Napoleon's Religion
Posted: JUNE 15,
2008 3:16 p.m. Massachusetts
By
Ira Garner
© 2008
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NAPOLEON'S
exile afforded him the opportunity of thinking of and
communicating with God, which he did constantly.
His religious opinions became very clear, and
his faith exceedingly strong. Toward the close
of his life he had a conversation with General
Bertrand, who was an unbeliever, in which he
expressed some religious views which are worthy
to be pre-served through the centuries. He said:
I perceive God; I see him; have need of him. I
believe in him. If you do not perceive him, if
you do not believe in him, so much the worse for
you. But you will, General Bertrand, yet believe
in God. I can pardon many things, but I have a
horror of an atheist and materialist."
Continuing, he makes this reference to the New
Testament Scriptures: “The Gospel possesses a
secret virtue, a mysterious efficacy, warmth
which penetrates and soothes the heart. One
finds, in meditating upon it, that which one
experiences in contemplating the heavens. The
Gospel is not a book; it is a living being, with
an action, a power which invades everything that
opposes its extension. Behold it upon this
table, this book surpassing all others (here the
Emperor solemnly placed his hand upon it); I
never omit to read it, and every day with the
same pleasure.
“Nowhere is there to be found such a series of
beautiful ideas, admirable, moral maxims, which
file like the battalions of a celestial army,
and which produce in our soul the same emotion
which one experiences in contemplating the
infinite expanse of the skies, resplendent in a
summer's night with all the brilliancy of the
stars. Not only is our mind absorbed, it is
controlled, and the soul can never go astray
with this book for its guide. Once master of our
spirit, the faithful Gospel loves us. God ever
is our friend, our father, and truly our God.
The mother has no greater care for the infant
whom she nurses."
In the discussion about the Divinity of Christ,
General Bertrand said: " If Jesus has
impassioned and attached to his chariot the
multitude, if he has revolutionized the world, I
see in that only the power of genius and the
action of a commanding spirit, which vanquishes
the world as so many conquerors have
done—Alexander, Caesar, you, sire, and
Mohammed—by the sword." Napoleon replied with
considerable feeling, “I know men, and I tell
you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial
minds see a resemblance between Christ and the
founders of Empires, and the gods of other
religions. That resemblance does not exist.
There is between Christianity and whatever other
religion the distance of infinity.
“We can say to the author of every other
religion, you are neither gods nor the agents of
Deity. You are but the missionaries of falsehood
molded from the same clay with the rest of
mortals. You are made with all the passions and
vices inseparable from them. Your temples and
your priests proclaim your origin. Such will be
the judgment, the cry of conscience, of whoever
examines the gods and the temples of paganism.
Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit
overawes me, and his will confounds me. Between
him and whoever else in the world, there is no
possible comparison. He is a being by himself.
His birth, and the history of his life; the
profundity of his doctrine, which grapples the
mightiest difficulties ; his Gospel, his
apparition, his empire, his march across the
ages and the realms ; everything is for me a
prodigy. Here I see nothing human.
“In every other existence, but that of Christ,
how many imperfections! Where is the character
which has not yielded, vanquished by obstacles?
Where is the individual who has never been
governed by circumstances or places, who has
never succumbed to the influence of the times,
who has never compounded with any customs or
passions? From the first day to the last, he is
the same, always the same, majestic and simple,
infinitely firm, and infinitely gentle.
“Christ died, the object of the wrath and
contempt of the nation, and abandoned and denied
by his own disciples. `They are about to take
me,' he said, and to crucify me. I shall be
abandoned of all the world. My chief disciple
will deny me at the commencement of my
punishment. I shall be left to the wicked. But
then, divine justice being satisfied, original
sin being expiated by my sufferings, the bond of
man to God will be renewed and my death will be
the life of my disciples. Then they will be more
strong without me than with me, for they will
see me rise again. I shall ascend to the skies,
and I shall send to them a spirit who will
instruct them. The spirit of the Cross will
enable them to understand my Gospel. In fine,
they will believe it, they will preach it, and
they will convert the world.' "
By his own admission, Bonaparte paid almost no
attention to religion during his public career.
He was so busy with this world that he could not
take the time to think about the next. But as
this world grew small and dim to him on St.
Helena, the other one became large and distinct.
As he lost the Alps, he looked toward Mount
Zion; as Europe slipped from his fingers, he
reached his hand out to secure the heavenly
Canaan. He lost an earthly kingdom; he conquered
a greater empire within himself. He lost the
crown of France; he gained a crown of
immortality. It was worth his colossal failure
to have succeeded in finding God in the Divine
Christ who saved his soul. What do the ages care
whether Napoleon Bonaparte lived to old age, as
the Emperor in Paris, or died in exile chained
to a rock in the ocean? And what difference does
it make to him now?
Subjects as well as rulers are treated to this
kind of earthly discipline for their spiritual
good. Money is often taken away that men may lay
up treasures in heaven; friends are allowed to
desert, that the lonely one may find “Him who
sticketh closer than a brother." Loved ones are
taken to heaven, to bring it closer and make it
more real. In a hundred ways God chops down the
earthly supports that hold us up, that we may
fall into the arms of the Everlasting. No
earthly misfortune is so dark that it will not
be the greatest blessing, if it shall bring the
soul to a knowledge of God, the joys of Christ's
love, and the bliss of immortality. |
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Ira Garner is an
Award winning independent writer and reader, who is just
a few degrees short of an education.
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