The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism by Ernest Naville
page 106 of 262 (40%)
page 106 of 262 (40%)
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We passed the Rhine in order to penetrate into Germany, let us now cross the British Channel, and observe what is going on in England. England, at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, was the principal centre of irreligion. France gave the patent of European circulation to ideas which proceeded in part from this foreign source. An active propaganda for the diffusion of impious and immoral writings had been established in Great Britain. A strong reaction set in, and, dating from the year 1698, we see formed various societies having for their object the diffusion of good books and respectable journals.[68] These efforts were crowned with success. England, by its zeal in the work of Missions, by its sacrifices for the diffusion of the Holy Scriptures, and by its respect for the Lord's-day,[69] assumed[70] the characteristic marks of a Christian nation. Grand measures adopted in the interests of liberty and humanity, placed it at the same time at the head of a seriously philanthropic civilization; but as Père Gratry has remarked, "more than in any other people, there are in the English people the old man and the new."[71] The strange contrasts which are presented by the political action of this double-people are found also in the productions of its thought, in which, while the spirit of piety is displayed full of life, the spirit of irreligion is also manifested with terrible energy. A book is instanced, of materialistic tendency,[72] published in 1828, of which a popular edition was printed with a view to extend the opinions which it advocated. There was sold of this edition, in a short time, more than eighty thousand copies. A thoughtful writer, Mr. Pearson, mentions a statistical statement, according to which English publications, openly atheistical, reached, in the year 1851, a total of six hundred and forty thousand copies.[73] |
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