The War Upon Religion Part 4

Par. Lost, Bk. I.

Born in Paris of a mother whose loose morals made her a by-word to all who knew her, he imbibed at her breast that appet.i.te for lawlessness and iniquity which ruled him to the last hour. His mother dying during his infancy, he became the protege of an abbe who had abandoned the duties of his sacred calling for the allurements of the world. In his boyhood he was sent to the Jesuit school of Louis le Grand, where the perversity of his character manifested itself to such an extent that one of his teachers prophesied that he would one day become the coryphee of deism.

Thereafter his career was one of unlicensed depravity. More than once he was arrested and cast into prison; he had reason to hate the Bastille, for he himself had experienced the life of a criminal therein.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VOLTAIRE.]

That writer was not far wrong who a.s.serted that irreligion is but one form of the insanity which is born of immoral living. It is remarkable in the anti-Christian literature of all times, and of none more than our own, that its heroes and heroines are the abandoned roues and harlots who, having defiled the temples of their own bodies, seek to carry the abomination of desolation into the holy places of G.o.d. In this matter Voltaire was no exception. His immoral life was lived ostentatiously and boastingly. We will not, however, enter upon a list of the criminal observances of this man, preferring to leave such details to their proper place. It will be sufficient to point out the purpose that underlay all the actions and words of his life. This purpose is best indicated by citations from his letters and other written works.

His hatred for the Church and for morality is clearly displayed in the works that he gave forth during the later years of his life. In his _Age of Louis XIV._, a work that has been made an obligatory text book in the educational establishments subject to the University of France, we find pa.s.sages full of insinuations and falsehoods directed against the Holy See. "The Pope's spiritual authority," he says, "is now destroyed and abhorred in one-half of Christendom; and if in the other half he is regarded as a father, he has children who sometimes properly and successfully resist him." Again he a.s.serts: "To swear fidelity to any other than one's own sovereign is high treason in a layman; in the cloister it is an act of religion." He terms the Pope "the foreign sovereign." His _Pucelle_ is a diabolical attempt to besmirch the pure character of Joan of Arc. It was a work, however, which excited so much disgust in all circles that Voltaire endeavored at first to disclaim it, and it was many years before the whole poem could venture forth with his authorization. The high society that could welcome its foetid pages was already ripe for the horrors of the Revolution.

From 1760 to the end of his life Voltaire a.s.sumed as his motto the impious expression: _Ecra.s.sez l'infame_, "crush the infamous thing,"

intending thereby to indicate Christ and His Church. Throughout all these years the term appears constantly in his own and his disciples'

letters. How he revels in his insane and satanic hatred, hardly finding words that can fitly convey his utter aversion for the things of G.o.d!

The Christian religion he proclaims "an abominable hydra, a monster which a hundred hands must destroy." He bids the philosophers scour the streets to destroy it "as missionaries journey over land and sea to propagate it." He bids them dare everything even to being burned in order to destroy Christianity. Again he calls upon his fawning admirers to annihilate Christianity, to hunt it down, to vilify it, to ruin it.

The perusal of his works leaves one with the impression that Voltaire was constantly troubled with a nightmare, in the effort to free himself from which he emitted his lugubrious wailings.

In 1778 the mob of Paris united to crown him at the Theatre Francais.

Referring to these manifestations the impious one wrote: "My entry into Paris was more triumphant than that of Jesus into Jerusalem." The further work of Voltaire was in accordance with expressions like these.

His intimacy with Frederic II., of Prussia afforded the blasphemer many opportunities of indulging his satanic impulses. Among the anti-Christian sophists who made the Palace of Berlin their rendezvous was a school of Freemasons who had already begun to celebrate the final downfall of the Papacy. For the more rapid realization of this hope various expedients were advocated, among them being the pet resort of irreligious tyrants,--the abolition of the monastic orders, a project which found its foremost exponent in Voltaire.

Such was the man to whom anti-Christianism looks up, as to its great and original patriarch, a man utterly devoid of the human moral sense, a man to whom all that savored of the good or virtuous was an abomination and a thing of infamy, a man whose methods of deceit are expressed in his own words: "Lying is a vice only when it harms. You ought to lie like the devil, not timidly or once only, but boldly, and all the time. Lie, lie! my friends, and some of it will be sure to stick." From his works anti-Christianism took the chief formulas of its creed, and following in the footsteps of its master, it has performed deeds worthy of his approbation.

