A-IN TESS-A-Y ON TELIS WOTER, E-
FREE THINKER, REFORMER, AND ENEMY
OF PRIESTCRAFT,
T H O M A. S. W. A. L. K. E. R.
being the substance of A Lºotu nº delivered
IN THE THEATRE ROYAL, Polº T. ELIZABETH.
NOVEMBER, 188o.



takwa. C.40ccleº
p º /24/2
Üoltaire, the uſineſ.
--~~~~
I have only been able to discover one man in Port Elizabeth
who has not heard of Voltaire, and it is needless to say that he is
not a clergyman. For the most part we have all heard of him,
though we may know no more of what he was, what he believed
in, or what he did during his long life, apart from what our priests
have told us in their sermons, than of the man-in-the-moon, who
is equally well known
The character that Voltaire has usually played in the great
drama of priestcraft has been that of “scare-crow in general to the
churches,” and in this character he has nearly been as valuable to
the priests as the devil himself, whose servant he was supposed
to have been.
We have been taught, whenever we think of Voltaire, to
think of an awful death-bed, and the awful hell that followed it !
We have been kept from becoming Infidels from fear of getting
into the devil's clutches, and not from the love of the truths which
we claim for our religion If a young man manifests a tendency
to doubt what his Church may teach him, he is quickly terrified
into believing by a picture of a dying Infidel writhing under the
most inexpressible torments If a man of common-sense claims
the right to use it, he is thus admonished by the bland old rector:
“ Ken you not that you will die like Voltaire if you use your
common-sense any longer!” and straightway the man is convinced
of the efficacy of infant baptism, and all the miracles of the
Church—in short, he uses his common-sense no more | If a bold
layman ventures to ask his respected pastor why Lot's wife was
turned into a pillar of salt for simply manifesting a curiosity which
was quite natural in a woman, the pastor knits his brow and
answers: “My friend, Lot and his wife were escaping from a very
great shower of fire, such as the world before had never known,
nor has known since; you are going to a greater, and think well
of it if you are not changed into salt before you get there ! Re-
member such questions as these show an unseemly doubt, and
doubt is the way to Infidelity, and Infidelity is the way to hell!
You know the death of Voltaire | Take warning, say friend, and
come and take a class of young ladies in our Sunday school without
any more doubts;” and he goes the very next Sunday | Such is
the service to which Voltaire has been put since his death, so that
if he was the enemy of the Church whilst he lived, he has been a
very good friend to it ever since,

2
There is one thing remarkable. Out of the thousands who con-
demn Voltaire, there are perhaps fifty who have read indifferent
“lives” of him, twenty who have seen his works, ten who have
read some of them, and one who has read them all ! The majority,
however, never read a line of his nor of his biographer's—they
have only read an account of his death in a missionary tract; or
they may not even have got so far—they may only have heard the
Rev. John Smith speak “most feelingly” of him. These are the
loudest in their condemnation. They have been compared to long-
necked bottles—having little in them, they make much noise in
pouring it out.
Whoever is superstitious is sure to hate Voltaire. De
Maistre said that “to admire Voltaire is the sign of a corrupt
heart, and if anybody is drawn to his works, then be sure that
God does not love such an one.” But we must remember that
De Maistre believed in the Saints, and Voltaire didn't Even
Dr. Johnson, the man who could not pass a post without touching
it, and who believed in the Cocklane Ghosti was no exception, for
he declared “that he would sooner sign a sentence for Rousseau's
transportation than that of any felon who had gone from the Old
Bailey these many years; and that the difference between him and
Voltaire was so slight ‘that it would be difficult to settle the pro-
portion of iniquity between them; ” but perhaps Dr. Johnson was
a little jealous. At all events, he was superstitious. In fact it is
impossible to find a book written by any member of the super-
stitious fraternity that does Voltaire justice. The reason is plain.
Voltaire was the successful exposer of every kind of superstition;
and since no man likes to have his faults revealed, the man is
sure to be disliked who reveals them. -
There is one man, however, that I was surprised to find, when
first I read his essay, had not done Voltaire that justice which
appears to be the highest aim in all this author's works—Thomas
Carlyle. It is true Carlyle may still have some of the old notions
of a departed age within his head, but he is generally just, and in
consequence the reading world attaches much weight to his judg-
ment. He certainly is a conscientious writer, and hence, however
wrong his opinions or estimate of a person's character may be, he
deserves to be respected. But he and his opinions are two
different things. Though we may respect the man, we should
never respect his opinions when discovered to be erroneous.
In his Essay, published in 1829, upon the “Memoirs concern-
ing Voltaire and his works,” &c., whilst occasionally passing a
compliment upon the great French historian and thinker, he
repeatedly calls him “shallow,” “mocker,” and other such
names, thus implying that he was none other than a most ordinary
man well cultivated. He calls his doctrines “obnoxious doctrines,”
* Soirées de St. Petersbourg, quoted by Morley.
t Macaulay's Essays. Boswell's Life of Johnson,

3
without pointing out those that are such, or showing why they are
so. He constantly takes the reader into the most trivial and
commonplace circumstances of his life in order to show that he
was “no great man,” as though we were to argue that Shakespeare
was no great man because when he was a baby he fed on sops and
wore swaddling clothes like the rest of us. He relates, or rather
translates, from the Memoires by Longchamp and Wagnière, with
a sort of chuckle, or at least a grim smile, how Voltaire got upset
in a coach, and found himself beneath the carcass of Madame du
Châtelet, that of the maid, and ever so many band-boxes and
bundles—himself half suffocated The coach had to be emptied
through one of the windows, which now was at the top, and one
after the other had to be pulled out and set on the ground again
by two lackeys, who drew them out “as from a well.” He tells
us that Voltaire was “nigh shooting poor Dorn, the Frankfort
Constable,” a man who had added gross insult to injury of the
Poet and his niece. A bookseller, who was a cheat and had over-
charged him, he records, received “from the Philosopher, by way
of payment at sight, a slap on the face.” Voltaire gets hungry
and a little anxious for his tea, Madame du Châtelet and Clairaut
wont “come when called,” and Voltaire gets impatient. These
events in Carlyle's estimate go to show that he possessed “a certain
violence and fitful abruptness, which takes from him all dignity.”
Now, this is all right enough in proving that Voltaire was human
like the rest of us, that he had his weaknesses as well as his
virtues, but when undue prominence is given to the light and
trivial circumstances of a man's life, and when the best qualities
are kept pretty much in the back-ground, some only just alluded
to, others mentioned as if the thought had suddenly occurred to
the writer that it would not do to make the chapter entirely one
of faults, then the bounds of justice are passed and the shores of
truth are forsaken. If Carlyle, instead of making so many asser-
tions, had undertaken to prove one or two of them, or had given
us his reasons for making them, he would certainly be less open to
censure than he is at present.
Let it not be supposed that I am simply putting my humble
opinion against Carlyle's, for Istand very much in relation to him
as a pupil to his master. I should not presume to criticise him,
therefore, did not the facts warrant me. But he would be the first
to admit that we have no more right to take what he says for
granted without proof, than we have to place implicit confidence
in all the absurd statements made by St. Augustine or Mathew of
Westminster, merely upon their authority.
This, it is important to remember, since it is not alone in
bringing prominently before his readers the foolish and trivial cir-
cumstances of this great man's life, whilst only touching lightly
upon his virtues, that Carlyle is to be blamed but in making state-
ments, some of which are unjust, if they are not untrue. How-
ever great, therefore, his name may be, we must not willingly
permit ourselves to be misled by him,

4.
In volume four of his works, page 133,” he says: “There is
one deficiency in Voltaire's original structure. . . . . We
mean his inborn levity of nature, his entire want of earnestness.
Voltaire was by birth a Mocker.”
On page 135, he says: “So that for him, in all matters, the
first question is, not what is true, but what is false;” and a little
further on: “Reverence, the highest feelings that man's nature is
capable of, the crown of his whole moral manhood, and precious,
like fine gold, were it in the rudest forms, he seems not to under-
stand, or have heard of even by credible tradition.”
More surprising still is the following assertion: “Voltaire's
nature, which was originally vehement rather than deep, came, in
its maturity, in spite of all his wonderful gifts, to be positively
shallow. We find no heroism of character in him, from first to
last; nay, there is not, that we know of, one great thought in all
his six-and-thirty quartos.”
As if to bring Voltaire to the very lowest round of the ladder,
he does not scruple to say, on page 139: “His first question with
regard to any doctrine, perhaps his final test of its worth and
genuineness is: Can others be convinced of this? Can I truck it
in the market for power?” and that “Voltaire's ruling motive”
was “at bottom but a vulgar one: ambition, the desire of ruling,
by such means as he had, over other men.”
Again, he estimates his character, at page 145, in the follow-
ing language: “He is no great man, but only a great persifleur;
a man for whom life, and all that pertains to it, has, at best, but
a despicable meaning.”
After calling him “no philosopher,” a trivialist,” and a
“vehement opponent of the Christian Faith,” he assures us, on
page 174, that this Voltaire was “totally destitute of religious
reverence, even of common practical seriousness.”
Then the charges brought against him by Carlyle may be
classed as follows:—
1st, Want of Earnestness;
2nd, That he was a “Mocker,” &c.;
3rd, That he was no great man, and that there is not a
great thought that Carlyle can discover in his six-
and-thirty quartos;
4th, That he was a vehement opponent to the Christian
Faith.
These are not all of them, but they are the most serious, and they
are sufficient to show that, in spite of the occasional praises and
little side defences which Carlyle bestows upon his persifleur, he
held a very low opinion of him and his work.
Now, it will be admitted by all, that these charges are ex-
ceedingly grave, and ought to be substantiated by evidence.
Doubtless there are thousands, may millions, who may think with
Carlyle, and hold his views as just, simply because from their
*Carlyle's Works: Miscellanies, vols. II and III. London: Chapman & Hall,

