zeal,
self-sacrifice, and devotion of this servant of Christ, might be reflected
in the churches of to-day!

15. THE BIBLE AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

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In the sixteenth century the Reformation, presenting an open Bible to the
people, had sought admission to all the countries of Europe. Some nations
welcomed it with gladness, as a messenger of Heaven. In other lands, the
papacy succeeded to a great extent in preventing its entrance; and the
light of Bible knowledge, with its elevating influences, was almost wholly
excluded. In one country, though the light found entrance, it was not
comprehended by the darkness. For centuries, truth and error struggled for
the mastery. At last the evil triumphed, and the truth of Heaven was
thrust out. "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light."(383) The nation was left to
reap the results of the course which she had chosen. The restraint of
God's Spirit was removed from a people that had despised the gift of His
grace. Evil was permitted to come to maturity. And all the world saw the
fruit of wilful rejection of the light.

The war against the Bible, carried forward for so many centuries in
France, culminated in the scenes of the Revolution. That terrible
outbreaking was but the legitimate result of Rome's suppression of the
Scriptures.(384) It presented the most striking illustration which the
world has ever witnessed, of the working out of the papal policy,--an
illustration of the results to which for more than a thousand years the
teaching of the Roman Church had been tending.

The suppression of the Scriptures during the period of papal supremacy was
foretold by the prophets; and the Revelator points also to the terrible
results that were to accrue especially to France from the domination of
"the man of sin."

Said the angel of the Lord: "The holy city shall they tread under foot
forty and two months. And I will give power unto My two witnesses, and
they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in
sackcloth.... And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast
that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and
shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the
street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt,
where also our Lord was crucified.... And