upon the
word of God. The meaning of this fearful denunciation is set forth in the
closing chapter of the Revelation: “I
testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this
book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the
plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away
from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his
part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the
things which are written in this book.” Revelation 22:18, 19.
Such are the
warnings which God has given to guard men against changing in any manner
that which He has revealed or commanded. These solemn denunciations apply
to all who by their influence lead men to regard lightly the law of God.
They should cause those to fear and tremble who flippantly declare it a
matter of little consequence whether we obey God’s law or not. All who
exalt their own opinions above divine revelation, all who would change the
plain meaning of Scripture to suit their own convenience, or for the sake
of conforming to the world, are taking upon themselves a fearful
responsibility. The written word, the law of God, will measure the
character of every man and condemn all whom this unerring test shall
declare wanting.
“When they shall have finished [are
finishing] their testimony.” The period when the two witnesses were
to prophesy clothed in sackcloth, ended in 1798. As they were approaching
the termination of their work in obscurity, war was to be made upon them
by the power represented as “the
beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit.” In many of the
nations of Europe the powers that ruled in church and state had for
centuries been controlled by Satan
through the medium of the papacy. But here is brought to view a new
manifestation of satanic power.
It had been
Rome’s policy, under a profession of reverence for the Bible, to keep it
locked up in an unknown tongue and hidden away from the people. Under her
rule the witnesses prophesied “clothed
in sackcloth.” But another power —the beast from the bottomless
pit—was to arise to make open, avowed war upon the word of God.
“The great city” in
whose streets the witnesses are slain, and where their dead bodies lie, is
“spiritually” Egypt. Of all nations
presented in Bible history, Egypt most boldly denied the existence of
the living God and resisted His commands. No monarch ever
ventured upon more open and highhanded rebellion against the authority of
Heaven than did the king of Egypt. When the message was brought him by
Moses, in the name of the Lord, Pharaoh proudly answered: “Who
is Jehovah, that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go? I
know not Jehovah, and moreover I will not let Israel go.” Exodus
5:2, A.R.V. This is atheism, and the nation represented by Egypt would
give voice to a similar denial of the claims of the living God and would
manifest a like spirit of unbelief and defiance. “The
great city” is also compared, “spiritually,”
to Sodom. The corruption of Sodom in breaking
the law of God was especially manifested in licentiousness. And this sin
was also to be a pre-eminent characteristic of the nation that should
fulfill the specifications of this scripture.
According to the
words of the prophet, then, a little before
the year 1798 some power of satanic origin and character would rise to
make war upon the Bible. And in the land where the testimony of
God’s two witnesses should thus be silenced, there would be manifest the
atheism of the Pharaoh and the licentiousness
of Sodom.
This prophecy has
received a most exact and striking fulfillment in the history of France.
During the Revolution, in 1793, “the world for the first time heard an
assembly of men, born and educated in civilization, and assuming the right
to govern one of the finest of the European nations, uplift their united
voice to deny the most solemn truth which man’s soul receives, and
renounce unanimously the belief and worship of a Deity.”—Sir Walter Scott,
Life of Napoleon, vol. 1, ch.
17. “France is the only nation in the world concerning which the authentic
record survives, that as a nation she lifted
her hand in open rebellion against the Author
of
the universe. Plenty of blasphemers, plenty of infidels,
there have been, and still continue to be, in England, Germany, Spain,
and elsewhere; but France stands apart in the world’s history as the
single state which, by the decree of her Legislative Assembly,
pronounced that there was no God, and of which the entire population of the
capital, and a vast majority elsewhere, women as well as men, danced and
sang with joy in accepting the announcement.”—Blackwood’s Magazine, November, 1870.
France presented
also the characteristics which especially distinguished Sodom.
During the Revolution there was manifest a
state of moral debasement and corruption similar to that which
brought destruction upon the cities of the plain. And the historian
presents together the atheism and the licentiousness of France, as given
in the prophecy: “Intimately connected with
these laws affecting religion, was that which reduced the union of
marriage—the most sacred
engagement which human beings can form, and the permanence of which leads most strongly to the consolidation
of society—to the state of a mere
civil contract of a transitory character, which any two
persons might engage in and cast loose at pleasure. ... If fiends had
set themselves to work to discover a mode of most effectually destroying
whatever is venerable, graceful, or permanent in domestic life, and of
obtaining at the same time an assurance that the mischief which it was
their object to create should be perpetuated from one generation to
another, they could not have invented a more effectual plan that the degradation of marriage. . . . Sophie Arnoult, an actress
famous for the witty things she said, described the republican marriage
as ‘the sacrament of adultery.’”—Scott, vol. 1, ch. 17.