5
earliest infancy they have been taught to despise the very name,
and to hate the very mention of the works of this French philoso-
pher. That is why these charges are the more hurtful and danger-
ous, because they justify an ignorant prejudice, and sanction a
puerile animosity. Coming from such a high authority, they are
less likely to be questioned, and finding from them that Voltaire's
character and work are not the most admirable, nor the most noble,
they conclude against the man without making any further inves-
tigation. The majority argue: Carlyle is a great man, and has
studied the question—he is, therefore, more likely to be correct
in his judgments than we are. He says Voltaire is shallow. It
is, therefore, unnecessary for us to read Voltaire to prove what
Carlyle, who is supposed to state nothing he does not know to be
true, has already told us. And so they conclude, and it is thus
that injustice takes a new lease of life amongst us.
However, Carlyle is not the only great man who has made a
study of this question, and all great men have not shared his
opinions. Macaulay, in his essay on “Ranke's History of the
Popes,” has not done so, for, speaking of Voltaire and his colleagues,
he denies the charge which I have put as first—viz., Want of
Earnestness. He says: “They were men who, with all their
faults, moral and intellectual, sincerely and earnestly desired the
improvement of the condition of the human race, whose blood
boiled at the sight of cruelty and injustice, who made manful war
with every faculty which they possessed, on what they considered
as abuses, and who on many signal occasions placed themselves
gallantly between the powerful and the oppressed.”
This testimony, coming as it does from one of our greatest
historians, equally anxious to condemn the faults as to applaud
the virtues is not the only impartial evidence of Voltaire's earnest-
ness. Lecky in his “History of Rationalism in Europe,” vol. ii.,
page 72, says that “Voltaire was at all times the unflinching op-
ponent of persecution. No matter how powerful was the perse-
cutor, no matter how insignificant was the victim, the same scath-
ing eloquence was launched against the crime, and the indignation
of Europe was soon concentrated upon the oppressor. The fearful
storm of sarcasm and invective that avenged the murder of Calas,
the magnificent dream in the Philosophical Dictionary reviewing
the history of persecution from the slaughter of the Canaanites to
the latest victims who had perished at the stake, the same indelible
stigma branded upon the persecutors of every age and of every
creed, all attested the intense and passionate earnestness with which
Voltaire addressed himself to his task.” These two authorities are
at least just as deserving of credence as Carlyle, but the prejudice
against Voltaire is so strong in some quarters that it may be well
to give the views of one or two others equally deserving of our
confidence. Morley says: “To Voltaire reason and humanity
were but a single word, and love of truth and passion for justice
but one emotion;” and Lord Brougham assures us that “As the
* Morley's Life of Voltaire, page 15.

6
champion of injured virtue, the avenger of enormous public crimes,
he claims a veneration which embalms his memory in the hearts
of all good men.” Lord Brougham certainly cannot be said to be
a partisan of Voltaire, nor a man in any sense as holding what
may be termed his heresies, consequently his testimony is all the
more valuable. In his “Life of Voltaire,” he states that it would
be unjust and ungrateful for us “to forget the immense obligations
under which Voltaire has laid mankind by his writings, the
pleasure derived from his fancy and his wit, the amusement which
his singular and original humour bestows, even the copious in-
struction with which his historical works are pregnant, and the
vast improvement in the manner of writing history which we owe
to him. Yet great as these services are—among the greatest that
can be rendered by a man of letters—they are really of far inferior
value to the benefits which have resulted from his long and arduous
struggle against oppression, especially against tyranny in the worst
form which it can assume, the persecution of opinion, the infrac-
tion of the sacred right to exercise the reason upon all subjects
unfettered by prejudice and uncontrolled by authority, whether of
great names or of temporal power. . . . . Nor can anyone
since the days of Luther be named to whom the spirit of free
enquiry—nay, the emancipation of the human mind from spiritual
tyranny—owes a more lasting debt of gratitude.”f
We have thus the testimony of these great minds, all of
whom agree in applauding the earnestness with which Voltaire
laboured for the good of his fellow men, and the welfare of the
whole human race. Other testimony might be added: the testi-
mony of his friends, the testimony of his secretaries, and the testi-
mony of independent writers; but I think I have quoted sufficient
to show that Carlyle's opinion must not be taken for proven, and
that, at least here, he may be mistaken.
The second charge is: “That he was a Mocker,” &c. Quite
true. He was a “Mocker;” but of what? Carlyle implies of all
religion, of truth, and all that is dear in humanity. It was not
so. He laughed at the follies of human nature, at the absurdities
of creed, at the ridiculous in religion; but to use the words of an
able writer: “There is no case of Voltaire mocking at any set of
men who lived good lives." He mocked at abuses, and by his
laughter brought ridiculous people to their senses, but he never
derided justice, benevolence, mercy, or sincerity. His mocking
was for a wise purpose; it was to show people that absurdities
and follies, instead of being believed in, and acted upon, are only
fit to produce a smile.
Now, let us just look at this offence in the light of common-
sense for a moment. If a Christian were to be told for the first
time that the people in the moon, after being dead a few days, or
* Brougham's Lives of Men of Letters, page 112, vol. i.
# Ibid., page 131, vol. i.
† Morley.

7
years, got up from their graves again, went on with their business
as usual, died again, and again, after a long sleep in the grave, got
up to die no more, the Christian would laugh heartily. And yet
he blames the man who laughs at him for believing the same
nonsense. If it were to be ascertained that upon the planet Mars
women were made out of men's ribs, and that some of these
women were chosen afterwards to give birth to gods, not a clergy-
man but would laugh outright at the folly of the inhabitants of
Mars; but should the inhabitants of Mars discover that we believe
these things, and laugh at us for it—good gracious, what heretics
*they would be In these days we can all laugh heartily at the
amours of Jupiter, the miracles of Mahomet, or the tricks of
Mercury; but how wicked any one would be if his eyes should be-
come brighter, his lips contracted, and he should actually chuckle,
when he heard that some unknown man, many years ago in a bar-
barous country, or rather, I should say, stormy sea, made a hotel
of a whale's belly for three days. In short, no one must laugh at
our follies—that is very wicked. He may laugh heartily enough
at anybody else's, and we will help him, but he deserves hot
quarters in a nameless region if he laughs at us.
Voltaire had got in the habit of laughing at everything
absurd, whether Christian or Pagan, whether in History, Philoso-
phy, or Religion, and will any man of sense blame him for this?
What is the absurd for, if not to be laughed at ; True, some
people think it ought to be believed in, but such people would
believe in the stories of “Jack the giant-killer” and “Sinbad the
sailor” if they were found in the Bible. With them the test of
the truth of anything is: Is it in the Bible? and does our dear
old parson believe it? And one might wish them joy with their
beliefs if they did not try to prevent others smiling at their follies.
But there are some men of great learning and intellect who
have joined Carlyle in condemning Voltaire for his “Mockery.”
They are of opinion that Voltaire should have used solid argu-
ment; that he should have challenged them to a debate with fixed
chairman and set rules, and speaking in turns, or that at least he
should have gone solemnly and deliberately to work to write a
long treatise upon Christian evidence, and have exhibited in every
page the solemnity of a judge using weighty language and syllo-
gisms. We English go to everything as though it were a funeral,
and use as much force against a windmill as a castle! Voltaire
saw the absurdity of firing an eleven ton gun when a smaller
weapon would do the work much better. The way some people
argue with all seriousness about the most trivial things appears to
me as though the following folly were perpetrated. A little boy gets
presented with a penny trumpet. He dresses as a little soldier,
and walks out as far as the barracks where the brave defenders of
the nation are quartered. Arriving there, the shades of night are
upon him. Outside the gates he blows his little trumpet. The
sentinel sounds the alarm, every soldier takes his place, the guns
are manned, and martial music fills the air. The gates are thrown

