Ross Patterson : Revelation 11, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, A Precursor of the End of the World

"But another power—the beast from the bottomless pit—was to arise to make open, avowed war upon the word of God. [..] According to the words of the prophet, then, a little before the year 1798 some power of satanic origin and character would rise to make war upon the Bible. And in the land where the testimony of God’s two witnesses should thus be silenced, there would be manifest the atheism of the Pharaoh and the licentiousness of Sodom. GC 269.3

The world still recalls with shuddering horror the scenes of that most cowardly and cruel onslaught, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The king of France, urged on by Romish priests and prelates, lent his sanction to the dreadful work. [...] The same master-spirit that urged in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, led also in the scenes of the French Revolution. Satan seemed to triumph. Notwithstanding the labors of the Reformers, he had succeeded in holding vast multitudes in ignorance concerning God and his word. Now he appeared in a new guise [….] The work which the papacy had begun, atheism completed. The one withheld from the people the truths of the Bible; the other taught them to reject both the Bible and its Author. The seed sown by priests and prelates was yielding its evil fruit. SP 4.191-192.

It appears from the Spirit of Prophecy’s testimony and history that the spirit behind the French Revolution and atheism worked hand in hand to attack God’s truth. Are there historical clues that the forces driving the French -and later Russian and Chinese- revolutions were just “hidden” manifestations of Romanism and will revel itself again just before the end of the world?