“Where also our Lord
was crucified.” This specification of the prophecy was also
fulfilled by France. In no land had the spirit of enmity against Christ
been more strikingly displayed. In no country had the truth encountered
more bitter and cruel opposition. In the
persecution which France had visited upon the confessors of the gospel,
she had crucified Christ in the person of His disciples.
Century after
century the blood of the saints had been shed. While the Waldenses laid
down their lives upon the mountains of Piedmont “for the word of God, and
for the testimony of Jesus Christ,” similar witness to the truth had been
borne by their brethren, the Albigenses of France. In the days of the
Reformation its disciples had been put to death with horrible tortures.
King and nobles, highborn women and delicate maidens, the pride and
chivalry of the nation, had feasted their eyes upon the agonies of the
martyrs of Jesus. The brave Huguenots, battling
for
those rights which the human heart holds most sacred, had poured
out their blood on many a hard—fought field. The Protestants were counted
as outlaws, a price was set upon their heads, and they were hunted
down like wild beasts.
The “Church in
the Desert,” the few descendants of the ancient Christians that still
lingered in France in the eighteenth century, hiding away in the mountains
of the south, still cherished the faith of their fathers. As they ventured
to meet by night on mountainside or lonely moor, they were chased by
dragoons and dragged away to lifelong slavery in the galleys. The purest,
the most refined, and the most intelligent of the French were chained, in
horrible torture, amidst robbers and assassins. (See Wylie, b. 22, ch. 6.)
Others, more mercifully dealt with, were shot down in cold blood, as,
unarmed and helpless, they fell upon their knees in prayer. Hundreds of
aged men, defenseless women, and innocent children were left dead upon the
earth at their place of meeting. In traversing the mountainside or the
forest, where they had been accustomed to assemble, it was not unusual to
find “at every four paces, dead bodies dotting the sward, and corpses
hanging suspended from the trees.” Their country, laid waste with the
sword, the ax, the fagot, “was converted into one vast, gloomy
wilderness.” “These atrocities were enacted ... in no dark age, but in the
brilliant era of Louis XIV. Science was then cultivated, letters
flourished, the divines of the court and of the capital were learned and
eloquent men, and greatly affected the graces of meekness and charity.”—Ibid., b. 22, ch. 7.
But blackest
in the black catalogue of crime, most horrible among the fiendish
deeds of all the dreadful centuries, was the St. Bartholomew Massacre. The
world still recalls with shuddering horror the scenes of that most
cowardly and cruel onslaught. The king of France, urged on by Romish
priests and prelates, lent his sanction to the dreadful work. A bell,
tolling at dead of night, was a signal for the slaughter. Protestants by
thousands, sleeping quietly in their homes, trusting to the plighted honor
of their king, were dragged forth without a warning and murdered in cold
blood.
As Christ was the
invisible leader of His people from Egyptian bondage, so was Satan
the unseen leader of his subjects in this horrible work of multiplying
martyrs. For seven days the massacre was continued in Paris, the
first three with inconceivable fury. And it was not confined to the city
itself, but by special order of the king was extended to all the provinces
and towns where Protestants were found. Neither age nor sex was respected.
Neither the innocent babe nor the man of gray hairs was spared. Noble and
peasant, old and young, mother and child, were cut down together.
Throughout France the butchery continued for
two months. Seventy thousand of the very flower of the nation
perished.
“When the news of the massacre reached Rome, the exultation
among the clergy knew no bounds. The cardinal of Lorraine rewarded the
messenger with a thousand crowns; the cannon of St. Angelo thundered forth
a joyous salute; and bells rang out from every steeple; bonfires turned
night into day; and Gregory XIII, attended by the cardinals and other
ecclesiastical dignitaries, went in long procession to the church of St.
Louis, where the cardinal of Lorraine chanted a Te
Deum. ... A medal was struck to commemorate the massacre, and in the
Vatican may still be seen three frescoes of Vasari, describing the attack
upon the admiral, the king in council plotting the massacre, and the
massacre itself. Gregory sent Charles the Golden Rose; and four months
after the massacre, ... he listened complacently to the sermon of a French
priest, . . . who spoke of ‘that day so full of happiness and joy, when
the most holy father received the news, and went in solemn state to render
thanks to God and St. Louis.'”—Henry White, The
Massacre
of St. Bartholomew, ch. 14, par. 34.
The same master spirit that urged on the St.
Bartholomew Massacre led also in the scenes of the Revolution.
Jesus Christ was declared to be an impostor, and the rallying cry of the
French infidels was, “Crush the Wretch,” meaning Christ. Heaven—daring blasphemy and abominable wickedness went
hand in hand, and the basest of men, the most abandoned monsters of
cruelty and vice, were most highly exalted. In all this, supreme
homage was paid to Satan; while Christ, in His characteristics of
truth, purity, and unselfish love, was crucified.