8
wide open, and the gallant army marches with a solemn step
against the enemy, and takes the poor little boy a prisoner, who
cries heartily for his mama all the while. Voltaire would have
smiled heartily at the little boy for mistaking himself for a
soldier—the English must take him prisoner
The French sceptic effected by his wit what it was pretty
near impossible to effect by argument. As Buckle says: “No
one could reason more closely than Voltaire, when reasoning suited
his purpose. But he had to deal with men impervious to argument;
men whose inordinate reverence for antiquity had only left them
two ideas—namely, that everything old is right, and that every:
thing new is wrong.” To argue seriously with men of this kind
would be to attach importance to their follies, by proving that they
were deserving of the utmost seriousness. Supposing some hermit
to come out from his cell, after years of life in seclusion, just hav-
ing read the “Adventures of Gulliver.” He is thoroughly con-
vinced that there are nations of horses that can talk (and why not
since there are asses!); that there are tribes of immense giants and
of dwarfish Lilliputians. He founds a school in an ignorant
village, and teaches these things to his scholars. Finally, a grave,
sinister-looking man comes forward and challenges the hermit to a
discussion upon the subject. They discuss, and illustrate the folly
of the two kings of Lilliput, who go to war on the subject as to
which end of the egg should be cut—whether we should open the
thick end or thin end of our breakfast ! For months they wrangle
and dispute, and call each other ignorant, foolish, and blasphemous.
They prepare long speeches, which their partisans applaud.
Finally they go their separate ways with mutual hatred in their
breasts, and the hermit gets appointed to a rectory in Port Eliza-
beth, where he still preaches about the “giants in those days.”
The discussion has only added respect, seriousness, and importance
to absurdities, which a laugh would have destroyed for ever.
If there be any doubt of this, it is only necessary to bear in
mind the fact that during the early and middle ages of Christianity,
years were passed in discussing the absurdest problems with the
utmost gravity. Any one knowing anything of the schoolmen
must feel disgusted at the amount of time they spent in foolish
wrangling upon subjects worthy of no seriousness whatsoever, And,
long before the days of Saint Aquinas, Arius and St. Athanasius
argued, but many yet believe, that we have “Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, that each of them is Almighty, and yet that there are
not three Almighties, but one Almighty.” Argument did no
good in that controversy, but only harm. St. Augustine and his
Monks argued with Pelagius, but argument did not make them re-
linguish their follies, but only served, if anything, to enforce them.
When it is borne in mind that learned men.could waste their time
in discussing such problems as: “How many spirits can dance upon
the point of a needle without jostling each other?”f we shall come
* History of Civilization, 1873, vol. ii., page 308.
+ See Herbert Spencer's Study of Sociology.

9
to the conclusion that “To argue with a man who has renounced
his reason is like giving medicine to the dead.” What was the
good of argument to those who took part in the “Baarlamite con-
troversy respecting the mysterious light on Mount Thabor—the
possibility of producing a beatific vision, and of demonstrating, by
an unceasing inspection of the navel for days and nights together,
the existence of two eternal principles, a visible and an invisible
God?”f Even in Prussia, the friend of Voltaire, Frederick the
Great, in the eighteenth century, gave such subjects for prize-
essays as: “The search for a primary and permanent force at once
substance and cause.” When you have spent a lifetime in
seriously arguing such questions, what better are you? We all
know of the famous controversy on the words “omoousios” and
“omoiousios,” which ended in a disgraceful free fight between the
several disputants,” though the whole point of contention was the
insertion of the Greek letter iota. Whether this should be between
the two o's, or left out altogether, engaged the attention of the most
learned men in the Church.
And another fact must be observed that whether in the con-
troversies between Arius and Athanasius, Pelagius and Augustine,
Celsus and Origen, Nestor and Cyril, or any other of the number-
less conflicts of speech and idea which have troubled the Christian
Church, the wrong side, by hook or crook, has generally had the
best of it. The reason is plain: if arguments could not be
answered, the books which contained them could be burned,
and the opponent either put to death or banished, or otherwise
silenced. ft. The works of the Arians, of Eunomius, of Nestorius,
and of Eutyches, were all prohibited, not answered:
These are only a very few indeed out of the numberless cases
which might be cited. Even the Koran was suppressed in Venice,
when printed there in the year 1530. In the year 1559, Paul IV.
“promulgated the index expurgatorius of prohibited books.” At
that time sixty-one printers were put under ban, and all their
publications were forbidden,s Voltaire put an end to all this
folly by making the pedants of the Christian Church feel that
they were in these things most ridiculously absurd. If he had
been willing to argue seriously as Carlyle would have him, he
would have found any number willing to oppose him, and he
would have spent his life in bandying words with Jesuits, if he
had not been kept in the Bastille to silence his boldtongue ! But
he did not waste his valuable time in this manner. He knew
that there had been thousands of persecutors in the world, and
* Paine's Age of Reason.
† Draper's Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. ii., page 59.
+ Histoire Philosophique de l'Academie de Prusse, bl. i. 230. Quoted by Morley.
** See account of “Robber Synod,” Mosheim, Ecc. Hist. vol. i., pages 370-374.
Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. i., pages 260-263.
++ See Gibbon's Decline and Fall of Roman Empire, and Draper's Conflict be-
tween Science and Religion.
#See Milton's Areopagitica, and Lecky's Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii, page 127.
§ Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. ii, pages 213, 214.

10
that they were even in the world and about him then. He tried
to find out the cause, and having discovered it, he said “They
will not cease to be persecutors until they have ceased to be
absurd.” As one of his biographers says: “When men had
learned to laugh at superstition, then they would perceive how
abominable is the oppressive fanaticism which is its champion.”
It was by taking this course that Voltaire accomplished so
much in a single life-time. He saw the folly of spending his time
uselessly. His genius at a glance detected the foolish, he saw that
it was such and laughed at it. Carlyle would perhaps have argued;
Voltaire laughed, and his laughing made the patrons of supersti-
tion perceive their folly, when no amount of argument would have
done it. We are told by one of the greatest historians of this cen-
tury that “the wit and the ridicule with which he (Voltaire)
attacked the dreaming scholars of his own time, can only be appre-
ciated by those who have studied his works. Not, as some have
supposed, that he used these weapons as a substitute for argument,
still less that he fell into the error of making ridicule a test of
truth;” and M. Schlosser says, “it was only a man of Voltaire's
wit and talents, who could throw the light of an entirely new cri-
ticism upon the darkness of those grubbing and collecting pedants.”f
“But,” say his critics “these were sacred subjects which
Voltaire ridiculed.” Granted, but the fault was with those who
made ridiculous things sacred. “He gave pain to good men” is
another objection.” Granted also, but it was their fault for being
in bad company. In truth, as Lord Brougham says: “It is to be
borne in mind that not one irreverent expression is to be found in
all his numberless writings towards the Diety in whom he
believed.” He attacked only error, falsehood, hypocrisy,
and the like; the truth still remained after all these parasites had
been destroyed. He did no harm to genuine religion for as Wil-
berforce says: “If religion be, as I believe it, true, it has nothing to
fear from any such assaults.”
Truth crushed to earth will rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers
Whilst error wounded writhes in pain,
And dies amid her worshippers
As there may be some who will read this paper, who have not
read Voltaire's works, it may be well to illustrate what is meant
by his “mockery” by giving a few quotations. Thus desiring to bring
certain charges against the Jews, or rather to reveal certain facts
concerning their religion and character, he writes them several
letters. If he had stated his views for the sake of argument he
would never have ended his controversy; but by stating them in
such a way that we can see his mind is fully made up, he
escapes the contest whilst be vanquishes his enemy. His first
letter commences:–
* Corr (Euv., lxxv., page 249.
+ Eighteenth Century, vol. i. page 120.
+ Life of Voltaire, page 8.

