THE blood-chilling story of the French Revolution, brought about by atheism, has often been told. Whoever has read an account of those satanic scenes has never lost from his memory the recollections of those terrible retributions which fell upon its leaders-Robespierre unsuccessfully attempting to commit suicide, shooting off part of his under jaw, afterwards led forth to the guillotine amid the curses of the relatives and friends of those whom he had doomed to go the same melancholy road; the cloth with which he had poorly bound up his self-inflicted wound all clotted with blood torn off by the executioner, when the jaw dropped and the wretch yelled aloud in agony, filling all beholders with horror! Henriot in a state of beastly drunkenness thrown from a window, and so shattered as to have only strength enough to drag himself into a filthy drain from which he was carried away with the small remnant of life left him to public execution. Young Robespierre and Le Bas alone successful in committing suicide. Saint Just, attempting to destroy his life, and failing from irresolution to do it effectually. Conthon lying wounded and bleeding under the table, looking forth with the face of a fiend and brandishing the knife with which he had repeatedly pierced. his bosom, but with to much fear of death too add force enough to the stab to reach the heart. Such are specimens of the fate of those heroes, who thought their work of giving France a government of "Liberty and Equality" was not complete when kings of earth were dethroned, but that they must also dethrone the king of Heaven, remove from the hearts of men all hope and fear of immortality and thus prepare them for deeds of horror and blood, by writing over the graveyard gates, "Death is an eternal sleep!" These scenes in that Reign of Terror, and the retributions which overtook their leaders, are all matters of history-awful, yet instructive pages, to which all ages may refer as a lesson to such nations and men as would vote christianity and the God who made them out of existence! There is, however, the fate of one of the actors in that bloody and blasphemous drama which is not so well known. There is one retribution which, because it was delayed, has not yet, so far as we know, found its place on the pages of history. It is the fearful end of the "GODDESS OF REASON." It is known that the leaders in that attempt, to root out all vistage of God and religion from the French nation, to render their work complete committed one of the most ridiculous and blasphemous outrages that has ever disgraced the annals of any people. It was the formal renunciation in 1793 of all belief in a supreme Being, His public dethrone ment and the public installation and adoration in His place of the "Goddess of Reason." Who was this "Goddess of Reason?" Nothing more nor less than a beautiful but vicious female! History gives the following account of this blasphemous scene with its heaven-insulting ceremonies: "An unhappy man, named Gobet, Constitutional Bishop of Paris, was brought forward to play the principal part in the most impudent and scandalous farce ever acted in the face of a national representation. "It is said that the leaders of the scene had some difficulty in inducing the bishop to comply with the task assigned him, which, after all, he executed, not without present tears and subsequent remorse. But he did play the part prescribed. He was brought forward in full procession, to declare to the Convention, that the religion which he had taught so many years, was, in every respect, a piece of priesteraft, which had no foundation either in history or sacred truth. He disowned, in solemn and explicit terms, the existence of the Deity to whose worship he had been consecrated, and devoted himself in future to the homage of Liberty, Equality, Virtue, and Morality. He then laid on the table his Episcopal decorations, and received a fraternal embrace from the President of the Convention. Several apostate priests followed the example of this prelate. "The gold and silver plate of the churches seized upon and decorated, processions entered the Convention, travestied in priestly garments, and singing the most profane hymns; while many of the chalices and sacred vessels were applied by Chaumette and Hebert to the celebration of their own impious orgies. The world for the first time, heard an assembly of men, born and educated in civilization, and assuming the right to govern one of the finest of the European nations, uplift their united voice to deny the most solemn truth which man's soul receives, and renounce unanimously the belief and worship of a Deity. For a short time the same mad profanity continued to be acted upon. "One of the ceremonies of this insane time stands unrivalled for absurdity, combined with impiety. The doors of the Convention were thrown open to a band of musicians; preceded by whom, the members of the Municipal Body entered in solemn procession, singing a hymn in praise of liberty, and escorting, as the object of their future worship, a veiled female, whom they termed the Goddess of Reason. Being brought within the bar, she was unveiled with great form, and placed on the right hand of the President; when she was generally recognized as a dancing-girl of the Opera, with whose charms most of the persons present were acquainted from her appearance on the stage, while the experience of individuals was farther extended. To this person, as the fittest representative of that Reason whom they worshipped, the National Convention of France rendered public homage. "This impious and ridiculous mummery had a certain fashion; and the installation of the Goddess of Reason was renewed and imitated throughout the nation, in such places where the inhabitants desired to show themselves equal to all the heights of the Revolution. The churches were, in most districts of France, closed against priests and worshippers -bells were broken and cast into cannon-the whole ecclesiastical establishment destroyed-and the Republican inscription over the ceme 1858.] The Goddess of Reason. 55 teries, declaring death to be perpetual sleep, announced to those who lived under that dominion, that they were to hope no redress even in the next world. "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, when their taste was changed, or their appetite gratified. 