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 honour 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 ."
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