nd 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 elsewhere, women as well as
men, danced and sang with joy in accepting the announcement."(394)

France presented also the characteristic which especially distinguished
Sodom. During the Revolution there was manifest a state of moral
debasement and corruption similar to that which brought destruction upon
the cities of the plain. And the historian presents together the atheism
and the licentiousness of France, as given in the prophecy: "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.... If
fiends had set themselves to work to discover a mode of most effectually
destroying whatever is venerable, graceful, or permanent in domestic life,
and of 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.... Sophie Arnoult, an actress famous for the
witty things she said, described the republican marriage as 'the sacrament
of adultery.' "(395)

"Where also our Lord was crucified." This specification of the prophecy
was also fulfilled by France. In no land had the spirit of enmity against
Christ been more strikingly displayed. In no country had the truth
encountered more bitter and cruel opposition. In the persecution which
France had visited upon the confessors of the gospel, she had crucified
Christ in the person of His disciples.

Century after century the blood of the saints had been shed. While the
Waldenses laid down their lives upon the mountains of Piedmont "for the
word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ," similar witness to
the truth had been borne by their brethren, the Albigenses of France. In
the days of the Reform