CHRISTIANITY'S INFLUENCE.                 547

over men, and the doctrine of future rewards and punishments,
which modern unbelief affects to deny. Let us observe the
countries of the world which have remained unconverted, and
those also, the nations, that tried to un-christianize themselves.
Take as a specimen France, once so gloriously Christian, in the
full noon-tide of her unchristian days. She sought in the
mad paroxysm of the Revolution to cast aside her Christian doc-
trines and traditions, and with them lost her Christian civiliza-
tion. She abolished the Sabbath, desecrated the sanctuary,
shattered the tabernacles and flung off the Christian yoke.
By one wild, desperate spring she plunged into the chasm of
worse than paganism. Christianity, with folded arms, looked
on from a distance to see how France could live without her.
Deeds of blood, fearful as those of Roman history character-
ized the new regime. The mere humanitarian theories of in-
fidel philosophy could never elevate her. When tried, they
melted in the sunshine like the waxen pinions of the Athenian
artist. France sank into the wildest barbarism in the "Reign
of Terror." This is the lesson to posterity of the essential
connection of Christianity and true civilization."
  But some one may say it is utterly impossible that we should
go to paganism from which Christianity liberated us. There
is no danger of our going back to precisely the old forms of
that paganism.  Yet you must remember that human nature
is always the same; we have no greater nor as great poets as
Horace and Virgil, no greater nor as great orators as Cicero; no
greater moralist outside the pale of Christianity than Seneca,
and yet they could not save society from the civilized barbarism
of paganism. Students, as you are familiar with history, you
may readily recall when human reason was deified and the
goddess of reason, a dancing girl of Paris, stood on the high
altar of the cathedral of Notre Dame. Without Christ all is
lost; with Christ all is well.
                   "Salvation let the echo fly,
                   This spacious earth around,
                   Till all the armies of the sky,
                   Conspire to raise the sound."




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 2

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  02
Date:  10/1911