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 into a state of mere occasional co-habitation, or licensed concubinage. Sophie Arnoult, an actress famous for the witty things she said, described the Republican marriage as the Sacrament of adultery." Now mark the future history of this Goddess of Reason. She lived yet about twenty-four years after her deification! In a Paris paper of August 1st, 1817, there stands among the obituary notices the following announcement: "Died, within these few days, in the Hospital of lunatics of Saltpetriere, where she had lived unpitied and unknown for many years, the famous Theroigne de Mericourt, the Goddess of Reason, the most remarkable heroine of the Revolution." An American paper, into which this obituary was copied in 1835, adds the following remarks and facts: "This female (uearly in a state of nudity!) was seated upon a throne by Fouche and Carnot, in the Champ de Mars, and hailed alternately as the Goddess of Reason and Liberty. There was something remarkable in the history of the latter days of this poor creature, and her life is not without its moral. She, who was taught publicly to blaspheme her Creator, and to dishonor her sex, (for she appeared in public nearly naked!) was for the last twenty years of her miserable life, the subject of the greatest of human calamities -the loss of her reason! She repented severely of her horrible crimes, and her few lucid intervals were filled up by the most heart-rending lamentations. She died at the age of fifty-seven." Being insane during the last twenty years of her life, she must have lost her reason only about four years after she permitted herself blasphemously to be placed in the stead of her God! The days of her wicked glory were short. Nor must it be overlooked that the retribution refers so directly to the nature of her sin. The Goddess of Reason is deprived of reason! Truly "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." As this miserable woman lived yet many years after the scenes of horror in which she acted so prominent a part had passed away and lived among wretched lunatics, history, as we have intimated, has not thought it necessary to follow her; but by this neglect the historian has shown himself sadly unfaithful to his duty. If it is the province of history, from the experiences of the past, to draw lessons of instruction for those who shall live and act in the future, what more important lessons could the historian lay before the youth of France, or of any nation, than the fearful retribution which overtook in due time the wretched Theroigne de Mericourt. The triumph of the wicked is short. Yet sometimes retribution is delayed; and because the judgments of the Lord are not always speedily executed the hearts of man are set in them to do evil. But "God is not mocked!" His judgments will come in due time. Though merey often waits long, yet when it is despised, justice will not fail to execute its sentence upon the transgressor. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished. The world shall see if it will see— in the respect of history as well as in the teachings of the Bible, that God lives and reigns, and will vindicate his insulted honor in a way that will make the knees of the wicked quake and smite against each other! Every sin will breed its sorrow. Every dishonor given to God will bring "tribulation and wrath." DO GOOD. BY S. J. H. S. OF KANSAS. "BLEST is the man whose bowels move On which his generous heart concludes, For He who hears the orphan's cry, And soothes the suffering widow's cares, Will mark with an especial eye The name they mention in their prayers; And blessings rich as early dew Shall on his honored head distil, While guardian angels shall renew Their anxious watch around him still. Adversity in vain shall speed Its pointless arrows at his heel, His "treasure" and his "peace" are hid "Where thieves do not break thro' nor steal." His Hope, his Righteousness and Joy, Are lessened not in suffering wrong; His glory is but brightened by The poison of the slanderer's tongue. Is that which succors the distress'd; 1858.] Boys, Do You Hear That? 57 BOYS! DO YOU HEAR THAT? BY THE EDITOR. WE have frequently endeavored to encourage our young Guardian readers to improve their minds by furnishing them the example of others. Here is another. Dr. Livingstone, whose great work on Africa is everywhere spoken of, found his way to that degree of eminence which he now enjoys from poverty and life among the lowly by his own diligence in the persuit of knowledge. Read his own touching story. "The earliest recollection of my mother recalls a picture so often seen among the Scottish poor-that of the anxious housewife striving to make both ends meet. At the age of ten I was put into the factory as a "piecer," to aid by my earnings in lessening her anxiety. With a part of my first week's wages, I purchased Ruddiman's "Rudiments of Latin," and pursued the study of that language for many years afterward, with unabated ardor, at an evening school, which met between the hours of eight and ten. The dictionary part of my labors was followed up till twelve o'clock, or later, if my mother did not interfere by jumping up and snatching the books out of my hands. I had to be back in the factory by six in the morning, and continue my work, with intervals for breakfast and dinner, till eight o'clock at night. I read in this way many of the classical authors, and knew Virgil and Horace better at sixteen than I do now. "My reading while at work was carried on by placing the book on a portion of the spinning-jenny, so that I could catch sentence after sentence as I passed at my work; I thus kept up a pretty constant study undisturbed by the roar of the machinery. To this part of my education I owe my present power of completely abstracting the mind from surrounding noises, so as to read and write with perfect comfort amid. the play of children, or near the dancing and songs of savages. The toil of cotton-spinning, to which I was promoted in my nineteenth year, was excessively severe on a slim, loose-jointed lad, but it was well paid for; and it enabled me to support myself while attending medical and Greek classes in Glasgow in winter, as also the divinity lecture of Dr. Wardlow, by working with my hands in summer. I never received a farthing of aid from any one, and should have accomplished my project of going to China as a medical missionary, in the course of time, by my own efforts, had not some friends advised my joining the London Missionary Society, on account of its perfectly unsectarian character. It "sends neither Episcopacy, nor Presbyterianism, nor Independency, but the gospel of Christ to the heathen." This exactly agreed with my ideas of what a missionary Society ought to do; but it was not without a pang that I offered myself, for it was not quite agreeable to one accustomed to work his own way to become in a measure dependent on others; and I would not have been much put about, though my offer had been rejected. |