Page 35 - 15 The Bible and the French Revolution

authority. But unhappy France prohibited the

Bible and banned its disciples. Century after

century, men of principle and integrity, men

of intellectual acuteness and moral strength,

who had the courage to avow their

convictions and the faith to suffer for the

truth—for centuries these men toiled as

slaves in the galleys, perished at the stake, or

rotted in dungeon cells. Thousands upon

thousands found safety in flight; and this

continued for two hundred and fifty years

after the opening of the Reformation.

“Scarcely was there a generation of

Frenchmen during the long period that did

not witness the disciples of the gospel fleeing

before the insane fury of the persecutor, and

carrying with them the intelligence, the arts,

the industry, the order, in which, as a rule,

they pre-eminently excelled, to enrich the