Christians. No! Some few may be, but their nation is not--their
country is not; the era of Christianity has yet to come, and when it
comes, then, only then, will be the future of nations sure. Far be it
from me to misapprehend the immense benefit which Christian religion,
such as it already is, has operated in mankind's history. It has
influenced the private character of men, and the social condition of
millions; it was the nurse of a new civilization, and softening the
manners and morals of men, its influence has been felt even in the worst
quarter of history--in war. The continual massacres of the Greek and
Roman kings and chiefs, and the extermination of nations by them--the
all-devastating warfare of the Timurs and Gengis Khans--are in general
not more to be met with; only my own dear fatherland was doomed to
experience once more the cruelties of the Timurs and Gengis Khans out of
the sacrilegious hands of the dynasty of Austria, which calumniates
Christianity by calling itself Christian. But though that beneficial
influence of Christianity we have cheerfully to acknowledge, yet it is
still not to be disputed that the law of Christ does yet nowhere rule
the Christian world.

Montesquieu himself, whom nobody could charge to be partial for
republics, avows that despotism is incompatible with the Christian
religion, because the Christian religion commands meekness, and
despotism claims arbitrary power to the whims and passions of a frail
mortal; and still it is more than 1,500 years since the Christian
religion became dominant, and through that long period despotism has
been pre-eminently dominant; you can scarcely show one single truly
democratic republic of any power which had subsisted but for a hundred
years, exercising any influence upon the condition of the world.
Constantine, raising the Christian religion to Rome's imperial throne,
did not restore the Romans to their primitive virtues. Constantinople
became the sewer of vice; Christian worship did not change the despotic
habits of Kings. The Tituses, the Trajans, the Antonines, appeared
seldom on Christian thrones; on the contrary, mankind has seen, in the
name of religion, lighted the piles of persecution, and the blazing
torches of intolerance; the earth overspread with corpses of the million
victims of fanaticism; the fields watered with blood; the cities wrapped
in flames, and empires ravaged with unrelenting rage. Why? Is it
Christian religion which caused