“The beast that
ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and
shall overcome them, and kill them.” The
atheistical power that ruled in France during the Revolution and the
Reign of Terror, did wage such a war against God and His holy word as
the world had never witnessed. The worship
of the Deity was abolished by the National Assembly. Bibles were
collected and publicly burned with every possible manifestation of scorn.
The law of God was trampled underfoot. The institutions of the Bible were
abolished. The weekly rest day was set aside,
and in its stead every tenth day was devoted to reveling and blasphemy.
Baptism and the Communion were prohibited. And announcements posted
conspicuously over the burial places declared death to be an eternal
sleep.
The fear of God
was said to be so far from the beginning of wisdom that it was the beginning of folly. All
religious worship was prohibited, except that of liberty and the
country. The “constitutional bishop of Paris was brought forward to play
the principal part in the most impudent and scandalous farce ever acted in
the face of a national representation. ... He was brought forward in full
procession, to declare to the Convention that the religion which he had
taught so many years was, in every respect, a piece of priestcraft, which
had no foundation either in history or sacred truth. He disowned, in
solemn and explicit terms, the existence of the Deity to whose worship he
had been consecrated, and devoted himself in future to the homage of
liberty, equality, virtue, and morality. He then laid on the table his
episcopal decorations, and received a fraternal embrace from the president
of the Convention. Several apostate priests followed the example of this
prelate.”—Scott, vol. 1, ch. 17.
“And they that dwell
upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send
gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that
dwelt on the earth.” Infidel France had silenced the reproving voice
of God’s two witnesses. The word of truth lay dead in her streets, and
those who hated the restrictions and requirements of God’s law were
jubilant. Men publicly defied the King of
heaven. Like the sinners of old, they cried: “How
doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?” Psalm
73:11.
With blasphemous
boldness almost beyond belief, one of the priests of the new
order said: “God, if You exist, avenge Your injured name. I bid
You defiance! You remain silent; You dare not launch Your thunders. Who
after this will believe in Your existence?”—Lacretelle, History,
vol. 11, p. 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
inhabiteth 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 historian: “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
representative 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: “Legislators! 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 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 Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 370, 371.
When the goddess
was brought into the Convention, the orator took her by the hand, and
turning to the assembly said: “Mortals, cease to tremble before the
powerless thunders of a God whom your fears have created. Henceforth
acknowledge no divinity but Reason. I offer you its noblest and purest
image; if you must have idols, sacrifice only to such as this. . . . Fall
before the august Senate of Freedom, oh! Veil of Reason!”
“The goddess, after being embraced by the president, was
mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted, amid an immense crowd, to the
cathedral of Notre Dame, to take the place of the Deity. There she was
elevated on the high altar, and received the adoration of all
present.”—Alison, vol. 1, ch. 10.
This was
followed, not long afterward, by the public
burning of the Bible. On one occasion “the Popular Society of the
Museum” entered the hall of the municipality, exclaiming, “Vive
la Raison!” and carrying on the top of a pole the half-burned
remains of several books, among others breviaries, missals, and the Old
and New Testaments, which "expiated in a great fire,” said the president,
"all the fooleries which they have made the human race commit.”—Journal
of Paris, 1793, No. 318. Quoted in Buchez-Roux, Collection
of
Parliamentary History, vol. 30, pp. 200, 201.
It was popery
that had begun the work which atheism was completing. The policy of Rome
had wrought out those conditions, social, political, and religious, that
were hurrying France on to ruin. Writers, in referring to the horrors of
the Revolution, say that these excesses are to be charged upon the throne
and the church. (note4)
In strict justice they are to be charged upon the church. Popery
had poisoned the minds of kings against the Reformation, as an
enemy to the crown, an element of discord that would be fatal to the peace
and harmony of the nation. It was the genius of Rome that by this means
inspired the direst cruelty and the most galling oppression which
proceeded from the throne.
The spirit of
liberty went with the Bible. Wherever the gospel was received, the minds
of the people were awakened. They began to cast off the shackles that had
held them bondslaves of ignorance,
vice, and superstition. They began to think
and act as men. Monarchs saw it and trembled for their despotism.
Rome was not slow
to inflame their jealous fears. Said the pope to the regent of France in
1525: “This mania [Protestantism] will not only confound and destroy
religion, but all principalities, nobility, laws, orders, and ranks
besides.”—G. de Félice, History of
the Protestants of France, b. 1, ch. 2, par. 8. A few years later a
papal nuncio warned the king: “Sire, be not deceived. The Protestants will
upset all civil as well as religious order. . . . The throne is in as much
danger as the altar. . . . The introduction of a new religion must
necessarily introduce a new government.”—D’Aubigné, History
of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, b. 2, ch. 36.
