\TRUTH SEEKER LIBRARY. No. 13.
January, 1892.
MONTHLY. (25 'cuts ) $3 PER VEA.II.
o -
: Entered in Post-Offio,e in New York,
: Jan. 1, '92, as second- dac-s matter.
DEATH;
BEDS
NEW YORK ;
: THE TRUTH SEEKER CO.,
62 VESEY STREET
GIFT OF
OTTILIA c. ANDERSON
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS
"IDLE TALES OF DYING HORRORS*
BY
G. W. FOOTE
NEW YORK
THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY
62 VESEY STREET
IFT
INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
INFIDEL aeatn-beds have been a fertile theme of pulpit elo-
quence. The priests of Christianity often inform their .con-
gre'gations that Faith is an excellent soft pillow, and Eeason
a horrible hard bolster, for the dying head. Freethought,
they Bay, is all very well in the days of our health and
strength, when we are buoyed up by the pride of carnal
intellect! but ah! how poor a. thing it is when health and
Strength fail us, when, deserted by our self-sufficiency, we
need the support of a stronger power. In that extremity the
proud Freethinker turns to Jesus Christ, renounces his wicked
scepticism, implores pardon of the Savior he has despised,
and shudders at the awful scenes that await him in the next
world should the hour of forgiveness be past.
Pictorial art has been pressed into the service of this plea
for religion, and in such orthodox periodicals as the British
Workman, to say nothing of the horde of pious inventions
which are circulated as tracts, expiring sceptics have .been
! portrayed in agonies of terror, gnashing their teeth, wringing
their hands, rolling their eyes, and exhibiting every sign of
despair.
One minister of the gospel, the Rev. Erskine Neale, has not
thought it beneath his dignity to compose an extensive series
of these holy frauds, under the title of Closing Scenes. This
work was, at one time, very popular and influential ; but its
specious character having been exposed, it has fallen- into
disrepute, or at least into neglect.,
The real answer to these arguments, if they may be called
such, is to be found in the body of the present work. I have
M180640
4 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
narrated in a brief space, and from the best authorities, tKo
" closing scenes " in the lives of many eminent Freethinkers
during the last three centuries. They are not anonymous
persons without an address, who cannot be located in time or
space, and who simply serve " to point a moral or adorn a
tale." Their names are in most cases historical, and in some
cases familiar to fame ; great poets, philosophers, historians,
and wits, of deathless memory, who cannot be withdrawn
from the history of our race without robbing it of much of
its dignity and splendor.
In some instances I have prefaced the story of their deaths
with a short, and in others with a lengthy, record of their
lives. The ordinary reader cannot be expected to possess a
complete acquaintance with the career and achievements of
every great soldier of progress ; and I have therefore con-
sidered it prudent to afford such information as might be
deemed necessary to a proper appreciation of the character,
the greatness, and the renown, of the subjects of my sketches.
"When the hero of the story has been the object of calumny
or misrepresentation, when his death has been falsely related,
and simple facts have been woven into a tissue of lying absur-
dity, I have not been content with a bare narration of the
truth ; I have carried the war into the enemy's camp, and
refuted their mischievous libels.
One of our greatest living thinkers entertains " the belief
that the English mind, not readily swayed by rhetoric, moves
freely under the pressure of facts." 1 I may therefore venture
to hope that the facts I have recorded will have their proper
effect on the reader's mind. Yet it may not be impolitic to
examine the orthodox argument as to death-bed repentances.
Oarlyle, in his Essay on Voltaire, utters a potent warning
against anything of the kind.
" Surely the parting agonies of a fellow-mortal, when the spirit
of our brother, rapt in the whirlwinds and thick ghastly vapors of
death, clutches blindly for help, and no help is there, are not the
cenes where a wise faith would seek to exult, when it can no
onger hope to alleviate ! For the rest, to louch farther on those
i Dr. E. B. Tylor : Preface to second edition of Primitive Culture
INTRODUCTION. 5
their idle tales of dying ho-rrtirs, remorse, and the like ; to write of
such, to believe them, or disbelieve them, or in anywise discuss
them, were but a continuation of the same ineptitude. He who,
after the imperturbable exifr of so many Cartouches and Thurtells,
in every age of the world,, can continue to regard 'the manner of a
man's death as a test of his religious orthodoxy, may boast himself
impregnable to merely terrestrial logic." 2
There is a great deal of truth in this vigorous passage; I
fancy, however, that some of the dupes of priestcraft are not
absolutely impregnable to terrestrial logic, and I discuss the
subject for their sakes, even at the risk of being held guilty
of " ineptitude."
Throughout the world the religion of mankind is deter-
mined by the geographical accident of . their birth. In
England men grow up Protestants; in Italy, Catholics; in
Russia, Greek Christians ; in Turkey, Mohammedans ; in
India, Brahmans ; in China, Buddhists, or Confucians. What
they are taught in their childhood they believe in their man-
hood ; and they die in the faith in which they have lived.
Here and there a few men think for themselves. If they
discard the faith in which they have been educated, they are
never free from its influence. It meets them at every turn,
and is constantly, by a thousand ties, drawing them back to
the. orthodox fold. The stronger resist this attraction, the
weaker succumb to it. Between them is the average man,
whose tendency will depend on several things. If he ia
isolated, or finds but few sympathisers, he may revert to the
ranks of faith ; if he finds many of the same opinion with
himself, he will probably display more fortitude. Even Free-
thinkers are gregarious, and in the worst as well as the best
sense of the words, the saying of Novalis is true *' My
thought gains infinitely when it is shared by another."
But in all cases of reversion, the sceptic invariably turns
to the creed of his own country. What does this prove'?
Simply the power of our environment, and the force of early
training. When " infidels " are few, and their relatives are
orthodox, what could be .more natural .than what is called " a
Essays, Vol. II., p. 161 (People's edition).
6 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
death-bed recantation"? Their minds are enfeebled by
disease, or the near approach of death ; they are surrounded
by persons who continually urge them to be reconciled to the
popular faith; and is it astonishing if they sometimes yield to
these solicitations ? Is it wonderful if, when all grows dim and
the priestly carrion-crow of the death-chamber mouths his
perfunctory shibboleths, the weak brain should become dazed,
and the poor tongue mutter a faint response?
Should the dying man be old, there is still less reason for
surprise. Old age yearns back to the cradle, and as Dante
Rossetti says
tc Life all past
Is like the sky when the sun sets in it,
Clearest where furthest off."
The " recantation " of old men, if it occurs, is easily under-
stood. Having been brought up in a particular religion, their
earliest and tenderest memories may be connected with it ;
and when they lie down to die they may mechanically recur
to it, just as they may forget whole years of their maturity,
and vividly remember the scenes of their childhood. Those
who have read Thackeray's exquisitely faithful and pathetic
narrative of the death of old Colonel Newcome, will remember
that as the evening chapel bell tolled its last note, he smiled,
lifted his head a little, and cried " Adsum ! " the boy's answer
when the names were called at school.
Cases of recantation, if they were ever common, which
does not appear to be true, are now exceedingly rare ; so rare,
indeed, that they .are never heard of except in anonymous
tracts, which are evidently concocted for the glory of God,
rather than the edification of Man. Sceptics are at present
numbered by thousands, and they can nearly always secure
at their bedsides the presence of friends who share their un-
belief. Every week the Freethought journals report quietly,
and as a ^natter of course, the peaceful end of " infidels " *
who, having lived without hypocrisy, have died without fear.
They are frequently buried by their heterodox friends, and
never a week passes without the Secular Burial Service, or
INTEODUCTION. 7
some other appropriate words, being read by sceptics over a
sceptic's grave.
Christian ministers Know this. They usually confine them-
selves, therefore, to the death-bed stories of Paine and
Voltaire, which have been again and again refuted. Little,
if anything, is said about the eminent Freethinkers who have
died in the present generation. The priests must wait half
a century before they can hope to defame them with success.
Our cry to, these pious sutlers is " Hands off Refute ,the
arguments of Freethinkers, if you can ; but do not obtrude
your disgusting presence in the death-chamber, t vent your
malignity over their tombs."
Suppose, however, that every Freethinker turned Chris-
tian on his death-bed. It is a tremendous stretch of fancy,
but I make it for the sake of argument. "What would it prove ?
Nothing, as I said before, but the force of our surroundings
and early training. It is a common saying among Jews,
when they hear of a Christian proselyte " Ah, wait till he
comes to die ! " As a matter of fact, converted Jews generally
die in the faith of their race ; and the same is alleged as to
the native converts that arc made by our missionaries in India.
Heine has a pregnant passage on this point. ^Referring to
Joseph Schelling, who was " an apostate to his own thought,"
who " deserted the altar he had himself consecrated?' and
" returned to the crypts of the past," Heine rebukes the " old
believers" who cried Kyrie eleisdn in honor of such a con-
version. " That," he says, " proves nothing for their doctrine.
It only proves that man turns to religion when ht> is old and
fatigued, when his physical and mental force has left him,
when he can no longer enjoy nor reason. So many Free-
thinkers aro converted on their death-beds ! . . But at least
do not boast of them. Thcso legendary conversions belong
at best to pathology, and are a poor evidence for your cause.
After all, they only prove this, that it was impossible for you
to convert those Freethinkers while they were healthy. in
body and miod." 3
3 Do VAllewacine, Vol. I., p. 174.. .
8 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
Re'nan has some excellent words on the same subject in his
delightful volume of autobiography. After expressing a
rooted preference for a sudden death, he continues : " I should
be grieved to go through one of those periods of feebleness,
in which the man who has possessed' strength and virtue is
only th shadow and ruins of himself, and often, to the great
joy of fools, occupies himself in demolishing the life he has
laboriously built up. Such an old age is the worst gift the
gods can bestow on man. If such a fate is reserved for me.
I protest in advance against the fatuities that a softened brain
may make me say or sign.- It is Ke*nan sound in heart and
head, such as I am now, and not Kenan half destroyed by
death, and no longer himself, as I shall be if I decompose
gradually, that I wish people to listen to and. believe." 4
To find the best passage on this topic in our own literature
we must go back to the seventeenth century, and to Selden's
Table Talk, a volume in which Coleridge found "more weighty
bullion sense " than he " ever found in the same number of
pages of any uninspired writer." Selden lived in a less
mealy-mouthed age than ours, and what I am going to quote
smacks of the blunt old times ; but it is too good to miss, and
all readers whp are not prudish will thank me for citing it.
" For a priest," says Selden, " to turn a man when he lies
a dying, is just like one that hath a long time solicited a
woman, and cannot obtain his end ; at length he makes her
drunk, and so lies with her." It is a curious thing that the
writer of these words helped to draw up the Westminster
Confession of Faith.
For my own part, while I have known many Freethinkers
who were stedfast to their principles in death, I have never
known a single case of recantation. The fact is, Christians
are utterly mistaken on this subject. It is quite intelligible
that those who believe in a vengeful God, and an everlasting
hell, should tremble on " the brink of eternity ; " and it is
natural that they should ascribe to others the same trepida-
tion. But a moment's reflection must convince them that this
* Souvenirs PEn/ance et de Jeimesse, p. 377.
INTRODUCTION. 9
is fallacious. The oiily terror in death is the apprehension
of what lies .beyond it, and that emotion is impossible to a
sincere disbeliever. Of course the orthodox may ask " But is
there a sincere disbeliever P " To which .1 can only reply,
like Diderot, by asking " Is there a sincere Christian ? "
Professor Tyndall, while repudiating Atheism himself, has
borne testimony to the earnestness of others who embrace it,
" I have known some of the most pronounced among them,"
he says, " not only in life but in death seen them approaching
with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a hang-
man's whip, with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as
mindful of their duties, and as faithful in. the discharge of
them, as if their eternal future depended on their latest
deeds." 5
Lord Bacon said, " I do not believe that any man fears to
be dead, but only the stroke of death." True, and the
physical suffering, and the pang of separation, are the same
for all. Yet the end of life is as natural as its beginning,
and the true philosophy of existence is nobly expressed in
the lofty sentence of Spinoza, "A free man thinks less of
nothing than of death."
* So live, that when thy summons conies to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, hut sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Ijike one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 6
* Fortniyhtly Itericw, November, 1877.
" Bryant,
NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
NEARLY five thousand copies of this little work having
been sold in two years, I now publish a second edition^
containing a considerable number of fresh names,
which will be found marked with a star in the index.
Scrupulous care has been taken, as before, to state
nothing but facts, vouched for by irreproachable autho-
rities.
LORD AMBERLEY il
LORD AMBERLEY.
Viscount Amberley, the eldest son of the late Earl Russell,
and the author of a very heretical w&rk entitled an Analysis
of Religious Belief, lived and died a Freethinker. His will,
stipulating that his son should be educated by a sceptical
friend was set aside by Earl Russell; the law of England
being such, that Freethinkers are denied the parental rights
which are enjoyed by their Christian neighbors. Lady
Frances Russell, who signs with her initials the Preface to
Lord Amberley's book, which was published after his death,
writes : "Ere the pages now given to the public had left the
press, the hand that had written them was cold, the heart
of which few could know the loving depths had ceased to
beat, the far-ranging mind was for ever still, the fervent
spirit was at .rest. Let this be remembered by those who
read, and add solemnity to the BO-lemn purpose of the book."
JOHN BASKERVILLE.
Baskerville's name is well known in the republic of letters,
and his memory still lingers in Birmingham, where he
carried on the trade of a printer. He was celebrated for the
excellence of his workmanship, the beauty of his types^ and the
splendor of his editions. Born in 1706, he died on January 8,
1775. He was buried in a tomb in his own garden, on which
was place' 1 the following inscription*:
Stranger,
Beneath this cone, in unconsecrated ground,
A friend to the liberties of mankind directed
His body to be inurned.
May the example contribute to emancipate thy
Mind from the idle fears of Superstition
And the wicked arts of Priesthood.
12 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
This virtuous mail and useful citizen took precautions
against "the wicked arts of priesthood." " His will,' 1 says
Mr. Leslie Stephen, "professed open contempt for Christianity,
and the biographers who reproduce the document always veil
certain passages with lines of stars as being ' far too indecent
(1.6. irreverent) for repetition.' r? *
HENKI BAYLE.
Henri Bayle was the author of the famous Dictionary which
bears his name. This monument of learning and acuteness
has been of inestimable service to succeeding writers. Gibbon
himself laid it under contribution, and acknowledged his
indebtedness to the " celebrated writer " and " philosopher "
of Amsterdam. Elsewhere Gibbon calls him "-the indefa-
tigable Bayle," an epithet which is singularly appropriate,
since he worked fourteen hours daily for over forty years.
Born on November 18, 1647, Bayle died on December 28, 1706.
He continued writing to the very end, and " labored con-
stantly, with the same tranquility of mind as if, death had
not been ready to interrupt his work." * This is the testimony
of a friend; and a similar statement is made in the Nouvelle
Biograpliie Genei'ale, whrch says .11 mourut tout hdbille, et pour
ainsi dire la plume a la main " He died in his clothes, and as
it were pen in hand." According to Des Maiseaux, " He saw
death approaching without either fearing or desiring it."
Nor did his jocularity desert him any more than his scep-
ticism. Writing, to Lord Shaftesbury on October 29, 1706
only two months before his death he said : " I should have
thought that a dispute with Divines would put me out of
humor, but I find by experience that it serves as an amuse-
ment 'for me in the solitude to which I have reduced myself."
The final moments of this great scholar are described by a
friend who had the account from an attendant. " M. Bayle
died," says M. Seers, " with great tranquility, and without
* Dictionary of National Biography.
8 Des Maiseaux, Life of Bayle, prefixed to the English translation
of the " Dictionary."
JEBEMY BENTHAM. 13
anybody with him. At nine o'clock in the morning his land-
lady entered his chamber ; he aaked her, but with a dying
voice, if his fire was kindled, and died a moment after, with-
out M Basnage 9 , or me, or any of his friends with him."
JEREMY BENTHAM.
Bent ham exercised a profound influence on the party of
progress for nearly two generations. He was the father of
Philosophical Eadicalism, which did so much' to free the
minds and bodies of the English people, and which counted
among its swordsmen historians like Grote, philosophers
like Mill, wits like Sidney Smith, journalists like Fonblanque,
and politicians like Roebuck. As a reformer in jurispru-
dence he has no equal. His brain swarmed with progressive
ideas and projects for the improvement and elevation of
mankind ; and his fortune, as well as his intellect, was ever
at the service of advanced causes. His scepticism was rather
suggested than paraded in his multitudinous writings, but it
was plainly expressed in a few special volumes. Not Paul,
But Jesus, published under the pseudonym of Gamaliel Smith
is a slashing attack on the Great Apostle. The Church of
England Catechism Explained is a merciless criticism of that
great instrument for producing mental and political slaves.
But the most thorough-going of Bentham's works was a little
volume written by Grote from the Master's notes the
Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of
Mankind in which theology is assatted as the historic and
necessary enemy of human liberty, enlightenment, and
welfare.
Born on February 15, 1748, Bentham died on June 6, 18321
By a will dating as far back as 1769, his body was left for the
purposes of science, " not out of affectation of singularity, but
to the intent and with the desire that mankind may reap
some small benfit in -and by my decease, having hitherto had
email opportunities to contribute thereto while living." A
M. Basnage the author of the first History of the Jews.
14 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
memorandum affixed shows that this clause was deliberately
confirmed two months before his death.
Dr. Southwood Smith delivered a lecture over Bentham's
remains, three days after, his death, in the 'Webb Street
School of Anatomy. He thus described the last moments of
his illustrious friend :
Some time before his death, when lie firmly believed lie was
near that hour, he said to one of his v. disciples, who was watching
over him : f I now. feel that I am dying : our care must be to
minimise the -pain. Do not let any of the servants come into my
room, and keep awaj r the youth : it will be distressing to them,
and they can be of no service. Yet I must not be alone ; you will
remain with me, and you. only ; and then we shall have reduced
the pain to the least possible amount.' Such were his last thoughts
and feelings."
Mr. Leslie Stephen relates a similar story in the Dictionary
of National Biography. " During his last illness," says Mr.
Stephen " he asked the doctor to tell him if there was any
prospect of recovery. On being informed that there was
none, he replied serenely " Very well, be it so ; then minimise
pain." Bentham may- have used the same language to the
doctor and the disciple, and it was natural on his lips. As a
Utilitarian, he regarded happiness as the only good and pain
as the only evil. He met death " serenely," but like a sensible
man he " minimised the pain. "
PAUL BEET.
Paul Bert was born at Auxerre in October, 1833, and he
died at Tonquin 011 November 11, 1886. His father educated
him in a detestation of priests, and his own nature led him to
the pursuit of science. After -studying anatomy under
Gratiolet, ho took the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1863,
and three years later the degree of Doctor of Science; teach-
ing zoology at Bordeaux and succeeding Jlourens at the
Museum. Going to Paris, he became preparator to the great
anatomist Claude Bernard, whom. he succeeded at the
Sorbonne in 1869. His political life began with the fall of the
I Dr. Southwood Smith's Lecture, p. 62.
PAUL BEET. 15
Empire. Gambetta appointed him prefect of the Nord, where
he toiled mightily with General Faidherbe. After the war he
entered the Chamber of Deputies, and devoted his great
powers to the development 6f public education. Largely
through his labors,., the Chamber voted free, secular, and
compulsory instruction for both sexes. He was idolised by
the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses in France. Being
accused of a "blind hatred " of priests, he replied in the
Chamber " The conquests of education are made on the do-
main of religion; I am forced to meet on my road Catholic
superstitions and Eomish policy, or rather it is across their
empire that my path seems to me naturally traced." Speaking
at a mass meeting at the Oirque d'Hiver, in August, 1881,
Gambetta himself being in the chair, Paul Bert declared that
" modern societies march towards morality in proportion as
they leave religion behind.," Afterwards he published his
scathing Morale des Jesuites, over twenty thousand copies of
which were sold in less than a year. The book was dedicated
to Bishop Freppel in a vein of masterly irony. -Paul Bert
also published a scientific work, the Premiere Aniiee d* Enseigne-
ment Scientifique, which is almost universally used in the
French primary schools.
During Gambetta's short-lived government Paul Bert held
the post of Minister of Public Instruction. In 1886 he went
out to . Tonquin as Eesident General. Hard work and the
pestilential climate laid him low, and he succumbed to
dysentery. A fortnight before his death he telegraphed to
M. Freycinet, desiring him to say nothing of his illness for
the sake of his friends and relatives. Some days later he
telegraphed again, " You are right ; it is better for me to die
at my post than to quit Tonquin at the present moment."
"When the news of his death reached, the French Chamber,
M. Freycinet announced the event from the tribune;
" I announce with the deepest sorrow the death of M. Paul Bert.
He died literally on the field of honor, broken down by the
fatigues and hardships which lie so bravely endured in trying to
carry out- the glorious -task which he had undertaken. The
Chamber loses by his death one of its most eminent members,
Science one of its most illustrious votaries, France one of her most
loving and faithful children, and the Government a fellow-worker
16 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
of inestimable value, in whom we placed the fullest confidence.
Excuse me, gentlemen, if because my strength .fails me I ain
unable to proceed." .
THe sitting was raised as a mark of respect, and the next
day the Chamber voted a public funeral and a pension to
Paul Bert's family. Bishop Freppel opposed the first vote on
the ground that the deceased was an inveterate enemy
of religion, but he was ignominiously beaten, the majority
against him being 379 to 45. Despite this miserable protest,
while Paul Bert's body was on its way to Europe the clerical
party started a canard about his " conversion." Perhaps the
story originated in the fact that he had daily visited tlie
Haoni hospital, distributing books and medicines, and speak-'
ing kind words to the nuns in attendance. It was openly
stated, and unctuously ' commented on in the religious jour-
nals, that the Eesident General had sent for a Catholic
bishop on his death-bed and taken the sacrament ; and as
inventions of this kind are always circumstantial,, it was said
that the Papal Nuncio at ](Jisbon had received this intelli-
gence. But on December 29 the Papal Nuncio telegraphed
that his name had been improperly used ; and two days later,
when the French war- ship touched at the Suez Canal, Madame
Bert telegraphed that the story was absolutely and entirely
false. Still, this pious effort to convert a corpse was ^not a
complete failure. Some of the journals which published the
" conversion " had not the honesty to publish the contradic-
tion ; and probably the death-bed repentence of Paul Bert
will be devoutly believed by many religionists until they
themselves cross " the bourne from whence no traveller
returns," and have no further interest in lies or truth.
LOBD BOLINGBEOKE.
Henry St. John, Yiscounii Bolingbroke, was born in 1672
at Battersea, .where he also died on December 12, 1751. His
life was a stormy one, and on the fall of the Tory ministry,
of which he was a distinguished member, he was impeached
by the Whig parliamesfr under the leadership of Sir "Robert
LORD BOLINGBROKE. 17
"Walpole. It was merely a party prosecution, and although
Bolingbroke was attainted of high treason, he did not lose a
friend or forfeit the resp'ect of honest men. Swift and Pope
held' him in the highest esteem; they corresponded with him
throughout their lives, and it' was from Bolingbroke that Pope
derived.thg principles of the Essay on Man. That Boling-
broke' s abilities were of the highest order cannot be gainsaid.
His political writings are masterpieces of learning, eloquence,
and wit, the style is sinewy and graceful, and in tho greatest
heat of controversy he never ceases to be a gentloman. -His
philosophical writings were published after his death by Iris
literary executor, David Mallett, whom Johnson described as
" a beggarly Scotchman," who was " left half-a-crown v to fire
off a blunderbuss, which his patron had charged, against " reli-
gion and morality." Johnson's opinion on such a subject is,
however, of trifling importance. He hated Scotchmen arid
Infidels, and he told Boswell that Voltaire and Eousseau
deserved transportation more than any of the scoundrels who
were tried at the Old Bailey.
Bolingbroke's philosophical writings show him to have
been a Deist. He believed in God but he rejected Revelation.
