Thoughts on Daniel—Chapter XI.
By Uriah Smith
THE historian thus describes this great religious change:— "It was not enough, they said, for a regenerate nation to have dethroned earthly kings, unless she stretched out the arm of defiance toward those powers which superstition had represented as reigning over boundless space."—Scott's Napoleon, vol. i, p. 172. "The constitutional bishop of Paris was brought forward to play the principal part in the most impudent and scandalous farce ever enacted 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. . . 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 DEITY."—Ibid., vol. i, p. 173. A late writer in Blackwood's Magazine says:— "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 everywhere, women as well as men, danced and sang with joy in accepting the announcement." But there are other more striking specifications still fulfilled in this power. VERSE 37. Nether shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god; for he shall magnify himself above all. The word for woman and wife are in the original the same; and Bishop Newton observes that "the desire of wives." This would seem to indicate that this government, at the same time it declared that God did not exist, would trample under foot the law which that God had given to regulate the marriage institution. And we find that the historian has, unconsciously perhaps, and if so, all the more significantly, coupled together the atheism and licentiousness of this government in the same order in which they are presented in the prophecy. He says:— "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 when their taste was changed or their appetite gratified. If fiends had set themselves at work to discover a mode of most effectually destroying whatever is venerable, graceful, or permanent, in domestic life, and 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 than the degradation of marriage into a state of mere occasional cohabitation or licensed concubinage. Sophie Arnoult, an actress famous for the witty things she said, described the republican marriage as the sacrament of adultery. These anti-religious and anti-social regulations did not answer the purpose of the frantic and inconsiderate zealots, by whom they had been urged forward."—Scott's Napoleon, vol. i, p. 173. "Nor regard any god." In addition to the testimony already presented, to show the utter atheism of the nation at this time, the following fearful language of madness and presumption is to be recorded:— "The fear of God is so far from being the beginning of wisdom, that it is the beginning of folly. Modesty is only an invention of refined voluptuousness. The Supreme King, the God of the Jews and the Christians, is but a phantom. Jesus Christ is an impostor." "In August 26, 1792, an open profession of atheism was made by the National Convention; and corresponding societies and atheistical clubs were everywhere fearlessly held in the French nation. Massacres and the reign of terror became the most horrid."—Smith's Key to Revelation, p. 323. "Herbert, Chaumette, and their associates, appeared at the bar and declared that God did not exist."—Alison, vol. i, p. 150. At this juncture, all religious worship was prohibited, except that of liberty and the country. The gold and silver plate of the churches was seized upon and desecrated. The churches were closed. The bells were broken and cast into cannon. The Bible was publicly burned. The sacramental vessels were paraded through the streets on an ass, in token of contempt. The Sabbath was abolished, and death was declared, in conspicuous letters posted over their burial places, to be an eternal sleep. But the crowning blasphemy, if these orgies of hell admit of degrees, remain to be performed by the comedian Monvel, who, as a priest of Illuminism, 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? The whole ecclesiastical establishment was destroyed."—Scott's Napoleon, vol. i, p. 173. Behold what man is when left to himself, and what infidelity is when the restraints of law are thrown off, and it has the power in its own hands! Can it be doubted that these scenes are what the omniscient eye foresaw and noted on the sacred page when it pointed out a kingdom to arise which should exalt itself above every god and disregard them all? VERSE 38. But in his estate shall he honor the God of forces; and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honor with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things. We meet a seeming contradiction in this verse. How can a nation disregard every god, and yet honor the god of forces? It could not at one and the same time hold both positions. But it might for a time disregard all gods, and then subsequently introduce another worship and regard the god of forces. Did such a change occur in France at this time? It did. The attempt to make France a godless nation produced such anarchy that the rulers feared the power would pass entirely out of their hands, and therefore perceived that, as a political necessity, some kind of worship must be introduced; and they did not intend to introduce any movement which would increase devotion or develop any true spiritual character among the people, but only such as would keep themselves in power, and give them control of the national forces. A few extracts from history will show this. Liberty and country were at first the objects of adoration. "Liberty, equality, virtue, and morality," the very opposite of anything they possessed in fact or exhibited in practice, were words which they set forth as describing the deity of the nation. In 1794 the worship of the Goddess of Reason was introduced, and is thus described by 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 a solemn procession, singing a hymn in praise of Liberty, and escorting as the object of their future worship, a vailed female whom they termed the Goddess of Reason. Being brought within the bar, she was unvailed with great form, and placed on the right hand of the president, when she was generally recognized as a dancing girl of the opera, with whose charms most of the persons present were acquainted from her appearance on the stage, while the experience of individuals was further extended. To this person, as the fittest representative of that reason whom they worshipped, 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's Napoleon. In introducing the worship of Reason, in 1794, Chaumette said:— "Legislative fanaticism has lost its hold; it has given place to reason. We have left its temples; they are regenerated. To-day an immense multitude are assembled under its Gothic roofs, which, for the first time, will re-echo the voice of truth. There the French will celebrate their true worship—that of Liberty and Reason. There we will form new vows for the prosperity of the armies of the Republic; there we will abandon the worship of inanimate idols for that of this animated image, the masterpiece of creation. "A vailed female, arrayed in blue drapery, was brought into the Convention; and Chaumette, taking her by the hand— "Mortals," said he, "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—Vail of Reason. "At the same time the goddess appeared personified by a celebrated beauty, Madame Millard, of the opera, known in more than one character to most of the Convention. The goddess, after being embraced by the president, was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted amidst an immense crowd to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to take the place of the Diety. Then she was elevated on the high altar, and received the adoration of all present. "On the 11th of November, the popular society of the museum entered the hall of the municipality, exclaiming, 'Vive la Reason!' and carrying on the top of a pole the half-burnt remains of several books, among others the breviaries 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.' "The most sacred relations of life were at the same period placed on a new footing suited to the extravagant ideas of the times. Marriage was declared a civil contract, binding only during the pleasure of the contracting parties. Mademoiselle Arnoult, a celebrated comedian, expressed the public feeling when she called 'marriage the sacrament of adultery.'"—Ibid. Truly, this was a strange god, whom the fathers of that generation knew not. No such deity had ever before been set up as an object of adoration. And well might it be called the god of forces; for the object of the movement was to cause the people to renew their covenant and repeat their vows for the prosperity of the armies of France. Read again a few lines from the extract already given:— "We have left its temples; they are regenerated. To-day an immense multitude are assembled under its Gothic roofs, which, for the first time, will re-echo the voice of truth. There the French will celebrate their true worship—that of Liberty and Reason. There we will form new vows for the prosperity of the armies of the Republic."