Doubtless, through the all-wise
dispensations of that Providence who bringeth good out of evil, this
fearful revolution has partly become, and will yet further become, the
occasion of the moral and social regeneration of Europe."[52]
The patriot saw his country degraded; but the Christian wept for his
absent faith. Rationalism was strongest when national humiliation was
deepest. These formed a fitting twinship. It is a scathing comment on
the influence of skepticism upon a people that, in general, the highest
feeling of nationality is coexistent with the devoutest piety. It is the
very nature of infidelity to deaden the emotions of patriotism, and that
country can hardly expect to prove successful if it engage in war while
its citizens are imbued with religious doubt. If lands are conquered, it
knows not how to govern them; if defeated, skepticism affords but little
comfort in the night of disaster. We do not attach a fictitious
importance to Rationalism when we say that it was the prime agent which
prevented the Germans from the struggle of self-liberation, and that the
victory of Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna would never have been
needed had those people remained faithful to the precedents furnished by
the Reformers.
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