His. views are advanced and supported with erudition, elo-
quence, and masterly irony. The approach of death, which
was preceded by the excruciating disease of cancer in the
cheek, did not produce the least change in his convictions.
According to Goldsmith, " He was consonant with himself to
the last ; and those principles which he had all along avowed,
he confirmed with his dying breath, having given orders that
none of the clergy should be permitted to trouble him in his
last moments." 2
FRANCIS BROUSSAIS.
Francis Jean Victor Broussais, the great French physician
and philosopher, was born in 1772. He died on November 17,
1838, leaving behind him a " profession of faith," which was
2 Life of Lord Bolingbroke ; Works, Vol. IV., p. 248. Edition:
Tegg, 1835.
18 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
published by his biographer. With respect to immortality,
he wrote, " I have no fears or hopes* as to future life, since I
am unable to conceive it." His views on the God idea were
equally negative. . " I cannot," he said, " form any notion of
such a power." 3
GIOKDANO BKTJNO.
This glorious martyr of Freethought did not die in a quiet
chamber, tended by loving hands. He was literally
" butchered to make a Boman holiday." When the assassins
of " the bloody faith " kindled the fire which burnt out his
splendid life, he was no decrepit man, nor had the finger of
Death touched his cheek with a pallid hue. The blood
coursed actively through his veins, and a dauntless spirit
shone in his noble eyes. It might have been Bruno that
Shelley had in mind when he wrote those thrilling lines in
Queen Mob,:
* I was an infant when my mother went
To see an Atheist burned. She took me there :'
The dark -robed priests were met around the pile,
The multitude was gazing silently ;
And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,
Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye,
Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth :
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs ;
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon ;
His death-pang rent my heart ! The insensate mob
Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept."
Giordano Bruno was born at Nola, near Naples, in 1548,
ten years after the death of Copernicus, and ten years before
the birih of Bacon. At the age of fifteen he became a novice
in the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore, and after his
year's ndvitiate expired he took the monastic vows. Stud ying
deeply, he became heretical, and an act of accusation was
drawn up against the boy of sixteen. Eight years later he
was threatened with another trial for heresy. A third pro-
' 8 H. de Montsre x Notice. Hisivrifiuo sur la, Vie, les Travauas, etc.,
of p. Broussais. Paris, 1839.
GIORDANO BRUNO. 19
cess was more to be dreaded, and in his twenty^eighth year
Bruno fled from his persecutors. He visited Rome, Noli,
Yenice, Turin and Padua. At Milan he made the acquain-
tance of Sir Philip Sidney. After teaching for some time in
the university, he went to Chambery, but the ignorance and
bigotry of its monks were too great for his patience. He
next visited Geneva, but although John Calvin was dead, his
dark spirit still remained, and only flight preserved Bruno
from the fate of Servetus. Through Lyons he passed to
Toulouse, where he was elected Public Lecturer to the
University. In 1579 he went to Paris. The streets were still
foul with the blood of the Bartholomew massacres, but Bruno
declined a professorship at the Sorbonne, a condition of which
was attending mass. Henry the Third, however, made him
Lecturer extraordinary to the University. Paris at length
became too hot to hold him, and he went to London, where
he lodged with the French Ambassador. His evenings were
mostly spent with Sir Philip Sidney, Fulke Grevile, Dyer,
and Hervey. So great was his fame that he was invited to
read at the University of Oxford, where he also held a public
debate with its orthodox professors on the Copernican
astronomy. Leaving London in 1584, he returned to Paris,
and there also he publicly disputed with the Sorbonne. His
safety being once more threatened, he went to Marburg, and
thence to Wittenburg, where he taught for two years. At
Helenstadt he was excommunicated by Boetius. Repairing
to Frankfort, he made the acquaintance of a nobleman, who
lured him to Venice and betrayed him to the Inquisition. The
Venetian Council transferred him to Rome, where he languished
for seven years in a pestiferous dungeon, and was repeatedly
tortured, according to the hellish code of the Inquisition.
At length, on February 10, 1600, he was led aut to the
church of Santa Maria, and sentenced to be burnt alive, or,
as the Holy Church hypocritically phrased it, to be punished
" as mercifully as possible, and without effusion of blood.''
Haughtily rasing his head, he exclaimed : " You are more
afraid to pronounce my sentence than I to receive it." He
was allowed a week's grace for recantation, but without avail ;
and on the 17th of February, 1600, he was burnt to death
20 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
on the Field of Mowers. To the last he was brave aud
defiant ; he contemptuously pushed aside the crucifix they
presented him to kiss y and, as one of his enemies said, ho
died without a plaint or a groan.
Such heroism stirs the blood more than the sound of a
trumpet. Bruno stood at the stake in solitary and awful
grandejir> There was not a friendly face in the vast crowd
around him. It was one man against the world. Surely the
knight of Liberty; the champion of Freethought, who lived
such a life and died\such a death, without hope of reward on
earth or in heaven, sustained only by his indomitable man-
hood, is worthy to be accounted the supreme martyr of all
time. He towers above the less disinterested martyrs of
Faith like a colossus; the proudest of them might walk under
him without bending.
Authorities :
H. Bartliolmess, Jordano Brnno, Viols.
Frith, I., Life of Giordano Sn-.no.
HENEY THOMAS BUCKLE.
The au<fchor of the famous History of Civilisation believed in
God and immortality, but he rejected all the special tenets of
Christianity. He died at Damascus on May 29, 1862. His
incoherent utterences in the fever that carried him off
showed that his mind was still dwelling on the uncomplet ed
purpose of his life. " Oh, my book," he exclaimed, " my book,
I shall never finish my book !" 4 His end, however, was quite
peaceful. His biographer says : " He had a very quiet night,
with intervals of consciousness ; but at six in the morning a
sudden and very marked change for the worse became but
too fearfully evident ; and at a quarter past ten he quietly
breathed his last, with merely a wave of the hand." 5
4 Pilgrim, Memories, by J. Stuart Glennie, p. 508.
6 Life and Writings of Henry Thomas Buckle, by A. Huth : Vol. IL,
p. 252.
LOED BYEON. 21
LORD BYRON.
ETo one can read Byron's poems attentively without seeing
that he was not a Christian, and this view is amply corrobo-
rated by his private letters, notably the very explicit one to
Hodgson, which has only recently been published. Even
the poet's first and chief biographer, Moore, was constrained
to -admit that "Lord Byron was, to the last, a sceptic."
Byron was born at Holies Street, London, on January 22,
1788. His life was remarkably eventful for a poet, but its
history is so easily accessible, and so well known, that we
need not summarise it here. His death occurred at Misso-
longhi on April 19, 1824. ' Greece was then struggling for
independence, and Byron devoted his life and fortune to her
cause. His" sentiments on this subject are expressed with
power and dignity in the lines written at Missolonghi on his
thirty-sixth birthday. The faults of his life were many, but
they were redeemed by the glory of his death.
Exposure, which his declining health was unfitted to bear,
brought on a fever, and the soldier-poet of freedom died
without proper attendance, far from those he loved. He
conversed a good deal at first with his friend Parry, who
records that " he spoke of death with great composure. " The
day before he expired, when his friends and attendants wept
round his bed at the thought of losing him, he looked at one of
them steadily, and said, half smiling, " Oh questa e una bella
ecena ! " Oh what a fine scene ! After a fit of delirium, he
called his faithful servant Fletcher, who offered to bring pen
and paper to take down his words. " Oh no," he replied
" there is no time. Go to my sister tell her go to Lady
Byron you will see her and say ." Here his voice
became indistinct. "For nearly twenty minutes he muttered
to himself* but only a word now and then could be distin-
guished. :He then said, " Now, I have told you all." Fletcher
replied that he had not understood a word. "Not understand
me P " exclaimed Bryon, with a look of the utmost distress,
" what a pity ! then it is too late ; all is over." He tried to
utter a few more words, but none were intelligible except
" my sister my child." After the doctors had given him a
22 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
sleeping draught, lie niuttered " Poor Greece ! poor town
my poor servants ! my hour is come ! I do not care for
deat&i but why did I not go home P There are things tnat
make the world dear to me : for the irest, I am content to
die." He spoke also of Greece, saying, " I 'have given her
my time, my means', my health and now I give her my life !
what could I 'do more P " About six o'clock in the evening he
said st " Now I shall go to sleep." He then fell into the
slumber from which he never woke. At a, quarter past six
on the ' following day ? he opened his eyes and immediately
shut them again. The physicians felt his pulse he was
dead. 6
His work was done. As Mr. * Swinburne wrote in 1865,
" A little* space was allowed him to show at least an heroic
purpose, and attest a high design; then, with all things
unfinished before him and behind, he fell asleep after many
troubles and triumphs. Few can have ever gone wearier to
the grave : none with less fear." 7 The pious guardians of
Westminster Abbey denied him sepulture in its holy precincts
but he found a grave at Hucknall, and "after life's fitful
fever he sleeps well."
Byron's own views on the subject of death-beds were ex-
pressed in a letter to Murray, dated June 7, 1820. " A death-
bed," he wrote, " is a matter of nerves and constitution, not
of religion.'" He also remarked that "Men died calmly
before the Christian era, and since, without Christianity."
RICHARD CARLILB.
1/chard Carlile was born at Ashburton, in Devonshire, on
December 8, 1790. His whole life was spent in advocating
Freethought and Republicanism, and in resisting the Blas-
phemy Laws. His total imprisonments for the freedom of
the press amounted to nine years and four months. Thirteen
days before his death he penned these words r "The enemy
'Byron's Life and Letters, by ; Thomas Moore, pp. 684 688.
. 9 Preface (p. 28) to a Selection from Byron's poems, 1865.
WILLIAM CLIFFORD, 25
with whom I have'to grapple is one with whom no peace can
be made. Idolatry will not parley; superstition will not
treat on covenant. They must be uprooted for public and
individual safety." Oarlile died on February 10, 1843. He
was attended in his last illness by Dr. Thomas Lawrence, the
author of the once famous Lectures on Man. Wishing to be
useful in.death as in life, Oarlile devoted his body to dissec-
tion. His wish was complied with by the family, and the
post-mortem examination was recorded in the Lancet. The
burial took place at Kensal Green Cemetery, where a clergy-
man insisted on reading the Church Service over his remains.
" His eldest son Eichard," says Mr. Holyoake, " who repre-
sented Jus sentiments as well as his name, very properly
protested against the proceedings, as an outrage upon the
principles of his father and the wishes of the family. Of
course the remonstrance was disregarded, and Eichard, his
brothers, and their friends, left the ground." 8 After their
departure, the clergyman called the great hater of priests his
" dear departed brother," and declared that the rank Materi-
alist had died " in the sure and certain hope of a glorious
resurrection."
WILLIAM KINGDON CLIFFOED.
Professor Clifford died all too early of consumption on
March 3, 1879. He was one of the gentlest and most amiable
of men, and the centre of a large circle of distinguished
friends. His great ability was beyond dispute ; in the higher
mathematics he enjoyed a European reputation. Nor was
his courage less, for he never concealed his heresy, but rather
proclaimed it from the housetops. A Freethinker to the
heart's core, he " utterly dismissed from his thoughts, as
being unprofitable or worse, all speculations on a future or
unseen world " ; and " as never man loved life more, so never
man feared death less." He fulfilled, continues Mr. Pollock,
" well and truly the great saying of Spinoza, often in his
8 Life and Character of Richwrd Carlile, by G. J. Jlolyoake.
24 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
mind and on his lips : "Homo liber de nulla re minus quam
de morte cogitat, [A free man thinks less of nothing than
of death.]" 9 Clifford faced the inevitable with, the utmost
.calmness.
' For a week he had known that it might come at* any moment,
and looked to it stedfastly. So calmly had he received the warn-
ing which conveyed this knowledge that it seemed at the instant
as if he did not understand it: . . . He gave careful and exact
directions as to the disposal of his works. . . . More than this, his
interest in the outer world, his affection for his friends and his
pleasure, in their pleasures, did not desert him to the very last.
He still followed the course of events, and asked for public news
on the morning of his death, so strongly did he hold fast his part
in the common weal and in active social life." 1
Clifford was a great loss to the " good old cause." He was
a most valiant soldier of progress, cut off before a tithe of his
work was accomplished;
ANACHABSIS CLOOTZ.
Among the multitude of figures in the vast panorama of
the French Bevolution was Anacharsis Clootz. He appears
several times in Carlyle' s great epic. Now he introduces a
deputation of foreigners of all -nations to the Assembly.
Later he presents to the Convention " a work evincing the
nullity of all religions." Finally, on March 24, 1794, he is
one of a tumbril-load of victims, nineteen in all, on the road,
to the guillotine. " Clootz," says Carlyle, " still with an air
of polished sarcasm, endeavors to jest, to offer cheering
' arguments of Materialism ' ; he requested to be executed
last, in order to establish certain principles.' " 8 Clootz's
biographer, Avenel, gives a fuller account of the scene
' Let me lie under the green sward," exclaimed the doomed
Atheist, " so that .1 may be re-born in vegetation." " Nature,"
Lectures and Essays, by Professor Clifford. Pollock's Introduc-
tion, p. 25.
- Ibid, p. 26.
* Carlyle, French Revolution, Vol. III., p. 215.
ANTHONY COJLLINS. 25
he said, " is a good mother, who loves to see her children
appear and re-appear in different forms. All she includes is
eternal, imperishable like herself. Now let me sleep !" 8
ANTHONY COLLINS.
Anthony Collins was one of the chief English Freethinkers-
of the eighteenth century. Professor Eraser calls him " this
remarkable man,'' 4 Swift refers to him as a leading sceptic
of that age. He was a barrister, born of a good Essex family
in 1676, and dying on Dec. 13, 1729. Locke, whose own
character was manly and simple, was charmed by him. " He
praised his love of truth and moral courage," says Professor
Eraser, " as superior to almost any other he had ever known,
and by his will he made him one of his executors." 5 Yet
bigotry was then so rampant, that Bishop Berkeley, who,
according to Pope, had every virtue under heaven, actually
said in the Guardian that the author of A Discourse on Free-
thinking " deserved to be denied the common benefits of air
and water." Collins afterwards engaged in controversy
with the clergy, wrote against priestcraft, and debated with
Dr. Samuel Clarke " about necessity and the moral nature of
man, stating the arguments against human freedom with a
logical force unsurpassed by any necessitarian.'' 6 With
respect to Collins's controversy on " the soul," Professor
Huxley says : " I do not think anyone can read the letters
which passed between Clarke and Collins without admitting
that Collins, who writes with wonderful power and closeness
of reasoning, has by far the best of the argument, so far as
the possible materiality of the soul goes ; and that in this
battle the Goliath of Freethinking overcame the champion of
what was considered orthodoxy." 7 According to Berkeley,
Collins had announced " that he was able to demonstrate the
impossibility of God's existence," but this is probably the-
3 Georges Avenel, Anacharsis Clootz, Vol. II., p. 471. Paris, 1865.
Berkeley, by A. C. Fraser, LLJX, p. 99. 5 Ibid. Ibid.
7 Critiques <wd Addresses, p. 324.
26 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
exaggeration of an opponent. "We may be sure, however,
that he was a very, thorough sceptic with regard tq
Christianity. His death is. thus referred to in the Biographia
Britannica :
" Notwithstanding alt-the reproaches cast upon Mr. Collins as an
enemy to religion, impartiality obliges us to remark, what is said,
and generally believed to be true, upon his death-bed he declared
* That, as he had always endeavored, to the best of his abilities to
serve his Qpd, his king, and his country, so he was persuaded he
was going ito the place which God had designed for those who love
him * : to which he added that < The Catholic religion is to love God,
cmd to love man* ; and he advised such as were about him to have a
constant regard to these principles."
There is probably a good deal apocryphal in this passage*
but it is worthy of notice that nothing is said about any
dread of death. Another memorable fact is that Collins left
his library to an opponent, Dr. Sykes. It was large and
curious, and always open to men of letters. Collins was^sp
earnest a seeker for truth, and so candid a controversialist,
that he often famished his antagonists with books to confute
himself.
AUGUSTE COMTE.
Augnste Comte, the founder of Positivism, was born on
January 19, 1798. The aim of his philosophy, as set forth on
the title-page of his masterpiece, was to " reorganise society,
without God or king, by the systematic cultus of Humanity."
Owing to a congenital disorder of the nervous system, he was
liable to occasional Aberrations of mind, and he was once put
under restraint. 'But his life was nevertheless dignified and
fruitful, and the literature of social, political and religious
speculation shows what a profound influence-he has exercised
on many of the best minds of our age.
Comte died on September 5, 1857, of the painful disease "of
cancer in the stomach. M. Littre, his greatest disciple, thus
describes his last days : " The fatal hour arrived. M. Comte,
who had borne his malady with the greatest fortitude, met
with no less firmness the approach of death. His bodily
CONDOKCET. 27
-weakness became, extreme, and he expired without pain
having around him some of his most cherished disciples." 8
CONDORCET.
Marie-Jean- Antome-NicholaB, Marquis do Condorcet, was
born at Eibemont in Picardy, in 1743. As early as 1764 he
composed a work on the integral calculus. In 1773 he was
appointed perpetual seepetary to the French Academy. He
was an intense admirer of Yoltaire, and wrote a life of that
great man. At the commencement of the Eevolution he
ardently embraced the popular cause. In 1791 he represented
Paris in the Legislative Assembly, of which he was imme-
diately elected secretary. It was on his motion that, in the
following year, all orders of nobility were abolished. Elected
by the Aisne department to the new Assembly of 1792, he
was named a member of the Constitutional Committee, which
also included Danton and Thomas Paine. After the execu-
tion of Louis XVI., he was opposed to the excesses of the
extreme party. Always showing the courage of his convic-
tions, he soon became the victim of proscription. " He cared
as little for his life," says Mr. Morley, " as Danton or St. Just
cared for theirs. Instead of coming down among the men of
the Plain or the frogs of the Marsh, he withstood the Mountain
to its face." While hiding from those who thirsted for his
blood, and burdened with, anxiety as to the fate of his wife
and child, he wrote, without a single book to refer to, his novel
and profound Esquisse d'un Tableau Historique des Proges da
V Esprit Humain. Mr. Morley says that " Among the many
wonders of an epoch of portents this feat of intellectual
abstraction is not the least amazing." Despite the odious law
that whoever gave refuge to a proscribed person should sufler
death, Condorcet was offered shelter by a noble-hearted
woman, who said " If you are outside the law, we are not
outside humanity." But he would not bring peril upon her
8 E. Littre, Auguste Comte et la PM'osophie Positive, p. 643.
2B INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
house, and he went forth to his doom. Arrested at Clamart-
eous-Meudon, he was conducted to prison at Bourg-la-Eeine
"Wounded in the foot, and exhausted with fatigue and priva-
tion, he was flung into a miserable cell. It was the 27th of
March, 1794 " On the morrow," says Mr. Morley, " when
the gaolers came to see him, they found him stretched upon
the ground, dead and stark. So he perished of hunger and
weariness, say some ; of poison ever carried by him in a ring,
say others." The Abbe* Morellet, in his narrative of the
death of Condorcet (Memoires, ch. xxiv.), says that the poison
was a mixture of stramonium and opium, but he adds that
the surgeon described the death as due to apoplexy. In any
case Condorcet died like a hero, refusing to save his "life at
the cost of another's danger.
EOBEET COOPER
Eobert Cooper was secretary to Robert Owen and editor of
the London Investigator. His lectures on the Bible and the
Immortality of the Soul still enjoy a regular sale, as well as
his Holy Scriptures Analysed. He was a thorough-go^ng
Materialist, and he never wavered in this philosophy. He
died on May 3, 1868. The National Eeformer of July 26, 1868,
contains a note written by Cooper shortly before his death.
" At a moment when the hand of death is suspended over me,
my theological opinions remain unchanged ; months of deep and
silent cogitation, under the pressure of long suffering, have con-
firmed rather than modified them. I calmly await, therefore, all
risk attached to these convictions. Conscious that, if mistaken, I
have always been sincere, I apprehend no disabilities -for inipres-
sions I cannot resist."
It may be added that Eobert Cooper was no relation to
Thomas Cooper.
D'ALEMBEET.
D'Alembert, the founder of the great Encylop&dia, the
friend of Voltaire and the colleague of Diderot, was born on
Miscellanies. By John Morley. Vol. I., p. 75.
DANTOX. 29
November 16, 1717. His death occurred on October 29, 1783.
His opinions on religion were those of a firm Agnostic. " As
for the existence of a supreme intelligence," he wrote to
Frederick the Great, " I think that those who deny it advance
far more than they can prove, and scepticism is the only
reasonable course." He goes on to say, .however, that experi-
ence invincibly proves the materiality of the " soul." 1 D'Alem-
bert's last moments were in harmony with his philosophy.
According to his friend and executor, Condorcet, his last
days were spent amidst a numerous company, listening to
their conversation, and sometimes enlivening it with plea-
santries or stories. " He only," says' Oondorcet, " was able to
think of other subjects than himself, and to give himself t/>
gaiety and amusement." 2
DANTON.
Danton, called by Oarlyle the Titan of the Eevolution, and
certainly its greatest figure after Mirabeau, was guillotined
on April 5, 1794. He was only thirty-five, but he had made a
name that will live as long as the history of France. With
all his faults, says Carlyle, " he was a Man ; fiery-real, from
the great fire-bosom of Nature herself." Some of his phrases
are like pyramids, standing sublime above the drifting sand
pf human speech. It was he who advised " daring, and still
idaring, and ever daring." It was he who cried "The
coalesced kings of Europe threaten us, and as our gage of
battle we fling before them the head of a king." It was he
who exclaimed, in a rapture of patriotism, " Let my name be
blighted, so that France be free." And what a saying was
that, when his friends urged him to flee from the Terror,
" One does not carry his country with him at the sole of his
shoe !"
Danton would not flee. " They dare not " arrest him, he
eaid ; but he was soon a prisoner in the Luxembourg. " What
1 J. Morley, Diderot, Vol. II., p. 160.
* (Euvres Philosophique do D'Alenibert, Vol. I., p. 131. An. XIII. (1805).
80 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
is your name and abode ? " they asked him at the tribunal.
" My name is Danton," he answered, "a name tolerably known
in the Eevolution : my abode will soon be Annihilation ; but
I shall live in the Pantheon of Hisjbory." ' Ee'plying to his
infamous Indictment, his magnificent voice " reverberates
with the roar of a lion in the toils." The President rings his
bell, enjoining calmness, says Carlyle, in a vehement manner*
" What is it to thee how I defend myself? " cries Danton ;
" the right of dooming me is thine always. The voice of a
man speaking for his honor and life may well drown the
jingling of thy bell !"
Under ' sentence of death he preserved, as Jules Claretie-
says, that virile energy and superb sarcasm which were the
basis of his character. Fabre d'Eglantine being disquieted
about his unfinished comedy, Danton exclaimed "Des vers! Des
vers ! Dans huit jours tu en feras plus que tu nB voudras ! '*
Then he added nobly, " "We have finished our task, let us
sleep." Thus the time passed in prison:
On the way to the guillotine Danton bore himself proudly.
Poor Camille Desmoulins struggled and writhed in the cart,
which, was surrounded by a howling mob/ " Calm,. my
friend," said Danton, "heed not that vile canaille." Herault
de Sechelles, whose turn it was to die first, tried to embrace-
his friend, but the executioners prevented him. " Fools," said
Danton, " you cannot prevent our heads from meeting in the-
basket." At the foot of the scaffold the thought of home
flashed through his mind. " my wife," he. exclaimed, " my
well-beloved, I shall never see thee more then! " But recover-
ing himself, he said " Danton, no weakness ! " Looking the
executioner in the face, he cried with his great voice, " You
will show my head to the crpwd ; it is worth showing; you
don't see the like in these days." The next minute that
head, the one that might have guided France best, was severed
from his body by the knife of the guillotine. What a man
that Danton was ! With his Herculean form, his huge black
head, his mighty voice, his passionate nature, his fiery cour-
age, his strong sense, his poignant wit, his geniality, and his
freedom from cant, he was a splendid and unique figure. An
Atheist, he perished in trying to arrest bloodshed. Eobes-
CHARLES DARWIN. 31
piere, the Deist, continued the bloodshed till it drowned him.