11
GENTLEMEN, -When forty-four years ago, your countryman Medina be-
came abankruptin London, being twenty-thousandfrancs in my debt, he told me
that “it was not his fault;" that “he was unfortunate;” that “he had never
been one of the children of Belial:” that “he had always endeavoured to live
as a son of God” that is, as an honest man, a good Israelite. I was affected;
I embraced him; we joined in the praise of God; and I lost eighty per cent.
You ought to know that I never hated your nation. hate no one;
not even Frèron. Far from hating I have always pitied you. If, like my pro-
tector good Pope Lambertini, I have sometimes bantered a little, I am not
therefore the less sensitive. I wept at the age of sixteen, when I was told that
a mother and her daughter had been burned at Lisbon, for having eaten, stand-
ing, alittle lamb cooked with lettuce, on the fourteenthday of thered moon; and
I can assure you that the extreme beauty which this girl was reported to have
possessed had no share in calling forth my tears, although it must have increased
the spectators' horror for the assassins, and their pity for the victim, &c.”
- -
I beg, gentlemen, that you will have the goodness to believe that I
never have believed, I do not believe, and I never will believe, that you are
descended from those highway robbers whose ears and noses were cut off by
order of King Actisanes, and whom, according to Diodorus of Sicily, he sent
into the desert between Lake Sirbo and Mount Sinai-a frightful desert, where
water and every other necessary of life are wanting. They made nets to catch
quails, which fed them for a few weeks during the passage of the birds.
Some of the learned have pretended, that this origin perfectly agrees
with your history. You yourselves say that you inhabited º desert, that
there you wanted water, and lived on quails, which in reality abound there.
Your accounts appear in the main to confirm that of Diodorus; but I believe
only the Pentateuch. The author does not say that you had your ears and
noses cut off. As far as I remember (for I have not Diodorus at hand) you lost
only your noses. I do not now recollect where I read that your ears were of the
party; it might be in some fragments of Menetho cited by St. Ephrem.
In vain does the secretary, who has done me the honour of writing to
me in your name, assureme that you stole to the amount of upwards of nine
millions in gold, coined or carved, to go and set up your tabernacle in the desert.
I maintain, that you carried off nothing, but what lawfully belonged to you,
reckoning interest at forty percent, which was the lawful rater
-
“You venture to affirm that you have never immolated human victims
to the Lord. What then was the murder of Jephtha's daughter, who was really
immolated as we have shown from your own boºks? How will you explain the
anathema of the thirty-two virgins, that were the tribute of the Lord when you
took thirty-two thousand Midianitish virgins and sixty-one thousand asses:
- - * What became of them? You had nonuns. What was the Lord's
share in all your wars, if it was not blood? Did not the Priest Samuel hack in
pieces King Agag, whose life King Saul had saved? Did he not sacrifice him
as the Lord's share? Either renounce your sacred books, in which according to
the decision of the Church, I firmly believe, or acknowledge that your forefathers
offered up to God rivers ºf human blood, unparalleled by any people upon earth.:
-
Go back to Judea as soon as you can. I ask of you only two or three Hebrew
families in order to establish a little necessary trade at Mount Krapat where I
reside. For, if you are, like us, very ridiculous theologians, you are very
intelligent buyers and sellers, which we are not.”
+ * * º: * * º:
But what shall I say to my brother the Jew? Shall I invite him to
supper? Yes, on condition that during the repast Balaam’s Ass does not take
it into its head to bray: that Ezekiel dºes not mix his dinner with our supper :
that a fish does not swallow up one of the guests, and keep him three days in
his belly; that a serpent does not join in the conversation, in order to seduce
my wife; that a prophet does not think properto sleep with her, as the worthy
man Hosea did for five francs and a bushel of barley; above all that no jew
arades through my house to the sound of a trumpet, cause the walls to fail
#. and cuts the thrºats of myself, my father, my wife, my children, my
cat and my dog, according tº the ancient practice of the Jews. Come, my
friends, let us have peace and say our benedicite.tt
* Ph.D., article “Jews... sec. iv., 1st letter. ...t Ibid, letter the second.
: Ibid, fifth letter. *Ibid, sixth letter, tº Ibid, article ‘Toleration sec, iv.

12
Whenever Voltaire wishes to give us his ideasin such a way
that they are sure to be read, he commences by first disarming us.
We want to hear what he has to say, since his commencement is
so alluring. For instance, in his article on Abraham, he says:
“We must say nothing of what is divine in Abraham, since the
Scriptures have said all,” &c. He opens his article on Baptism
by remarking: “We do not speak of baptism as theologians; we
are but poor men of letters, who shall never enter the sanctuary;”
and his article on Christianity opens: “God forbid that we should
dare to mix the sacred with the profane! We seek not to fathom
the depths of the ways of Providence. We are men, and we ad-
dress men only.” Again, in his Summary of the History of the
Christian Church, he says: “We shall not extend our views into
the depths of Theology. God preserve us from such presumption.
Humble faith alone is enough for us. We never assume any other
part than that of mere historians.” Thus he writes of Prophecy:
“It belongs to the infallible church alone to fix the true sense of
prophecies, for the Jews have always maintained, with their usual
obstinacy, that no prophecy could regard Jesus Christ; and the
fathers of the Church could not dispute with them with advantage,
since, except St. Ephrem, the great Origen, and St. Jerome, there
was never any father of the Church who knew a word of Hebrew.”
Commencing thus, or in some way or other during his letters and
articles, taking the side of his opponents, he is able to say all he
wishes without arguing. If he wants to state his doubts, he puts
them in the mouth of some Infidel, and then chides the Infidel for
uttering them. If he wants to bring a fact to light, which is
rather unpleasant to the priests, he does so as if he were their
friend, and thus reveals the whole account, which he leaves the
priesthood to answer. As a friend of theirs, he reveals their
secrets, and does just that which they are afraid of having done.
Anxious, for instance, to praise the priests of the Church of Eng-
land, in contrast with the Catholic clergy, he affects to ignore
them, because they are “heretics.” “That indefinable character,
which is neither ecclesiastic nor secular, which we call Abbé, is
unknown in England; the ecclesiastics there are generally re-
spected, and for the greater part pedants. When the latter learn
that in France young men distinguished by their debaucheries, and
raised to the prelacy by the intrigues of women, publicly make
love; vie with each other in the composition of love songs; give
luxurious suppers every day, from which they arise to implore the
light of the Holy Spirit, and boldly call themselves the apostles' suc-
cessors—they thank God that they are protestants. But what then?
They are vile heretics, and fit only for burning, as master Francis
Rabelais says, “with all the devils.' Hence I drop the subject.”
But perhaps his general motive and style are better illustrated in
the following passage than any of the previous quotations I have
made: “With respect to ourselves, let us ever remain inviolably
* Ph.D., article Church of England.

13
attached to our four gospels, in union with the infallible church.
Let us reject the five gospels which it has rejected; let us not
enquire why our Lord Jesus Christ permitted five false gospels,
five false histories of his life to be written; and let us submit to
our spiritual pastors and directors, who alone on earth are enligh-
tened by the Holy Spirit.”
These extracts I have selected at random, for all his articles
are so full of wit, satire, and brilliance of expression that you may
open his dictionary wherever you please and you will find that
which is sure to amuse and instruct you. There is not another
author who has said so much in so few words, and who is so easy
to read. He tells you in a single article what now-a-days you
would have to ponder and struggle through a couple of volumes to
acquire. And he tells it, too, in such a simple form that you have
no difficulty in remembering it. “His style is like a translucent
stream of purest mountain water moving with a swift and anima-
ted flow under flashing sunbeams.”f The difference between him
and the majority of writers is the difference between the wild,
uncultivated plain, and the luxuriant garden filled with luscious
fruits and fragrant flowers.
Let it not be imagined, however, that because Voltaire may
smile, or take us lightly along, that he has no depth of thought or
extent of information in him. As Morley says: “His extreme
brilliance of expression blinds us to the extreme and conscientious
industry that provided matter,” and elsewhere: “If he was often
a mocker in form, he was always serious in meaning, and laborious
in matter. If he was unflinching against theology, he always paid
religion respect enough to treat it as the most important of all
subjects.”
Then, when in future we think of Voltaire as a “Mocker,”
let us ask ourselves the question: “Why was he so?” The answer
will be found by all who earnestly and in an unbiassed spirit read
his works. It was that he might destroy the demon Superstition,
and give to humanity the free exercise of its common-sense. It
was that he might dethrone Nonsense and crown Reason. It was
as Buckle observes, because: “His irony, his wit, his pungent
and telling sarcasms, produced more effect than the gravest argu-
ments could have done.”
The third charge that we have to consider is: “That he was
no great man, and that there is not a great thought that Carlyle
can discover in his six-and-thirty quartos.” We would like to
know what Carlyle would define as a “Great Thought?” Perhaps
the very greatest thoughts of Voltaire, being in a different sphere
to what Carlyle might wish, are, in his estimation, the smallest
thoughts. At all events, it is a very sweeping assertion this, that
Voltaire is “no great man.” To me Voltaire is a far greater man
than Carlyle, for several reasons. First, because living prior to
Carlyle, he had not the same materials to build from ; and,
* Ibid, article Gospel.
* Morley

