Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1881-10-24
8eligiuns Department.
WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS
DONE.

Reflect what kind of world this was
when the disciples of Christ undertook
to reform it, and compare it with the
condition in which their teachings have
put it. In its mighty metropolis, the
centre of its intellectual and political
power, the best men were addicted to
vices so debasing that | could not even
allude to them without soiling the paper
upon which | write. All manner of I'M
principled wickcdness was practised in
the private life Of the whole population
without concealment or shame, and the
magistrates we're thoroughly and univer-
sally corrupt Benevolence in any shape
was altogether unknown. The helpless
and the weak got neither justice nor
mercy. There was no relief for the
poor, no succor for the sick, no refuge
for the unfortunate. In all pagandom
there was not hospital asylum, aims
house, or organized charity of any sort.
The indifference to human life was liter
ally frightful. The order of success
full leader to assaSsinate his opponents
was always obeyed by his followers with
the utmost alacrity and pleasure. 1t
was a special amusement of the populace
to witness the shows at which men were
compelled to kill one another, to be torn
to pieces by wild beasts, or otherwise
"butchered, to make Roman holiday"
In every province paganism enacted the
same cold-bloOded cruelties; oppression
and robbery ruled supreme; murder
went rampaging and red over all the
earth. The church came, and her light
penetrated this moral darkness like
new sun. She covered the globe with
institutions of mercy, and thousands up
on thousands of her disciples devoted
themselves exclusively to works of char
ity at the sacrifice of every earthly in
terest. Her earliest adherents were
killed without remorse-beheaded, cru
cited, sawn asunder, thrown to the
beasts, or covered with pitch, piled up
in great heaps, and slowly burnt to
death. But her faith was made perfect
through suffering, and the law of love
rose in triumph from the ashes of her
martyrs. This religion has come down
to us through the ages, attended all the
way by righteousness, justice, temper
ance, mercy, transparent truthfulness,
exulting hope, and white-wlnged chart
ty. Never was its influence for good
more plainly perceptible than now. 1t
has not converted. purified and reformed
all men, for its first principle is the free
dom of the human will, and there are
those who choose to reject it. But to
the mass of mankind, directly and indi-
rectly, it has brought uncounted benefits
and blessings. Abolish it-take away
the restraint which it imposes on evil
passions-silence the admonitions of its
preachers, let all Christians cease their
labors of charity-blot out from history
the records of its heroic benevolence-
repeal the laws it has enacted and the
institutions it has built up-let its NOR
al principles be abandoned and all its
miracles of light be extinguished-what
would we come to? | need not answer
this question; the experiment has beer
partially tried. The French nation for
mally renowned Christianity, denieC
the existence of the Supreme Being, aGt
so satisfied the hunger of the in6de
heart for time. What followed? Uni
verSal depravity. garments rolled il
blood, fantastic crimes unimagined be
fore, which startled the earth with thei
sublime atrocity. The American people
have and ought to have no especial de
sire to follow that terrible example o
guilt and misery S. Black.