The two men were as diverse in nature as in creed, and Pant on
killed by Robespierre, as Courtois said, was Pyrrhus killed by
a woman ! .
[The reader may consult Carlyle's French JtetoTwttbn, Book -vi.
ch; ii. and Jules Claretie's Camille Deqmouttns et les Dcmtonistes
ch. vi.J
CHARLES DABTfaff.
Charles Darwin, the great Evolutionist, whose fame is as
wide as civilisation, was born at Shrewsbury on February 12,
1809. Intended for a clergyman, he became a naturalist ; and
although his bump of reverence was said to be large enough
for ten priests, he -passed by gentle stages into the most
extreme scepticism. From the age of forty he was, to use his
own words, a complete disbeliever in Christianity. Further
reflection showed him that nature bore no evidences of desi gn,
and the prevalence of struggle and suffering in the world
compelled/him to reject the doctrine of infinite benevolence.
He professed himself an Agnostic, regarding the problem of
the universe as beyond our solution. "For myself," he
wrote, " I do not believe in any revelation. As for a future
life, every man must judge for himself between conflic ting
vague probabilities." 8 Yet the Church -buried him in
Westminster Abbey " in the sure and certain hope of a glorious
resurrection"
Darwin died on April 19, 1882, in the plenitude. of his fame,
having outlived the opposition of ignorance and bigotry, and
witnessed the triumph of his" ideas. His last moments are
described by his eldest son Francis :
" No especial change occurred during the beginning of April,
but on Saturday 15th he was seized with giddiness while sitting
at dinner in the evening, and fainted in an .attempt to reach his
sofa. On the 17th he -was again better, and in my temporary
absence recorded for me the progress of an experiment in -which
I was engaged. During the night of April 18th, about a quarter
to twelve, he had a severe attack and passed into a faint, from
8 Life and Letters of Chwles Dcvrwin, Vol. I., p. 307.
32 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
ilch he "was brought back to consciousness with great difficulty.
3 seemed to recognise the approach of death, and said, 'I o.m not
whic
He seemed to recognise the app , __
the least afraid to die' All the next morning he suffered from
terrible nausea and faintness, and hardly rallied before the end
came. He died about four o'clock on Wednesday, April 19, 1882.*
No one in his senses would have supposed that/ he wa
" afraid to die," yet it is well to have the words recorded by
the son who was present. Pious ingenuity will be unable to
traduce the death-bed of Charles Darwin.
EBASMUS.DAKWIN.
lErasm'us Darwin, the physician, and grandfather of the
great Charles Darwin, was born on December 7 12, 1731. His
death took place on April 10, 1802. While driving from
patient to patrent, Erasmus Darwin composed a lengthy
poem, in which he anticipated many of the ideas of modern
evolution. ' His scepticism was strongly pronounced. Ha
believed in God, but not in Christianity. . Even the Unitarians
-were too orthodox for him ; indeed, he called Unitarianism a
feather bed to catch a falling Christian. /His death was
singularly peaceful. " At about seven o'clock," says his
grandson, "he was seized with a violent shivering fit, and
went into the kitchen to warm- himself; he retired to his
etudy, lay on the- sofa, became faint and cold, and was
moved into an arm chair, where, without pain or emotion of
any kind, he expired a little before nine o'clock." 5 A few
years before, writing to a friend, he said, " When I think of
dying it is always without pain or fear."
DELAMBKE.
Jean Baptist Joseph Delambre, one of the most distin-
guished French astronomers, was born at Amiens on Sep-
tember 19, 1749. He was a pupil of Lalande, and like him an
Atheist. He died, after a long and painful illness, on August
* Vol.111., p. 358.'
5 Charles Darwin, Life of Erasmus Darwin, p. 126.
DENIS DIDEROT. 33
18,1822. In announcing 'his death, a pious journal wrote:
" It appears that this savant had the misfortune, to be an un-
believer. A disciple of Lalande, he had inherited from him,
if not his enthusiastic Atheism, at least an entire alienation
from religion. We wish we could announce that sickness
had brought him back to the faith ; but we have been unable
to obtain any information to that effect." * Like Lalande, the
astronomer was faithful to the convictions of his life.
DEHIS DIDEROT.
Barely has the world seen a more fecund mind than
Diderot's. Voltaire called him Pantophile, for everything
came within the sphere of his. mental activity. The twenty
volumes of his collected writings contain the germ-ideas of
nearly all the best thought of our age, and his anticipations
of Darwinism are nothing less than extraordinary. He had
not Voltaire's lightning wit and supreme grape of style, nor
Bousseau's passionate and subtle eloquence; but' he was
superior to either of them in depth and solidity, and he was
surprisingly ahead of his time, not simply in his treatment
of religion, but also in his view of social and political, prob-
lems. His historical monument is the great Encyclopaedia.
For twenty years he labored on this colossal enterprise,
assisted by the best heads in France, but harassed and
thwarted by the government and the clergy. The work is
out of date now, but it inaugurated an era ; in Mr. Morley's
words, "it rallied all that was then best in Prance round
the standard of light and social hope." Diderot tasted im-
prisonment in 1749, and many times afterwards his liberty
was menaced. Nothing, however, could intimidate or divert
Itha from his task ; aud he never quailed when the ferocious
beast of persecution, having tasted the blood of meaner
victims, turned an evil and ravenous eye on him.
Carlyle's brilliant essay on Diderot is- ludicrously unjust.
The Scotch puritan -was quite unable to judge the French
L'Ami de la Religion ct du &oi, tome xxxiii., p. 111.
34 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
atheist. A greater than Carlyle wrote : " Diderot is Diderot,
a peculiar individuality ; whoever holds him or his doings
cheaply is a Philistine, and the name of them is legion."
Goethe's dictum outweighs that of his disciple.
Diderot's character, no less than his genius, was misunder-
stood by Carlyle. His materialism and atheism were in-
tolerable to a Calvinist steeped in pantheism ; and his free-
dom of life, which might be pardoned or excused in a Scotch
poet, "was disgusting in a French philosopher. Let not the
reader be biased by Carlyle' s splenetic utterances on Diderot,
but turn to more sympathetic and impartial judges.
Born at Langres in 1713, Diderot died at Paris 1784 His
life was long, active, and fruitful. His personal appearance
is described by Mr. Morley : " His admirers declared his
head to be the ideal head of an Aristotle or a Plato. His
brow was wide, lofty, open, gently rounded. The arch of the
eyebrow was full of delicacy ; the nose of masculine beauty ;
the habitual expression of the eyes kindly and sympathetic ;
but as he grew heated in talk they sparkled like fire ; the
curves of the mouth bespoke an interesting mixture of finesse,
grace, and geniality. His bearing was nonchalant enough,
but there was naturally io. the Carriage of the head,
especially when he talked with action; much dignity, energy,
and nobleness." 7
His conversational powers were great, and showed the
fertility of his genius. '? When I recall Diderot," wrote
Meister, " the immense variety of his ideas, the amazing mul-
tiplicity of his knowledge, the rapid flight, the warmth, the
impetuous tumult of his imagination, all the charm and all
the disorder of his conversation, I venture to liken his cha-
racter to nature herself, exactly as he used to conceive her
rich, fertile, abounding in germs of every sort, gentle and
fierce, simple aud majestic, worthy and sublime, but without
any dominating principle, without a master and without a
God."
Diderot was recklessly prodigal of his ideas, flinging them
without hesitation or reticence among his friends. He was
' Diderot and the EncyGlvpcedists f \>y John Morley, Vol. I., pp. 39-40.
DENIS DIDEKOT. 35
equally generous in other respects, and friendship was of the
essence of his life. " He," wrote Marmontel in his Memoirs,
" he who was one of the most enlightened men of the century,
was also one of the most amiable; and in everything that,
touched moral goodness, when he spoke of it freely, 1 1 cannot
express the charm of his eloquence. His whole soul was in
his eyes and on his lips; never did a countenance better
depict the goodness of the heart."
Chequered as Diderot's life had been, his closing years were
full of peace and comfort. Superstition was mortally wounded,
the Church was terrified, and it was clear that the change
the philosophers had worked for was at band. As Mr.
Morley says, " the press literally teemed with pamphlets,
treatises, poems, histories, all shouting from the house-tops
open destruction to beliefs which fifty years before were
actively protected against so much as a whisper in the closet.
Every form of literary art was seized and turned into an
instrument in the remorseless attack on L'Infdme." Diderot
rejoiced at all this, as largely the fruit of his own labors.
He was held in general esteem by the party of progress
throughout Europe. Catherine the Great's generosity se-
cured him a steady income, which he had never derived from
his literary labors. His townsmen of Laugres placed his
bust among the worthies in the town hall/ More than a
hundred years later a national statue of Diderot was un-
veiled at his native place, and the balance of subscriptions
was devoted to publishing a popular selection of his works.
Truly did this great Atheist say, looking forward to the
atoning future, " Posterity is for the philosopher what the
other world is for the devout. 1 '
In the spring of 1784 Diderot was attacked oy what he felt
was his last illness. Dropsy set in, and in a few mouths the
end came. 4- fortnight before his death he was removed
from the upper floor in the Rue Taranne, which he had occu-
pied for thirty years, to palatial rooms provided for him by
the Czarina in the Rue de Richelieu. Growing weaker every
day he -was still alert in mind.
"He did all he could to cheer the people around him, and
amused himself and them % arranging his pictures and his books.
36 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
In the evening, to the last, he found strength to converse on science
and philosophy to the friends who were eager as ever for the last
gleanings of his prolific intellect. In the last conversation that
his daughter heard him carry on, his last words were the pregnant
aphorism that the first step towards philosophy is incredulity.
On the evening of the 30th of July, 1784 he sat down to table,
"and at the end of the meal took an apricot. His wife, with kind
solicitude, remonstrated. Mais quel diable d& trial veux-tu que celct
me fasse ? [How the deuce can that hurt me ?] he said, and ate the
apricot. Then he rested his elbow on the table, trifling with some
sweetmeats. His wife asked him a question; on receiving no
answer, she looked up and saw that he was dead. He had died as
the Greek poets say that men died in the golden age they passed
toway as if mastered "by sleep" *
Grimm gives a slightly different account of Diderot's death,
ommitting the apricot, and stating that his words to his wife
were, "It is long since I have eaten with so much relish."*
With respect to the funeral, Grimm says that the cure of
St. Roch, in whose parish he died, had scrupled at first about
burying him, on account of his sceptical reputation and the
doctrines expounded in his writings ; but the priest's scruples
were overcome, partly by a present of " fifteen or eighteen
thousand livres."
According to Mr. Morley, an effort was made to convert
Diderot, or at least to wring from him something like a
retractation.
c The priest of St. Sulpice, the centre of the philosophic quarter,
came to visit him three or four times a week, hoping to achieve at
least the semblance of a conversion. Diderot did not encourage
conversation on theology, but when pressed he did not refuse it.
One day when they found, as two men of sense will always find,
that they had ample common ground in matters of morality and
good works, the priest ventured to hint that an exposition of such
excellent maxims, accompanied by a slight retraction of Diderot's
previous works, would have a good effect on the world. I dare
say it would, monsieur le cure, but confess that I should be acting
an impudent lie.' And no word of retractation was ever made." l
If judging men by the company tfcey keep is a safe rule, we
need have no doubt as to the sentiments which Diderot enter-
tained to the end. Grimm tells us that on the morning of the
8 Morley, Vol. II., pp. 259, 260.
9 Quoted from the Revue Retrospective in Assezat's complete
edition of Diderot.
1 Morley, Vol. II., p. 258.
ETIENNE DOLET. 37
very day lie died " lie conversed for a long time and with the
greatest freedom with his .friend the Baron D'Holbach," the
famous author of the System of Nature^ compared with whom,
says Mr. Jorley, " the most, eager Nescient or Denier to be
found in the ranks of the assailants of theology in our own
day is timorous and moderate." These men were the two
most earnest Atheists of their generation. Both were genial,
benevolent, and conspicuously generous. D'Holbach was
learned, eloquent, and trenchant; and Diderot, in Comte's
opinion, was the greatest genius of the eighteenth century.
ETIENNE DOLET.
Etienne (Stephen) Dolet, the great French printer, whose
name is inseparably connected with the Revival of Learning^
was hanged and burnt at Lyons on August 3, 1546. The
Church gave him the martyr's crown on his thirty -seventh
birthday. He was a heretic, and he paid the penalty exacted
from all who dared to think for themselves. As Mr. Christie
remarks, he was " neither a Protestant nor a Catholic." His
contemporaries were fully persuaded of his Atheism
"Philosophy has alone the right," says the great French
historian, " to claim on its side the illustrious victim of .the
Place Maubert." 2
Dolet got his first taste of persecution iii 1533, when he was
thrown into prison for denouncing in a Latin oration the
burning alive of Jean de Cartuce at Toulouse. During the
remaining thirteen years of his life he was five times im-
prisoned, and nearly half his days were spent in confinement.
Sentence of death for blasphemy was pronounced on Dolet
in tho Cliambre Ardente at Paris on August 2, 1546. He. was
condemned to be hung, and then burnt with his books on the
Place Maubert ; and his widow and children were beggared
by the confiscation of his goods to the king. It was also
ordered that he should be put to the torture" before his
execution, and questioned about his companions ; and " if the
* Henri Martin, Histoire de France, Vol. III., p. 343.
88 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
said Dolet shall cause any scandal or utter any blasphemy,
his tongue shall be cut out, and he shall be burnt alive," The
next day he met his doom. He was hung first, and then (for
they were not very particular), probably while he still breathed,
the faggots were lighted, and Dolet and his books were con-
sumed in the flames. It is said that instead of a prayer he
uttered a pun in Latin Non dolet ipse Dolet, sed pia turba
dolet Dolet himself does not grieve, but the pious crowd
grieves. Yet the confessor who attended him at the stake
invented the miserable falsehood that the martyr had
acknowledged his errors. " I do not believe a word of it,'*
wrote the great Erasmus, " it is the usual story which these
people invent after the death of their victims." Dolet's real
sentiments are expressed in the noble cantique, full of resigna-
tion and courage, which he composed in prison when death
was imminent. 3 He perished like a hero, as beoame the friend
of Desperiers, of Marot, and of Eabelais ; and his death, no
less than his life, inspires M. Boulmier to call him " the
Christ of Freethought."
Authorities :
Christie, R. C., Etienne Dolet, the Martyr of the Renaissance.
(London, 1880.)
Boulmier, Joseph, Etienne Dolet, Sa Vie, Ses (Euvres, Son Martyre.
(Paris, 1857.)
3 Here are the last two verses in the fine -old French.
De patience ung bon cueur jouyassant,
Dessoubz le mal jamais n'est flecnissant j
Se desolant ou en riens gemissant,
Tousjours vaincqueur.
Sus, rnon esprit, monstres vous de tel cueur ;
Vostre asseurance au besoigng soit congneue :
Tout gentil cueur, tout constant bellicque ur,
Jusqu 'a la mort sa force a maintenue!
Bough translation: "A good heart, sustained with patience,
never bends under evil, bewails or moans, but is always victor-
Courage, iny soul, and show such a heart; let your confidence
be seen in trial : every noble heart, every constant warrior,
maintains his fortitude even unto death."
GEOKGE ELIOT. 39
GEORGE- ELIOT,
Mary Ann Evans, afterwards Mrs. Lewes, and finally Mrs*
Cross was one of the greatest writers of the third quarter of
this century. The noble works of fiction she published under
the pseudonym of George Eliot are known to all. Her earliest
writing was done for the Westminster .Review, a' magazine of
marked sceptical tendency. Her inclination to Freethonght
is further shown by her translation of Strauss's famous Life
of Jesus and Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity, the latter
being the work of a profound Atheist. George Eliot was, to
some extent, a disciple of Comte, and reckoned a member of
the Society of Positivist s. Mr. Myers tells us that in the last
conversation he had with her \i Cambridge, they talked of
God, Immortality and Duty, and she gravely remarked how
hypothetical was the first, how improbable was the second ,
and how sternly real the last. Whenever in her novels she
epeaks in the first person she breathes the same sentiment.
Her biography has been written by her second husband, who
Bays that " her long illness in the autumn had left her no
power to rally. She passed away about ten o'clock at night
on the 22nd of December, 1880. She died, as she would
herself have chosen to die, without protracted pain, and with
every faculty brightly vigorous." 4 Her body lies in the next
grave to that of George Henry Lewes at Highgate Cemetery :
her spirit, the product of her life, has, in her own words,
joined " the choir invisible, whose music is the gladness of
the world."
FREDERICK THE GREAT.
Frederick the Great, the finest soldier of his age, the
maker of Prussia, and therefore the founder of modern Ger-
many, was born in January, 1712. His life -forms the theme
of Carlyle's masterpiece.- Notoriously a disbeliever in
Christianity, as his writings and correspondence attest, he
loved to surround himself with Freethinkers, the most con-
Life and Letters of George Eliot, by J. W. Cross, Vol. HI., p. 439
40 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
spicuous of^ whom was Voltaire. When the great French
heretic died, Frederick pronounced his eulogium before the
Berlin Academy, denouncing "the imbecile priests," and
declaring that " The best destiny they can look for is that
they and their vile artifices will remain forever buried in the
darkness of oblivion, while the fame of Voltaire will increase
from age to age, and transmit his name to immortality;"
When the old king was on his death-bed, One of his subjects,
solicitous about his immortal soul, sent him a letter full of
pious advice. "Let this," he said, " be answered civilly; the
intention of the writer is good." Shortly after, on August
17, 1786, Frederick died in his own fashion. Carlyle says :
For tbe most part he was unconscious, never more than half
conscious. As the wall clock above his head struck eleven, he
asked : What o'clock ? ' < Eleven,' answered they. At four,'
murmured he, { I will arise.' One of his dogs sat on its stool near
,him ; about midnight he noticed it shivering for cold : Throw a
quilt over it,* said or beckoned Jie ; that, I think, was his last
completely conscious utterance. Afterwards, in a severe choking
fit, getting at J^ast rid of the phlegm, he said, ( La^7nontagne est
passd, rious irons mieita? i"We are on the hill, we shall go better
now/ " 5
Better it was. The pain was over, and the brave old king,
who had wrestled with all Europe and thrown it, succumbed
quietly to the inevitable defeat which awaits us all.
LEON GAMSETFTA.
Gairibetta was the greatest French orator and statesman
of his age. He was one of those splendid and potent figures
who redeem nations from commonplace. To him, morerthan
to any other man, the present Republic owes its existence.
He played deeply for it in the great game of life #nd death
after Sedan, and by his titanic organisation of the national
defence he made it impossible for JLouis Napoleon io reseat
himself on the throne with the aid of German bayonets.
Again, in 1877, he saved the Kepublic he loved go well from
the monarchial conspirators. He defeated their base attempt
to subvert a nation's liberties, but the struggle sapped his
* Frederick tUe Great, VoL VI., jp. 694 j edihon,;i369.
LEON GAMBETTA. 41
enormous vitality, which had already been impaired by the
terrible labors of his Dictatorship, He died at the early
age of forty-four, having exhausted his strength in' fighting
for freedom. Scarcely a dark thread was left in the leonine
mane of black hair, and the beard matched the whiteness of
his shroud.
France mourned like one man at the hero's death. The
people gave him a funeral that eclipsed the obsequies of kings.
He was carried to his grave by a million citizens. Yet in the
whole of that vast throng, as Mr. Frederic Harrison remarked,
*' there was no emblenrof Christ, no priest of God, not one
mutter of heaven, no hollow appeal to the mockery of the
resurrection, no thought but for the great human loss and
human sorrow. It was the first time in the history of Europe
that a foremost man had been laid to rest by a nation in grief,
without priest or church, prayer or hymn."
Like almost every eminent Republican, Gambetta was a
Freethinker. ' As Mr. Frederic Harrison says, " he systemati-
cally and formally repudiated any kind of acceptance of
theology." During his lifetime he never entered a church,
even when attending a marriage or a funeral, but stopped
short at the door, and let who would go inside and listen, to
the mummery of the priest. In his own expressive words,
he declined to be " rocked asleep by the myths of childish
religions." He professed himself an admirer and a disciple
of Voltaire Vadmirateur et le disciple de Voltaire. Every
member of his ministry was a Freethinker, and one of them,
the eminent scientist Paul Bert, a militant Atheist. Speaking
at a public meeting not long before his death, Gambetta
called Comte the greatest thinker of this century ; that Comte
who proposed to " reorganise society, without God and with-
out king, by the systematic cultus of humanity."
"When John Stuart Mill died, a Christian journal, which
died itself a few weeks after, declared he had gone to hell,
and wished all his friends and disciples would follow him.
Several pious prints expressed similar sentiments with regard
6 Mr. Harrison's words were thus reported in the newspapers.
The passage appears slightly, though not materially altered, in tb
Contemporary Review for March, 1883, p. 323.'
42 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
to Gambetta. ^Passing by the English papers, let us look at a
few. French ones. The Due de Broglie's organ, naturally
anxious to insult the statesman who had so signally beaten
him, said that " he died suddenly after hurling defiance at
God." The Pays, edited by that pious bully, Paul de Gas-
sagnac, said " He dies, poisoned by his own blood. He set
himself up against God. He has fallen. It is fearful. But
it is just." The Catholic Vnivers said, " While he was
recruiting his strength and meditating fresh assaults upon
the Church, and promising himself victory, the divine Son of
the Carpenter was preparing his coffin."
These tasteful exhibitions of Christian charity show that
Gambetta lived and died a Freethinker. Tet the sillier sort
of Christians have not scrupled to insinuate and even argue,
that he was secretly a believer. One asinine priest, M
Feuillet des Conches, formerly Vicar of Notre Dame des
Vicioires, and then honorary Chamberlain to the Pope, stated
JLQ the London Times that, about tw k o years before his death*
Gambetta came to his church with a brace of big wax tapers
which he offered in memory of .his mother. He also added
that the great orator knelt before the Virgin, dipped hisjingejr
in holy water, and made the sign of the cross. Was there-
ever a more absurd story ? jGambetta was a remarkable-
looking man, and extremely well known. He could not have
entered a church unobserved, and had he done so, the story
would have gone round Paris the next day. Yet nobody
lieard of it till? after his death. Either the priest mistook
some portly dark man for Gambetta, or he was guilty of a
pious frau'd.
According to another ' story, Gambetta said '* I am lost "
when the doctors told him he could not recover. But tho
phrase Je suis perdu has no theological significance. Nothing
is more misleading than a literal translation. Gambetta
simply meant "It is all over then." This monstrous per-
version of a simple phrase could only have arisen from sheer
tonlice.or gross ignorance of Fi'ench.
White lying-ion his death-jbed Gambetta listened toi-Ttabe-
lais, Moliere, and, other favorite but not verjr pious* anchors,
read aloud by a young student who adored "him,.
GABIBALDI. 43
last words, as recorded in the .Times, were these " Well, I
have suffered so much, it will be a deliverance." The words
are calm, collected, and truthful. There is no rant and no
quailing. It is the natural language of a strong man
confronting Death after long agony. Shortly after he breathed
his last. The deliverance had come. Still lay the mighty
heart and the fertile brain that had spent themselves for
France, and the silence was only broken by the sobs of dear
friends who would have died to save him. ' No priest ad-
ministered " the consolations of religion," and he expressly
ordered that he should be buried without religious rites. His
great heroic genius was superior to the creeds, seeing through
them and over them. He lived and died a Freethinker, like
nearly all the great men since Mirabeau and Dantou who
have built up the freedom and glory of France.
GAKIBALDI.