14
secondly, because he aimed a deadly blow at superstition and
tyranny when it was extremely dangerous to do so, and lastly
because he was one of the first to separate fable from history, and
to turn his attention from Courts and Kings to the humble pea-
sant in the cottage and the labourer in the field. However, as to
his “greatness” nearly all historians agree, and in order to show
that in this case also Carlyle may be mistaken, I shall give a few
quotations from those of the most undoubted authority.
Robertson, who prior to Hallam, following in the footsteps of
Voltaire was the first to give us any clear idea of the middle ages,
says: “In all my enquiries and disquisitions concerning the pro-
gress of government, manners, literature, and commerce during the
middle ages, as well as in my delineations of the political constitu-
tions of the different States of Europe, at the opening of the six-
teenth century, I have not once mentioned M. de Voltaire, who
in his Essay sur l'histoire generale, has reviewed the same period
and has treated of all these subjects. This does not proceed from
inattention to the works of that extraordinary man, whose genius
no less enterprising than universal, has attempted almost every
different species of literary composition. In many of these he
excels. In all, if he had left religion untouched, he is instructive
and agreeable. But as he seldom imitates the example of modern
historians, in citing the authors from whom they derive their in-
formation, I could not with propriety appeal to his authority in
confirmation of any doubtful or unknown fact. I have often, how-
ever, followed him as my guide in these researches, and he has not
only pointed out the facts, with respect to which it was of importance
to enquire, but the conclusions, which it was proper to draw from
them. If he had, at the same time, mentioned the books which
relate these particulars, a great part of my labours would have been
unnecessary, and many of his readers who now consider him only as
an entertaining and lively writer, would find that he is a learned
and well-informed historian.”
We have already given the testimony of Lord Brougham as to
the debt of gratitude we owe to Voltaire for the improvements he
effected in writing history. This same author speaking as a critic
of his dramatic works, whilst pointing out what he believed to be
Voltaire's faults, declares “It is certain that the tragedies of
Voltaire are the works of an extraordinary genius, and that only
a great poet could have produced them."f . . .
Henry Thomas Buckle thought of Voltaire in a far different
manner to Carlyle, and certainly if I dared to presume to choose
between two such eminent authorities, I should place my confi-
dence in Buckle. In his posthumous works, he treats him with
the spirit almost of devotion, most certainly with the deepest res-
pect. He calls him “this great and good man,” and in pointing
out his errors he says: “If I may venture to point out what I
conceive to be the errors of this great man,” as though Voltaire
* Charles W., Note xliv, sect. iii, vol. i.
+ Life of Woltaire,

15
was almost too great to be criticised The posthumous works of
this wonderful genius, however, may be considered as of little
authority since they were not published after the revising and
modifying hand of the author had corrected them for public in-
spection. Yet this seems to me to enhance their value. They
were his secret convictions; his own honest opinions. However in
his work published during his life-time we have ample testimony as
to the greatness of Voltaire. In his History of Civilization ºn
England, he calls him “the greatest Frenchman of the eighteenth
century,” and even goes so far as to say “He is probably the
greatest historian Europe has yet produced.” He points out the
improvements which Voltaire made in writing history, and
gives us assurance of his originality. He points out where he
anticipates Malthus and Townsend and all the writers of history
and political economy since his day; informs us that he was the
first historian to recommend free trade, and that he was the first
to dispel “the childish admiration with which the middle ages had
been hitherto regarded.” In short, he assures us that “whatever
may be thought of the other qualities of Voltaire, it must
be allowed that, in his intellect, everything was on a great
scale.” Surely, testimony so decided, so pointed and coming from
such a source is not to be lightly valued? If a man of Buckle's
learning and acquaintance with the great, could call him “great,”
surely we should pause in reading Carlyle, when we are told that
he was “no great man.”
A host of inferior writers might be quoted to substantiate
this, but I will not consume space by quoting them. I cannot
refrain, however, from adding the tribute of one or two more
writers most undoubtedly capable of accurate judgment. Gold-
smith wrote a life of the great French historian, whom he saw
during his visit to France early in his career, and in it he “an-
nounced that early admiration of the genius of Voltaire and
Rousseau which he constantly maintained against some celebrated
friends of his later life.” Goldsmith's able biographer remarks
that when the yell of the mob was spreading a false report of
Voltaire's death, Goldsmith “with eager admiration asserted the
claims of the Philosopher and Wit; told the world it was its lusts
of war and sycophancy which unfitted it to receive such a friend.”f
It is in the same account thus alluded to that Goldsmith wrote:
“You perceive him . . . possessed of good nature, humanity,
greatness of soul, fortitude, and almost every virtue; in this de-
scription those who might be supposed best acquainted with his
character are unanimous. The Royal Prussian, D'Argens,
Diderot, D'Alembert, and Fontenelle conspire in drawing the
picture, in describing the friend of man and the patron of every
rising genius. An inflexible perseverance in what he thought was
right, and a genuine detestation of flattery, formed the ground-work
of this great man's character.”
* Forster's Life of Goldsmith. + Ibid.
t Letters of Goldsmith, in Citizen, of the World. “An apostrophe on the
supposed death of Voltaire.”

16
Gray, the friend and contemporary of Goldsmith, was an ad-
mirer of Voltaire's dramatic works, and his “high opinion of
Voltaire's tragedies is shared by one of our greatest authorities on
such a matter now living,” says Forster, “Sir Edward Bulwer
Lytton, whom I have often heard maintain the marked superiority
of Voltaire over all his countrymen in the knowledge of dramatic
art,” &c.”
Goethe, than whom, who more competent to judge? wrote
“Voltaire is the greatest and most characteristic of the
French historians,” and Strauss, in commenting upon Goethe's
opinion, testifies that “Voltaire is the greatest historian of the
eighteenth century.”
In the eyes of Michelet, Voltaire was equal to any of Carlyle's
“heroes.” “Ancient Champion,” exclaims he, “To thee the
crown . . . Throughout a century in every kind of warfare,
with every weapon and doctrine, opposite, contrary, no matter
what, thou hast pursued, without ever deviating one interest, one
cause–Holy humanity ºf
I just give the testimony of another—that of Lamartine.
“Napoleon during fifteen years paid writers to degrade, vilify,
and deny the genius of Voltaire; he hated his name, as might must
ever hate intellect; so long as men yet cherished the memory of
Voltaire, so long he felt his position not secure, for tyranny stands
as much in need of prejudice to sustain it as falsehood of uncer-
tainty and darkness; the restored church could no longer suffer
his glory to shine with so great a lustre; she had right to hate
Voltaire, not to deny his genius. If we judge of man by what they
have done, then Voltaire is incontestably the greatest writer of
modern Europe.
If it were not for fear of wearying the reader, I should quote
from Condorcét, Longchamp and Wagniere, Warton, Sir William
Jones and a long list of others; but I think I have done sufficient
to show that there are those who believe Voltaire “great,” and we
may safely believe with Lerminier: Il est temps de revenir a des
sentimens plus respectueur pour la mémoire de Voltaire.
Voltaire, in his fifty-fourth year, upon the second night that his
work Sémiramis was performed, disguised himself and went to the
Café de Procope in order to learn what effect his “play" had pro-
duced among the “critics.” Carlyle points to this as one of the
evidences of Voltaire's “littleness.” He was possessed of vanity.
Although Longchamp, from whom Carlyle quotes, informs us that
the disguise and visit to the Café were for the purpose of learning
“what good or ill the public were saying of the tragedy,” since “he
always loved to correct his works,” it is made to appear that Vol-
taire was prompted mainly by the spirit of vanity. Hence he is
not a great man If the charge were true, would the fact that
* Forster's Life of Goldsmith. See Note to Buckle.
** Voltaire: Six Lectures by David Fredrick Strauss.
+ French Revolution, sec. vi. - - -
t Lamartine's History of the Girondins vol. i. book iv.c. v.

17
Voltaire possessed vanity prove he was not great? Is it not a
fact that many of our greatest men have been exceedingly vain?
We might make a long list from Cicero to Ben Jonson. Even
Carlyle's greatest hero, Jesus of Nazareth, was not devoid of this
quality. He was equally anxious with Voltaire to know what
people were saying about him, and asked the apostles what they
had heard the people say concerning him. After he had heard, he
still asked: “But whom say ye that I am?”
It is evident to my mind that the principal reason why
Carlyle under-estimates the works of Voltaire is because the latter
was a stout champion, waging war against the Priesthood. This
is the more evident because, when the sceptical spirit exhibits
itself in a smaller degree in the person of Luther, Luther is ap-
plauded for it. Mahomet, Luther, and Knox are great “heroes”
in Carlyle's judgment. They are truly great men. Yet, with all
their greatness, and taking into consideration the vast benefits as
reformers which they have conferred upon the human race, I
venture to assert that Voltaire was as a giant compared with them.
He did far more good to France, to Europe, and to the world
than all the Mahomets, Luthers, Knoxes, and Calvins put together!
These men brought the Sun of Knowledge into the heavens, it is
true, but they beclouded it with superstition and creed, authority
and credulity. Voltaire drew aside this veil, and the splendour of
an age of knowledge, after many years of gloom, shone out with a
god-like lustre upon the world. They substituted one superstition
for another, and left the human mind pretty nighwhere they found
it. Voltaire, as if by magic, destroyed all superstition. They
exchanged the fetters, and made them lighter to be borne; but, as
though a lightning's flash had struck the chains of a spiritual
serfdom, when Voltaire lifted up his voice, Humanity stood upon
the earth free, to go back into slavery no more. He cried to the
prostrate nations: Rise and enjoy the light of Reason Then the
temples fell, the world of tyranny vanished, and the world of
intellect and progress took its place.
It is impossible to help admiring the moral courage of stout-
hearted Martin Luther; it is impossible to over-estimate the good he
has done for mankind; but I do not believe in one kind of criticism
being applied to him and his times and another kind to Voltaire.
Thus, for instance Voltaire is a creature of the times; Luther, a truly
great hero, with a mission to fill—a leader, a creator, the lightning
that ignites the prepared branches of the forest.” Voltaire keeps
to the front of his times simply because of his agility; he “floats,”
because of his lightness on the current that carries him and his
age along. Luther, he is a “true, great man—great in intellect, in
courage, affection, and integrity; one of our most loveable and
precious men. Great, not as a hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine
mountain.” Such is the contrast Carlyle gives us. If Voltaire does
anything, it is not original; if Luther does much less, it is truly
great. Voltaire's life is one of persiſtage, Luther's of greatness
* See Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship.