And theologians appealed to the prejudices of the people by declaring that
the Protestant doctrine “entices men away to novelties and folly; it robs
the king of the devoted affection of his subjects, and devastates both
church and state.” Thus Rome succeeded in arraying France against the
Reformation. “It was to uphold the throne, preserve the nobles, and
maintain the laws, that the sword of persecution
was first unsheathed in France.”—Wylie, b. 13, ch. 4.
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 cornerstone 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
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 the 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 lands 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!
“But a blind
and inexorable bigotry chased from her soil every teacher of virtue, every
champion of order, every honest defender of the throne; it said to the men
who would have made their country a ‘renown and glory’ in the earth,
Choose which you will have, a stake or exile. At
last the ruin of the state was complete; there remained no more
conscience to be proscribed; no more religion to be dragged to the
stake; no more patriotism to be chased into banishment.”—Wylie,
b. 13, ch. 20. And the Revolution, with all its horrors, was the dire
result.
“With the flight of the Huguenots a general decline settled
upon France. Flourishing manufacturing cities fell into decay; fertile
districts returned to their native wildness; intellectual
dullness and moral declension succeeded a period of unwonted
progress. Paris became one vast almshouse, and it is estimated that, at
the breaking out of the Revolution, two hundred thousand paupers claimed
charity from the hands of the king. The Jesuits
alone flourished in the decaying nation, and ruled with dreadful tyranny over
churches and schools, the prisons and the galleys.”
The gospel would
have brought to France the solution of those political and social problems
that baffled the skill of her clergy, her king, and her legislators, and
finally plunged the nation into anarchy and
ruin. But under the domination of Rome the people had lost the Saviour’s blessed lessons of
self-sacrifice and unselfish love. They had been led away from the practice of self-denial
for the good of others.
The rich had found no rebuke for their oppression of the poor, the poor no
help for their servitude and degradation. The selfishness of the wealthy
and powerful grew more and more apparent and oppressive. For centuries the
greed and profligacy of the noble resulted in grinding extortion toward
the peasant. The rich wronged the poor, and the poor hated the rich.
In many provinces
the estates were held by the nobles, and the laboring classes were only
tenants; they were at the mercy of their landlords and were forced to
submit to their exorbitant demands. The burden of supporting both the
church and the state fell upon the middle and
lower classes, who were heavily
taxed by the civil authorities and by the clergy. “The pleasure
of the nobles was considered the supreme law; the farmers and the peasants
might starve, for aught their oppressors cared. . . . The people were
compelled at every turn to consult the exclusive interest of the landlord.
The lives of the agricultural laborers were lives of incessant work and
unrelieved misery; their complaints, if they ever dared to complain, were
treated with insolent contempt. The
courts of justice would always listen to a noble as against a peasant;
bribes were notoriously accepted by the judges; and the merest caprice of
the aristocracy had the force of law, by virtue of this system of universal
corruption. Of the taxes wrung from the commonalty, by the
secular magnates on the one hand, and the clergy on the other, not half
ever found its way into the royal or episcopal treasury; the rest was
squandered in profligate self-indulgence. And the men who thus
impoverished their fellow subjects were themselves exempt from taxation,
and entitled by law or custom to all the appointments of the state. The
privileged classes numbered a hundred and fifty thousand, and for their
gratification millions were condemned to hopeless and degrading lives.” (note5)
The court was
given up to luxury and profligacy. There was little confidence existing
between the people and the rulers. Suspicion fastened upon all the
measures of the government as designing and selfish. For more than half a
century before the time of the Revolution the throne was occupied by Louis
XV, who, even in those evil times, was distinguished as an indolent,
frivolous, and sensual monarch. With a
depraved and cruel aristocracy and an impoverished and ignorant lower
class, the state financially embarrassed and the people
exasperated, it needed no prophet’s eye to foresee a terrible
impending outbreak. To the warnings of his counselors the king
was accustomed to reply: “Try to make things go on as long as I am likely
to live; after my death it may be as it will.” It was in vain that the
necessity of reform was urged. He saw the evils, but had neither the
courage nor the power to meet them. The doom awaiting France was but too
truly pictured in his indolent and selfish answer, “After
me,
the deluge!”
By working upon
the jealousy of the kings and the ruling classes, Rome had influenced them
to keep the people in bondage, well
knowing that the state would thus be weakened, and purposing by this means
to fasten both rulers and people in her thrall. With farsighted policy she
perceived that in order to enslave men effectually, the
shackles must be bound upon
their souls; that the surest way to prevent them from
escaping their bondage was to render them incapable of freedom. A
thousandfold more terrible than the physical suffering which resulted from
her policy, was the moral degradation. Deprived of the Bible, and
abandoned to the teachings of bigotry and selfishness, the people were shrouded in
ignorance
and superstition, and sunken in vice,
so that they were wholly unfitted for
self-government.
