THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

“The passage leading to the Pit, changing as it does from a steep downward, to a horizontal, direction, evidently represents the fact that through the invention of the art of printing, and the work of the Reformation, the people in general have been awakened from their long slumber of ignorance and superstitious reverence for kings and clergy, and have secured liberty by means of which they have successfully fought many of the influences that were slowly but surely degrading them.

Thus the downward course of the world has been stayed, and men have begun fondly to dream that a great movement has been instituted which will eventuate in the uplift of the world.

Many schemes for social improvement have been devised and attempted, but they have hitherto met with only partial success. The great stumbling-block to their accomplishment is man’s imperfection. It has been found impossible to abolish insanity, disease, sin and death, and the reign of selfishness is manifested in the classes and the masses using their knowledge and liberty for their own self-aggrandizement, instead of obeying the golden rule and each seeking the general good of the community.

The most pronounced attempt in the direction of the social and political uplift was the French Revolution, which broke out in the year 1789 A.D., and soon after, under Napoleon, brought to an end the Papal millennial reign. Regarding this breaking of the sovereign power of Papacy at the French Revolution, and the liberty and freedom of conscience thereby gained, Thomas H. Gill says in his work The Papal Drama:

“In no work of the French Revolution is its retributive character more strikingly or solemnly apparent than in its dealings with the Roman Church and Papal power. It especially became France, which after so fierce a struggle had rejected the Reformation, and perpetrated such enormous crimes in the process of rejection, to turn its fury against that very Roman Church on whose behalf it had been so wrathful, to abolish Roman Catholic worship, to massacre multitudes of priests in the streets of her great towns, to hunt them down through her length and breadth, and to cast them by thousands upon a foreign shore, just as she had slaughtered, hunted down and driven into exile hundreds of thousands of Protestants…”.

“In one of its aspects the Revolution may be described as a reaction against the excesses, spiritual and religious, of the Roman Catholic persecution of Protestantism. No sooner had the torrent burst forth than it dashed against the Roman Church and Papacy. . . . The property of the Church was made over to the state; the French clergy sank from a proprietary to a salaried body; Protestants were raised to full religious freedom and political equality…”

“It was a sublime and perfect piece of retribution, which so amazed the world at the end of the eighteenth century; this proscription of the Roman Church by that very French Nation that slaughtered myriads of Protestants at her bidding; . . . and this overthrow of territorial Papacy by that very French Nation, which, just one thousand years ago, had, under Pepin and Charlemagne, conferred these territories [See the diagram above]. Multitudes imagined that the Papacy was at the point of death, and asked, would Pius VI be the last pontiff, and if the close of the eighteenth century would be signalized by the fall of the Papal dynasty [See pages 134, 135, “The Dominion Parallels”, Part 25 in our study]. But the French Revolution was the beginning, and not the end of the judgment; France had but begun to execute the doom.”

The French Revolution is represented in the Great Pyramid by the Recess in the Small Horizontal Passage which leads to the Pit. On measuring northward along the roof-line from the north wall of the Pit, symbolical of the final destruction, the north wall of the Recess is found to indicate the year 1789 A.D. From 1789 to 1915 A.D. is 126 years, and the theoretical, standard, distance between the north walls of the, Recess and Pit is 125.9031 + Pyramid inches.

While practical measuring at this rock-cut part of the Pyramid, as we explain in Section XXXV, gave a figure of about 126¾ British inches (126.623 Pyramid inches) when taken along the roof-line of the Small Horizontal Passage, it is possible that exfoliation of the wall surfaces during the many centuries since this little chamber was cut, will have increased the original dimensions to some extent. It will be correct to say, at all events, that as the line of the large Subterranean Chamber’s north wall marks the date 1914-1915 A.D., so the first inch at the north end of the little Recess represents the first year of the French Revolution, when the “tenth part of the city,” mystic Babylon the Great, misnamed Christendom, fell Rev 11:13; 17:5, 18. One would think that the ancient workmen had at first intended to hollow out the large Subterranean Chamber at this point, but afterwards had changed their original purpose, and pushed on the Small Horizontal Passage a few feet further south, before finally excavating that large apartment (See Vol. 1, Par. 304)

The Recess looks like a miniature Pit, except that in this case the roof, and not the floor, has been left in an unfinished condition. The Recess therefore represents the greater freedom of thought and liberty brought about by the French Revolution; but at the same time it foreshadows the great time of trouble, the beginning of which was to be delayed till the completion of the period of the “time of the end” (See page 134, once again “The Dominion Parallels”, Part 25 in our study).

Though the French Revolution helped to break down much of the ignorance and superstition which still clung to the people, and weakened the kingdoms of this world, it did not bring about the “desire of all nations,” good government with peace and contentment. On the contrary, the wonderful inventions which have resulted from greater knowledge and liberty are but increasing the wealth and luxury of the rich, while the poor are still wretched. Giant corporations and trusts have sprung into existence, which tend to grind the people down. There is a general feeling of unrest, and the widespread discontent is made apparent in the rapid rise of Socialism and Anarchy. Soon we may expect so great an upheaval that the Revolution of 1789 A.D. will by comparison appear insignificant.

Instructed by the Word of the Lord the people of God foresaw that the final upheaval would begin, chronologically, in the year 1914-1915 A.D., the date which is marked in a general way by the north wall of the Subterranean Chamber [We, therefore, wrote in the 1913 Edition of this 2nd Volume of Great Pyramid Passages: “By the year 1915 A.D. this Present Evil World will be swept into utter destruction, Gehenna, symbolized in the Great Pyramid by the Pit”]. When the great World War began to rage in 1914 A.D. the way was paved for the overthrow of the “kingdoms of this world“; and some of the more autocratic of these kingdoms have already fallen; and this leveling process will continue.

But, thank God, this leveling down of the present order of things, which might seem to be the total end of all hope for mankind, will be God’s opportunity in establishing the everlasting

Kingdom of His dear Son and joint-heirs: for “the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his [Antichrist’s] dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him ” (Dan. 7:25-27).

Great Pyramid Passages Page 196-198, par. 504-515