Giuseppe Garibaldi's name is a household word in every
civilised country. His romantic life and superb achievements
are too well known to need any recital in these pages. The
Lion of Caprera found the priests the greatest enemies of his
beloved Italy, and he hated them accordingly. " The priest,"
he says in the preface to his Memoirs t " the priest is the
personification of falsehood, the liar is a thief, and the thief an
assassin." 7 His English biographer, Theodore Bent, admits
that in his old age he grew more and more sceptical. " One
of his laconic letters of 1880," he says, " illustrates this. It
was as follows : ' Dear friends, Man has created God, not
God man. Yours ever, Garibaldi.' "
We have no account of Garibaldi's last moments, but he
died daily in his crippled and helpless old age, and his cheer-
ful fortitude was known to all. He desired his body to be
cremated, and gave strict orders that no priest should officiate
at his funeral. He also had his sarcophagus built at Caprera,
but the family yielded to the wish of the government, and he
was buried at Rome.
' Garibaldi, Memorie Autobiogpafiche p. 2.
44 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
ISAAC GENDKE.
The controversy over the death of this Swiss Freethinker
was summarised in the London Echo of July 29, 1881.
" A second case of death-bed conversion of an eminent Liberal to
Homan Catholicism, suggested probably by that of the great French
philologist Littre", has passed the round of the Swiss papers. A few
days ago the veteran leader of the. Freiburg Liberals, M. Isaac
Gendre, died. The Ami d/u, Pen/pie, the organ of the Freiburg
Ultramontanes, immediately set afloat the sensational news that
when M. G-endre found that his last hour was approaching, he sent,
his brother to fetch a priest in order that the last sacraments
mig;ht be administered to him, and the evil which he had done
during his life by his persistent Liberalism might be atoned by his
repentance at the eleventh hour. . This brother, M. Alexandre
Gendre, now- writes to the paper stating that there is not one word
of truth in this story. What possible benefit can any Church
derive from the invention of such tales? Doubtless there is a
credulous residuum which believes that there must be 'some
truth ' in anything which has once appeared in print."
It might be added that many people readily believe what
pleases them, and that a lie which has a good start is very
hard to run down.
EDWARD GIBBON.
Edward Gibbon, the greatest of modern historians, was
born at Putney, near London, on April 27, 1737. His
monumental work, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
which Carlyle called " the splendid bridge from the old world
to the new," is' universally known and admired. To have
your na.me mentioned by Gibbon, said Thackeray, is like
having it written on the dome of St. Peter's which is seen by
pilgrims from all paints of the earth. Twenty years of his
life were devoted to his colossal History, which incidentally
conveys his opinion of many problems. His views on Chris-
tianity are indicated in his famous fifteenth chapter, which is
a masterpiece of grave and temperate irony. When Gibbon
wrote that " it was not in this world that the primitive
Christians were desirous of making themselves either agree-
EDWARD GIBBON. 45
able or useful," every sensible reader understood bis meaning.
The polite sneer rankled in the breasts of the clergy, who
replied with declamation and insult. Their answers, however,
are forgotten, while his merciless sarcasms live on, and help
to undermine the Church in every fresh generation.
Gibbon did- not long .survive the completion of his great
wOrk. The last volumes of the Decline and Fall were published
on May 8, 1788, and lie died on January 14th, 1794. -His
malady was dropsy. After being twice tapped in November,
he removed to the house of his' devoted friend, Lord Sheffield,
A week before he expired he was obliged for the Bake of the
highest medical attendance, to return, to Jiis lodgings in
St. James's- Street, Lon'doii. The following account of his last
moments was written by Lord Sheffield :
"During the evening he complained much of his stomach, and
of a feeling of nausea. Soon after nine lie took his opium draught
and went to bed. About ten he complained of much pain, and
desired that warm napkins might be applied to his stomach. He
almost incessantly expressed a sense of pain till about four o'clock
in the morning, when he said he found his stomach much easier.
About seven the servant asked whether he should send for Mr.
Farquhar [the doctor]. He answered, No ; that he was as well
as the day before. At about half -past eight he got out of bed, and
said he was 'plus adroit' than he had been for three months past,
and got into bed again without assistance, better than usual.
About nine he said he would rise. The servant, however, per-
suaded him to remain in bed till Mr. Farquhar, who was expected
at eleven, should come. Till about that hour he spoke with great
facility. Mr. Farquhar came at the time appointed, and he was
then visibly dying. When the valet -de -chamlre returned, after
attending Mr. Farquhar out of the room, Mr. Gibbon said, " Pour-
quoi est ce que vous me quittez ? ' [Why do you leave me ?] This
was about half- past eleven. At twelve o'clock h.e drank some
brandy and water from a teapot, and desired his favorite servant
to stay with him. These were the last words he pronounced arti-
culately. To the last he preserved his senses ; and when he could
no longer speak, his servant having asked a question, he made a
sign to show that he understood hi m. He was quite tranquil, and
did not stir, his eyes half shut. About a quarter before one he
ceased to breathe. The valet-de-chambre observed that he did not, at
any time, evince the least sign of alarm or apprehension of death."*
Last Days of Gi&btm, in Milman's edition of Gibbon, vol. i. (Intro-
duction).
Mr. James Cotter Morison, in his admirable monograph on
Gibbon, which forms a volume of Macmillan's " English Men
46 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
of Letters " series, quotes the whole of this passage from
Lord Sheffield with the exception of the last sentence. In
onr opinion the words we have italicised are tjie most
important in the extract, and should not have been withheld.
WILLIAM GODWIN.
William Godwin, the author of Political Justice and the
father-in-law of Shelley, was born on March 3,1756, and he died
on April 7, 1836. Only a few days before his death he wrote to
his daughter, Mrs. Shelley, as follows :
I leave behind me a manuscript in a considerable state of
forwardness for the press, entitled, " The Genius of Christianity
Unveiled : in a Series of Essays." ., . . I am most unwilling that
this, the concluding work of a long life, and written, as I believe,
in the full maturity of my understanding, should be consigned to
oblivion. It has been the main object of -my life, since I attained
to years of discretion, to do my part to free the human mind from
slavery. I adjure you, therefore, or whpmsoever else into whose
hands these papers may fall, not to allow them to be consigned to
oblivion."
Mrs. Shelley seems to have disregarded this solemn adjura-
tion, for the work was not published till 1873, when it was
issued by Mr. 0. Kegan Paul, to whose Life of William God-
win we are indebted.
GOETHE.
The greatest of German poets died at a ripe old age on
March 22, 1832. He was a Pantheist after the manner of
Spinoza, and his countrymen called him the " great pagan."
In one of his epigrams he expresses hatred of four things
garlic, onions, bugs, and the cross. Heine, in his De VAller
m>igne, notices Goethe's " vigorous heathen nature," and his
' militant antipathy to Christianity.'* His English biographer
thus describes his last moments :
"His speech was becoming less and less distinct. The last words
audible were: More light! The final darkness grew apace, and he
whose eternal longing had been for more Light, gave a parting
cry for it, as he was passing under the shadow of death. He con-
GEOEGE GROTE. 47
tinned to express himself by signs, drawing letters with his fore-
finger in the air, while he had strength, and finallj* as life ebbed
away drawing figures slowly on the shawl which covered his legs.
At half-past twelve he composed himself in the corner of the
chair. The watcher placed a finger on her lips to intimate that
he was asleep. If sleep it was, it was a sleep in which a great life
glided from the world." 8
Let us add that infinite nonsense, from which even Lewes
*was obviously not free, has been talked and written about
Gothe's cry " More light." His meaning was of course
purely physical. The eyesight naturally fails in death, all
things grow dim, and the demand for '* more light " is
common enough at such times.
GEOEGE GEOTE.
George Grote, the author of our classic History of Greece,
was born on November 17, 1794 He was a disciple of Beutham
and a confirmed Atheist. His death, which occurred on June
18, 1871, was full of serenity. " Early in the month of June,"
writes Mrs. Grote, " a marked change supervened, and at the
end of three weeks his honorable, virtuous, and laborious
course was closed by a tranquil and painless death. 1 ' 11
The Eev. Peter Anton, in his Masters of History, obviously
takes his account of Grote's death from this source, but it is
worth noticing that he enhances, instead of weakening, the
panegyric. " The great historian," he says, " passed away
tranquilly and without pain ; and thus was brought to a close
a career singularly devoted, conscientious, and laborious, a
life rich in virtue and honor and the esteem of the wise and
the good." Three centuries ago Grote might have been burnt
to death; but the custodians of Westminster Abbey are now
anxious to enrich their precincts with celebrities, and the
Atheist historian is interred there with Freethinkers like
Ephraim Chambers, Sir Charles Lyell, and Charles Darwin.
8 Life of Goethe, by G. H. Lewes, p. 559.
9 Personal Life of .George Grote. By Mrs. Grote, p. 330.
48 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
HELVETIUS.
Helvetius, the French Philosopher, was born in 1715. His
death took place on December 26, 1771. By accident or
negligence, his famous treatise, L'Esprit, passed the censor-
ship ; but, on its true character being recognised, the censor
was cashiered, and the author dismissed from an honorary
post in the Queen's 'household. The indictment, says Mr.
Morley, described the work as a " collection into one coyer of
everything that impiety could imagine, calculated to
engender hatred 'against Christianity and Catholicism." 1
' The book was publicly burnt, and the same fire consumed
Yoitaire's poem on Natural Eeligion. Here is a passage
which may help to explain its fate.
" It is fanaticism that puts arms into the hands of Christian
princes j it orders Catholics to massacre heretics; it "brings out
upon the earth again those tortures that were invented by such
monsters as Phalaris, as Busiris, as Nero ; in Spain it piles and
lights up the fires of the Inquisition, while the pious Spaniards
leave their ports and sail across distant seas, to plant the Cross
and spread desolation in America. Turn your eyes to north or
south, to east or west j on every side you see the consecrated knife
of Beligion raised against the breasts of women, of children, of
old men, and the earth all smoking with the blood of victims im-
molated to false gods or the Supreme Being, and presenting one
vast, sickening, horrible charnel-house of intolerance."
Mannontel describes Helvetius as "liberal, generous,
unostentatious, and benevolent." His death was mourned
by a wide circle of friends and dependants. Day by day, 1 '
says Condorcet, " he felt his strength failing. An attack of
gout, which flew to the head and chest, deprived him at first
of consciousness, and soon of life." 2
HENEY HETHEBINGTOtf.
Henry Hetherington, one of the heroes of " the free press,"
was born at Compton Street, Soho, London, in 1792.* He
> Diderot, Vol. II., p. 124.
* Essay by Condorcet, prefixed to the (Eui-resot Helvetius (1784).
HENRY HETHEBINGTON. 49
very early became an ardent reformer. In 1830 tlie Gov-
ernment obtained three convictions against him for publishing
the Poor Man 9 8 Guardian, and he was lodged for six months
in Clerkenwell gaol. - At the end of 1832 he was again im-
prisoned there for six . months, his treatment being most
cruel. An opening, called a window, but without a pane of
glass, let in the rain and snow by day and night. In 1841
he was a third time incarcerated in the Queen's Bench prison
for four mouths. This time his crime was " blasphemy," in
other words, publishing Haslam's Letters to the Clergy. Ho
died on August 24, 1849, in his fifty- seventh year, leaving
behind him his " Last Will and Testament," from which we
take the following extracts :
" As life is uncertain, it behoves every one to make preparations
for death; I deem it therefore a duty incumbent on me, ere I quit
this life, to express in writing, for the satisfaction and guidance of
esteemed friends^ my feelings and opinions in reference to our
common principles. I adopt this course that no mistake or mis-
apprehension may arise through the false reports of those who
officiously and obtrusively obtain access to the death-beds of
avowed infidels to priestcraft and superstition ; and who, by their
annexing importunities, labor to extort from an opponent, whose
intellect is already worn out and subdued by protracted physical
suffering, some trifling admission, that they may blazon it forth
to the world as a Death-bed Confession, and a triumph of Chris-
tianity over infidelity.
In the first place, then, I calmly and deliberately declare that
I do not believe in the popular notion of the existence of an Al-
mighty, AU-~Wise and Benevolent God possessing intelligence,
and conscious of his own operations; because these attributes
involve such a mass of absurdities and contradictions, so much
cruelty and injustice on his part to the poor and destitute portion
of his creatures that, in my opinion, no rational reflecting mind
can, after disinterested investigation, give credence to the existence
of such a Being. 2nd. I believe death to be an eternal sleep that
I shall never live again in this world, or another, with a conscious-
ness that I am the same identical person that once lived, performed
the duties, and exercised the functions of a human being. 3rd. I
consider priestcraft and superstition the greatest obstacle to human
improvement and happiness. Daring my life I have, to the best
of my ability, sincerely and strenuously exposed and opposed them,
and die with a firm conviction that Truth, Justice, and Liberty
will never be permanently established on earth till every vestige
of priestcraft and superstition shall be utterly destroyed. 4th. I
have ever considered that the only religion useful to man consists
exclusively of the practice of moralit3% and in the mutual inter-
50 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
change of kind actions. In such a religion there is no room for
priests and when I see them interfering at our births, marriages
and deaths, pretending to conduct us safely through this state of
being to another and happier world, any disinterested person of
the least shrewdness and discernment must perceive that their
sole aim is to stultify the minds of the people by their incompre-
hensible doctrines, that they may the more effectually fleece the
poor deluded sheep who listen to their empty babblings and mysti-
fications. 5th. As I have lived so I die, a determined opponent to
their nefarious and plundering system. I wish my friends, there-
fore, to deposit my remains in unconsecrated ground, and trust
they will allow no priest, or clergyman of any denomination, to
interfere in any way whatever at my funeral. My earnest desire
is, that no relation or friend shall wear black or any kind of
mourning, as I consider it contrary to our rational principles to
indicate respect for a departed friend by complying with a hypro-
critical custom. 6th. I wish those who respect me, and who have
labored in our common cause, to attend my remains to their last
resting-place, not so much in consideration of the individual, as to
do honor to our just, benevolent and rational principles. I hope
all true nationalists wfll leave pompous displays to the tools of
priestcraft and superstition."
Hetberington wrote this Testament nearly two years before
his death, but he signed it with a firm hand three days before
he breathed bis last, in the presence of Thomas Cooper, who
left it at the Eeasoner office for " the inspection of the curious
or sceptical." Thomas Cooper is now a Christian, but he
cannot repudiate what he printed at the time, or destroy his
** personal testimony," as he called it, to the consistency with
which Hetberington died in the principles of Freethought.
THOMAS HOBBES.
The philosopher of Malmesbury, as he is often called, was
one of the clearest and boldest thinkers that ever lived. Hia
theological proclivities are well expressed in his witty aphorism
that superstition is religion out of fashion, and religion super-
stition in fashion. Although a courageous thinker, Hobbes
was physically timid. This fact is explained by the circum-
tances of his birth. In the spring of 1588 all England was
alarmed at the news that the mighty Spanish Armada had
set sail for the purpose of deposing Queen Elizabeth, bringing
the country under a foreign yoke, and re-establishing the
THOMAS HOBBES 51
power of the papacy. In sheer fright, the wife of the vicar
of Westport, now part of Malmesbury, gave premature birth
to her second son on Good Friday, the 5th of April. This
seven months' child used to say, in later life, that his
mother brought forth himself and a twin brother Fear. He
was delicate and nervous all his days. Yet through strict
temperance he reached the great age of ninety-one, dying
on the 4th of December, 1679.
This parson's son was destined to be hated by the clergy
for his heresy. The Great Fire of 1666, following the Great
Plague of the previous year, excited popular superstition, and
to appease the wrath of God, a new Bill was intoduced in
Parliament against Atheism and profaneness. The Committee
to which the Bill was entrusted were empowered to " receive
information touching " heretical books, and Hobbes's Levia-
than was mentioned " in particular." The old philosopher,
then verging on eighty, was naturally alarmed. Bold as he
was in thought, his inherited physical timidity shrank from
the prospect, of the prison, the scaffold, or the stake. He
made a show of conformity, and according to Bishop Kennet,
who is not an irreproachable witness, he partook of the
sacrament. It was said by some, however, that he acted
thus in compliance with the wishes of the Devonshire family,
who were his protectors and whose private chapel he attended*
A noticeable fact was that he always went out before the
sermon, and when asked his reason, he answered that " they
could teach him nothing but what he knew." He spoke of
the chaplain, Dr. Jasper Mayne, as " a very silly fellow."
Hated by the clergy, and especially by the bishops ; owing
his liberty and perhaps his life to powerful patrons ; fearing
that some fanatic might take the parsons' hints and play the
part of an assassin; Hobbes is said to have kept a lighted
candle in his bedroom. The fact, if it be such, is not men-
tioned in Professor Groom Eobert son's exhaustive biography. 1
It is perhaps a bit of pious gossip. But were the story
authentic, it would not show that Hobbes had any super-
3 Hotoes. By G-eor^e Croorn Robertson. Blackwood and Sons
1886.
52 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
natural fears. He was more apprehensive of assassins than
of ghosts and devils. Being very old, too, and his life pre-
carious, he might well desire a light in his bedroom in case of
accident or sudden sickness. The etory is too trivial to de-
serve further notice. Orthodoxy- must fee hard pushed to
dilate on so simple a thing as this.
;,. According to one Christian tract, which is scarcely worth
mention, although .extensively circulated, Hobbes when
dying said "he was about -to take, a leap in the dark."
Every dying man might say the same with equal truth. Yet
the story seems fictitious. I can discover no trace of it in
any early authority.
Hobbes does not appear to have troubled himself about
death. Bishop Kennet relates that only " the winter before
he. died he made a warm greatcoat, which he said must last
him three years, and then he would have such another.*'
Even so late as August, 1676, four months before his decease,
he was " writing somewhat " for his publisher to " print in
English." About the middle of October he had an attack of
stranguary, and "Wood and Kennet both have it that, on
hearing the trouble was past cure, he exclaimed, ' I shall be
glad then to find a hole to creep out of the world at.' " *
This story was picked up thirty years after Hobbes's death,
and is probably apocryphal. If the philosopher said anything
of the kind, he doubtless meant that, being very old, and
without wife, child, or relative to care for him, he would* be
glad to find a shelter for his last moments, and to expire in
comfort and peace. At the end of November his right side
was paralysed, and he lost his speech. He " lingered in a
somnolent state " for several days, says Professor Robertson,
and " then his life quietly went out."
Bishop Kennet was absurd enough to hint that Hobbes's
" lying some days in a silent stupefaction, did seem owing to
his mind, more than his body." * Am old man of ninety-one
suffers a paralytic stroke, loses his speech, sinks into uncon-
sciousness, and quietly expires. What could be more natural ?
4 Robertson, p. 203.
* Memoirs 'of the Cavendish Family, p. 108.
AUSTJK HOLYOAKE. 58
Yet the Bishop, belonging to an order which always scents a
brimstone flavor round the heretic's death-bed, must explain
this stupor and inanition by supposing that the moribund
philosopher was in a fit of despair. "We have only to add
that Bishop Kennet was not present at Hobbes's death. His
theory is, therefore, only a professional surmise; and we may
be sure that the wish was father to the thought.
AUSTIN HOLYOAKB.
This stedfast Freethinker was a younger brother of George
Jacob Holyoake. He was of a singularly modest and amiable
nature, and although he left many friends he left not a single
enemy. He was entirely devoted to the Freethought cause,
and satisfied to work hard behind the scenes while more
popular figures took the credit and profit. His assiduity in
the publishing business at Fleet Street, which was ostensibly
managed by his better-known and more fortunate brother,
induced a witty friend to call him " Jacob's ladder." After-
wards he threw in his lot with Charles Bradlaugh, then the
redoubtable "Iconoclast," and became the printer and in
part sub-editor of the National Reformer, to whose columns
he ' was a frequent and welcome contributor. He died on
April 10, 1874, and was interred at Highgate Cemetery, his
funeral being largely attended by the London Freethinkers,
including C. Bradlaugh, C. Watts, G. W. Foote, James Thomson
and G. J. Holyoake. The malady that carried him off was
consumption; he was conscious almost to the last ; and his
only regret in dying, at the comparatively early age of forty-
seven, was that he could no longer fight the battle of freedom,
nor protect the youth of his little son and daughter.
Two days before his death, Austin Holyoake dictated his
last thoughts on religion, which were written down by his
devoted wife, and printed in the National Reformer of April
19, 1874 Part of this document is filled with his mental
history. In the remainder he reiterates his disbelief in the
cardinal doctrines of Christianity. The following extracts
are interesting and pertinent :
54 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDP.
e Christians constantly tell Freethinkers that their principles ol
negation,' as they term them, may do very -well for health ; but
when the hour of sickness and approaching death arrives they
utterly break down, and the hope of a blessed immortality ' can
alone give consolation. In my own case I have been anxious to
test the truth of this assertion, and have therefore deferred till
the latest moment I think it prudent to dictate these few lines.
" To desire eternal bliss is no proof that we shall ever attain it ;
and it has long seemed to me absurd to believe in that which we
wish for, however ardently. I regard all forms of Christianity as
founded in selfishness. It is the expectation held, out of bliss
through all eternity, in return for the profession of faith in Christ
and him crucified, that induces the erection of temples of worship
in all Christian lands. Remove the extravagant promise, and you
will hear very little of the Christian religion.
"As I have stated before, my mind being free from any doubts
on these bewildering matters of speculation, I have experienced
for twenty years the most perfect mental repose ; and now I find
that the near approach of death, the < grim King of Terrors,'
gives me not the slightest alarm. I have suffered, and am suffer-
ing, most intensely both by night and day ; but this has not pro-
duced the least symptom of change of opinion. No amount of
bodily torture can alter a mental conviction. Those who, under
pain, say they see the error of their previous belief, had never
thought out the subject for themselves."
These are words of transparent sincerity; not a phrase is
strained* not a line .aims at effect. Beading them, wo feel in
presence of .an earnest man bravely confronting death, con-
sciously sustained by liis convictions, and serenely bidding
the world farewell.
VICTOR HUGO.
The greatest Trench poet of this century, perhaps tho
greatest French poet of all time, was a fervent Thciet,
reverencing the prophet of Nazareth as a man, and holding
that " the divine tear " of Jesus and "the human smile" of
Voltaire " compose the sweetness of the present civilisation.'*
But he was perfectly free from the trammels of creeds, and
he hated priestcraft, like despotism, with a perfect hatred.
In one of his striking later poems, Religion et les Religions, fco
derides and denounces the tenets and pretensions of Chris-
tianity. The Devil, he says to the clergy, is only tho monkey
VICTOR HUGO. 55
of superstition ; your Hell is an outrage on Humanity and a
blasphemy against God; and when you tell me that your
deity made you in his own image, I reply that he must be
very ugly.
As a man, as well as a writer, there was something magni-
ficently grandiose about him. Subtract him from the
nineteenth century, and you rob it of much of its glory. For
nineteen years on a lonely channel island, an exile from the
land of his birth and his love, he nursed the conscience of
humanity within his mighty heart, brandishing the lightnings
and thunders of chastisement over the heads of the political
brigands who were stifling a nation, and prophesying their
certain doom. When it came, after Sedan, he returned to
Paris, and for fifteen years he was idolised by its people.
There was great mourning at his death, and " all Paris"
attended his funeral. But true to the simplicity of his life
he ordered that his body should lie in a common coffin, which
contrasted vividly with the splendid procession. France
buried him, as she did Gambetta ; he was laid to rest in the
Church of St. Genevieve, re- secularised as the Pantheon for
the occasion; and the interment took place without any
religious rites.
Hugo's great oration on Yoltaire, in 1878, roused the ire
of the Bishop of Orleans, who reprimanded him in a public
letter. The freethinking poet sent a crushing reply :
France had to pass an ordeal. France was free. A man
traitorously seized her in the night, threw her down and garrotted
her. If a people could be killed, tnat man had slain France. He
made her dead enough for him to reign over her. He began his
reign, since it was a reign, with perjury, lying iii wait, and mas-
sacre. He continued it by oppression, by tyranny, by despotism,
by an unspeakable parody of religion and justice. He was
monstrous and little. The Te Deum, Magnificat, Salvum fac,
Gloria tibi, were sung for him. Who sang them ? Ask yourself.