But
the outworking of all this was widely different from what Rome had
purposed. Instead of holding the masses in a blind submission to her
dogmas, her work resulted in making them infidels and revolutionists.
Romanism they despised as priestcraft. They beheld the clergy as a party
to their oppression. The only god they knew was the god of Rome; her
teaching was their only religion. They regarded her greed and cruelty as
the legitimate fruit of the Bible, and they would have none of it.
Rome had
misrepresented the character of God and perverted His requirements, and
now men rejected both the Bible and its Author. She had required a blind
faith in her dogmas, under the pretended sanction of the Scriptures. In the reaction, Voltaire and his associates cast
aside God’s word altogether and spread everywhere the poison of
infidelity. Rome had ground down the people under her iron heel;
and now the masses,
degraded and brutalized, in their recoil from her
tyranny, cast off all restraint. Enraged at the glittering cheat to which
they had so long paid homage, they rejected truth and falsehood together;
and mistaking license for liberty, the slaves
of vice exulted in their imagined freedom.
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.
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
decreed 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 citizens
were
divided into a medley of factions, that seemed intent on nothing but
mutual extermination.” And to add to the general
misery, the nation became involved in a prolonged and devastating war with
the great powers of Europe. “The country was nearly bankrupt, the armies
were clamoring for arrears of pay, the Parisians were starving, the
provinces were laid waste by brigands, and civilization was almost
extinguished in anarchy and license.”
All too well the
people had learned the lessons of cruelty and torture which Rome had so
diligently taught. A day
of retribution at last had come. It was not now the
disciples of Jesus that were thrust into dungeons and dragged to the
stake. Long ago these had perished or been driven into exile. Unsparing
Rome now felt the deadly power of those whom she had trained to delight
in deeds of blood. “The example of persecution which the clergy
of France had exhibited for so many ages, was now retorted upon them with
signal vigor. The scaffolds ran red with the
blood of the priests. The galleys and the prisons, once crowded with
Huguenots, were now filled with their persecutors. Chained to the bench
and toiling at the oar, the Roman Catholic clergy experienced all those
woes which their church had so freely inflicted on the gentle heretics.”
(note6)
“Then came those days when the most barbarous of all codes
was administered by the most barbarous of all tribunals; when
no man could greet his neighbors or say his prayers . . . without danger
of committing a capital crime; when spies lurked in every corner;
when the guillotine was long and hard at work every morning; when the
jails were filled as close as the holds of a slave ship; when the gutters
ran foaming with blood into the Seine. . . . While the daily wagonloads of
victims were carried to their doom through the streets of Paris, the
proconsuls, whom the sovereign committee had sent forth to the
departments, reveled in an extravagance of cruelty unknown even in the
capital. The knife of the deadly machine rose
and fell too slow for their work of slaughter. Long rows of captives
were mowed down with grapeshot. Holes were made in the bottom of crowded
barges. Lyons was turned into a desert. At Arras even the cruel mercy of
a speedy death was denied to the prisoners. All down the Loire, from
Saumur to the sea, great flocks of crows and kites feasted on naked
corpses, twined together in hideous embraces. No mercy was shown
to sex or age. The number of young lads and of girls of seventeen who were
murdered by that execrable government, is to be reckoned by hundreds.
Babies torn from the breast were tossed from pike to pike along the
Jacobin ranks.”(note7)
In the short space of ten years, multitudes of human beings perished.
All this was as Satan
would have it. This was what for
ages he had been working to secure. His policy is deception
from first to last, and his
steadfast purpose is to bring woe and wretchedness upon men, to
deface and defile the workmanship of God, to mar the divine purposes
of benevolence and love, and thus cause grief in heaven.
Then by his deceptive
arts he blinds the minds of men, and leads them to throw
back the blame of his work upon God, as if all this misery were the
result of the Creator’s plan. In like manner, when those who have
been degraded
and brutalized through his cruel power achieve their
freedom, he urges them on to excesses and atrocities. Then this picture of
unbridled license is pointed out by
tyrants and oppressors as an illustration of the results of liberty.
When error in one
garb has been detected, Satan
only masks it in a different disguise,
and multitudes receive it as eagerly as at the first. When the
people found Romanism to be a deception, and he could not through this
agency lead them to transgression of God’s law, he
urged them to regard all
religion as a cheat, and the Bible as a fable; and,
casting aside the divine statutes, they gave themselves up to unbridled
iniquity.