Close in line with the irreligion of Voltaire was the work of Denis Diderot, the founder of the infamous _Encyclopaedia_, a huge ma.s.s of calumny against the religion of Christ, abounding in falsification of history, in doctrines inviting to immorality of life and subversion of all lawfully const.i.tuted authority. The poison of the _Encyclopaedia_ was quickly a.s.similated by the aristocratic element of Paris. At first the salons, those rendezvous of the higher cla.s.ses, took up the work, and by their discussions gave it a tone. It was highly acceptable to a social order, at that time immoral and impious to a degree; but its venom gradually overflowed to the ma.s.ses, ever eager to imitate the excesses of the great.

The efforts of the leaders of irreligion were ably seconded by the various systems that arose towards the close of the eighteenth century, as so many developments of Deism and the wors.h.i.+p of nature. The Sensationalists, under the tutelage of La Metrie, Condillac, Helvetius, and Holback, would make of man a mere machine, more ingeniously organized than the brutes; thought was reduced to a mere physical operation of the human body; hence the negation of the spiritual world, the spiritual soul, and the hope of immortality. The Rationalists in Germany led to disbelief in the inspiration and authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. Pantheism, Agnosticism, Idealism, and a thousand and one like branches of error, sprang forth from the revolt of the earlier sophists, all contributing their part to inflame and destroy the souls of men, and leading them on by sure steps to final anarchy. The very multiplicity of such sophistic theories, arising amidst the darkness of anti-Christian night, like the constantly changing figures in a kaleidoscope, were but the ghosts of a hideous phantasmagoria, that, scarcely seen, resolved themselves into something more strange and more appalling. It was the gathering of the spirits of iniquity for the grand a.s.sault upon the City of G.o.d.

_FREEMASONRY._

Prominent among the subversive forces of the eighteenth century was that of Freemasonry and its kindred a.s.sociations. As to its real origin but little is known. The modern order seems to have taken its rise in England in the year 1717, its first const.i.tution appearing in 1723. The new a.s.sociation spread with remarkable rapidity over the Continent, founding its lodges in Berlin, Leipzig, Brunswick, Naples, Paris, and other places, before the middle of the century. On its first appearance it was denounced as subversive of government, and as a peril to the social order. The members of which it was composed were men of evil omen, Voltaire, Condorcet, Volney, Laland, Mirabeau, Frederic II., and the like. Pope Clement XII., in his Const.i.tution, _In Eminenti_, of 1738, condemned the order. Thereby all who should join a Masonic lodge, a.s.sist at any Masonic a.s.sembly, or have any connection with the sect, were _ipso facto_ excommunicated. Benedict XIV., in 1751, issued the Bull, _Provides_, renewing the decrees of his predecessor, and giving many cogent reasons for his act.

The deep secrecy which involved all the operations of regular Freemasonry in the eighteenth century was not so closely guarded in one of the independent forms of its spirit, known as the Society of the Illuminati. The founder of this order was Adam Weishaupt, a professor of ecclesiastical law at Ingolstadt. The end of this secret society, and the purpose which was to dominate it, was clearly the overthrow of all existing social and religious inst.i.tutions. The statutes exacted from the members a blind obedience. Instead of works of devotion, prayer-books and the lives of the saints, it prescribed for its devotees the works of the ancient pagan authors or modern books of a similar description; its books of religion comprised such t.i.tles as: _The System of Nature_ and the works of Rousseau.

The new order gained many disciples even among the crowned heads, who were slow to perceive that the very spirit of the organization was centred in hatred of the throne as well as of religion. As soon as the real nature and purposes of the _Illuminati_ became known, efforts were at once made by the civil authorities for their suppression. In this they were aided greatly by the inevitable dissensions introduced into the order in the course of time. In 1784 all secret societies, communities, and confraternities, were prohibited in Bavaria. In 1785 Weishaupt was expelled from Ingolstadt, and after many wanderings finally found refuge with the Duke of Saxe-Gotha. Before his death he had the good fortune to repent and was reconciled with the Church. The order, everywhere fallen into disfavor, was gradually either disbanded, or incorporated into the other forms of the Masonry of the times. Its influence, however, like that of Freemasonry, remained, and was exerted with great vigor in the unhappy events that began in the year 1789.

_NEO-PAGANISM._

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the youth of Europe, and especially of France, educated to admire merely natural virtue, enamored of the ideal beauty and of the political and civil inst.i.tutions of other times, found in their schools a spirit of paganism. Little in touch with the true spirit of Christianity, it was easily led by the glamor of resounding phrases and cla.s.sical figures. These cla.s.sical studies, in which the excellent and virtuous teachers of the time found only literary and philological exercises, became through the evil influence of outside doctrinaires a subtle poison to the young mind, and brought to a point that rage for pagan antiquity which formed one of the most dangerous and misleading features of anti-Christianism.