The law delivered the people up to him. The church delivered
God- up to him. Under that man sank down right, honor, country;
he had beneath his feet oath, equity, probity, the glory of the flag,
the dignity of men, the liberty of citizens. That man's prosperity
disconcerted the human conscience. It lasted nineteen years*
During that time you were in a palace. I was in exile. I pity
you, sir."
Despite this terrible rebuff to Bishop Dupanloup, another
56 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
priest, Cardinal Guibert, Archbishop of Paris, had the temerity
und bad taste to obtrude himself when Victor Hugo lay dying
in 1885. Being born on February 26, 1802, the poet was in his
eighty-fourth year, and expiring naturally of old age. Had
the rites of the Church been performed on him in such cir-
cumstances, it would have been an insufferable farce. Yet
the Archbishop wrote to Madame Lockroy, offering to bring
personally " the succor and consolation so much needed in
these cruel ordeals." Monsieur Lockroy at once replied as
follows :
" Madame Lockroy, who cannot leave the bedside of her father-
in-law, begs me to thank you for the sentiments which you have
expressed with so much eloquence and kindness. As regards
M. Victor Hugo, he has again said within the last few days, that
he had no wish during his illness to be attended by a priest of any
persuasion. We should be wanting in our duty if we did not
respect his resolution." 8
Hugo's death-chamber was thus unprofaned by the presence
of a priest. He expired in peace, surrounded by the beings
lie loved. According to the Times correspondent in Paris,
'Almost his last words, addressed to his granddaughter,
were, * Adieu, Jeanne, adieu ! ' And his last movement, of
Consciousness was to clasp his grandson's hand." The hero-
poet bade his charming grandchildren adieu ; but the world
will not bid them adieu, any more than him, for he has
immortalised them in his imperishable Jj Art d'etre Grandpere,
every page of which is scented with the deathless perfume of
adorable love.
DAVID HUME.
Professor Huxley ventures to call David Hume " the most
acute thinker of the eighteenth century, even though it pro-
duced Kant." 7 Hume's greatness is no less clearly acknow-
ledged by Joseph De Maistre, the foremost champion of the
Papacy in our own century. "I believe," he says, "that
taking all into account, the eighteenth century, so fertile m
London Times, May23, 1885 : Paris Correspondent's letter.
1 'Lo/u Sermonsj p. 141
DAVID HUME. 37
this respect, has not produced a single enemy of religion who
can be compared with Jiim. His cold venom is far more
damgerous than the foaming rage of Voltaire. If ever, among
men who- have heard the gospel pir cached, there has existed a
veritable Atheist (which I will not undertake to decide) it is
he" 8 Allowing for the personal animosity in his estimate
of Hume, De Maistre is as accurate as Huxley. The immor-
tal Essays attest both his penetration and his scepticism; the
one on Miracles being a perpetual stumbling-block to Christian
apologists. "With superb irony, Hume closes that portentous
discourse with a reprimand of " those dangerous friends or
disguised enemies to the Christian Religion, who have under-
taken to defend it by the principles of human reason." Ho
reminds them that " our most holy religion is founded on
faith, not on reason." He remarks that Christianity was " not
only attended by miracles, but even at this day cannot be
believed by any reasonable person without one." For
" whoever is moved by faith to assent to it, is conscious
of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all
the principles Of his understanding, and gives him -a deter-
mination to believe what is most contrary to custom and
experience."
Hume was born at Edinburgh on April 26, 1711. His life
was the uneventful one of a literary man. Besides his Essays,
he published a History of England, which was the first serious
effort in that direction. Judged by the standard of our day
it is inadequate; but it abounds in philosophical reflections of
the highest order, and^its style is nearly perfect. Gibbon,
who was a good judge of style, had an unbounded admiration
for Hume's " careless inimitable beauties."
Fortune, however, was not so kind to him as fame. At the
age of forty, his frugal habits had enabled him to save no
more than 1,000. He reckoned, his income at 50 a year,
but his wants were few, his spirit was cheerful, .and there
were few prizes in the lottery of life for which he would have
made an exchange. In 1775 his health began to fail.
Knowing that his disorder (hemorrhage of the bowels) would
8 Lettres swr V Inquisition^ pp. 147, 148.
58 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
prove fatal, he made his will, and wrote My Own Life, the
conclusion of which, says Huxley, " is one of the most cheer-
ful, simple and dignified leave-takings of life and all its con-
cerns, extant." He died on August 25, 1776, and was buried
a few days later on the eastern slope of Calton Hill, Edinburgh,
his body being " attended by a great concourse of people, who
seem to have anticipated for it the fate appropriate to wizards
and necromancers." *
Dr. Adam Smith, the great author of the Wealih of Nations,
was one of Hume's most intimate friends. He tell us that
Hume went to London in April, 1776, and soon after his re-
turn he " gave up all hope of recovery, but submitted with
the utmost cheerfulness, and the most perfect complacency
and resignation." His cheerfulness was so great that many
people could not believe he was dying. " Mr. Hume's mag-
nanimity and firmness were such," says Adam Smith, " that
his most affectionate friends knew that they hazarded nothing
in talking and writing to him as a dying man, and that, so
far from being hurt by this frankness, he was rather pleased
and flattered by it." His chief thought in relation to the
possible prolongation of his life, which his friends hoped
although he told them their hopes were groundless, was that
he would have " the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of
some of the prevailing systems of superstition." On August 8,
Adam Smith went to Kircaldy, leaving Hume in a very
weak state but still very cheerful. On August 28, he received
the following letter from Dr. Black, the physician, announcing
the philosopher's death :
" EDINBURGH, MONDAY, AUG. 26, 1776. DEAE Sis, Yesterday, about
four o'clock, afternoon, Mr. Hume expired. The near approach of
his death became evident in the night between Thursday and
Friday, when his disease became excessive, and soon weakened him
so much, that he could no longer rise out of his hed. He continued
to the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings
of distress. He never dropped the smallest expression of impatience ;
but when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always
did it with affection and tenderness. I thought it improper to
write to bring you over, especially as I heard that he had dictated
a letter to you, desiring you not to come. When. he became weak
9 Hume, by Professor Huxley, p. 43.
M. LITTKE. 59
it cost him ' an effort to speak, and lie died in such a happy com-
posure of mind that nothing could exceed it."
" Thus," says Adam Smith, " died our most excellent and
never to be forgotten friend. . . . Upon the whole, I have
always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death
as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and
virtuous man as 'perhaps the nature of human frailty
permit." l
M. LITTRE.
This great French Positivist died in 1882 at the ripe age
of eighty-one. M. Littre was one of the foremost writers in
France. His monumental " Dictionary of the French Lan-
guage " is the greatest work of its kind in the world. As a
scholar and a philosopher his eminence was universally recog-
nised. His character was so pure and sweet that a Catholic
lady called him " a saint who does not believe in God."
Although not rich, his purse was ever open to the- claims of
charity. He was one who " did good by stealth," and his
benefactions were conferred without respect to creed. A
Freethinker himself, he patronised the Catholic orphanage
near his residence, and took a keen interest in the welfare of
its inmates. He was an honor to France, to the world, and
to the Humanity which he loved and served instead of God.
M. Littre' ? s wife was an ardent Catholic, yet sho was
allowed to follow her own religious inclinations without the
least interference. The great . Freethinker valued liberty of
conscience above all other rights, and what ho claimed for
himself he conceded to others. He scorned to exercise autho-
rity even in the domestic circle, where EO much tyranny is
practised. His wife, however, was less scrupulous. -After
enjoying for so many years the benefit of his steadfast tolera-
tion; she took advantage of her position to exclude his friends
from his death-bed, to have him baptised in his last moments,
and to secure his burial in consecrated ground with pious
1 Letter to William Strahan, dated November 9, 1776, and usually
prefixed to Hume's History of England.
60 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
rites. Not satisfied with this, she even allowed it to be under-
stood that her husband had recanted his heresy and- died in
the bosom of the Church. The Abbe Huvelin, her confessor,
who frequently visited M. Littre during his last illness,
assisted her in the fraud.
There was naturally a disturbance at M. Littre's funeral.
As the Standard correspondent wrote, his friends and dis-
ciples were " very angry at this recantation in extremis, and
claimed that dishonest priestcraft took advantage of the dark-
ness cast over that clear intellect by the mist of approaching
death to perform the rites of the Church over his semi-
inanimate body." While the body was laid out in Catholic
fashion, with crucifixes, candles, and priests telling their
beads, Dr. Galopin advanced to the foot of the coffin anc\
spoke as follows :
" Master, you used to call me your son, and you loved me. I
remain your disciple and your defender. I come, in the name of
Positive Philosophy, to claim the rights of universal Freemasonry.
A deception has been practised upon us, to try and steal you from
thinking humanity. But the future will judge your enemies and
ours. Master we will revenge you by making our children read
your books."
At the grave, M. Wyrouboff, editor of the Comtist review
La Philosophic Positive, founded by M. Littre, delivered a
brief address to the Freethinkers who remained, which con-
cluded thus
Littre proved by his example that it is possible for a man to
possess a noble and generous heart, and at the same time espouse
a doctrine which admits nothing beyond what is positively real
and which prevents any recantation. And gentlemen, in spite of
deceptive appearance, Littr4 died as lie had lived, without contradictions
or weakness. All those who knew that calm and serene mind arid
I was of the number of those who did are well aware that it
was irrevocably closed to the 'unknowable/ and that it was
thoroughly prepared to meet courageously the irresistible laws of
nature- And now sleep in peace, proud and noble thinker ! You
will not have the eternity of a world to come, which you never
expected ; but you leave behind you your country that you strove
honestly to serve, the Republic which you always loved, a genera-
tion of d isciples who will remain faithful to you j and last, but
not lea* , you leave your thoughts and your virtues to the whole
world. Social immortality, the only beneficent and fecund immor-
tality, commences for you to-day," "
1L "Wyrouboff afterwards amply proved his statements.
Mi LITTEEi 61
The English ; press creditably rejected the etory of M.
Littre's recantation. The Daily News sneered at it, the
Times described it 'as absurd, the Standard said it looked un-
true. But the Morning Advertiser was still more outspoken.
It said :
There can hardly be a doubt that M. Littre died a steadfast
adherent to the princples he so powerfully advocated during his
laborious and distinguished life. The Church may claim, as our
Paris correspondent, in his interesting note on the* subject, tells
us she is already claiming, the death -bed conversion of the great
unbeliever, who for the last thirty-five years was one of her most
active and formidable enemies. She has attempted to take the
same posthumous revenge "on Voltaire, on Paine, and on many
others, who w^re described by Roman Catholic writers as calling
in the last dreadful hour for the spiritual support they held up
to ridicule in the confidence of health and the presumption of
their intellect."
In the Paris Gaulois there appeared a letter from the Abbe
Huvelin, written very ambiguously, and obviously intended
to mislead. But one fact stands out clear. This priest was
only admitted to visit M. Littre* as a friend, and he was not
allowed to baptise him. The Archbishop of Paris also, in his
omcial organ, La Semaine Religieuse, admitted that " ho
received the sacrament of baptism on the morning of the very
day of his death, not from the hands of the priest, who had not
yet arrived, but from those of Madame Littre." The Arch-
bishop, however, insists that he " received the ordinance in
perfect consciousness and with his own full consent." Now
as M. Littre* was eighty-one years old, as he had been for
twelve months languishing with a feeble hold on life, during
which time he was often in a state of stupor, and as this wa3
the very morning of his death, I leave the reader to estimate
the value of what the Archbishop calls " perfect consciousness
and full consent." If any consent was given by the dying
Freethinker, it was ouly to gratify his wife and daughter, and
at the last moment when he had no will to resist ; for if ho
had been more compliant they would certainly have baptised
him before. Submission in these circumstances counts for
nothing ; and in any case there is forceful truth in M. Littre's
words, written in 1879 id his Conservation, Bevolution, et
Positivisme-" a whole life passed without any observance of
eligio us rites must outweigh the single final act."
02 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
Unfortunately for the clericals, there exists a document
which may be considered M. Littre*'s last confession. It is an
article written for the Comtist review a year before his death,
entitled, "Pour la Derniere Fois " For the Last Time.
While writing it he knew that his end was not far off. " For
many months," he says, " my sufferings have prostrated me
with dreadful persistence. . . . Every evening when I have
to be put to bed, my pains are exasperated, and often I have
not the strength to stifle cries which are grievous to me and
grievous to those who tend me." After the article was com-
pleted his malady increased. Fearing the worst, he wrote to
his friend, M. Caubet, as follows :
"Last Saturday I swooned away for a long time. It is for that
reason I send you, a little prematurely, my article for the Beview.
If I live t I will correct the proofs as usual. If I die, let it be
printed and published in the Review as a posthumous article. It
will be a last trouble which I venture to give you. The reader
must do his best to follow the manuscript faithfully."
If I live If I die ! These are the words of one in the
shadow of Death.
Let us see what M. Littre*'s last confession is. I translate
two passages from the article. Referring to Charles Greville,
he says :
" I feel nothing of what he experienced. Like him, I find it
impossible to accept the theory of the world which Catholicism *
prescribes- to all true believers $ but I do not regret being without
such doctrines, and I cannot discover in myself any wish to return
to them."
And he concludes the article with these words :
* Positive* Philosophy, which has so supported me since my
thirtieth year, and which, in giving me an ideal, a craving for
progress, the vision of history and care for humanity, has pre-
served me from being a simple negationist, accompanies me
faithfully in these last trials. The questions it solves in its own
way, the rules it prescribes by virtue of its principle, the beliefs it
discountenances in the name of our ignorance of ever\ r thing abso.
lute ; of these I .have in the preceding pages made an examination,
which I conclude with the supreme word of the commencement,
for the last time."
So much for the lying story of M. Littre's recantation. In
8 To a Frenchman, Catholicism and Christianity mean one and
the same thing.
HARBIET MAHTINEAU. 63
the words of M. Wyrouboff, although his corpse was accom-
panied to the grave by priests and believers, his name will go
down to future generations as that of one who was to the and
"a servant to science and an enemy to superstition."
HARKIET MARTINEAU.
This gifted woman died on May 27, 1876, after a long
and useful life, filled with literary labor in the cause of
progress. On April 19, less than six weeks before her death,
she wrote her last letter to Mr. H. Gr. Atkinson, from which
the following is taken.
"I cannot ^ think of any future as at all probable, except the
'annihilation' from which some people recoil with so much hor-
ror. I find myself here in the universe I know not how, whence
or why. I see everything in the universe go out and disappear,
and I see no reason for supposing that it is not an actual and entire
death. And for my part, I have no objection to such an extinction.
I well remember the passion with which W. E. Forster said to
me 1 had rather be damned than annihilated.' If he once felt
five minutes' damnation, he would be thankful for extinction in
preference. The truth is, I care little about it any way. Now
that the event draws near, and that I see how fully niy household
expect my death pretty soon, the universe opens' so widely before
my view, and I see the ol<J notions of death, and scenes to iollow,
so merely human so impossible to be true, when one glances
through the range of science, that I see nothing 'to be done
but to wait, "without fear or hope or ignorant prejudice, for the
expiration of life. I have no wish for future experience, nor have
I any fear of it. Under the weariness- of illness I long to be
asleep." 8
These are the words of a brave woman, who met Death
with the same fortitude as she exhibited in the presence of
the defenders of slavery in the United States.
JEAN MESLIEE.
Jean "Meslier, or more correctly Mellier, was born on
June 15, 1664. His death occurred in 1733. He was cure*, or
parish priest, of Entrepigny, He left his small property to
8 Autobiography of Harriet Mwrtineau, Yol. III., p. 454 j jedition 1877.
$4 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
his parishioners, and asked to be buried in his own garden.
Among his effects were found three copies of a manuscript of
370 folios, signed by his own hand and entitled My Testament.
The writing was found to be a merciless exposure of Chris-
tianity. What ho could not say while alive, he said in this
legacy to his flock. As he himself wrote on the wrapper of
the copy for his parishioners, " I have, not dared to say it
during my life, but I will say it at least in dying or after my
death." On November 17, 1794, the National Convention
sent to the Committee of Public Instruction a proposal to
erect a statue to Meslier as 4 * the first priest who had the
courage and honesty to abjure his religious errors." A work
called Bon Sens, translated into English as Good Sense, is not
by Meslier, but by D'Holbach.
Authorities :
UJarousse, DictionnaAre Universelle*
Bouilliot, Biogrcvplvie Ardenaise.
Voltaire's Works and Letters.
JAMES MILL.
James Mill, the author of the History of British India, tile
Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, and other
works, was a robust thinker and a powerful writer himself;
though his name became more illustrious when borne by his
great son, 7ohn Stuart Mill. James Mill was born in 1773
He would have entered the pulpit as a Presbyterian preacher,
had he not " by his own studies and reflections been led to
reject not only the belief in Revelation, but the foundations
of what is commonly called Natural Beligion." 4 He came to
the conviction that " concerning the origin of things nothing
whatever can be known." He looked upon religion as " the
greatest enemy of morality," and he regarded the God of
Christianity as an embodiment of the " ne plus ultra of
wickedness." From these views he never departed. His
death occurred on June 23, 1836. Mrs. Grote says " he died
without any pain or struggle, of long standing pulmonary
4 J. S. Mill, Autobiography, p. 38.
JOHN STUART MILL. 65
phthisis'" Francis Place wrote as follows to Mrs. Grote on
June 15.
Stayed too long with poor Mill, who showed much more "sym-
pathy and affection than ever before in all our long friendship.
But he .was all the time a.s much of a bright reasoning man as.
ever he was reconciled to his fate, brave, and calm to an extent
which -I never before witnessed, except in another old friend,
Thomas Holcroft, the day before the day of his death." 5
Holcroft and Place, it should be added, were both Free-
thinkers.
JOHK STUART MILL.
Mill was born in Bodney Street, Pent/on ville, London, on
May 20, 180G, and he died at Avignon on May 8, 1873. Not-
withstanding the unguarded admissions in the one of his
three Essays on Religion which 'he never prepared for the
press, it is certain that he lived and died a Freethinker. His
father educated him without theology, and he never really
imbibed any afterwards. Professor Bain, his intimate friend
and his biographer, tells us that " he absented himself during
his whole life from religious services," and that " in every-
thing characteristic of the creed of Christendom "he was a
thorough-going negationist. He admitted neither its truth
nor its utility." Mr. John Morley also, in his admirably
written account of the last day he spent with Mill, 7 says that
he looked .forward to a general growth of the religion of
Humanity.
Mill was one of the pall -bearers at Grote' s funeral in 1871-
He. accepted the office under great pressure, and on walking
out of Westminster Abbey with Professor Bain he remarked
" In no' very long time, I shall .be laid in the ground with a
very different ceremonial from that." 8 Professor Bain
observes :
It so happened, however, that a prayer was delivered at his
own interment by. the Protestant pastor at Avignon., who thereby
fi Prof. A. Bain, James Mill, p. .409.
John Stuart Mill, by Alexander Bain," pp. 139, 14CL
Miscellanies, Vol. Ill, 8 Bain, p. 133.
D
66 INFIDEL PUATH-BEDS.
got himself into.trouble, from Mill's known scepticism, and had
to write an exculpation in the local newspaper." 9
This pastor had become friendly TOfch Mill at Avignon.
According to Professor Bain, he was " a very intelligent and
libetal-minded man." "When the Democratie du Midi an-
nounced that Mill had received Us derniers secours de la
religion (the last consolations of religion) on his death-bed*
M. Eey, honorably denied the statement, and said, H tfy avait
point de pasteur pres du lit de M. Mill" There was no
clergyman at Mr. Mill's bedside." 1
Mill died of erysipelas consequent on a fall. Three days
before his death he walked fifteen miles. Dr. Gurney thu
describes his last hours :
Mr. Mill suffered but little, except in swallowing, and>froni
the heat and weight of the enormous swelling, which, by the time
I arrived from Nice, had already spread over his face and neck j
and yet he learned from me on my arrival the fatal nature of the
attack with calmness and resignation.- His express desire that he
might not lose his mental faculties was gratified, for his great
intellect remained clear to the last moment. His wish that his
funeral might be quiet and simple, as indeed, his every wish, was
attended to by his loving step-daughter with devoted solicitude." 2
Mill's death was not misrepresented in England. On
the contrary, one religious journal, which died itself soon
afterwards, declared its opinion that his soul was burning in
hell, and expressed a hearty wish that his disciples would
soon follow him.
MIEABEAU:
Gabriel Honore Eiquetti, son and heir of the Marquis de
Mirabeau, was born on March 9, 1747. He came of a wild
strong stock, and was a magnificent " enormous " fellow at
his birth, the head being especially great. The turbulent
life of .thd man has been graphically told by 'Carlyle in his
Essays and in the French Revolution. Faults he had many,
Ibid, 133.
1 M. Eey's letter is given in La, Critique PhiloscpTvique, June 5,
1873, p. 283.
* Daily News, May 12, 1873.
MJHABEAU. 67
but not that of insincerity ; with all his failings, he was a
gigantic mass of veracious humanity. " Moralities not a few"
Bays Garlyle, " must shriek condemnatory over this Mirabeau ;
the Morality by which ho could be judged has not yet got
uttered in the speech of men."
Mirabeau's work in the National Assembly belongs to
history. It was mighty and splendid, but it cannot be recited
here. His life burned away during those fateful months
the incessant labor and excitement almost passing credibility.
a If I had not lived with him," says Dumont, " I never should
have known what a man can make of one day, what things
may be placed within the interval of twelve hours. A day for-
this man was more than a week or a month is for others."
One day his secretary said to him " Monsieur le Comfce, what
you require is impossible." Whereupon Mirabeau started
from his chair, with the memorable ejaculation, " Impossible !
Never name to me that blockhead of a word." Ne me ditea
jamais ce "bete de mot.
But the Titan of the Eevolution was exhausted before his
task was done. In January, 1791, he sat as President of the
Assembly with his neck bandaged after the application of
leeches. At parting he said to Dumont " I am dying, my
friend ; dying as by slow fire." On the 27th of Inarch he
stood in the tribune for the last time. Pour days later he
was on his death-bed. Crowds beset the street, anxious but
silent, and stopping all traffic so that their hero might not be
disturbed. A bulletin was issued every three hours. " On
Saturday the second day of April," says Carlyle, " Mirabeau
feels that the last of the Days has risen for him ; that on this
day he has to depart and be no more. His death is Titanic,
as nis life has been. Lit up, for the, last time, in the glare of
the coming dissolution ,' the mind of the man is all glowing
and burning ; utters itself in sayings, such as men long re-
member. He longs to live, yet acquiesces in death, argues
not with the inexorable."
Gazing out on the Spring sun, Mirabeau said, Si ce n'estpaa
la Dieu, c'est du moms eon cousin g&rmam If that is not God, it
French Revolution, VoL H., p. 120,
68 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
is at least his cousin germ an. It was the great utterance of
an eighteenth-century Pagan, looking across the mists of
Christian superstition to the saner nature- worship of anti-
quity,
Power of speech gone, Mirabeau made signs for paper and
pen, and wrote the word Dwnwr "To sleep." Cabanis, the
great physician, who stood beside him, pretended not to
understand this passionate request for opium. Thereupon,
writes the doctor, he made a sign for the pen and paper to
be brought to him again, and wrote, 'Do you think that
Death is dangerous ? 'Seeing that I did not comply with his
demand, he wrote again, ' . . . How can you leave your friend
on the wheel, perhaps for days P ' " Oabanis and Dr. Petit
decided to give him a sedative. While it was sent for " the
pains became atrocious." Recovering speech a little under
the torture, he turned to M. de la Marck, saying, " Tou deceive
me." " No," replied his friend, " we are not deceiving you,
the remedy is coming, we all saw it ordered." " Ah, the
doctors, thedoctors ! " he muttered. Then, turning to Oabanis,
with a look of mingled anger and tenderness, he said, " Were
you not my doctor and my friend P Did you noti promise to
spare me the agonies of such a death ? Do you wish me to
expire with a regret that I trusted you ? "
" Those words," says Oabanis, " the last that he uttered*
ring incessantly in my ears. He turned over on the right
side with a convulsive movement, and at half-past eight in
the morning he expired in our arms." 4 Dr. Petit, standing
at the foot of the bed, said " His sufferings are ended." " So
dies," writes Carlyle, " a' gigantic Heathen and Titan ;
stumbling blindly, undismayed, down to his rest."