The fatal error
which wrought such woe for the inhabitants of France was the ignoring
of this one great truth: that true freedom lies within the proscriptions
of the law of God. “O that
thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as a
river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.” “There is no
peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.” “But
whoso hearkeneth unto Me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from
fear of evil.” Isaiah 48:18, 22; Proverbs 1:33.
Atheists,
infidels,
and apostates oppose and denounce God’s law; but the results of
their influence prove that the well-being of man is bound up with his
obedience of the divine statutes. Those
who will not read the lesson from the book of God are bidden to read it
in the history of nations.
When Satan
wrought through the Roman Church to lead men away from obedience, his
agency was concealed, and his work was so disguised that the degradation and misery which
resulted were not seen to be the fruit of transgression. And his power was
so far counteracted by the working of the Spirit of God that his purposes
were prevented from reaching their full fruition. The people did not trace
the effect to its cause and discover the source of their miseries. But in
the Revolution the law of God was openly set aside by the National
Council. And in the Reign of Terror which followed, the working of cause
and effect could be seen by all.
When France
publicly rejected God and set aside the Bible, wicked men and spirits of darkness exulted in
their attainment of the object so long desired—a kingdom free from
the restraints of the law of God. Because sentence
against an evil work was not speedily executed, therefore the heart of the
sons of men was “fully set in them
to do evil.” Ecclesiastes 8:11. But the transgression of a just and
righteous law must inevitably result in misery and ruin. Though not
visited at once with judgments, the wickedness of men was nevertheless
surely working out their doom. Centuries of
apostasy and crime had been treasuring up wrath against the day of
retribution; and when their iniquity was full, the despisers of
God learned too late that it is a fearful thing to have worn out the
divine patience. The restraining Spirit of
God, which imposes a check upon the cruel power of Satan, was in a great
measure removed, and he whose only delight is the wretchedness of men
was permitted to work his will. Those who had chosen the service
of rebellion were left to reap its fruits until the land was filled with
crimes too horrible for pen to trace. From devastated provinces and ruined
cities a terrible cry was heard—a cry of bitterest anguish. France was
shaken as if by an earthquake. Religion, law,
social order, the family, the state, and the church—all were smitten
down by the impious hand that had been lifted against the law of God.
Truly spoke the wise man: “The
wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.” “Though
a sinner do evil a hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely
I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before
Him: but it shall not be well with the wicked.” Proverbs 11:5;
Ecclesiastes 8:12, 13. “They hated knowledge, and did not
choose the fear of the Lord;” “therefore shall they eat of the fruit
of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.” Proverbs 1:29,31.
God’s faithful witnesses, slain by the
blasphemous power that “ascendeth
out of the bottomless pit,” were not long to remain silent. “After three days and a half the Spirit of life from God entered into
them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them
which saw them.” Revelation 11:11. It
was in 1793 that the decrees which abolished the Christian religion and
set aside the Bible passed the French Assembly. Three years and a half
later a resolution rescinding these decrees, thus granting toleration to
the Scriptures, was adopted by the same body. The world stood
aghast at the enormity of guilt which had resulted from a rejection of the
Sacred Oracles, and men recognized the necessity of faith in God and His
word as the foundation of virtue and morality. Saith the Lord: “Whom
hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted
thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One
of Israel,” Isaiah 37:23. “Therefore,
behold,
I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know My hand
and My might; and they shall know that My name is Jehovah.” Jeremiah 16:21, A.R.V.
Concerning the two witnesses the prophet declares further: “And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up
hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies
beheld them.” Revelation 11:12. Since France made war
upon God’s two witnesses, they have been honored as
never before. In 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was organized.
This was followed by similar organizations, with numerous branches, upon
the continent of Europe. In 1816 the American Bible Society was founded.
When the British Society was formed, the Bible had been printed and
circulated in fifty tongues. It has since been translated into many
hundreds of languages and dialects. (note8)
For the fifty years preceding 1792, little attention was
given to the work of foreign missions. No new societies were formed, and
there were but few churches that made any effort for the spread of
Christianity in heathen lands. But toward the
close of the eighteenth century a great change took place. Men became
dissatisfied with the results of rationalism and realized the necessity
of divine revelation and experimental religion. From this time
the work of foreign missions attained an unprecedented growth. (See
Appendix.)
The improvements in printing have given an impetus to the
work of circulating the Bible. The increased facilities for communication
between different countries, the breaking down of ancient barriers of
prejudice and national exclusiveness, and the loss of secular power by the
pontiff of Rome have opened the way for the entrance of the word of God.
For some years the Bible has been sold without restraint in the streets of
Rome, and it has now been carried to every part of the habitable globe.
