Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. VVarious
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVI, July 1852, Vol. V
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
were struck with the precision, the vigor, and the loftiness of his
language. By universal consent his speech was pronounced to be
eloquent in the highest degree. But those philosophers, who regarded
it as the great glory of the revolution, that all superstition, by
which they meant all religion, was swept away, in sullen silence
yielded to a power which they could not resist. The people, the
millions of France, were with Napoleon.
The following liberal and noble sentiments were uttered in the
proclamation by which Napoleon announced the Concordat to the French
people: "An insane policy has sought, during the revolution, to
smother religious dissensions under the ruins of the altar, under the
ashes of religion itself. At its voice all those pious solemnities
ceased, in which the citizens called each other by the endearing name
of brothers, and acknowledged their common equality in the sight of
Heaven. The dying, left alone in his agonies, no longer heard that
consoling voice, which calls the Christian to a better world. God
Himself seemed exiled from the face of nature. Ministers of the
religion of peace, let a complete oblivion vail over your dissensions,
your misfortunes, your faults. Let the religion which unites you, bind
you by indissoluble cords to the interests of your country. Let the
young learn from your precepts, that the God of Peace is also the God
of Arms, and that He throws his shield over those who combat for the
liberties of France. Citizens of the Protestant Faith, the law has
equally extended its solicitude to your interests. Let the morality,
so pure, so holy, so brotherly, which you profess, unite you all in
love to your country, and in respect for its laws; and, above all,
never permit disputes on doctrinal points to weaken that universal
charity which religion at once inculcates and commands."
To foreign nations the spectacle of France, thus voluntarily returning
to the Christian faith, was gratifying in the highest degree. It
seemed to them the pledge of peace and the harbinger of tranquillity.
The Emperor of Russia, and the King of Prussia publicly expressed
their joy at the auspicious event. The Emperor of Austria styled it "a
service truly rendered to all Europe." The serious and devout, in all
lands, considered the voluntary return of the French people to
religion, from the impossibility of living without its precepts, as
one of the most signal triumphs of the Christian faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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