Mirabeau was an Atheist, and he was buried as became his
philosophy and his greatness. The Assembly decreed a
Public Funeral ; there was a procession a league in length,
and the very roofs, trees, and lamp-posts, were covered with
people. The Church of Saint e-G-enevieve was turned into a
Pantheon for the Great Men of the Fatherland, Aux Orcvnds
4 Journal de la Maladie et de la Mort d' Honord-Gabriel Mirabeau.
Paris, 1791 j p. 263.
ROBBET OWEN. 69
Sommes la Patrie Reconnaiesante. It was midnight ere the
ceremonies ended, and the mightiest man in France was left
in the darkness and silence to his long repose. Of him, more
than most men, it might well have been said, " After life's
fitful fever he sleeps well." Dormvr " To sleep," he wrote in
his dying agony. Death had no terror for him ; it was only
the ringing down of the curtain at the end of the drama.
From the womb of Nature he sprang, and like a tired child
he fell asleep at last on her bosom.
ROBERT OWEN.
Robert Owen, whose name was once a terror to the clergy
and the privileged classes, was born at Newt own, Mont-
gomeryshire, on May 14, 1771. In his youth he noticed the
inconsistency of professing Christians, and on studying the
yarious religions of the world, -as he tells us in his Auto*
Tritgraphy, he found that " one and all had emanated from
the same source, and their varieties from the same false
imaginations of our early ancestors." We have no space to
narrate his long life, his remarkable prosperity in cotton
spinning, his experiments in the education of children, his
disputes with the clergy, and his efforts at social reform,
to which he devoted his- time and wealth with singular
disinterestedness and simplicity. At one time his influence
even with the upper classes was remarkable, but he seriously
impaired it in 1817, by honestly stating, at a great meeting
at the City of London Tavern, .that it was useless to hope for
real reform, while people were besotted by "the. gross errors
that have been combined v with the fundamental notions of
every religion." After many more years of labor for the
cause he loved, Owen quietly passed away on November 17,
1858, at the great age of eighty-eight. His last hours are
described in the following letter by his son, Robert x Dale
Owen, which appeared in the newspapers of the time, and is
preserved in Mr. G. J. Holyoake's Last Days of Robert Owen.
, NOVEMBEE 17, 1858. My dear father passed away
this morning, at a quarter before seven, and passed away as gently
70 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
and quietly as if he had fallen asleep. There was not' the least
struggle, not a contraction of a limb, of a muscle, not^m expression
of pain on his face. His breathing gradually became slower and
slower, until at last it ceased so imperceptibly, that, even as I held
his hand, I could scarcely tell the moment when he no longer
breathed. His last words distinctly pronounced about twenty
minutes before his death, were Belief has come.' About half an
hour before he said Very easy arid comfortable.' "
Owen's remains were interred in the churchyard of St.
Mary's, Newtown, and as the law then stood, the minister
had a right, which he exercised, of reading the Church of
England burial service over the .heretic's coffin, and the Free-
thinkers who stood round the grave had to bear the mockery
as quietly as possible. In Owen's case, as in Carl Lie's, .the
Church appropriated the 'heretic's corpse. Even Darwin's
body rests in Westminster Abbey, and that is all of him the
Church can boast.
THOMAS PAINE.
George Washington has been called the hero of American
Independence, but Thomas Paine shares with him the honon
The sword of the one, and the pen of the other, were both,
necessary in the - conflict which prepared the ground fbr
building the Eepublic of the United States. While the
farmer-general fought with unabated hope in the darkest
hours of misfortune, the soldier-: author wrote the stirring
appeals which kindled and sustained enthusiasm in tho
sacred caus'e of liberty. Common Sense was the precursor of
the Declaration of Independence. < The Bights of Man, subse-
quently written and published in England, advocated the
same principles where they were equally required. Eeplied
to by Government in a prosecution for treason, it brought
the author so near to the gallows that he was only saved by
flight. Learning afterwards that the Eights of Man can
never be realised while the people are deluded and degraded
by priestcraft and superstition, Paino attacked Christianity
in The Age of Reason. That vigorous, logical, and witty
volume has converted thousands of Christians to Free-
thought. It was answered by bishops, denounced by the
THOMAS PAINE, 71
clergy, and prosecuted for blasphemy. But it was eagerly
read in fields and workshops ; brave men fought round it as
a standard of freedom ; and before the battle ended the face
of society was changed.
Thomas Paine was born at Thetford, in Norfolk, on
January 29, 1736. His scepticism began at the early age of
eight, when he was shocked by a sermon on the Atonement,
which represented God as killing his own son when he could
not revenge himself in any other way. Becoming acquainted
with Dr. Franklin in London, Paine took his advice and
emigrated to America in the autumn of 1774. A few months
later his Common Sense announced the advent of a masterly
writer. More than a hundred thousand copies were sold,
yet Paine -lost money by the pamphlet, for he issued it, like
all his other writings, at the lowest price that promised to
cover expenses. Congress, in 1777, appointed him Secretary
to the Committee for Foreign Affairs. Bight years later it
granted him three thousand dollars on account of his " early,
unsolicited, and continued labors in explaining the principles
of the late Revolution." In the same year the State of Pen-
sylvania presented him with 500, and th& State oj New
York gave him three hundred acres of valuable land.-
Returning to England in 1787, Paine devoted his abilities
fee engineering. He invented the arched iron bridge, and tho
first structure of that kind in the world, the cast-iron bridge
over the Wear at Siinderland, was made from his model. Yet
he appears to have derived no more profit from this than
from his writings.
Burke' s Reflections appeared in 1790. Paine lost no time
in replying, and his Eights of Man were sold by the hundred
thousand. The Government tried to suppress the work by
bribery ; and that failing, a prosecution was begun. Paine's
defence was conducted by Erskine, but the .jury returned a
verdict of Guilty " without the trouble of deliberation." The
intended victim of despotism was, however, beyond its reach.
He had been elected by the departments of Calais and Ver-
sailles to sit in the National Assembly. A splendid reception
awaited him at Calais, and his journey to Paris was marked by
popular demonstrations. At the trial of Louis XVI., he spoke
72 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
and voted for banishment instead of execution. He was one
of the Committee appointed to frame the Constitution of
1793, but in the close of that year, having become obnoxious
to the Terrorists, he was deprived of his seat as ** a foreigner,"
and imprisoned in the Luxembourg for no better reason. At
the time of his arrest he had written the first part of the
Age of Reason. While in. prison he composed the second
part, and as he expected every day to be guillotined, it was
penned in the very presence of Death.
Liberated on the fall of Robespierre Paine returned to
Ajnerica; not, however, without great difficulty, for the British
cruiser$ were ordered to intercept him. From 1802 till his
death he wrote and published many pamphlets on religious
and other topics, including the third part of the Age of Reason.
His last years were full of pain, caused by an abscess in the
side, which was brought on by his imprisonment in Paris.
He expired, after intense suffering, on June 8, 1809, placidly
and without a struggla 5 '
Paine's last hours were disturbed by pious visitors who
wished to save his immortal soul from the wrath of God.
* One afternoon a very old lady, dressed in a large scarlet-hooded
cloak, knocked at the door and inquired for Thomas Paine. Mr.
Jarvis, with whom Mr. Paine resided, told her he was asleep. 'I
an\ very sorry,' she said, e for that, for I want to see him particu-
larly/ Thinking it a pity to make an old woman call twice, Mr.
Jarvis took her into Mr. Paine's bedroom and awoke him. He
rose upon one elbow j then, with an expression of eye that made
the old woman stagger back a step or two, he asked What do you
want ? ' 'Is your name Paine ? ' Yes.' Well then, I come from
Almighty God to tell you, that if you do not repent of your sins,
and believe in our blessed Savior Jesus Christ, you will be damned
and ' Poh, poh, it is not true ; you were not sent with any such
impertinent message : Jarvis make her go away pshaw ! he would
not send such a foolish ugly old woman about his messages : go
away, go back, shut the door.' " a
Two weeks before his death, his conversion was attempted
by two Christian ministers, the Eev. Mr. Milledollar and the
Rev. Mr. Cunningham.
" The latter gentleman said, Mr. Paine, we visit you as friends
and neighbors : you have now a full view of death, you cannot live
* Life of Thomas Paine. By Clio Eickman. 1819. P. 187.
Bickman, pp. 182183.
THOMAS PAINE. 73
long, and whoever does not believe in Jesus Christ will assuredly
be damned.' Let me,' said Mr. Paine, < have none of your popish
stuff; get away with you, good morning, good morning.'. The
Rev. Mr. Milledollar attempted to address him, but he was inter-
rupted in the same language. "When they were gone he said to
Mrs. Hedden, his housekeeper, 'do not let them come here again*
they intrude upon me.' They soon renewed their visit, but Mrs.
Hedden told them they could not be admitted, and that she thought
the attempt useless, for if G-od did not change his mind, she was
cure no human power could." 7
Another of these busybodies was the Rev. Mr. Hargrove,
& Swedenborgian or New Jerusalemite minister. This gentle-
man told Paine that his sect had found the key for interpreting
the Scriptures, which had been lost for four thousand years.
" Then," said Paine, " it must have been very rusty."
Even his medical attendant did not- scruple to assist in this
pious enterprise. Dr. Mauley's letter to Cheetham, one of
Paine* s biographers*,* says that he visited the dying sceptic at
midnight June 5-6, two days before he expired. After tor-
menting him with many questions, to which he made no
answer, Dr. Manley proceeded as follows :
" Mr. Paine, you have not answered my questions : will you
answ.er them ? Allow me to ask again, do you believe, or let me
qualify the question do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God ? After a. pause of some minutes he answered, I
hcwe no wish to believe on that subject.' I then left him, and know
not whether he afterwards spoke to any person on the subject."
Sherwiu confirms this Etatement. He prints a letter from
Mr. Clark, who spoke to Dr. Manley on the subject. '* I asked
him plainly," says Mr. Clark, " Did Mr. Paine recant his reli-
gious sentiments ? I would thank you for an explicit answer,
air. He said, ' No, he did not' "*
Mr. Willet Hicks, a Quaker gentleman who frequently called
on Paine in his last illness, as a friend and not as a soul-
enatcher, bears similar testimony. "In 'some serious
conversation I had with him a short time before his death,"
said Mr. Hicks, " he said his sentiments .respecting the
Christian religion were precisely the same as they were when
he wrote the Age of Reason. 1 ' 9
Lastly, we have the testimony of Cheetham himself, who
' .Bickman, p. 184. Sherwin's Life of Paine, p. 225.
9 Cheetham's Life of Paine, p. 152.
74 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
was compelled to apologise for libelling Paine during his life,
and whose biography of the great sceptic is a continuous libeL
.Even Cheetham is bound to admit that Paine " died as he had
lived, an enemy to the Christian religion.'*
Notwithstanding this striking harmony of evidence as to-
Paine's dying in the principles of Freethought, the story of
his " recantation " gradually developed, until at last it was
told to the children in Sunday-schools, and even published by
the Religious Tract Society. Nay, it is being circulated to
this very day, as no less true than the gospel itself, "although
it was triumphantly exposed by "William Oobbett over sixty
years ago. " This is not a question of religion," said Oobbett,
" it is a question of moral truth. "Whether Mr. Paine's
opinions were correct or erroneous, has nothing to do with
this matter."
Oobbett investigated the libel on Paine on the very spot
where it originated. Getting to the bottom of the matter, he
found that the source of the mischief was Mary Hinsdale, who
had formerly been a servant to Mr. Willet Hicks. This gentle-
man sent Paine many little delicacies in his last illness; and
Mary Hinsdale conveyed them. According to her story,
Paine made a recantation in her presence, a*nd assured her
that if ever the Devil had an agent on earth, he who wrote
the Age of Reason was undoubtedly that person. "When she
was hunted out by Oobbett, however, " she shuffled, she evaded,
she affected not to understand," and finally said she had " no
recollection of any perspn or thing she saw at Thomas Paine's
house." Cobbett's summary o the whole matter commends
itself to every sensible reader.
This is, I think, a pretty good instance of the lengths to which
'hypocrisy -will go. The whole story, as far aa it relates to recan-
tation, ... is a lie from beginning to end. Mr. Paine declares in
his last Will that he retains all his publicly expressed opinions as
to religion. His executors, and many other gentlemen of undoubted
veracity, had the same declaration from his dying lips. Mr. "Willet
Hicks visited him to nearly the last. This gentleman says that
there was no change of opinion intimated to him; and will any
man believe that Paine would have withheld from Mr. Hicks that
which he was so forward to communicate to Mr. Hicks's servant
girl?"
> Republican, February 13, 1824, ToL 1X1, p. 221.
THOMAS PAIHE. 75
I have already said that the first part of the Age of Reason
was entrusted to Joel Barlow when Paine was imprisoned at
Paris, and the second part was written in gaol in the very
presence of Death. Dr. Bond, an English surgeon, who was
by no means friendly to Paine's opinions, visited him in tb^
Luxembourg, and gave the following testimony :
" Mr. Paine, while hourly expecting to die, read to me parts of
Ms Age of Reason ; and every night when .1 left him to be separately
locked up, and expected not to see him alive in the morning, he
always expressed his firm belief in the principles of that book, and
begged I would tell the world such were his dying opinions." 2
Surely when a work was written in such circumstances, it
is absurd to charge the author with recanting his opinions
through fear of death. Citing once more the words of his
enemy Cheethain, it is incontestible that Thomas Paine '' died
as he had lived, an enemy to the Christian religion."
One of Paine's intimate friends, Colonel Fellows, was met
by Walt Whitman, the American poet, soon after 1840 in
New York. Whitman became well acquainted with the
Colonel, who was then about 78 years of age, and describes
him as ** a remarkably fine old man." From conversations
with him, Whitman became convinced that Paine had
been greatly calumniated. Thirty-five years later, address-
ing a meeting at Lincoln Hall, Philadelphia, on Sunday
January 28, 1887, the democratic poet said : " Thomas Paine
had a noble personality, as exhibited in presence, face, voice,
dress, manner, and what may be called his atmosphere and
magnetism,. especially the later years of his life. I am sure
of it. Of the foul and foolish fictions yet told .about the
circumstances of his decease, the absolute fact is that as he
lived a good life, after its kind, he died calmly and philo-
sophically, as became him." 3
1 Kickman, p. 194.
Walt Whitman, Specimen JDcw/s in America, (English edition),
p. 150.
76 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
COTJETLANDT PALMEE.
Courtlandt Palmer was born on March 25, 1843. He was
of good family and independent fortune, -which he taxed for
the support oT advanced causes. He was President of the
Nineteenth Century Olub in New Tork, established for the
free discussion of " burning" questions in religion and philo-
sophy. Among its members was the great Freethought
orator, Colonel E. G. Ingersofl, whom Palmer desired to
speak at his grave if the malady from which he suffered
should prove fatal. Pour months before his death, he ad-
dressed the following letter to Colonel Ingersoll :
YOEK, March 16, 1888
MY DEAE FEIEND : When after my life's fitful fever, I :shall
start upon the long sleep of death, I shall want T. B. "Wakeman
and you to say above my ashes the last good-bye words he first,
you second ! Not more than fifteen minutes each.
" When I use the word ashes ' I mean it literally, as I wish
my remains to be cremated.
M If it be thought best to make my funeral a public one, I wish
Siegfried's Funeral March performed. I shall write Mr. Walter
Damrosch to this effect.
* I shall oiot be buried from any Christian church, nor do I wish
any Christian hymn sung. iLet one song be a pean of triumph.
- "Yours very affectionately, COUETLANDT PALMER.
To COL. E. G. INGEESOLL.
P.S __ I have shown this to my wife. C. PALMEB."
Mrs. Palmer, however, did not quite share her husband's
Agnosticism. She felt that it would be a relief to her if some
liberal Christian minister said a few words over her husband's
corpse. Out of tenderness for her feelings he consented to
the proposal. Accordingly he wrote the following letter to
Mr. Wakeman on the very day before his death :
* BEANDO^, VT., July 22, 1888.
" DEAB WAKEMAJT, I should not wonder if, ere this reaches you,
life's fitful fever over, I might, be sleeping soundly the sleep that
knows no waking, and that is so full of peace.
'"I am suffering from an acute attack of peritonitis that began
less than a week ago, and has kept me in, fever and pain since
then, relieved only by morphine.
*' I shall send some memoranda to-morrow about my funeral, in
ase a proposed operation, which the doctors deem necessary to
OOUBTLANDT PALMER. 77
my recovery, should not terminate as they hope. My secretary-
has all of my writings.
f I think my little poems, called The Future ' and ' The Kew-
born Soul/ had best be read at my funeral. From the latter,
however, reject the more abstruse verses, in reading.
Mrs. Palmer is very anxious to find some liberal theologian
who will officiate with Ingersoll. In that case, probably j-ou had
beet withdraw, because the most effective tribute I can receive
anyhow is a short encomium as a Freethinker, and Ingersoll's
eloquence will accomplish this better even "than your knowledge
and friendship. Please consult Mrs. Palmer, Mr. D. G. Thompson,
and Col. Ingersoll about details of funeral.
* You and I have stood together many long years as religious
co-believers in this world. And, with no knowledge of a life
beyond the grave, I do not hesitate to affirm in the expected
presence of death, that the Beligion of Humanity is a faith to live
and die by.
"I have asked Mrs. Palmer, in the 'settlement of my estate, to-
give to you five hundred (500) dollars as a contribution toward
the publication of your works.
"As ever, your friend. COUETLANDT PALMER."*
The operation referred to in the letter was performed the
next 4*7- Palmer was perfectly cool and collected, saw to
the arrangement of his. papers and affairs, and gave minute
directions as to his funeral. After making a few slight
changes in Iris will, he bade all the members of his family an
affectionate farewell. During the few minutes which elapsed
before the operation began he conversed cheerfully with those
who were present. " A man should believe," he said, " only
what he can prove. He may have every hope, but he should
only believe what he can prove. I don't say that there is not
a heaven, but I don't know that there is. That is my belief."
Finally he said : " The general impression is that Free-
thinkers are afraid of death. I want you one and all to' tell
the whole world that you have seen a Freethinker die without
the least fear of what the hereafter may be."
The operation was performed successfully, but Palmer suc-
cumbed to the shock, and sank steadily into unconsciousness^
and death. His funeral took place on July 26. The cere-
monies were performed at his residence. Among the mourners
were Freethinkers like Moncure Con way, Edgar Fawcett
the poet, Judge Lachman, Professor Eckel, and Commissioner
* Freethinkers? Magazine (Buffalo, v N.Y.), September 1888, p. 405,
78 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
Andrews. Macgrave Coxe played and sang the Hymn to the
[Evening Star from " Tannhauser," and Colonel Ingersoll
delivered a beautiful, pathetic address, which brought tears
to the eyes of his listeners.
When the ceremony desired by Palmer was ended, the Rev.
E. H. Newton performed a religious service on behalf of the
wife and family ; but he creditably refrained from any pious
.allusions to the dead Agnostic, and confined his brief
.address to a eulogy of Palmer's character. Miss Helen
Gardener was indignant at this " mockery " and " insult,"
but apparently she was ignorant of the last letter to Mr.
Wakeman. Palmer protected himself from slander and mis-
representation, and that being done, he gave his wife per-
mission to arrange for what would be a solace to her grief.
Palmer being well known and respected in New York, the
press was not silent on these matters. The following
Appeared in the New York Graphic of July 26 :
"No candid man, whatever his religious belief, can read the
account of Courtlandt Palmer's death without profound admira-
tion for his lofty courage and consistency. He felt that he could
not survive the operation which resulted in his death. With
calmness and precision he arranged the details of his funeral ser-
vices and settled his business affairs. Then, before the surgeons
came, he discoursed upon those philosophical and Agnostic views
which had long been his moral guide. His last words were these:
* The general impression is that Freethinkers are afraid of death.
I want you one and all to tell the whole world that you have seen
a Freethinker die without the .least fear of what the hereafter
may be.'
Here was a death worthy of Socrates.
Through some singular coincidence most of the stories that
have been given to the world professing to relate the death-bed
scenes of noted Freethinkers have told of their abject fear and
their recantation of unorthodox views just before dissolution.
Without questioning the veracity of these ecclesiastical legends,
it is highly interesting to observe the peace and quietude possible
to a soul conscious of no wrong intent and no base deed, although
deprived of the. consolations of religion. Courtlandt Palmer's
death was certainly a magnificent vindication of his self-
^respect. '
Such an exhibition ought to make more tolerant men of- all
creeds. It shows that the human mind can overcome that instinc-
tive fear of death common to all mortality, and die content with-
out the aid of pious promises or immortal expectations. This' man
died as became a man, because he had lived as became one. Before
PALMEB. 79
the mystery of death his trust in himself did not falter. He had
done his best, and he left the rest to what mi&ht be forthcoming.
Happiest of men are those whose religious convictions are unshak-
able and whose lives are ordered, according to the teachings of
Jesus Christ. . To such the grave has no mystery. But even to
those less happy, who see after this life only into the twilight of
-an unknown country, death need have no sting."
The New York World of July 27 contained a similar refer-
ence to Palmer's death; and the name of this journal ia
known throughout the world :
" The brave and even cheerful manner in which that pronounced
Freethinker, Courtlandt Palmer, met his end cannot fail to attract
attention.
The general impression is,' he said, just before submitting to
the operation which he was assured would almost inevitably, be
iatal, ' that Freethinkers are afraid of death. I want y'ou one and
All to tell the whole world that you have seen a Freethinker die
-without the least fear of what the hereafter may be.' The doomed
man conversed cheerfully with hia friends, bade the members of
Jiis family an affectionate farewell, provided for the cremation of
his remains, hummed a tune from * Tannhauser ' which he asked
should be sung at his funeral, and then faced what he believed' to
be an eternal sleep like one
Who wraps the drapery, of his couch about him
And lies down to pleasant dreams.
It is not necessary to share Mr. Palmer's Agnosticism for he
only said, 'I don't know that there is. not a heaven, but I don't
know that there is* to admire his philosophic courage in the face
of death. . .
His life had fitted him fpr the ordeal. A rich man, he Bym-
pajthised with the poor and sought to ameliorate their condition*
He felt deeply and thought strongly on social questions. If hia
theories were air castles he at least tried to materialise them, lake
Abou Ben Adhem, he c loved his fellow-men.'
* Colonel Ingersoll'a eloquent tribute to his friend will rank lugh
among the best specimens of mortuary eloquence."
Palmer's remains were taken to the Long Island depdfc
and transported to Fresh Pond, where they were, cremated.
The ashes were placed in an urn and interred in Greenwood
Cemetery.
EABELAIS.
Francois Babelais, " the grand jester of France," as Bacon
oallB him, 'was born at Ohinon, in Touraine, in 1483, the same
year in which Lnther and Baphael saw the light. He joined
80 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
the Church and became a monk. His heretical humor brought
him into trouble, and he was once rescued by a military friend
from the fopace, a form of burying alive. But this did not
damp his spirits, though it made him cautious ; for he dreaded
the idea of being burnt alive "like a herring," seeing that he
was " dry enough already by nature." He veiled his profound
wisdom with the jolliest buffoonery. On one occasion he
printed dme (the soul) as dne (a jackass) several times, and
said it was a printer's blunder ! " Eabelais," says Coleridge,
" had no mode of speaking the truth in those days but in
such a form as this " ; his buffoonery was " an amulet against
the monks an,d bigots." Despite the plain language of
Pantagruelt Coleridge maintained that " the morality of the
work is of the most refined and exalted kind." 5 Elsewhere
the same great poet and critic said, " I could write a treatise
in' proof and praise of the morality 'and moral elevation of
Babelais' -work, which would make the church stare and the
conventicle' groan." 8 Coleridge, indeed, classed Babelais
" with the great creative minds of the world," with Shake-
speare, Dante and Cervantes.