The infidel Voltaire once boastingly said: “I am weary of
hearing people repeat that twelve men established the Christian religion.
I will prove that one man may suffice to overthrow it.” Generations have passed since his death. Millions have
joined in the war upon the Bible. But
it is so far from being destroyed, that where there were a hundred in
Voltaire’s time, there are now ten thousand, yes, a hundred thousand
copies of the book of God. In the words of an early Reformer concerning
the Christian church, “The Bible is an anvil that has worn out many
hammers.” Saith the Lord: “No
weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that
shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.” Isaiah 54:17. “The
word of our God shall stand forever.” “All His commandments are sure. They stand fast for ever and ever, and
are done in truth and uprightness.” Isaiah 40:8; Psalm 111 :7, 8. Whatever
is built upon the authority of man will be overthrown; but that which is
founded upon the rock of God’s immutable word shall stand forever.
Notes:
Note1.—On the far-reaching consequences of
the rejection of the Bible and of Bible religion, by the people of
France, see H, von Sybel, History of the French Revolution, b. 5, ch., 1, pars. 3-7; Henry
Thomas Buckle, History of
Civilization in England, chs. 8, 12, 14 (New York, 1895, vol. 1,
pp. 364-366, 369-371, 437, 540, 541, 550); Blackwood’s
Magazine, vol. 34, No. 215 (November, 1833), p. 739; J. G,
Lorimer, An Historical Sketch of the Protestant Church in France, ch. 8,
pars. 6, 7.
Note2.—The
Council of Toulouse, which met about the time of the crusade against
the Albigenses, ruled: “We prohibit laymen possessing copies of the
Old and New Testament. . . . We forbid them most severely to have the
above books in the popular vernacular.” “The lords of the districts
shall carefully seek out the heretics in dwellings, hovels, and
forests, and even their underground retreats shall be entirely wiped
out.”—Concil Tolosanum, Pope
Gregory IX, Anno. chr. 1229. Canons 14 and 2. This Council sat
at the time of the crusade against the Albigenses.
“This pest [the Bible] had taken such an extension that some
people had appointed priests of their own, and even some evangelists
who distorted and destroyed the truth of the gospel and made new
gospels for their own purpose . . . (they know that) the preaching and
explanation of the Bible is absolutely forbidden to the lay members.”—Acts of Inquisition, Philip
van Limborch, History of the
Inquisition, chapter 8.
The Council of Tarragona, 1234, ruled that: “No one may
possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance
language, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the
local bishop within eight days after promulgation of this decree, so
that they may be burned lest, be he a cleric or a layman, he be
suspected until he is cleared of all suspicion.”—D. Lortsch, Histoire
de la Bible en France, 1910, p. 14.
At the Council of Constance, in 1415, Wycliffe was
posthumously condemned by Arundel, the archbishop of Canterbury, as
“that pestilent wretch of damnable heresy who invented a new
translation of the Scriptures in his mother tongue.”
The opposition to the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church has
continued through the centuries and was increased particularly at the
time of the founding of Bible societies. On December 8, 1866, Pope
Pius IX, in his encyclical Quanta
cura, issued a syllabus of eighty errors under ten different
headings. Under heading IV we find listed: “Socialism, communism,
clandestine societies, Bible societies. . . . Pests of this sort must
be destroyed by all possible means.”
Note3.—For
a reliable, brief introduction into the history of the French
Revolution see L. Gershoy, The
French Revolution (1932); G. Lefebvre, The
Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton, 1947); and H. von
Sybel, History of the French
Revolution (1869), 4 vols.
The Moniteur Officiel
was the government paper at the time of the Revolution and is a
primary source, containing a factual account of actions taken by the
Assemblies, full texts of the documents, etc. It has been reprinted.
See also A. Aulard, Christianity and the French Revolution (London, 1927), in which the
account is carried through 1802—an excellent study; W. H. Jervis, The Gallican Church and the
Revolution (London, 1882), a careful work by an Anglican, but
shows preference for Catholicism.
On the relation of church and state in France during the
French Revolution see Henry H. Walsh, The
Concordate of 1801: A Study of Nationalism in Relation to Church and
State (New York, 1933); Charles Lèdre, L’Église
de France sous la Révolution (Paris, 1949).
Some contemporary studies on the religious significance of
the Revolution are G. Chais de Sourcesol, Le
Livre des Manifestes (Avignon, 1800), in which the author
endeavored to ascertain the causes of the upheaval, and its religious
significance, etc.; James Bicheno, The
Signs of the Times (London, 1794); James Winthrop, A
Systematic Arrangement of Several Scripture Prophecies Relating to
Antichrist; With Their Application to the Course of History
(Boston, 1795); and Lathrop, The Prophecy of Daniel Relating to the Time of the End (Springfield,
Massachusetts, 1811).