18
Now, in spite of his “greatness,” Luther was exceedingly super-
stitious, and often very cruel. He believed in devils: argued with
them, talked of them, and frightened them away by throwing ink-
stands at them. In spite of his great intellect, he could give vent
to such nonsense as: “This is the acme of faith to believe that He
is merciful who saves so few and who condemns so many; that
He is just who at His own pleasure has made us doomed to
damnation; so that as Erasmus says: He seems to delight in
the tortures of the wretched, and to be more deserving of hatred
than of love. If by any effort of reason I could conceive how God
could be merciful and just, who shows so much anger and iniquity,
there would be no need for faith.”
He believed firmly in witchcraft, and tells us how a certain
clergyman used to be interrupted in his sermons by the devil
grunting behind him like a pig. He relates that the devil at
Torgan amused himself by breaking pots and basins, by flinging
them at a parson's head. He informs us that he himself had
pretty near been throttled by his Satanic Majesty, and was “of
opinion that Gesner and GEcolampadius came in that manner to
their deaths.” If he did not believe in the Sale of Indulgences, he
believed that old women could sell their souls. In fact he believed
a little less nonsense than the Catholics, but with more intensity.
He, along with the rest of the reformers, was not the most
charitable person in the world to those who differed from him in
opinion. He would not even shake hands with another Protes-
tant, because the other Protestant could not see as he could. To
heretics he was as bitter as it was possible for a priest to be.
The spirit of the reformers has been often displayed in the
Protestant religion, which supplanted, in some portion of the
world, the Catholic, and which has often exhibited the same spirit
of intolerance when in power that during the Middle Ages charac-
terised its predecessor. It has been said “that Anglicanism is the
Church planted in the blood of her mother.” If the Roman Church
could burn Bruno, the Protestant could also burn Servetus. If
the Catholics assassinated Henri III., the Protestants applauded the
murder of the Duke of Guise and Cardinal Beaton. If the Holy
See could condemn “three millions of people—men, women, and
children—to death,”f Knox also declared that the people of England
should “not merely have deposed their Queen, but also have put
her to death,” adding: “That they should have included in the same
slaughter her Councillors and the whole body of the Catholic
* See Lecky's Rationalism in Europe, vol. i., pages 424-425.
+ Upon the 16th of February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office con-
demned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this
universal doom only a few persons especially named were excepted. A pro-
clamation of the King, dated ten days later, confirmed the decree of the
Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution without regard
to age, sex, or condition. This is probably the most concise death warrant
that was ever framed. Three millions of people-men, women, and children—
were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines-Motley's Rise of the Dutch
Republic, vol. ii, page 158.

19
clergy.” If the Catholic Church had the Inquisitions, the Protes-
tant Church had its “Edinburgh thumb-screws.” If Protestants
were banished from Catholic dominions, at La Rochelle the
Protestants “would not permit the Catholics to have even a single
church in which to celebrate what for centuries had been the sole
religion of France, and what was still the religion of an enormous
majority of Frenchmen.” If the Catholics defended Persecution,
so also did Melanchthon, Farel, Beza, and Bullinger. In this
respect there is nothing to choose between them. They have taken
their turns at burning, beheading, drowning, and persecuting their
enemies. There is only this difference between the two—the
Protestant claimed the right of private judgment, and then burned
those who used the right; the Catholics denied the right, and con-
demned those who took it. The Catholic was a consistent perse-
cutor, the Protestant an absurd one.
Thus, though Luther undoubtedly did much for the human
race, it was only by mitigating and modifying evils, not by remov-
ing them. He cut off some withering branches from the deadly
tree; but left the tree still standing. When Voltaire came he
put his axe to the roots, and the mighty Upas fell, bringing to the
earth with it, the despicable hierarchy that had taken lodgment
in its branches. Thus did Voltaire do more good for humanity
than all the Reformers did.
I have somewhat anticipated my answer to the fourth charge,
viz.: That Voltaire was a vehement opponent to the Christian
Faith, in what I have already said. Nevertheless since the charge
is so serious it is deserving of a little more consideration. Under
this heading may come the want of “Reverence,” the intermed-
ling in Religion, “without being himself in any measure
religious” of which Carlyle accuses him.
Now, I venture to assert that there is not a virtue, not a
single truth of the Christian Religion which Voltaire opposed
What he did do, was to show that there was Truth and Virtue
outside of Christianity and to deny the right of the priests to say
that “their's was the only true religion.” He showed that the
writings of heathen poets, philosophers and priests, written prior
to the time of Christ, contained maxims of charity, precepts of
* “And therefor I fear not to affirm that it had bene the dutie of the
nobilitie, judges, rulers, and people of England not only to have resisted and
againstanded Marie, that Jesebel whome they call their queen, but also to have
punished her to the death, with all the sort of her idolatrous preestes, together
with all such as should have assisted her,” &c. (Knox. Appellation). See
Note to Lecky's Europe, vol. ii, page 190.
+ See Buckle.—“At the end of the sixteenth century the simple proposi-
tion that men for holding or declaring heterodox opinions should not be
burned alive or otherwise put to death was itself little else than a sort of
heterodoxy; and though many privately must have been persuaded of its
truth, the Protestant Churches were as far from acknowledging it as that of
Rome. No one had yet pretended to assert the general right of religious
worship, which, in fact, was rarely or never conceded to the Romanists in a
Protestant country, though the Hugenots shed oceans of blood to secure the
same privilege for themselves.”-Hallam's Literature of Europe, vol. ii, p. 83.

20
beauty and examples of virtue. He showed that Christ was not
the only one who had claimed to be the Son of God, and that
before him many had died for what they believed to be the truth.
He maintained that the Bible was not the only book that had
been considerd sacred, and that it in many parts was borrowed
from the works of Persian, Eygptian and Hindoo sages. He com-
pared the Old Testament heroes with those of Greece or Rome:–
Samson with Hercules, Moses with Mises, and Jeptha's daughter
with Iphegenia. He pointed out the frauds of the early Church,
the superstitions of the Fathers, the villainies of the Priests, the
uncertainty of the Councils, the weaknesses of the Popes, the con-
tradictions of the Gospels, and the wholesale forgeries of the first
few centuries He even ventured to criticise the Apostles, as he
would Plato and Pythagoras, and Christ as he would Christna or
Buddha. In short he brought everything down to human author-
ship, and then compared their human merits. He would not deny
that Christianity had its merits; but he denied that they were other
than human merits, and in support of his denial, he pointed to the
same merits among the heathens. If there were any difference
between Christian morals and Pagan morals it was in degree, not
in kind. If the Christian books were better than those of Zoroas-
ter or Confucius it was in their human superiority, just as the
works of Shakespeare are superior to those of Ben Jonson, or the
sermons of Bossuet to those of Bishop Merriman.
In this manner Voltaire opposed the false claims which had
been set up for Christianity, but left the noble and inspiring
truths which its founder uttered, all the purer and the more valu-
able for being separated from the dross which surrounded them.
He destroyed the false metal that the genuine might not be depre-
cated. He was the friend of true Christianity, not its enemy.
He plucked the weeds from the garden, but left the flowers
untouched.
But, with him the first question was “not what is true, but
what is false,” says Carlyle. For myself I cannot see much dif.
ference between the two questions. When a man asks what is
false he has virtually said “when I know what is false I shall
then be able the better to recognise its opposite—truth.” There
is rather a merit, if anything, in so putting the question. It is
saying in effect that the truth is so certain that the moment you
have found out what is false, truth will need no searching for—
that falsehood is the only hindrance to our discovery of truth.
The young gardener asks “which are the weeds in the garden?”
not “which are the flowers?” The flowers he is more likely to
recognise than the weeds. We enquire “which one of these trees
bears a poisonous fruit?” for having once ascertained that, we
know that all the others are “good for food." A farmer having
heard that some of his sheep are diseased, asks which ones they
are, for having found that out he knows that all the rest are
healthy. This, then, according to Carlyle, was the method em-
ployed by Voltaire, and he is blamed for it !

