XII.—TRUTH FROM THE CARNAGE.
And here, my friends, let us for a moment pause, even amid these rivers
of blood, to look the Great Truth of the French Revolution in the face:
Shall I, because the blood is yonder in curdling pools, shall I declare that
the Principle of the French Revolution was wrong?
No! No! No!
For it was for this same principle that Jesus toiled—endured—died! It
was for this Principle that every man is alike the child of God, that the
tears of Gethsemane fell, that the groans of Calvary arose!
Shall I, because the blood flows in rivers in the streets of France, declare
truth to be a liar—prate of the atrocities of the Revolution—or sing psalms
over the graves of tyrants and kings?
Remember, my friends—and O, write this truth upon your hearts—that
this French Revolution was the first effort of Man, to assert his rights since
the crucifixion of the Saviour.
Remember, that between the Death of the Blessed Redeemer and the Era
of the French Revolution, every atrocity that the imagination of the devils
could invent, had been heaped upon mankind, by Kings and Priests in the
name of God.
Remember—wherever Bigotry has reared her temples, there has the
name of God been polluted by the foul lips of Priests
The Hindoo Mother gives her child to the Ganges, in the name of God—
the car of the Juggernaut crushes its thousands, in the name of God!
In a single war—a war that swept over Germany and Bohemia—nine
million souls went down to one bloody grave, because their King and his
Priests quarrelled in relation to this great question—whether a Church
should have a cross, whether a Preacher should say his prayers in Latin
or Dutch! And then after the war was over, booted Priests and gowned
troopers, shouted the holy name of God, over a land which could show no
fruits, than the graves of nine million people!
In this fair land of the New World, the children of the forest were hunted
and butchered in the name of God! That name mingled with the blood-hound's
yell. In this land, helpless women and aged men were scourged
and burnt to death by grim sectarians, who calmly gazed upon the writhing
and blackened flesh of their victims, and shouted Glory to the name of
God!
In this name, earth has been desolated ten thousand times, and ten thousand
times again. In this name, the gardens of the world have been transformed
into howling deserts; the heart of man changed into the heart of a
devil—in this name home has been made a hell.
These things have been done in the name of God! You may say that
they were the work of ignorance, of superstition, of fanatacism, but still that
blistering fact stands out from the brow of history—These things were
done in the name of God!
And shall I therefore declare, that God is a Lie? Shall I therefore declare,
that his Book is a Fable? Shall I, because the name of God has
been polluted, his holy word profaned, shall I declare, that there is no God
—no Revelation?
As well these absurdities, as declare that the Principle of the French
Revolution—all men are alike the children of God—is false, because that
Principle was profaned by deeds of Massacre—by his bloody Majesty,
King Guillotine.
Remember, my friends, as you are gazing here, upon this immense crowd,
in whose midst that Guillotine is butchering its hundreds and thousands,
remember also to gaze upon yonder balcony, projecting from the wall of
the Palace of the Kings of France?
Well—what of that balcony
Why, my friends, on that balcony, not a hundred years ago, stood Royal
Charles of France, while the darkness of night was broken by the flames
of St. Bartholomew!
Yes, there he stood, gazing with a calm religious joy, upon the murder
old men, women, little children,—going forward in the streets below! Yes,
there, with that Woman-Fiend, Catharine of Medici, by his side, there stood
the King, with his musquet in his hand, shooting down his own people—
and as that old man is writhing there, as that woman falls, crushed by his
shot—while the groans of three hundred thousand human beings, murdered
in a single night, between the setting and the rising of the sun, go up to
Heaven, He, the King, solemnly calls upon Jesus and on God!
Multiply the victims of the French Revolution by ten myriads, and they
will not make a mole hill, beside the mountain of victims of Religious
bigotry, who have been murdered in the name of GOD.
