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April 14, 1909. THE PRESBYTERL
Contributed
THE OUTLOOK OF RELIGION IN FRANCE.
This statement, you will note, is amongst the "proverbs."
It is proverbially true. Where there is no vision
the people must perish. "Vision" here is equivalent
to prophecy in its widest sense?the revelation of God's
will to men.
ine worus propnecy" and "prophet" are not usually
received by us in their primary significance or in the
sense in which they are commonly used in the scriptures.
We speak of a prophet as one who foretells future
events, but literally a prophet is one who speaks
for another. Thus Christ Jesus is our Great Prophet.
Jonah was a prophet when he obeyed the command,
"Go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the
preaching that I bid thee." Peter was also a prophet
and so accepted by Cornelius, when he fulfilled his mission
after Cornelius said to him, "Now therefore, we
are all here present, before God, to hear all things that
are commanded thee of God." The revelation of an
cient times was not continuous and uninterrupted, but
came at intervals, between which there was at times
great darkness. It was so in the days of Eli, as we see
in I Sam. 3: 1. And under Asa's reign, 2 Chron. 15:3,
and in the days of Ahaz.
We see the importance of prophecy in regulating the
lives and the religion of men and nations. The fearful
result is not affected by the occasion of the lack of vision.
Where there is no vision the people perish, wheth
er the people have put the vision from them, or the vision
has been kept from them by others.
There are lessons just here for us in the study of the
Watchman on the walls of the city as Ezekiel tells us
in 33: 1-6. We therefore who have the vision are to
give it to others who have not. "Ye are my witnesses,
saith the Lord." "Go ye," said our Lord, "into all the
world and preach the gospel." This truth is further set
forth in Romans 10: 13-15. The church of the Lord
Jesus must be evangelistic, if it is anything. If it
ceases to be evangelistic, as has been repeatedly observed,
it will cease to be evangelical, and if not evangelical,
it is anything else than a witness of the pure
gospel.
A striking illustration of this truth is seen in the contrast
between the people of France and those of Britain,
just across the narrow channel, or between the
cities r\( O - - - ? r"' ~
- xmib unu Oiasgow. i nere is probably no
where to be found a more honest, upright and generally
wholesome municipal government, than that of Glas-1
gow, and the contrast between the spirituality and general
welfare of its citizens and the condition, civil and
religious, of Paris, is as proverbial as the text, well
nigh. The motto of Glasgow is, "Let Glasgow flourish
by the preaching of the Word," and Glasgow has flourished
by the preaching of the Word, while in France
the preaching of the Word is well nigh unknown.
France has been the ground of many and most remarkable
changes for years past, and lately it has witnessed
what has been denominated the most momentous event
f
\N OF THE SOUTH. 7
in its history since the days of the Revolution, not excepting
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes or the
passing of the Concordat in 1806.
On the 12th of December, 1905, the union of church
and state was broken, and the church in all its branches
was cast upon its own resources. The results of the
disestablishment are said to be of the most serious nature
to all concerned. The Roman Catholic church of
France, which for ages has shown its great loyalty to
f lio Pnmnn t 1 **11 4-1- * 1 - *'1 * * *
iwuio.1 x uiuiii, iusi an me support nunerio received
from the government, some 4,000,000 pounds sterling
annually, and in consequence of the Pope's "non possumus"
attitude, in opposition to the majority of the
French bishops and archbishops assembled in council,
they have lost all their church property. They have .
lost their vested funds, amounting to something like
$100,000,000 capital. They have lost all their churches,
which they can use, but no more own; their income
from the celebration of masses for the dead is denied
them, and their fees from baptismal, marriage and funeral
ceremonies.
The small body of Protestants also lost their annual
income from the government, of about 80,000 pounds
tx ?:j ^1- - * i- - - *
siciiiug. xl is Sciimat irom a pecuniary point ot view
the losses of the Roman Catholics have been nothing
short of a disaster. But great as this material loss has
been, the moral harm done to the cause of the church
by the Pope's decision, is considered even greater.
"There cannot be the slightest doubt that the sovereign
pontiff's interference in a question which was pre-eminently
French, and the obligation laid down by him,
has been resented by a large number of the most intelligent,
the most cultured and influential lay members
of the church, to say nothing of the clergy." Says one
who writes from a sympathetic standpoint, "But worse
even than the dissatisfaction and estrangement among
the sincere Catholics, has been the feeling that has got
abroad among the masses of the people, that on account
of the rejection of a law that deprived them of no essential.
liberty, the Roman church is decidedly a thing of
the past and that she is unable to adapt herself to the
necessities of the present, and to the democratic aspirations
of a great republic.
We can scarcely think of France from a religious
standpoint and not think of Romanism. It has been
the favored garden of the Pope for generations past.
But in the wonderful changes going on there, the question
is a pertinent one, Is France today a Roman Catholic
country? A Roman Catholic priest, Abbe X, writing
in the "Avant Garde" (February 15, 1906), answers
the question. He says: "France is no more Catholic.
There are in France a few thousands of pious souls,
some thousands more have religious habits, or rather,
habits of worship; but the masses are irreligious. They
are detached and forever from Catholicism. There is
no hope of a conquest of the French people by Rome.
That religious restoration is as impossible as that of
the Bourbon or Napoleonic monarchy. To be sure of
this one need only to consider with what placid indifference
the people of France ha^e accepted the Disestablishment
of the Churches. It is finished; it is better
so. We Roman Catholics have abused public credulity,
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