282 The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan
[ 274 ] news, and went in solemn state to render thanks to God and St. Louis.’” 398
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 under foot. 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
398 White, Henry,“ The Massacre of St. Bartholomew,” ch. 14, par. 34( ed. 1871).