Meanwhile the infidel machinators had chosen their ground at leisure, and were wrought to the highest pitch of energy by a confident, and, as it might seem, a well-founded hope of success. They were backed by the secret wishes, or the undissembled cheerings of almost the entire body of educated men throughout Europe. They used the only language then common to the civilized world, and a language which might be imagined to have been framed and finished designedly to accomplish the demolition of whatever was grave and venerated; a language, beyond any other, of raillery, of insinuation, and of sophistry; a language of polished missiles, whose temper could penetrate not only the cloak of imposture, but the shield of truth. At the same portentous moment the shocks and upheavings of political commotion opened a thousand fissures in the ancient structure of moral and religious sentiment; and the enemies of Christianity, surprised by unexpected success, rushed forward to achieve, as they thought, an easy triumph. The firmest and the wisest friends of old opinions desponded, and many believed that a few years would see Atheism the universal doctrine of the western nations, as well as military despotism the only form of government. It is difficult to imagine a single advantage that was lacking to the promoters of infidelity, or a single circumstance of peril and ill-omen that was not present to deepen the gloom of the friends of religion. The actual issue of that signal crisis is before our eyes in the freshness of a recent event. Christianity—we ask not whether for the benefit or the injury of the world—has triumphed; the mere fact is all that concerns our argument. But shall it be said, or if said, believed, that the late resurrection of the religion of the Bible has been managed in the cabinets of monarchs? Have kings and emperors given this turn to public opinion, which now compels infidelity to hide its shame behind the very mask of hypocrisy that it had so lately torn from the face of the priest? To come home to facts with which all must be familiar: Has there not been heard, within the last few years, from the most enlightened, the most sober-minded, and the freest people of Europe, a firm, articulate, spontaneous, and cordial expression of preference, and of enhanced veneration towards Christianity? Again, then, we ask—not if this religion be true, but if it have not, even beneath our own observation, given proof of indestructible vigor?