From Here to Forever

A Striking Fulfillment of Prophecy

This prophecy received a striking fulfillment in the history of France during the Revolution, in 1793. “France stands apart in the world's history as the single state which, by the decree of her Legislative Assembly, pronounced that there was no God, and of which the entire population of the capital, and a vast majority elsewhere, women as well as men, danced and sang with joy in accepting the announcement.”¹ HF 168.5

France presented also the characteristics which distinguished Sodom. The historian presents together the atheism and the licentiousness of France: “Intimately connected with these laws affecting religion, was that which reduced the union of marriage—the most sacred engagement which human beings can form, and the permanence of which leads most strongly to the consolidation of society—to the state of a mere civil contract of a transitory character, which any two persons might engage in and cast loose at pleasure. ... Sophie Arnoult, an actress famous for the witty things she said, described the republican marriage as ”the sacrament of adultery.’”² HF 168.6