IN CHURCH HISTORY. Iiy 



their issue in that awful reign of terror known asr 

 the French Revolution. Then it was that blood 

 ran as water, and the very foundations of society 

 were upheaved. Plunder, desolation, massacre 

 and famine followed in rapid succession, and 

 Fiance reaped the whirlwind which her infidel 

 philosophers had sown. The monasteries were sup- 

 pressed, the clergy were either put to death or 

 driven away, and the very names of religion and of 

 religious things were discarded. 



It was inaugurated as a reign of reason, but men 

 soon saw that it meant sorrow and death. Never 

 was there a period of such awful wickedness and 

 violence as during the years of this carnival of crime, 

 when the restraints of religion were thrown off, and 

 men became more like fiends than men. It was a 

 sad day for the Church, and although there came a 

 reaction, yet never has France recovered from the 

 fearful effects of that terrible revolution. Doubt- 

 less a pure Church would have prevented or 

 allayed the outbreak, but the Church in France 

 was not pure, and her superstitions were punished 

 with fearful retribution. 



It would be a lorg story to trace out fully the 

 history of Romanism in modern days, to tell of the 

 introduction of new errors, to recount how, step by 

 step, the temporal power of the papacy has been 

 waning, and how desperate have been the efforts 

 to regain its supremacy orer the affairs of men and 