" Attempts have been made," says Mr. Walter Besant, " to
prove that Babelais was a Christian. To suppose this is, in
my mind, not only seriously to misunderstand the spirit of
his book, but that of his time." 7 The cure of Meudon sapped
the Church with satire from within. But on February 19i
1552, he resigned his living at Meudon and -Le Mans. Mr.
Besant concludes that " the old man, now that life was drawing
to its close, now that his friends were dead, dispersed, and in
exile, discerned at last the wickedness of coritiiiuing to say
masses, which were to him empty forms, in the cause of a-
Church which was fall of absurdities and corruptions." 8
Many of his friends had perished in prison or at the stake,
but Babelais died a natural death in his bed. His end came,
it is said, on April 9, 1553, at a house in the Bue des Jardins,
Paris. Many stories were told of his death-bed, and may be
found in the bibliophile Jacob's (Paul Lacroix) introduction.
5 Table Talk (Bonn), p. 197.
Miscellanies, Esthetic and Literary (Bohn), p. 127.
Rabelais, by Walter Besant, p. 186. P. 46.
WINWOOD READE.' 81
to the Charpentier edition of Rabelais' works. When he had
received the extreme nnction, he said aloud that they had
greased his boots for the great journey. When the priest in
attendance asked if he believed in the real presence of Jesus
Christ in the holy wafer, he replied meekly : " I believe in it,
and I rejoice therein ; for I .think I see my God as he was
when he entered Jerusalem, triumphant and seated on an
ass." Towards the end. they put on his Benedictine robe;
whereupon he punned upon a Psalm Beati qui morwnter in
Dommo. A messenger from Cardinal du Bellay being
brought to the Bedside, he said in a feeble voice, " Tell mori-
seigneur I am going to seek the great Perhaps." Gathering
his strength for a last effort, he cried out in a burst of
laughter, " Draw the curtain, the farce is over."
These stories may be partly apocryphal, yet, as Jacob
remarks, they are " in keeping with the character of Rabelais
and. the spirit of his writings."
WINWOOD READB.
Winwood Reade, the African traveller and naturalist, was
a nephew of Charles Reade, the famous novelist. His
researches are frequently drawn upon in Darwin's Descent of
Man, in the index of which his name may be distinguished
Turning his attention to literature, he wrote the Martyrdom
of Man, a most remarkable book, showing a perfect grasp of
human evolution, and an absolute freedom from theology.
This was followed by a Freethought novel, The Outcast
Winwood Reade died on April 24, 1875. A prominent obitu-
ary notice appeared in the London Daily Telegraph on April
27, bearing unmistakeable evidence of having been written by
Charles Reade. It says : " He wrote his last work, The
Outcast, with the hand of death upon him. Two zealous
friends carried him out to Wimbledon, and there, for a day
or two, the air seemed to revive him ; but on Friday night ha
began to sink, and on Saturday afternoon died in the arms of
his beloved uncle, Mr. Charles Reade."
82 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS
MATYAMTE BOLAND.
Among the Girondists who perished in 1793 was Madame
Eoland. She'was nourished on scepticism, complains arlyle ;
but he allows her " as brave a heart as ever beat in woman 8
bosom." " Like a white Grecian statue," he says, ** serenely
complete, she shines in that black wreck of things." While
in prison she bore herself with fortitude, writing her Memoirs,
and addressing cheerful letters to her daughter, her husband,
and her friends. Feeling that she was doomed, she deter-
mined to go before the Revolutionary Tribunal alone. M
Chaveau-Lagarde, a lawyer, wished to defend her, but she
declined his services. " You would lose your life," she said,
" without saving mine. I know my doom. To-morrow I shall
oease to exist." On October 9 she was driven in the tumbril to
the guillotine, clad in white, with her long black hair hanging
down to her girdle. With her was a prisoner named L am arche,
whom she endeavored to cheer. She renounced her right to
be executed first, so that her dejected companion might be
spared the pain of seeing her blood. Samson would not
consent to this. " Will you, 1 * 'she gaily asked, " refuse a lady
her last request P * and he yielded. " Liberty, what crimes
are committed in thy name ! " she exclaimed, but she bowed
before the statue nevertheless, knowing that Liberty was holy
though worshipped mistakenly with cruel'rites.
She said her husband would not survive her, and he did
not. On learning her fate, he left the kind friends who were
harboring him at Bpuen, and the next day he was found dead
at the foot of a tree on the road to Paris. He had thrust a
cane-sword into his own heart. Beside him was a letter, in
which he said that he " died, as he lived, virtuous and hon eat,"
refusing to ** remain longer on an earth polluted with
crimes." The most touching feature in the suicide of this
stern Republican and Freethinker was the fact that by taking
his own life, and anticipating the Tribunal, he secured his
property to his daughter.
Authorities t
Carlyle, French Revolution, Bk. T., chap. ii.
Barrier e, Memoires Particuliers de Mine. Roland.
GEOEGE SAND 83
GEOKGE SAND.
George Sand was the pen-name of Amantine Lucile Aurore
Dudnevant. Her maiden name was Dupin. She was born at
Paris on July 5, 1804, and she died at Nohant on June 8,
1876, after establishing her fame as one of the finest of French
prose writers. She believed in God, says Plauchat, but
" certainly not in the vengeful and merciless God of the
orthodox." Her last work was a critical notice of Kenan's
Dialogues et Fragments Philosophique in Le Temps, only a month
before her decease. Towards the end of May she took to her
bed, from which she never rose again. She was suffering
from internal paralysis, and medical skill was of no avail.
On the 8th of June, at nine in the morning, she " expired in
calmness and serenity." 8 Before the end she said : " It is
death ; I do not ask for it, but neither do I regret it. 1 ' 1
George Sand's biographer in English, Bertha Thomas, writes :
Up to the last hour she preserved consciousness and lucidity.
The words, * Ne touchez pas d, la verdure,' among the last that fell
from her lips, were understood by her children, who knew her
wish that the tree should be undisturbed under which in the
village cemetery she was soon to find a resting-place." 2
Such was the peaceful death of the great writer, whom Mrs.
Browning hailed in two glorious sonnets as " large-brained
woman and large-hearted man," and whom Flaubert himself
addressed as " chere maitre."
SCHILLER.
After Goethe, Schiller is the greatest of German poets.
His principles were those of a Deist. Like Goethe, he had no
belief in Christianity, and but little respect for it as a present-
day religion. His " best works were written during the last
fifteen years of his life, every day of which brought its of load
pain. He died on May 9, 1805, in his forty-sixth year, having
been born on November 10, 1759. Carlyle writes :
9 Plauchat, Galerie Contenypprovin, Pt. II.
1 George Sand, by Bertha Thomas, p. 245. Ibid. _
84 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
< The fiery canopy of physical suffering, wnich had bewildered
and "blinded his thinking faculties, was drawn aside; and the spirit
of Schiller Jooked forth in its wonted serenity, once again before
it passed away forever. After noon his delirium abated ; about
four o'clock he fell into a soft sleep, from which he ere long awoke
in full possession of his senses. Bestored to consciousness in that
hour, when the soul is cut off from human help, and man must
front the King of Terrors on. his own strength, Schiller did not
faint or fail in this his lasf and sharpest trial: Feeling that his
end was come, he addressed himself to meet it as became him;
not with affected carelessness or superstitious fear, but with the
quiet unpretending manliness which had marked the tenor of his
life. Of his friends and family he took a touching but a tranquil
farewell : he ordered that his funeral should be private, without
pomp or parade.' Some one inquiring how he felt, he said
"Calmer and calmer;" simple but memorable words, expressive of
the mild heroism of the man. About six he sank into a deep
sleep j once for a moment he looked up with a lively air, and said,
' Many things were growing plain and clear to Kim!" Again he closed
his eyes ; and his sleep deepened and deepened, till it changed into
the sleep from which there is no awakening ; and all that remained
of Schiller was a lifeless form, soon to be mingled with the clods
of the valley."
Schiller's scepticism, it may be added, appears in his corres-
pondence with Goethe more than in any of his other writings.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
This glorious poet of Atheism and Republicanism was born
at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, on August -4, 1792*
His whole life was a daring defiance of the tyranny of Custom.
In 1811, when less than nineteen, he was expelled from Oxford
University for writing The Necessity of Atheism. After writing
Queen Malt and several political pamphlets, besides visiting
Ireland to assist the cause of reform in that unhappy island,
be was deprived of the guardianship of his two children by
Lord Chancellor Eldon on account of his heresy. Leaving
England, he went to Italy, where his 'principal poems were
composed with remarkable rapidity during the few years of
life left him. His death occurred on July 8, 1822. He was
barely thirty, yet he had made for himself a deathless fame
as the greatest lyrical poet in English literature.
Life of ScMler, by Thomas Carlyle, p. 166.
PEEOT BTSSHE SHELLEY. 85
Shelley was drowned in a small yacht off Leghorn. The
only other occupants of the boat were his friend Williams
and a sailor lad, both' of whom shared his fate. The squall
which submerged them was too swifb to allow of their taking
proper measures for their safety. Shelley's body was re-
covered. In one pocket was a volume of JSschylus, in the
other a copy of Keats's poems, doubled back as if hastily
thrust away. He had evidently been reading "Isabella " and
" Lamia," and the waves cut short his reading for ever. . It
was an ideal end, although so premature ; for Shelley was
fascinated by the sea, and always ezpresssed a preference for
death by drowning. His remains were cremated on the sea-
coast, in presence of Leigh Hunt, Trelawney, and -Byron.
Trelawney snatched the heart from the Barnes, and it is still
preserved by Sir Percy Shelley. The ashes were coffered,
and soon after buried in the Protestant cemetery at Borne,
close by the old cemetery, where Keats was interred a beau-
tiful open space, covered in summer with violets and daisies,
of which Shelley himself had written " It might make one in
love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet
a place." Trelawney planted six young cypresses and four
laurels. On the tomb-stone was inscribed a Latin epitaph by
Leigh Hunt, to which Trelawney added three lines from
Shakespeare's Tempest, one of Shelley's favorite plays.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
COB COEBXUM
Natua iv. Aug. MDOCXCII
Obit vii. JuL MDCCCXXIT
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
.. And there, at Borne, shadowed by cypress and laurel
covered with sweet flowers, and surrounded by the crumbling
ruins of a dead empire, rests the heart of hearts.
Shelley's Atheism cannot be seriously disputed, and Tre-
lawney makes a memorable protest against the foolish and
futile attempts to explain it away.
" The principal fault" I have to find is that the Shelley an writers,
being .Christians themselves, seem to think that a man of genius
8G INFIPEL DEATH-BEDS.
caimot be an Atheist, and so they strain their own faculties to dis-
prove what Shelley asserted from the very earliest stage of his
career to the last day of his life. He ignored all religions as super-
stitions. . . A clergyman wrote in the visitors' book at the Mer
de Glace, Chamouni, something to the following effect : No one
can view this sublime scene, and deny the existence of God.'
Under which Shelley, using a Greek phrase, wrote P. B. Shelley,
Atheist,' thereby proclaiming his opinion to all the world. And
he never regretted having done so." *
Trelawney's words should be printed on the forefront of
Shelley's works, so tjiat it might never be forgotten that
" the poet of poets and purest of men " was an Atheist.
BENEDICT SPINOZA.
Benedict Spinoza (Baruch Despinosa) was born at Amster-
dam on November 24, 1632. His father was one of the
Jewish fugitives from Spain who settled in the Netherlands
to escape the dreaded Inquisition. With a delicate constitu-
tion, and a mind more prone to study than amusement, the
boy Spinoza gave himself to learning and meditation. He
was soon compelled to break away from the belief of his
family and his teachers ; and after many vain admonitions,
he was at length excommunicated, His anathema was
pronounced in the synagogue on July 27, 1656. It was a
frightful formula, cursing him by day and night, waking and
sleeping, sitting and standing, and prohibiting every Jew from
holding any communication with him, or approaching him
within a distance of four cubits. Of course it involved his
exile from home, and soon afterwards he narrowly escaped
a fanatic's dagger.
The rest of Spinoza's life was almost entirely thai; of a
scholar^ He earned a scanty livelihood by polishing lenses,
but his physical wants were few, and he subsisted on a few
pence per day. His writings are such as the world will not
willingly let die, and his Ethics places him on the loftiest
heights of philosophy, where his equals and^ companions may
be counted on the fingers of a single hand. Through Goethe
and Heine, he has exercised a potent influence on German,
Records of Byron and Shelley, Vol. I., pp. 243245.
.BENEDICT SPINOZA. 87
and therefore on European thought. His subtle Pantheism
identifies God with Nature, and denies to deity all the attri-
butes of personality.
His personal appearance is described by Golems, the Dutch
pastor, who some years after his death gathered all the in-
formation about him that could be procured. He was of
middle height and slenderly built ; with regular features, a
broad and high forehead, large dark lustrous eyes, fall dark
eyebrows, and long curling hair of the same hue. His
character was worthy of his intellect. He made no enemies
except by his opinions. " Even bitter opponents," as Dr.
Martineau says, " could not but own that he was singularly
blameless and unexacting, kindly and, disinterested. Chil-
dren, young men, servants, all who- stodd to him in any rela-
tion of dependence, seem to haver felt the charm of his affa-
bility and sweetness of temper." *
Spinoza was lodging, at the time of his death, with a poor
Dutch family at the Hague. They appear to have regarded
him with veneration, and to have given him every attention.
But the climate was too rigorous for his Southern tempera-
ment.
The strict and sober regimen which was recommended by
frugality was not tmsuited to his delicate constitution ; but, in
spite of it, bis emaciation increased ; and, though he made m
change in his habits, he became- so far aware of his decline as on
Sunday, the 20th of February, 1677, to send for his medical friend
Meyer from Amsterdam. That afternoon Van der Spijck and his
wife had been to church, in preparation for the Shrovetide com-
munion next day : and on their return at 4 p.m., Spinoza had come
Downstairs and, whilst smoking his pipe, talked with them long about
the sermon. He went early to bed ; but was up again next morning
(apparently before the arrival of Meyer), in time to come down
and converse with his host and hostess before they went to church.
The timely appearance of the physician enabled her to leave
over the fire a fowl to be boiled for a basin of broth. This, as
well as some of the bird itself, Spinoza took with a relish, on their
return from church about midday. There was nothing to prevent
the Van der Spijcks from going to the afternoon service. But oa
coming out of the church they were met by the startling news
that at 3 p.m. Spinoza had died ; no one being with him but his
physician."
A Study of Spinoza. By Dr. James Martineau, p. 104.
Ibid, pp. 101, 102.
88 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
Dr. Martineau hints that perhaps "the philosopher and
the physician had arranged together and carried out a method
of euthanasia," but as he admits that " there is no tittle of
evidence " for such a thing, it is difficult to understand why he
makes such a gratuitous suggestion.
Pious people, who judged every philosopher to be an
Atheist, reported that Spinoza had cried out several times in
dying, " Oh God, have mercy on me, a miserable sinner ! "
Colerus investigated this story and found it an invention.
Dr. Meyer was the only person with Spinoza when he died,
BO that it was impossible for the scandal -mongers to have
heard his last words. Besides, his hostess denied the truth
of all such statements,, adding that " what persuaded her of
the contrary was that, since he began to fail, he bad always
shown in his sufferings a stoical fortitude." *
DAVID FREDERICK STRAUSS.
Strauss's Life of Jesus once excited universal controversy
in, the Christian world, and the author's name was opprobrious
in orthodox circles. So important was the work, that it was
translated into French by Littre and into English by George
Eliot. Subsequently, Strauss published a still more heterodox
book, The Old Faith and the New> in which he assex-ts that
" if ,we would speak as honest, upright men, we must ackno^-
ledge we are no longer Christians," and 'strenuously repu-
diates all the dogmas of theology as founded on ignorance and
superstition.
This eminent German Freethinker died in the spring of
1874, of cancer in the stomach, one of the most excruciating
disorders.
"But in these very sufferings the mental greatness and moral
strength of the sufferer proclaimed their most glorious victory.
He was fully aware of his condition. With unshaken firmness he
adhered to the convictions which he had openly acknowledged in
his last work [The Old Faiih and the New] and he never for ^ a
moment repented having written them.' N But with these convic-
La, Vie de Spinoza, par Colerus: Saisset's (Ewrres de
Yol. II., p. xxx vii.
JOHN TOLANB. 89
tions he met death with such repose and with such unclouded
serenity of mind, that it was impossible to leave his sick room
without the impression of a moral sanctity which we all the more
surely receive from greatness of soul and mastery of mind over
matter, the stronger are the hindrances in the surmounting of
which it is manifested." 8
Strauss left directions for his funeral. He expressly for-
bade all participation of the Church in the ceremony, but on
the day of his interment a sum of money was to be given to
the poor. " On February 10 [1874] therefore," says his bio-
brapher, "he was buried without ringing of bells or the
presence of a clergyman, bub in the most suitable manner,
and amid the lively sympathy of all, far and near."
JOHH TOLAND.
Toland was one of the first to call himself a Freethinker.
He was born at Redcastle, near Londonderry, in Ireland, on
November 30, 1670 ; and he died at Putney on March 11,
1722. His famous work Christianity not Mysterious was
brought before Parliament, condemned as heretical, and
ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. One member
proposed that the author himself should be burnt ; and as
Thomas Aitkenhead had been hung at Edinburgh for blas-
phemy in the previous year, it is obvious that Toland in-
curred great danger in publishing his views.
Among other writings, Toland's Letters to Serena achieved
distinction. They were translated into French by the famous
Baron D'Hplbach, and Lange, in his great History of Materi-
alism, says that " The second letter handles the kernel of the
whole question of Materialism." Lange also says that
" Toland is one of those benevolent beings who exhibit to us
a great character in the complete harmony of all the sides of
the human existence."
For some years before his death, Toland lived in obscure
lodgings with a carpenter at Putney. His health was broken,
8 Edward Zeller, Daand Frederick Strauss in his Life and Writings,
p. 148.
90 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
and his circumstances were poor. His las^ illness was pain-
ful, but he bore it with great fortitude. According to, one
of his most intimate friends, he looked earnestly at those in
the room a few minutes before breathing his last, and on
being asked if he wanted anything, ' he answered " I want
nothing but death." His biographer, Des Maizeaux, says
that " he looked upon death without the least perturbation
of mind, bidding farewell to those that were about hi, and
telling them he was going to sleep."
LUOILIO VANIHL
Lucilio Vanini was born at Taurisano, near Naples, in
1584 or 1585. He studied theology, philosophy, physics,
astronomy, medicine, and civil and ecclesiastical law. At
Padua he became a doctor of canon and civil law, and was
ordained a priest. Resolving to visit the academies of
Europe, he travelled through France, England, Holland, and
Germany. According to Fathers Mersenne and Garasse, he
formed a project of promulgating Atheism over the whole
of Europe. The same priests allege that he had fifty thonsan d
Atheistic followers at Paris ! One of his books was con-
demned to the flames by the Sorbonne. Yahini himself met
eventually with the same fate. Tried at Toulouse for heresy,
he was condemned as an Atheist, and sentenced to the stake.
At the trial he protested his belief in God, and defended the
existence of Deity with the flimsiest arguments; so flimsy,
indeed, that one can scarcely read them, without suspecting
that he was pouring irony on his judges. They ordered him
to have his tongue cut out before being burnt alive. Jt is
said that he afterwards confessed, took the communion, and
declared himself ready to subscribe the tenets of the Church.
But if he did so, he certainly recovered his natural dignity
when he had to face the worst. Le M&rcwre Franfaty, which
'cannot be suspected of partiality towards him, reports that
" he died with as much constancy, patience, and fortitude as
any other man ever seen ; for setting forth from the Con'-
fciergerie joyful and elate, he pronounced in. Italian these
' VOLNEY: 91
words ' Come, let us die cheerfully like a philosopher ! ' n
There is a report that, on seeing the pile, he cried out " Ah,
my God!" On which a bystander said, "You believe in
God, then/' " No," he retorted, " it's a fashion of speaking."
Father Garasse says that he uttered many other notable
blasphemies, refused to ask forgiveness of God, or of the
king, and died furious and defiant. So obstinate was he,
that pincers had to be employed to pluck out his tongue.
President Gram on d, author of the History of France Under
Louis XIII., writes : " I saw him in the tumbril as they led
him to execution, mocking the Cordelier who had been sent
to exhort him to repentance, and : insulting our Savior by
these impious words. ' He sweated with fear and weakness,
and I, I die undaunted.' "
Vanini's martyrdom took place at Toulouse on February
19,1619. He was only thirty-four, an age, .as Camille Des-
moulins said, "fatal to revolutionists."
[The reader may consult M. X. Rousselot's (Ewvres PhilosopJvique
de Vaniniy Avec une Notice sur sa Vie et sea Ouvrages. Paris 1842.")
..VOLNEY.
Constantino Francois de Chasseboeuf, known in literature
by the name of Volney, from which he took his title on
becoming a peer of France, was born in February, 1757. He
was a great traveller, and his visits to Oriental countries
were described BO graphically and philosophically, that
Gibbon wished he might go over the whole world and record
his experiences for the delight and edification of mankind.
His Atheism, was always unconcealed, and in his famous
Ruins of Empires he always exhibits theology and priestcraft
as the constant enemies of civilisation. His sceptical History
of Samuel, which is sometimes wrongly ascribed to Voltaire,
was written within a year of his death.
A very foolish story about Volney's " cowardice " in a
atorm is still circulated in pious tracts. It is said that he.
threw himself on the deck of the vessel, crying in agony,
"Oh, my God, my God !" " There is a God, then, Monsieur
92 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
Volney P" said cine of the passengers. " Oh, yes," he ex-
claimed, " there is, there is, Lord save me !" When the vessel
arrived safely in port, goes the story, he " returned to his
atheistical sentiments."
I have traced this nonsense back to the Tract Magazine, for
July 1832, where it appears very much amplified, and in many
respects different. It appears in a still different form in the
eighth volume of the Evangelical Magazine. Beyond that it
is lost in the obscurity which always surrounds the birth
of these edifying fictions.
Volney died at Paris on April 25, 1820, leaving a large part
of his fortune to be spent on prize essays on the subject of
language. Adolphe Bossange, in a notice of the life and
writings of Volney, prefixed to the 1838 (Paris) edition of his
works, gives the following account of his last hours :
" His health, which had always been delicate, be.came languid,
and soon he felt his end was approaching. It was worthy of his
life.
"'I know the custom of your profession/ he said to the doctor
three days before he died ; but I wish you not to play on my
imagination like that of other patients. I do not fear death. Tell
me frankly what you think of my condition, for I have arrange-
ments to make.' The doctor seemed to hesitate. ' I know enough*
said Volney, let them bring a notary.'
"He dictated his will with the utmost calmness ; and not aban-
doning at the last moment the idea which had never ceased to
occupy his mind during twenty-five years, and doubtless fearing
that his labors would be brought to a cessation by his death, he
devoted the sum of 24,000 francs to founding an annual prize for
the best essay on the philosophical study of languages."
Volney's death in the principles which guided his laborious
and useful life was so notorious that the Abbe* Migne, in his
great Catholic Dictionary, says, " It appears that in his last
moments he refused the consolations of religion."
VOLTAIRE.
Franois Marie Arouet, generally known by the name of
Voltaire, was born at Ohatenay on February 20, 1694. ' He
died at Paris, on May 30, 1778. To write his life during those
Dictionnaire de Biogra/phie Chretienne et Anti-Chretienne.
