Nations Without God

“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all nations that forget God.”— Psa. 9:17.
The turbulent classes in Paris, and other great cities of the world are distinctly anti-religious, and in this fact I am satisfied we have the secret of their unrest and their unreason. It was the same before the great Revolution in France. The people of 1789-90 rejected the Christian religion, they mocked its Divine founder, they exalted a painted actress as the goddess of reason, and wrote on their cemetery gates, “Death is an eternal sleep.” And what was the result? The reign of unbelief produced the reign of terror. A reign of destruction followed such as has not been experienced by any modern nation. For 420 days the guillotine did its work, and more than 4,020 heads rolled from its block, whilst the women of Paris sat by and put a red stitch into their knitting at each drop of the ax, that in the evening they might reckon up the number of those who had fallen victims during the day. Are we on the eve of a repetition of 1789? May I ask the prayers of all who read these words that it may not be so, that He who rules the raging of the sea, and the madness of the people, may save France from the horrors of another revolution?
May we in England, by Christ-like living and Christ-like work, especially among the young today, seek to preserve our country from the horrors of Revolution. The unbelief of England is crying to God for judgment as a nation, by our desecration of the Lord’s Day, and our denial of all the great truths of Christianity we are storing up wrath that will not long be restrained. Revolution or Revival, it must be one or the other.
Never before in the history of the world was there such chaos and confusion, such anarchy and lawlessness. The French Revolution has paled into insignificance beside the experiences of Russia, Poland, Armenia and other lands. Lecky, the historian, says the French Revolution was certainly on its way to this country when the great Evangelical Revival broke out, and the salvation of England was due to this wave of God’s power upon the land. “The question in everyone’s mind now is, Shall England be again spared the horrors of a revolution such as is now raging abroad? Those who know something about the condition of the present unrest, not only amongst the laboring class, but amongst the police and the troops, declare that there is a deep ferment of revolt working in an undercurrent that might burst forth at any moment, and that the gravest period of our island history will be during the next six months.” Hence the urgent need of prayer—importunate, prevailing prayer—that God may again graciously intervene with a real spiritual revival. That is the only remedy for the danger that threatens us.