21
Aye, but he had no reverence, we are told again! For what?
Would he have spent his life in exposing tyranny, falsehood and
shams if he has reverenced such His greatest merit was that
he had “no reverence” for absurdities. But truth, justice and
intellect, and the God of the Universe, he truly reverenced. He
worshipped in the temple of humanity, not of the creeds; his
reverence was for that which made man happier, not for that
which made misery a part of religion. In one of his letters he
wrote “what strange rage possessess some people to insist on our,
all being miserable. They are like a quack, who would fain have
us believe we are ill, in order to sell us his pills. Keep thy drugs,
my friend, and leave me my health.” And Voltaire is actually
blamed for having more reverence for his health than for the
uack!
q But, not being religious, he should not have attacked religion.
I would like to have a definition of “Religion” from those who
raise this objection. It it be meant he did not believe in three
Gods, yet only one God; that nine-tenths of the human race would
have to roast for ever, and the other part be reserved to sing hymns
in heaven; if it be meant that he could not believe in talking
snakes or donkeys, or even talking fishes; that he could not be.
lieve in the miracles of Esculapius, Francis Xavier, or Saint Peter,
then he was not religious, and he might justly thank God for it.
But if religion has relation to what men do, and not to what they
believe, then was Voltaire more religious than his enemies. It is
easy to point the finger of scorn at those honest souls who cannot
think as we do, but that does not prove that they are in the wrong.
If they do not believe what we believe, they believe what to them
seems more true. As Emerson says: “Great believers are always
reckoned Infidels;” and this same great thinker suggests that he
who denies “denies out of more faith and not less: he denies out
of honesty.”
Would to heaven the spirit of Charity, Justice, and Humanity
reigned in every Christian heart as it did in Voltaire's Oh,
God! what a contrast between this man of “no religion” and the
men of religion in France.
It was in the year 1762 that a young man was found dead in
his father's house. The father was a weak, decrepid old man of
nearly the alloted span of three-score years and ten. He was
paralysed and nearly dying himself, but he was a Protestant: there-
fore, it was concluded he had murdered his own son. It was ru-
moured that his son wastohave turned Catholic, and the old man of
sixty-nine hadhanged hisson of twenty-eight toprevent him doingso.
The man who could scarcely totter from place to place had mur-
dered a man nearly six feet high, and at a time of life when his
muscular powers were at the strongest, and that, too, without any
one else in the house hearing or knowing anything aboutit, though
the young man was attended by a Catholic servant, though there
was a visitor at the place, and though other members of the family
were present in the honse at the time! The old man was brought

22
up before a Magistrate of the name of David, and tried for the
crime he was said to have committed. Then the Catholics of
Toulouse whispered to each other and clustered together when night
had come, to talk of the horrors of the Protestant Faith which
made it a duty to kill their own children rather than let them turn
Catholics. It was said that they had their regularly appointed
executioners, whose evil hands should spill the blood and silence
the voice of him who would abjure his faith. The Brotherhood of
the White Penitents made a representation of the young man hold-
a palm branch in one hand, signifying that he was a martyr, and a
pen in the other, which pen was to have signed his adherence to
Roman Catholicism. A Mass was said for the repose of his soul,
and the poor old father was treated without mercy.
During the trial it was shown that the young man had never
expressed the slightest intention of becoming a Catholic ;
that he had a brother who was one, and yet was well
treated by the father; that he was dissolute and subject to
fits of despondency; that he read books applauding suicide; and
that it was impossible for his infirm father to murder him. The
whole evidence went to show that he had put an end uo his own
life. Yet, in spite of all this, the elder Calas was condemned to be
broken on the wheel. His property was confiscated, while the rest
of the family were acquitted, though, if the murder had been com-
mitted, they were as much guilty as Calas himself, since they must
have known of the murder if they did not take part in its perpe-
tration. The Parliament of Toulouse confirmed the sentence of the
Magistrate, and this poor, aged, and heart-broken man was
broken on the wheel proclaiming his innocence in the very last
words that fell from his lips.
These atrocities were done by the men of religion, while the
man of no religion sheltered the family of the unfortunate father
under his roof, and for three years laboured unremittingly to get
the sentence revoked. “During that time not a smile escaped me
without my reproaching myself for it as for a crime,” said the
mocker, Voltaire. His genius, his toil, his influence, all that he
could give, were consecrated to this sacred cause, and he succeeded
at last in removing the stigma from the name of Calas, and in pro-
curing justice to those whose honour and fortune had been de-
stroyed.
Some years afterwards Voltaire made his last visit to Paris.
As he was driven through the streets they were crowded by his
worshippers. From the highest personages in France to the toil-
ing sons of labour there was nothing but anxiety to see the “old
man from Ferney.” People of quality wanted to disguise them-
selves so that in this way they might see him. Before his hotel
immense crowds were waiting for hours just to get a glance at
him. At the theatre he was crowned amid such thunders of ap-
plause asnever before that night had sounded within thosewalls. Be-
fore his eyes his bust upon the stage was kissed and crowned and
buried in flowers. The whole city of Paris was at his feet in

23
prostrate worship. Yet, amid all these scenes of adulation, the
words of a poor woman sank deeper in his heart than all the
plaudits of the multitude. “What is the name of that man whom
the crowd follow tº asked one of the crowd. “Know you not,
answered the woman, “that he is the saviour of Calas!"
It was about thesame time that Calas was condemned that Vol-
taire succeeded in procuring justice for Sirven. Sirven's daughter
had beenforcibly taken taken away from him and confinedina convent;
She was so badly treated that she contrived to make her escape, and
she was found drowned at the bottom of a well. Being a Protes-
tant, he was charged with having drowned his only child. He
had to fly from the monsters who would have had him broken on
the wheel. His wife fled with him. Long wandered she by his
side, but the snows of heaven shrouded her at last, for she perished
with a heart loaded with sorrow, by the wayside. He arrived
safely at Geneva, and there found Voltaire his protector and friend.
In one case the efforts of Voltaire were fruitless, though not
from want of zeal and labour on his part. Some four years after
the execution of Calas, a crucifix was found pulled down from a
bridge at Abbeville. This wooden idol was found cut in several
places, as though by a sword. The clergy, headed by the Bishop
of Amiens, marched in solemn procession to the spot where the
dreadful deed had been done. No efforts were spared to discover
the authors of such an awful crime. A certain tradesmen who had
a spite against two lads charged them with the act. One of them,
D'Etallonde, made his escapetother’russian dominions, where,to the
immortal honour of Frederick the Great, he made his fortune under
the protection and patronage of that king. The other, being highly
connected, young, and convinced of his own innocence, determined
to stand upon the justice of his cause. Poor La Barrè At his
trial, since it was impossible to convict him of the offence with
which he was charged, it was given out as evidence against him
that he had allowed a procession of clergymen to pass without
taking off his hat. Dreadful crime, the most unpardonable of all!
On such meagre evidence as this he was found guilty, and senten-
ced to have his hands cut off, histongue torn out, and to be burned
alive at a slow fire. The only mitigation to the sentence which
could be procured, was that La Barre should be executed before
he was burned.
Remember these things were done in the name of the reli-
gion which Voltaire opposed. It was his religion which cried for
justice, charity and mercy; their religion which denied those bles-
sings. His religion was that of justice; theirs of persecution.
His religion was the religion of love and forgiveness; theirs of
hatred and oppression.
Let those who calumniate his memory remember what
we owe to him. Never more can such persecutions as those
I have described take place, Bartholomew massacres, Spanish
Inquisitions, Smithfield fires, racks and all the thousand-fold
implements of tortures are things of the past, and shall never again

