The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 283

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.

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