[146] The terrible scenes just enacted, and even now enacting, in Paris, almost seem to contradict my words concerning mercy in war, words written and even printed before Paris was burned and wasted. But let us remember that eighty years ago France threw away its Christianity, and took Atheism for its creed; that in the last fifty years it has been slowly and painfully recovering its faith; that Paris has been the centre of the unbelief of Europe; that so, a large portion of its inhabitants have grown up utterly without religion; that, according to a friendly witness, "the people of Paris believe not in any God, nor in any man;"[147] or, according to another statement, "the Communists acknowledge no God, no man, no faith, no hope, nothing but better wages and more pleasure;"[148] that the chief perpetrators of the horrors of the past week not only abhorred Christianity, but murdered priests, only because they were ministers of Christ, and proclaimed Atheism and Materialism to be the very basis of their theory, both in politics and in life. There is nothing to surprise us when we find that those who deliberately cast off religion and humanity, faith in God, and faith in man, fall lower than those who are simply ignorant of the true principles of either. Atheists in the midst of faith are very likely to be much worse than heathens.
[147] Fortnightly Review, quoted in Times, May 31, 1871.
[148] Times, May 31, 1871.
[149] Maclear's "History of the Christian Missions in the Middle Ages," p. 417. Macmillan, 1863.
[150] "Ecce Homo," p. 71. Second edition, 1866.
[151] Platon. Symposium. Steph. iii., 220.
[152] Midway stands Anselm, the father of modern metaphysics, with the scientific demonstration of the two fundamental truths of all religion, the existence of God and the Incarnation.
[153] Pascal, "Fragmens d'une Apologie du Christianisme," in the 2nd vol. of "Pensées du Blaise Pascal." Paris, 1814.
[154] Luthardt (Apologetische Vorträge, in two parts), presents in a form peculiarly adapted for general readers, a very complete survey both of the internal and external evidences. Steinmeyer, Apologetische Vorträge, in three parts, discusses the historical evidence for the miracles, the death and the resurrection of our Lord, with special reference to the latest criticisms. Delitzsch's System der Christlichen Apologetik is of a more exclusively philosophical and dogmatic character. It has been reviewed in the Studien u. Kritiken, by Dr. Sack, of Bonn, whose own work, Christliche Apologetik, 1841, is one of the best on the whole subject of evidences.
[155] It is well known that both Jews and Gentiles admitted that the works were wrought, though they denied that the power came from God. Superstition, then as ever, opposed the faith of which it is the counterfeit.