From the time of the Reformation heterodoxy had sought its weapons in antiquity, whose uncertainty and obscurity could easily provide material for the desolating revolt against Christian authority. Machiavelli had already denounced modern Christianity as the cause of popular and national decadence; politicians lost themselves in adoration of the Greeks and Romans; to the sophists everything was grand and n.o.ble, in as far as it was pagan, everything was barbarous in as far as it receded from the ancient type. It was one of the methods of the war of impiety: anti-Christianism had need of antiquity as a mantle to cover its emptiness: it felt it must needs seek aid in the names of celebrated pagans, and thus strengthened, it might dare to abandon the Christian era, and take refuge around a Roman or Greek civilization resurrected and placed in a position of honor. Cla.s.sical education unconsciously aided in this mode of warfare, and while the school teacher, with the best of intentions in the world, taught his pupils to admire the great beauties of the cla.s.sical authors, without attending to the false principles and doctrines, intended for a social order entirely different from the Christian, there were not wanting those who profited by these studies to lead the pupil to a love of the pagan philosophy therein contained. By their efforts the Roman and Greek world was held up as the only condition that could provide true happiness, the only political society worthy of man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOUIS XV.]

Throughout the whole reign of Louis XV. this mania for paganism invaded every part of society, so that when Louis XVI. ascended the throne, he found it dominant not only in literature, but in art and in life itself.

It was reflected in the corruption of the Court, in the sensual epicurism of the people, in the very manners of those whose ecclesiastical dignity ought to lead to more modern types of excellence.

The hope of a return to the conditions of pagan Rome and Greece was one of the saddest hallucinations of the new anti-Christianism.

CHAPTER II.

The French Revolution of 1789.

All the various forces indicated in the preceding chapter came together in one appalling union towards the year 1789, forming a veritable cauldron seething with malign influences. An unhappy public opinion had been created, "a power vague and terrible, born of the confusion of all interests, strong in its opposition to every power, constantly caressed by princes who feared it, and feared by those who pretended to defy it."

The ma.s.ses of France, provoked by the arbitrary government of Louis XIV., angered by the feeble and scandalous rule of Louis XV., broke out into license and destruction under the gentle and paternal administration of Louis XVI. The latter monarch had come into an inheritance vitiated by the extravagances and follies of his predecessors; with all the virtues and n.o.ble characteristics of a sincere Christian and refined gentleman, he was destined to bear the punishment for the sins of his fathers. He had long foreseen the hastening storm, and trembled before its coming. The exhausted state of the treasury and the diminution of credit gave the excuse for demands of the most far-reaching extent. The n.o.bility, regarding the situation with indifference, remained inert before the approaching ruin of the social order. Unwilling to be disturbed in their round of pleasure, they permitted the evil to grow until the very moment of the crisis.

The royal government betrayed its weakness when it convoked the States General, which held its first session on May 5, 1789. It was an a.s.sembly const.i.tuted of the three cla.s.ses of the French nation--the n.o.bility, the clergy, and the common people. Of its 1148 members, the Third Estate was represented by 598; there were 308 members of the clergy, of whom forty-four were bishops, 205 cures, fifty-two abbes or canons, and seven religious; the remaining 242 comprised the representatives of the n.o.ble cla.s.s. The States General was an event of rare occurrence in French history, and was called together only in the most extreme crises of the State. It was now nearly two centuries (1615) since a gathering of a similar nature had been convoked, and from its unusual character and the gravity of its purpose much was expected on all sides. In the heat of its first debates, and in the rancor aroused in the public mind through the foolish and humiliating etiquette of the aristocratic elements, a strong sentiment of hostility made itself manifest between the people and their former masters. The popular element was conscious of its power, and made it felt almost from the beginning: in the s.p.a.ce of a few months it was master of the situation: it had inaugurated a revolution before which the court, the n.o.bility, the clergy, and every order that stood for law and decency went down in ruin. With the political phases of this great crisis we are not particularly concerned at present; the religious aspects of the conflict will suffice for our consideration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEETING OF THE STATES GENERAL.]

_CONFISCATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY._

On the night of August 4, 1789, the privileged cla.s.ses abandoned their feudal rights, and the clergy renounced their t.i.tles, and the offerings usual at baptisms, marriages, and funerals. This sacrifice, however, did not suffice to appease the revolutionary spirits, and on August 6th, the right of the clergy to hold property was called into question for the first time. It was then that Buzot p.r.o.nounced that phrase which was soon to re-echo through the halls of the a.s.sembly: "The property of the clergy belongs to the nation."

On October 10, Talleyrand, the Bishop of Autun, so soon to become an apostate and indefatigable persecutor of the Church, returned to the charge. After a fawning address to the popular pa.s.sions he concluded in proposing a law whose first article declared that "the revenues and property of the clergy are at the disposition of the nation," with the condition that the State should recompense the ministers of wors.h.i.+p with a suitable salary, which should be solemnly recognized as a public debt.