For the church during the Revolution see W. M. Sloan, The French Revolution and Religious Reform (1901); P. F. La Gorce, Histoire Religieuse de la
Révolution (Paris, 1909).
On relations with the
papacy see G. Bourgin, La
France et Rome de 1788-1797 (Paris, 1808), based on secret files
in the Vatican; A. Latreille, L’Église
Catholique et la Révolution (Paris, 1950), especially
interesting on Pius VI and the religious crisis, 1775-1799.
For Protestants during
the Revolution, see Pressensé (ed.), The
Reign of Terror (Cincinnati, 1869).
Note4.—On social
conditions prevailing in France prior to the period of the Revolution,
see H. von Holst, Lowell
Lectures on the French Revolution, lecture 1; also Taine, Ancien
Régime, and A. Young, Travels
in Frances.
Note5.—For further details concerning the
retributive character of the French Revolution see Thos. H. Gill, The Papal Drama, b. 10;
Edmond de Pressensé, The Church and the French Revolution, b. 3, ch. 1.
Note6.—See M. A. Thiers, History
of the French Revolution, vol. 3, pp. 42-44, 62-74, 106 (New
York, 1890, translated by F. Shoberl); F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution, ch. 9, par. 1 (Bohn, 1894); A.
Alison, History of Europe,
1789-1815, vol. 1, ch. 14 (New York, 1872, vol., 1, pp.
293-312).
Note7.—In
1804, according to Mr. William Canton of the British and Foreign Bible
Society, “all the Bibles extant in the world, in manuscript or in
print, counting every version in every land, were computed at not many
more than four millions. . . . The various languages in which those
four millions were written, including such bygone speech as the
Moeso-Gothic of Ulfilas and the Anglo-Saxon of Bede, are set down as
numbering about fifty.”—What Is
the Bible Society? rev. ed., 1904, p. 23.
The American Bible Society reported a distribution from 1816
through 1955 of 481,149,365 Bibles, Testaments, and portions of
Testaments. To this may be added over 600,000,000 Bibles or Scripture
portions distributed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. During
the year 1955 alone the American Bible Society distributed a grand
total of 23,819,733 Bibles, Testaments, and portions of Testaments
throughout the world.
The Scriptures, in whole or in part, have been printed, as of
December, 1955, in 1,092 languages; and new languages are constantly
being added.
Note8.—The
missionary activity of the early Christian church has not been
duplicated until modern times. It had virtually died out by the year
1000, and was succeeded by the military campaigns of the Crusades. The
Reformation era saw little foreign mission work, except on the part of
the early Jesuits. The pietistic revival produced some missionaries.
The work of the Moravian Church in the eighteenth century was
remarkable, and there were some missionary societies formed by the
British for work in colonized North America. But the great resurgence
of foreign missionary activity begins around the year 1800, at “the
time of the end.” Daniel 12:4. In 1792 was formed the Baptist
Missionary Society, which sent Carey to India. In 1795 the London
Missionary Society was organized, and another society in 1799[sic]
which in 1812 became the Church Missionary Society. Shortly afterward
the Wesleyan Missionary Society was founded. In the United States the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was formed in
1812, and Adoniram Judson was sent out that year to Calcutta. He
established himself in Burma the next year. In 1814 the American
Baptist Missionary Union was formed. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign
Missions was formed in 1837.
“In A.D. 1800, .
. . the overwhelming majority of Christians were the descendants of
those who had been won before A.D. 1500. . . . Now, in the nineteenth
century, came a further expansion of Christianity. Not so many
continents or major countries were entered for the first time as in
the preceding three centuries. That would have been impossible, for on
all the larger land masses of the earth except Australia and among all
the more numerous peoples and in all the areas of high civilization
Christianity had been introduced before A.D. 1800. What now occurred
was the acquisition of fresh footholds in regions and among peoples
already touched, an expansion of unprecedented extent from both the
newer bases and the older ones, and the entrance of Christianity into
the large majority of such countries, islands, peoples, and tribes as
had previously not been touched. . . .
“The nineteenth century spread
of Christianity was due primarily to a new burst of religious life
emanating from the Christian impulse. . . . Never in any corresponding
length of time had the Christian impulse given rise to so many new
movements. Never had it had quite so great an effect upon Western
European peoples. It was from this abounding vigor that there issued
the missionary enterprise which during the nineteenth century so
augmented the numerical strength and the influence of
Christianity.”—Kenneth Scott Latourette, A
History of the Expansion of Christianity, vol. IV, The
Great Century A.D. 1800-A.D. (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1941), pp. 2-4.
This entry was published on the
thirty-first day of May 2021.
