The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 279

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!

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