The project of Talleyrand was espoused with fierce eloquence by Mirabeau and became a law on Nov. 2, 1789, framed in these terms:

"The National a.s.sembly decrees: First. That all ecclesiastical property is at the disposition of the nation which charges itself with providing in a suitable manner for the expenses of wors.h.i.+p, the maintenance of its ministers, and the relief of the poor, subject to the surveillance and according to the instructions of the provinces. Second. That in the dispositions to be made for the maintenance of the ministers of religion, there shall be a.s.sured every cure a payment of not less than 1,200 livres a year, not including his house and garden."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TALLEYRAND.]

On April 9, 1790, Cha.s.set demanded the actual confiscation of all ecclesiastical property, a motion that was voted a law on April 14th following. The possessions of the clergy, valued at $400,000,000, were then put up at auction, and sold to speculators at prices that at once betrayed the venal spirit of the agitators. Indignant protests went up on all sides against a sacrilege whose effect could be nothing less than the destruction of religion; but all efforts to stay the action were unavailing.

_PERSECUTION Of THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS._

The religious orders have ever been the object of peculiar hatred on the part of all that stands for anti-Christianism. Their close identification with the best interests of the Church, and the exemplification in their life of that evangelical perfection to which the whole doctrine of Christ invites, became a crime in the eyes of a generation delivered up to lawlessness, and the slavery of pa.s.sion. It was only natural, therefore, that the impious spirit of 1789 should fasten its fangs upon this order of men and women and do them to death.

The laws of the time tell the story very graphically. A decree of October 28, 1789, suspended the taking of monastic vows. The monastic orders were suppressed by a decree of February 13, 1790:

Article 1. The const.i.tutional law of the realm shall no longer recognize solemn monastic vows of either s.e.x; in consequence the orders and regular corporations in which such vows are taken are and will remain suppressed in France, nor may they be again established in the future.

Article 2. All individuals of either s.e.x living in monasteries and religious houses, may leave such houses by making a declaration before the munic.i.p.ality of the place, and they shall receive a suitable pension. Houses shall also be indicated to which all religious men who do not desire to profit by the present disposition shall be obliged to retire.

For the present there shall be no change in regard to houses charged with public education and establishments of charity, until measures have been taken for that purpose.

On March 11, 1791, a law was pa.s.sed abolis.h.i.+ng the monastic habit. On July 31, of the same year, all religious houses were declared for sale.

On August 7, 1792, a new decree declares that the pension accorded to religious shall be granted to such as should marry, or who have abandoned or shall abandon their monasteries. On August 12, 1792, a decree orders the evacuation before October 1, following, and the sale of "all houses as yet actually occupied by religious men or women,"

excepting such as are consecrated to the service of hospitals or establishments of charity.

On August 18, 1792, a decree was pa.s.sed suppressing "the corporations known in France under the name of secular ecclesiastical congregations, such as the priests of the Oratory of Jesus, of Christian Doctrine, of the Mission of France, of St. Lazare, etc., etc., and generally all religious corporations of men and women, ecclesiastical or lay, even those devoted only to the service of hospitals and the relief of the sick, under whatever denomination they may exist in France." All such persons, however, were authorized to continue their care of the poor and sick, "but only as individuals, and under the surveillance of the munic.i.p.al and administrative bodies, until the definitive organization which the Committee on Aid shall present as soon as possible to the National a.s.sembly. Those who shall continue their services in houses indicated by the directories of departments shall receive only a part of the salary which would have been accorded them. All irremovable property of such societies shall be put on sale, except colleges still open in 1789 which may be utilized for seminaries. Pensions shall be accorded all members of the suppressed societies on condition that they take the oath of fidelity to the nation, of maintaining liberty and equality, and of being ready to die in its defence."

_THE CIVIL CONSt.i.tUTION._

The defenders of the Revolution take great pains to demonstrate that the object of the earlier laws was not anti-Christian or subversive of religion, alleging that the spirit of demolition appeared only after and because of the hostile att.i.tude of the Church. One has only to read the speeches in the National a.s.sembly, and the early laws emanating therefrom, to perceive the hypocritical nature of such a.s.surances. The spirit of Voltaire is evident from the first day of the States General, and its tactics of falsehood and deception mark every stage of revolutionary progress until the end. The pretext of establis.h.i.+ng a national church is a fact in evidence, whereby under the pretence of safeguarding the liberties of Catholics in France, an effort was made to uproot all idea of religion from the minds of the people. The signal for the opening of such a perversive campaign was the pa.s.sing of that iniquitous law to which was given the name of the Civil Const.i.tution of the Clergy.