Normal School, the great training institution of teachers for the North of France, applauded such conclusions in a public letter. Several of the infidel Professors of the Faculty of Medicine received ovations from crowded class-rooms; millions of immoral and irreligious books were scattered throughout the country. Thus Freemasonry, under the pretext of combating ignorance, wages a deceitful and implacable war against religion. "We too," says the organ of Freemasons,[E] "we too expect our Messiah, the true Messiah, of the mind and reason—universal education!"
"It is scarcely necessary for us to remind you, dearly beloved brethren, that the seeds of irreligion and anarchy thus sown broadcast over the fair face of France, have already produced a too abundant harvest of evils, perhaps the most disastrous recorded on the page of history. All Europe has been horrified by the atrocities perpetrated within the last few months in the name of liberty in that city, which was looked on as the centre of the civilization of the world. National monuments have been destroyed, peaceable citizens robbed and murdered, the venerable Archbishop, many of the clergy, and leading members of the civil and military authorities, massacred in cold blood. In other cities of France, too, we have seen anarchy and irreligion proclaimed—miscreants in arms against the property, and liberty, and lives of their fellow-citizens, often of the helpless and unprotected; and all this at a moment when the country was invaded, and a part of it occupied, by its enemies. The storm had been sown, and in very truth unfortunate France has reaped the whirlwind.
"SPREAD OF INFIDELITY THROUGH BAD EDUCATION NOT CONFINED TO FRANCE.
"And unhappily, dearly beloved brethren, the spread of infidel principles by means of bad education is not confined to France. A few years ago a congress of students was held in Liège, in Belgium, where infidel and anti-social principles in their worst form were proclaimed amidst the plaudits of the assembly. In England irreligion and socialism are publicly taught. Even in our own country it is a matter of notoriety, that a Chair in one of the Queen's Colleges has been occupied since their foundation by a gentleman, who, in a published work, extolled the first French revolution, and, in another place of the same book, compared our Saviour, whose name be praised forever, to Luther and to Mahomet! Again: In Trinity College one of the Fellows denies the fundamental truth of Christianity respecting the eternity of the punishment of sin; and others call in question the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, or of portions of them, and impugn many truths which constitute the foundation of all revealed religion. In the same University, too, the doctrines of Positivism, a late form of infidel philosophy, have a large number of followers. The nature of that philosophy may be gathered from the following passages in the 'Catechism of Positivism, or Summary Exposition of the Universal Religion,' translated from the French of Auguste Comte. The preface begins thus:
"'In the name of the past and of the future, the servants of humanity—both its philosophical and practical servants—come forward to claim, as their due, the general direction of this world. Their object is to constitute at length a real Providence in all departments—moral, intellectual, and material. Consequently they exclude, once for all, from political supremacy, all the different servants of God—Catholic, Protestant, or Deist—as being at once behind-hand and a cause of disturbance.'
"The work consists of 'Thirteen Systematic Conversations between a Woman and a Priest of Humanity,' and the doctrines contained in it are epitomized in the following blasphemous lines:
"'In a word, Humanity definitely occupies the place of God, but she does not forget the services which the idea of God provisionally rendered.'
"TESTIMONY OF REV. PROFESSOR LIDDON.
"Again, during the last two sessions of Parliament, a Select Committee of the House of Lords sat to inquire into the condition of the English Universities. The Marquis of Salisbury was the chairman. The evidence taken before that committee reveals the appalling fact that infidelity, or doubt as to the first principles of the Christian religion, nay, of belief in God, is wide-spread in the Universities of England, and especially among the most intellectual of the students; and that this sad result is due in a great measure to the teaching and examinations. In the first report for the session 1871, pp. 67, 69, and 70, in the evidence of the Rev. Professor Liddon, D.D., Canon of St. Paul's, London, and Professor of Exegesis in the University of Oxford, we find the following passages:
"Quest. 695. Chairman.—'Very strong evidence has been given to us upon the influence of the Final School' (the examination for degrees with honors) 'upon Oxford thought, as tending to produce at least momentary disbelief.'
"Witness.—'I have no doubt whatever it is one of the main causes of our present embarrassments.'
"696.—'That, I suppose, is a comparatively new phenomenon?'
"'Yes; it dates from the last great modification in the system pursued in the Honors School of literæ humaniores. It is mainly the one-sided system, as I should venture to call it, of modern philosophical writers.'
"697.—'Is there any special defect in the management which produces this state of things, or is it essential to the nature of the school?'
"'I fear it is to a great extent essential to the nature of the school, as its subjects are at present distributed.'
"Again, in answer to Question 706, the same witness says:
"'I ought to have stated to the noble Chairman just now that cases have come within my own experience of men who have come up from school as Christians, and have been earnest Christians up to the time of beginning to read philosophy for the Final School, but who, during the year and a half or two years employed in this study, have surrendered first their Christianity, and next their belief in God, and have left the University not believing in a Supreme Being.'"
Now what kind of a being is the infidel, or the man without religion? To have no religion is a crime, and to boast of having none is the height of folly. He that has no religion must necessarily lose the esteem and confidence of his friends. What confidence, I ask, can be placed in a man who has no religion, and, consequently, no knowledge of his duties? What confidence can you place in a man who never feels himself bound by any obligation of conscience, who has no higher motive to direct him than his self-love, his own interests? The pagan Roman, though enlightened only by reason, had yet virtue enough to say: "I live not for myself, but for the Republic"; but the infidel's motto is: "I live only for myself; I care for no one but myself." Oh, what a monster would such a man be in society were he really to think as he speaks, and to act as he thinks!
A man who has no religion, must first prove that he is honest before we can believe him to be so. It is said of kings and rulers, they must prove that they have a heart, and it may also be said of the man who has no religion, that he must prove that he has a conscience. And I fear he would not find it so easy a task.
A man without religion is a man without reason, a man without principle, a man sunk in the grossest ignorance of what religion is. He blasphemes what he does not understand. He rails at the doctrines of Christianity, without really knowing what these doctrines are. He sneers at the doctrines and practices of religion, because he cannot refute them. He speaks with the utmost gravity of the fine arts, the fashions, and even matters the most trivial, and he turns into ridicule the most sacred subjects. In the midst of his own circle of fops and silly women, he utters his shallow conceits with all the pompous assurance of a pedant.
The man without religion is a dishonest plagiarist, who copies from Christian writers all the objections made against the Church by the infidels of former and modern times; but he takes good care to omit all the excellent answers and complete refutations which are contained in these very same writings. His