24
be the hand-maids of Faith. In place thereof we have freedom of
thought, charity towards those who differ from us, and a greater de-
gree of justice thanever before was possible. As the gloomy shadows
and figures of the night, the ghosts of the evil dead and the terrors
of the kingdom of darkness fly before the morning's sun, so the
gaunt and dreadful forms of superstition fled before the genius of
Voltaire
By those who have only heard of Voltaire from the pulpit,
it is generally believed that he was an “Atheist,” and that he
died a frightful death. With regard to his “atheism,” it consisted
in the repudiation of the ideas which superstition had invented
of God. He did not believe in a thieving Mercury, a voluptuous
Venus or a lustful Jove. He ignored a monster like Siva, a drun-
kard like Bacchus, and warriors like Mars and Jehova. He did
not believe that either Perseus, Romulus, Buddha, Crishna or
Christ were incarnations, or children of Gods, and born from
Virgins. He did not believe in the Trinity of Plato, in the Amun,
Maut and Khonso, in the Osiris, Isis and Horus of the Eygptians,
in the Brahma, Vishnu and Siva of the Hindoos, the Past, Present,
and Future of the Buddhists, nor yet in the Father, Son and Holy
Ghost of the Christians. Whether they were the Gods of Scandi-
navia or Eygpt, of Greece or Rome, of Europe or India, of China
orthe South Sea Islands, they were all too anthopomorphous for him;
they were all alike the products of a superstitious fancy. But to
the great Unknowable, to the Eternal and Infinite author of all
good, Voltaire ever gave his veneration and his faith. In proof
of this, let his articles on “Atheism,” “Atheists,” and the
“Gods” in the Philosophical Dictionary be read. In one of his
letters he says:–
“Hear my confession of faith; take it just as I offer it to you and the
public, who are the Fº judges. I adore one God, the Creator of all
things, a Being of infinite wisdom, the rewarder and punisher of all men; not
the enemy or the friend of one sect, or one nation, but the equal Father of all.
I love and serve him the best I can, in men, my fellow-creatures and his chil-
dren. Weak, terrestial princes prefer those subjects who flatter best; but God
does not desire our flatteries. His truest temple is in the heart of a just man.
There is no necessity for assembling on certain days, to inform Him in a song
that He is just and merciful. Every man who loves mankind, his native coun-
try and his wife, who duly instructs his children, who adheres to justice, and
assists the unfortunate, serves God as He Himself requires, and fulfils the law.
I know none who are more truly impious than the bad, the cunning and the
slanderous I firmly believe that every justman believes in God, and that God
is a good King, whose only desire is to make his subjects happy.”
Voltaire therefore was no “Atheist; but as firm a believer in
God as any mortal who ever received gifts from the Most High.
Then, as to his death: this is about the only thing that is re-
membered of him; this is the only part of his life that clergymen
dilate upon. It is represented that in his death he was most
wretched, most ungodly. He died with such agonies of mind, and
with such a terror of what was still to come, that his attendants
were perfectly horrified, some of them being unable to remain in
his presence. Such is the orthodox picture. And if it were true,
what then? It would only prove that the strength of mind that

25
he possessed during his life and whilst in perfect health forsook him
at the last moment. It would only prove that what he was, when
suffering the agonies of a fatal affliction, was other than what he
was when his mind was healthy, vigorous, and strong. If Chris-
tian ministers can only appeal to the ravings of dying men in
proof of their religion, their cause is very weak indeed. You
might just as well go into a lunatic asylum and take the jabberings
of insanity in proof of your cause as to carefully chronicle what a
weakened brain, fevered by the grip of death, pours forth in in-
coherent strains upon religion. If men are not orthodox when
their minds are strong and healthy, it is a poor argument for ortho-
doxy to say that when their minds become diseased and fevered in
death, they will wish they had been so. It is always best to
take a man for what he is when he is at his best, not in his hour
of greatest weakness.
But the description of Voltaire's death, as described by the
Parisian clergy, is false. He died peaceably and quietly, as I wish
every Christian may die. The following letter from one of his
physicians will be sufficient to remove the calumny which has so
long passed for truth upon this point:-
“I feel happy in having it in my power, by rendering homage to truth,
to overthrow the lying accounts that have been spread ...;with regard to the
last mºments of Voltaire. I was by my profession one of those who were ap-
pointed to mark the progress of his disease (along with Doctors Tronchin, Lorry,
and Try, his Fº I did not º him a single instant during his last
moments, and I can certify that we always observed in him the same strength of
character, although, in consequence of his disorder, he must have experienced
extreme suffering. We had absolutely prohibited him to speak, in order that
he might avoid the progress of a spitting of blood with which he was afflicted;
yet even then he continued constantly to communicate with us by means of
cards, on which he wrote his questions: to these our answers were given verbally;
and if we did not give him satisfaction, he still continued his observations.in
writing. . He preserved therefore his intellect to the last moment, and the foolish
stories which have been published merit the greatest contempt.
. . “It cannot be said that any person has related this or that circumstance
ºf his death as having been an actual witness, for, towards his end, all access to
his chamber was absºlutely denied to any person whatever. Those who came to
enquire the state of his health remained in the anti-chamber or other apartments.
The discourse which has been put in the mouth of Marshal Richelieu must
therefore be as counterfeit as the rest. He died on the 30th of May, 1778.
Paris, April 3, 1819. (Signed) BURARD, Physician.
The following remarks accompany the above letter in Sir T.
C. Morgan’s “Philosophy of Morals” —“This statement of Dr.
Burard was confirmed to me in all its particulars by Madame la
Marquise de Villette, Voltaire's adopted daughter, who was like-
wise about his dying person during his last moments.”
To the last scene in Voltaire's life I am happy to say Carlyle
does justice. After quoting the account of his death by Wagnière,
which says: “Ten minutes before his last breath, he took the hand of
Morand, his valet-de-chambre, who was watching by him; pressed
it, and said ‘Adieu, mon cher Morand, je me meurs.” Adieu, my
dear Morand, I am gone.” He thus remarks in a foot-note:
“On this sickness of Voltaire, and his death-bed deportment,
many foolish books have been written; concerning which it is not

26
necessary to say anything. The conduct of the Parisian clergy on
that occasion seems totally unworthy of their cloth. . . . Surely
the parting agonies of a fellow-mortal, when the spirit of our
brother, rapt in the whirl-winds and thick ghastly vapours of
death, clutches blindly for help, and no help is there, are not the
scenes where a wise faith would seek to exult, when it can no
longer hope to alleviate. . . . Voltaire had enough of suffer-
ing, and of mean enough suffering, to encounter, without any ad-
dition from theological despair. His last interview with the clergy,
who had been sent for by his friends, that the rites of burial might
not be denied him, is thus described by Wagnière, as it has been
by all other creditable reporters of it: “Two days before that
“mournful death, M. l'Abbé Mignot, his nephew, went to seek the
* Curé of Saint-Sulpice and the Abbé Gautier, and brought them
‘into his uncle's sick-room; who, being informed that the Abbé
‘Gautier was there, “Ah, well!" said he, ‘give him my compliments
‘and my thanks.” The Abbé spoke some words with him, exhort-
‘ing him to patience. The Curé of Saint-Sulpice then came for
‘ward, having announced himself, and asked of M. de Voltaire,
“elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our Lord
“Jesus Christ? The sick man pushed one of his hands against the
“Curé's calotte (coif), shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly
‘to the other side, ‘Let mediein peace (Laisssez-moi mouriren pair)?
“The Curé seemingly considered his person soiled, and his coif dis-
* honoured, by the touch of a philosopher. He made the sick nurse
‘give him a little brushing, and then went out with the Abbé
* Gautier.””
So died this great man. In his life he had his faults—some of
them being great enough—that all of us will agree; but let us not
forget the age he lived in-the age of Pompadours, and the age of
the profligate Louis the XV. and his court. It is unfair to judge
his vices by the standard of our century, since he lived in a time
of universal corruption. Let us not forget the good he has done;
though we may recollect his weaknesses, and letus ever begrateful
to him for his noble efforts in the cause of Humanity. Let us reflect
that his faults were the faults of his age and country, his virtues
and his greatness those of a wonderful genius and benefactor of
mankind.
In conclusion, I have only one request to make : That his
works may be read. There is great need of this in South Africa,
as, indeed, there is everywhere for that matter. But especially here
by the friends of Bishop Merriman and Dr. Wirgman. These two
worthies certainly cannot do much harm among us, but they are
the representatives of the old school. Voltaire and his schoolhave
limited their power. The reverend Doctor, who is Rector of St
Mary's, has written much against a certain Bishop, who is much
more widely known and respected than the Doctor, not only in
South Africa, but throughout the whole civilized world, and who
happens to be very learned and elever, very honest and out-
spoken at the same time that he has the misfortune to be a Bishop.

27
The result is, our friend, the Doctor, thinks a more ignorant man
should take his place, and would be exceedingly pleased if the
Bishop would resign. The Bishop, either out of stubbornness or a
desire to improve the Church, which so much needs it, is deter-
mined to show to the world that all Bishops are not fools. His
brother Bishops in South Africa hate him for this. One hundred
and fifty years ago their hate might have made them guilty of the
crime of putting Colenso to death, or otherwise persecuting him.
Happily Voltaire has lived since then. Now they write letters in
the papers for the intelligent to smile at, and preach foolish ser-
mons for old women to admire, to which latter sex most of our
clergy belong.
As to Bishop Merriman, last Sunday he told us that 2000
pigs were drowned 1,800 years ago (in a country where no pigs
were kept), for the purpose of proving that there were real devils.
A very expensive way certainly. Josephus relates, that a country-
man of his named Eliezer, in the presence of the Emperor Ves-
pasian, used to cast out devils, and in order to prove that he had
the power, he used to set a vessel full of water at a distance from
the “possessed” person. He pulled the devil out through the
man's nose, “and he commanded the demon as he left the body of
the man to overturn it, by which means, says Josephus, the skill
and wisdom of Solomon were made manifest.” This affected the
same purpose without robbing a poor Jew of his pigs. But the
Bishop believes that the other way was the best. My friends, let
us pray to God that this Bishop may be enlightened.
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