VOLTAIRE. 93
eighty-three years would be to give the intellectual history
of Europe.
While Voltaire was living at Ferney in 1768, he gave a
curious exhibition of that profane sportiveness which was a
strong element in his character. On Easter Sunday he took
his secretary Wagniere with him to commune at the village
church, and also " to lecture a little those scoundrels who
steal continually." Apprised of Voltaire's sermon on theft,
the Bishop of Anneci rebuked him, and finally " forbade every
curate, priest, and monk of his diocese to confess, absolve or
give the communion to the seigneur of Ferney, without his
express orders, under pain of interdiction." With a wicked
light in his eyes, Voltaire said he would commune in spite of
the Bishop ; nay, that the ceremony should be gone through
in his chamber. Then ensued an exquisite comedy, which
shakes one's sides even as described by the stolid Wagniore.
Feigning a deadly sickness, Voltaire took to his bed. The
surgeon, who found his pulse was excellent, was bamboozled
into certifying that he was in danger of death. Then the
priest was summoned to administer the last consolation. The
poor devil at first objected, but Voltaire threatened him with
legal proceedings for refusing to bring the sacrament to a
dying man, who had never been excommunicated. This was
accompanied with a grave declaration that M. de Voltaire
4< had never ceased to respect and to practise the Catholic
religion." Eventually the priest came " half dead with fear."
Voltaire demanded absolution at once, but the Capuchin
pulled out of his pocket a profession of faith, drawn up by
the Bishop, which Voltaire was required to sign. Then the
comedy deepened. Voltaire kept demanding absolution, and
the distracted priest kept presenting the document for his
signature. At last the Lord of Ferney had his way. The
priest gave him the wafer, and Voltaire declared, " Having
my Grod in my mouth," that he forgave his enemies. Directly
he left the room, Voltaire leapt briskly out of bed, where a
minute before he seemed unable to move. " I have had a
little trouble," he said to Wagniere, "with this comical genius
of a Capuchin ; but that was only for amusement, and to
accomplish a good purpose. Let us take a turn in the garden.
04 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
I told you I would be confessed and commune in my bed, in
spite of M. Biord." 1
Voltaire treated Christianity BO lightly that he confessed
and iook the sacrament for a joke. Is it wonderful if he did
the same thing on his death-bed to secure the decent burial
of his corpse ? He remembered his own bitter sorrow and
indignation, which he expressed in burning verse, when the
remains of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur were refused sepulture
because she died outside the pale of the Church. Fearing
similar treatment himself, he arranged to cheat the Church
again. By the agency of his nephew, the Abbe Mignot, the
Abbe Gautier was brought to his bedside, and according to
Condorcet he " confessed Voltaire, receiving from him a pro-
fession of faith, by which he declared that he died ia the
Catholic religion, wherein he was born." 2 This story is-
generally credited, but its truth is by no means indisputable ;
for in the Abbe Gautier's declaration to the Prior of the
Abbey of Scellieres, where Voltaire's remains were interred,
he says that when he visited M. de Voltaire, ne found him
" unfit to le confessed."
The curate of St. Sulpice was annoyed at being forestalled
by the Abbe Gautier, and as Voltaire was his parishioner
he demanded " a detailed profession of faith and a disavowal
of all heretical doctrines." He paid the dying Freethinker
many unwelcome visits, in .the vain hope of obtaining a full
recantation, which would be a fine feather in his hat. The
last of these visits is thus described by Wagnicre, who was
an eye-witness to the scene. I take Carlyle's tr&nslation :
Two days before that mournful death, M. 1- Abbe" Mignot, hifl
nephew, went to seek the Cure" of St. Sulpice and the Abbs' Gau-
thier, and brought them into his uncle's sick room ; who, on being
informed that the Abbe Gauthier was there^ Ah, well ! ' said he,
'give him my compliments and my thanks.' The Abbe* spoke
some words to him, exhorting him to patience. The Cure" of St.
Sulpice then came forward, 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 Cure's calotte (coif)/ shoving him backhand
cried, turning abruptly to the other side, Let me die in peace
i Parton's Life of Voltcvire, Vol. II., pp. 410 415.
Condorcet's Vie de Voltcvire, p. 144.
VOLTAIRE. 95
(Laissez-moi mourir en paix).' The Cure seemingly considered
his person soiled, and his ' coif dishonored, by the touch of the
philosopher. He made the sick-nurse give him a little brushing,
and then went out with the Abbe Gauthier." 3
. A further proof that Voltaire made no real recantation lies
in the fact that the Bishop of Troyes sent a peremptory dis-
patch to the Prior of Scellieres, which lay in his diocese,
forbidding him to inter the heretic's remains/ The dispatch,
however, arrived too late, and Voltaire's ashes remained there
until 1791, when they were removed to Paris and placed in
the Pantheon, by order of the National Assembly.
Voltaire's last moments are described by Wagni&re. I again
take Carlyle's translation.
" He expired about a quarter past eleven at night, with the most
perfect tranquility, after having. suffered the cruelest pains in con-
sequence of those fatal drugs, which his own imprudence, and
especially that of the persons who should have looked to it, made
him swallow. " Ten minutes before his last breath he took the
hand of Morand, his valet-de-chambre, who was watching him;
pressed it, and said, Adieu, mon cher Morand; je me mews' Adieu,
my dear Morand, I am gone.' These are the last words uttered by
M. de Voltaire." 4
Such are the facts of Voltaire's decease. He made no
recantation, he refused to utter or sign a confession of faith!,
but with the connivance of his nephew, the Abbe Mignot, he
tricked the Church into granting him a decent burial, no$
choosing to be flung into a ditch or buried like a dog. His
heresy was never seriously questioned at the time, and the
clergy actually clamored for the expulsion of the Prior who
had allowed his body to be interred in a church vault.*
Many years afterwards the priests pretended that Voltaire
died raving. They declared that Marshal Richelieu was
horrified by the scene and obliged to leave the chamber.
From France the pious concoction spread to England, until
it" was exposed by Sir Charles Morgan, who published the
following extracts from a letter by Dr. Burard, who, as
assistant physician, was constantly about Voltaire in his last
moments :
< I feel happy in being able, while paying homage to truth, to
8 Carlyle's Assays, Vol. II. (People's Edition), p. 161.
* Carlyle, Vol. II., p. 160. Parton, Vol. II., p. 165.
96 INFIDEL DEATH-BEDS.
'destroy the effects of the lying stories which "have been told
respecting the last moments of Mons. de Voltaire. I was, by
office, one of those who were appointed to watch the whole pro-
gress of his illness, with M. M. Tronchin, Lorry, and Try, hia
medical attendants. I never left him for an instant during his
last moments, and I can certify that we invariably observed in
him the same strength of character, though his disease was neces-
sarily attended with horrible pain. (Here follow the details of
his case.) We positively forbade him to speak in order to prevent
the increase of a spitting of blood, with which he was attacked j
Btill he continued to communicate with us by means of little cards,
on which he wrote his questions ; we replied to him verbally, and
if he was not satisfied, he always made his observations to us in
writing. He therefore detained his faculties up to the last moment,
and the fooleries which have been attributed to him are deserving
of th.e greatest contempt. It could not even be said that such or
such person had related any circumstance of his death, as being
witness to it ; for at the last, admission to his chamber was for-
bidden to any person. Those who came to obtain intelligence
respecting the patient, waited in the saloon, and other apartments
at hand. The proposition, therefore, which has been put in the
mouth of Marshal Richelieu is as unfounded as the rest.
Paris, April 3rd, 1819. (Signed) BUKABD."
Another slander .appears to emanate from the Abbe
Barruel, who was so well informed about Voltaire that he
calls him " the dying Atheist," when, as all the world knows,
lie was a Deist.
In his last- illness he sent for Dr. Tronchin. When the Doctor
came, he found Voltaire in the greatest agony, exclaiming with
the utmost horror ' I am abandoned by God and man.' He then
said, Doctor, I will give you half of .what I am worth, if you will
give me six months' life.' The doctor answered, ' Sir, you cannot
live six weeks.' Voltaire replied, Then I shall go to hell, and vou
will go with me ! ' and soon after expired."
When the clergy are reduced to manufacture such con-
temptible rubbish as this, they must indeed be in great
straits. It is flatly contradicted bv the evidence of every
contemporary of Voltaire.
My readers will, I think, be fully satisfied that Voltaire
neither recanted nor died raving, but remained a sceptic to
the last : passing away quietly, at a ripe old age, to " the un-
discovered country from whose bourne, no traveller retains,"
and leaving behind him a name that brightens the track of
time.
Philosophy of Morals, by Sir Charles Morgan.
( JAMES WATSON. 97
j
JAMES WATSON.
James Watson was one of the bravest heroes in the struggle
for a free press. He was one of Richard Carlile's shopmen,
and took his share of imprisonment when the Government
tried to suppress Thomas Paine's Age of Reason and several
other Freethought publications. In fighting for the un^
stamped press, he was again imprisoned in 1833. As a pub-
lisher he was notorious for his editions of Paine, Mirabaud,
Volney, Shelley, and Owen. He died on November 29, 1874,
aged seventy-five, " passing away in his sleep, without a
struggle, without a sigh." 7
JOHN WATTS.
John'Watts was at one time sub-editor of the Reasoner, and
afterwards, fbr an interval, editor of the National Reformer.
He was the author of several publications, including Half
Hours with Freethinkers in collaboration with Charles Brad-
laugh. His death took place on October 31, 1866, and the
following account of it was written by Dr. George Sexton and
published in the National Reformer of the following week.
" At about half-past seven in the evening he breathed his last,
BO gently that although I had one of his hands in mine, and his
brother the other in his, the moment of his death passed almost
unobserved by either of ,us. No groan, no sigh, no pang indicated
his departure. He died as a candle goes out when burned to the
socket."
; George Sexton has since turned Christian, at least by pro-
fession; but, after what he has written of the last moments
of John Watts, he can scarcely pretend that unbelievers have
any fear of death.
W00LSTON.
Woolston was born at Northampton in 1669, and
he died in London in 1733. He was educated at Sidney
7 James Watson, by W. J. Lintoiu p. 86.
1)8 INFIDEL DEATH BEDS.
College, Cambridge, taking his M.A. degree, and being elected
a fellow. Afterwards he was deprived of his fellowship for
heresy. Entering into holy orders, he closely studied divinity,
and gained a reputation for scholarship, as well as for
sobriety 'and benevolence. His profound knowledge of
ecclesiastical history gave him a contempt for the Fathers,
in attacking whom he reflected on the modern olergy. He
maintained that miracles were incredible, and that all the
supernatural stories of the New Testament must be regarded
as figurative. For this he was prosecuted on a charge of
blasphemy and profaneness, but the action dropped through
the honorable intervention of Whiston. Subsequently he
published Six Discourses on Miracles, which were dedicated
to six bishops. In these the Church was assailed in homely
language, and her doctrines were mercilessly ridiculed.
Thirty thousand copies are said to have been sold. A fresh
prosecution for blasphemy was commenced, the Attorney-
General declaring the Discourses to be " the most blas r
phemous book that ever was published in any age whatever."
Woolston ably defended himself, but he was found guilty,
and sentenced to one year's imprisonment and a fine of 100.
Being too poor to pay the fine, Christian charity . detained
him permanently in the King's Bench Prison. "With a noble
courage he refused to purchase his release by promising to
refrain from promulgating his views, and prison fever . at
length released him from his misery. The following account
of his last moments is taken from the Daily Courant of Monday,
January 29, 1733 :
"On Saturday night, about nine o'clock, died Mr. Woolston,
author of the Discourses on our Savior's Miracles,' in the sixty-
sixth year of his age. About five minutes before he died he uttered
these words: 'This is a struggle which all men must go through,
and which I bear not only with patience but willingness.' Upon
which he closed his eyes, and shut his lips, with a seeming design
to compose his face with decency, without the help pi a friend's
hand, and then he expired."
Without the help of a friend's hand! Helpless and friendless,
pent in a prison cell, the brave old man faced Death in soli-
tary grandeur, yielding, for the first and last time, to the
lord of all.
APPENDIX.
COLONEL INGERSOLL'S DEATH.
There are so many Christian preachers in the
country who think the truth of God will more
abound through their lying, that stories of the re-
cantation of his Infidelity and conversion to
Christianity of the late Robert G. Ingersoll are
being published with a frequency which shows the
zeal of the pious ones of the earth. The Ingersoll
family have had such stories sent to them by the
dozen, with a request for the facts, and The Truth
Seeker has answered in the paper and by letter
some score or two within the past few weeks. To
set the matter at rest, and to have the facts in
shape for use by Colonel Ingersoll's friends and
by future historians, the family have prepared the
following sworn statement:
STATE OF NEW YORK )
COUNTY OF NEW YORK j ss *
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
THE TRUE STORY OF His ILLNESS AND DEATH.
On November 16, 1896, while on a lecture trip, at
Janesville, Wisconsin, Colonel Ingersoll had a cere-
bral hemorrhage. He continued to lecture for a
few days, but at the solicitation of his family went
to Chicago and consulted Dr. Frank Billings, who
advised him to return home and rest for two
months, which he did. He then, January 24, 1897,
resumed lecturing, which he continued up to the
time of his death. It was at this time, early in
1897, that he developed angina pectoris, from which
he suffered greatly and which was the cause of his
death. Since his death we have learned that he
knew exactly his condition. In other words, his
physicians had told him that he was likely to die at
APPENDIX.
any moment, but acceding to his earnest entreaties
they did not tell his family. In spite of the fact
that death was ever beside him, he was always very
cheerful, and when asked as to his health invariably
replied "all right." During the night of July 20,
1899, he had an attack of acute indigestion and slept
very little, but he came to breakfast the next morn-
ing and afterward sat on the piazza, as he was wont
to do, reading and talking with the family. At
about ten thirty he said he would lie down and rest
a little and would then come down and play pool
with his son-in-law. Mrs. Ingersoll accompanied
him to their bedroom and remained with him while
he slept. At about 11.45 he arose and sat in his
chair to put on his shoes. Miss Sue Sharkey came
into the room followed by Mrs. Sue M. Farrell.
Mrs. Ingersoll said, "Do not dress, papa, until
after luncheon. I will eat upstairs with you." He
replied: "Oh, no, I do not want to trouble you/'
Mrs. Farrell then said, "How absurd, after the
hundreds of times you have eaten upstairs with her."
He looked up laughingly at Mrs. Farrell as she
turned to leave the room, and then Mrs. Ingersoll
said, "Why, papa, your tongue is coated; I must
give you some medicine." He looked up at her with
a smile and as he did so closed his eyes and passed
away without a struggle, a pang or even a sigh. No
one else was present. It is said that he recanted.
This is a cruel and malicious falsehood, without the
slightest foundation in fact. His convictions on
the subject of religion remained absolutely un-
changed. He died as he had lived an Agnostic.
EVA A. INGERSOLL,
SUE SHARKEY,
SUE M. FARRELL.
Severally affirmed to before me this 17th day of
March, 1906.
JOHN H. HAZELTON,
Notary Public, New York County, No. 59.
APPENDIX.
Several copies of this document have been ex-
ecuted and placed in safe keeping for the use of
future historians, and to use in refuting the lies
which have been and will be told as to Colonel
Ingersoll's death. The pulpit has not only made
Colonel Ingersoll recant, but one priest told
his parishioners that the Colonel sent for a
Roman Catholic priest. The foregoing statement
has been made in the interest of the truth. The
Sue Sharkey, whose name is affixed to the affidavit,
was a member of the family, and is a Roman Catho-
lic in religion.
Whenever one of our readers sees in his local
newspaper a repetition of the idle tale that Colonel
Ingersoll recanted we hope he or she will copy
this and embody it in a letter to that newspaper, and
tell the editor that if he is an honest man he will
print it ; if he refuses to print it, tell him he is just a
little less honest than a horsethief, and stop taking
his paper.
DENIED BY AFFIDAVITS.
From the New York Truth Seeker, Feb. 19th, 1910.
Immediately upon the death of Robert G. Inger-
soll in 1899, a report that upon his "dying bed" he
had renounced his Agnosticism, and had expressed
regret for having entertained such views, was fabri-
cated and put in circulation by priests, ministers,
and evangelists. The family of Colonel Ingersoll,
being shocked and outraged by this malicious false-
hood, at once published a statement and affidavit de-
scribing his last moments and showing the impossi-
bility of the reports being true. The statement of
facts did not check the lying, which went on, cul-
minating in an affidavit by a wretch named Berry of
St. Johns, Oregon, that the recantation had actually
APPENDIX.
taken place and giving other details obviously bor-
rowed from previously fabricated accounts of other
Infidel deathbeds. Evangelists and the religious
press, professing to regard the miserable inven-
tions of Berry as new evidence, have circulated his
story East and West, and have refused to desist
when informed and placed in possession of the -fact
that the affidavit of Berry does not contain a word
of truth. Their course has shown that they are in-
different to its falsity so long as it serves their pur-
pose. In consequence, the widow and daughter of
Colonel Ingersoll have made a second affidavit dis-
posing of Berry's. It is to the shame and reproach
of religion that they should be forced by persistent
lying on the part of its propagandists to take this
course. THE TRUTH SEEKER prints the affidavits
of Mrs. Ingersoll and Miss Ingersoll, the originals
of which are at this office for inspection. We un-
derstand that the genuineness of the previous af-
fidavits published and republished in THE TRUTH
SEEKER has, in their desperation, been denied by the
circulators of the Berry testimony. Freethinkers,
wherever they may hear or see any statement con-
flicting with the facts with which they are so well
acquainted, will be justified in rising up and giving
such statement its right name.
MRS. INGERSOLL'S AFFIDAVIT.
STATE OF NEW YORK,
COUNTY OF NEW YORK,
Eva A. Ingersoll, having duly affirmed, deposes
and says :
That she is the widow of the late Colonel Robert
G. Ingersoll, who died at Dobbs Ferry, New York,
on July 21, 1899.
That she has been informed that, in December,
APPENDIX.
1908, a certain affidavit was made reading as fol-
lows:
"I do hereby declare that Robert Ingersoll con-
fessed to my father, Joehiel S. Berry, on his dying
bed, that he did not believe the doctrine he preached.
"He said these words : 'Joehiel, I wish I had my
life to live over again/ When asked why, he said
'Because I do not believe what I have preached and
never have. I only did this for the money that was
in it/
"His daughter than asked, Whose life shall I
live after, yours or mother's ?' and he said, 'Live the
life of your mother/ Mrs. Ingersoll was a strict
Baptist and a sister to my father.
"(Signed) ARCHIE E. BERRY,
"St. Johns, Ore."
or reading as given without the words "on his dying
bed/'
That the name of deponent's father was Parker ;
and that the name of deponent's mother was Lyon.
That neither her father nor her mother was married
more than once.
That she does not know Archie E. Berry; that
she never knew Joehiel S. Berry, and that she never
saw, so far as she knows, either of them, and that
she never heard of either of them except as she has
heard of them in connection with the above alleged
affidavit.
That, so far as she knows, her late husband never
saw or knew either Archie E. Berry or Joehiel S.
Berry.
That no one by the name of Berry was present at
the death of her said late husband; and that she
knows so of her own knowledge, because she herself
was present at that time and knows all of the per-
sons then present.
That any statement that Archie E. Berry is de-
ponent's nephew is false.
,Y APPENDIX.
j
That any statement that Joehiel S. Berry was
present at the death of her said late husband is false.
That any statement that her said late husband re-
canted from his public utterances, namely, that he
was an Agnostic, so far as she knows, or, as she
knows, at the time of his death, is false.
That deponent is not and never has been a Bap-
tist and has been and still is an Agnostic.
EVA A. INGERSOLL.
Subscribed and affirmed to before me this 27th
day of January, 1910.
JOHN H. HAZELTON,
Notary Public, New York Co., No. 70.
MISS INGERSOLL'S AFFIDAVIT.
STATE OF NEW YORK,
COUNTY OF NEW YORK.
Maud R. Ingersoll, having first duly affirmed, de-
poses and says :
That she is a daughter of the late Colonel Robert
G. Ingersoll, who died at Dobbs Ferry, New York,
on July 21, 1899, and of Eva A. Ingersoll, who
signed in her presence the annexed affidavit, made
a part hereof by reference, which she has read and
the contents whereof she knows and which contents
she believes to be true.
That she has been informed that, in December,
1908, a certain affidavit was made as follows : [Here
the Berry affidavit is quoted] or reading as given
without the words "on his dying bed."
That she does not know Archie E. Berry; and
that she never knew Joehiel S. Berry ; and that she
never saw, so far as she knows, either of them, and
that she never heard of either of them except as
she has heard of them in connection with the above
alleged affidavit.
That, so far as she knows, her said late father
APPENDIX.
never saw or knew either Archie E. Berry or Joehiel
S. Berry.
That, so far as she knows, her said late father
never had any conversation of any kind with Joehiel
S. Berry ; and that her said late father in her pres-
ence and she, or her said late father in her presence
or she, never had any such conversation as has been
given in said alleged affidavit above given, or any
similar conversation, or anything like it, or any part
of it, or any conversation having any similar im-
port, at any time, with any person or persons.
That no such conversation as is alleged in said
alleged affidavit of Archie E. Berry as occurring
between deponent and her said late father in the
presence of Joehiel S. Berry could have occurred,
because her said late father never made any such
statement in her presence, and her said mother has
always been, so far as deponent knows, an Agnostic,
just as her said late father was, and never, so far
as deponent knows, a Baptist nor anything other
than an Agnostic.
That any statement that Archie E. Berry is the
nephew of deponent's mother is, to the best of de-
ponent's knowledge, information and belief, false.
That any statement that her said late father re-
canted from his public utterances, namely, that he
was an Agnostic is, to the best information, the
knowledge and the belief of deponent, false.
MAUD R. INGERSOLL.
Subscribed and affirmed before me this 27th day
of January, 1910. JOHN H. HAZELTON,
Notary Public, New York Co., No. 70.
I IT ID IE
Amberley, Lord
*Baskerville, John..
*Bayle, Pierre
*Bentham, Jeremy
*Bert, Paul
Bolingbroke, Lord
*Broussais, Francois
Bruno, Giordano
Buckle, Henry T
Byron, Lord
Carlile, Richard
Clifford, Willian
*Clootz, Anacharsis
Collins, Anthony
*Comte, Auguste
Condorcet . . .
Cooper, Robert
*D'Alembert
Danton
*Darwin, Charles
*Darwin, Erasmus
-Delambre ...
Diderot, Denis
*Dolet, Etienne
Eliot, George
Frederick the Great
Gambetta ...
*Garibaldi ...
Gendre, Isaac
Gibbon - ...
Godwin
Goethe
with a Star were not included in the First Edition.
PAGE PAGE
...
11
*Grote 48
n
11
12
*Helvetius 47
Hetherington, Henry ... 48
y
13
Hobbes ... .., ... 50
rd" ...
14
16
Holyoake, Austin
Hugo, Victor
3
ois
17
Hume
56
... ...
18
Littre"
59
homas ...
20
Martineau, Harriet
63
....
21
*Meslier, Jean,
63
... ..'.
22
*Mill, James
64
i Kingdon
23
Mill, John Stuart ...
65
is
24
MirabeaU ...
66
r
25
Owen, Robert
. 69
...
26
Paine, Thomas ... v
70,
...
27
*Palmer, Courtlandt
7flj
...
28
*Rabelais
7?
"...
28
*Reade, Win wood
81
...
29
*Roland, Madame
82
31
*Sand, George .. ..
83
LS
32
*Schiller
83
... ...
32
Shelley
84
... ...
33
Spinoza
86
... ...
37
Strauss ... ..
88
... ...
39
Toland, John
89
reat
39
Vanini
90
... >
40
Volney. ... .. ..
91
...
43
Voltaire
92
. ...
44
Watson, James
97
... ...
44
Watts, John
97
...
46
Woolston, Thomas
97
. * <.*
415
Erratwm. -Pierre Bayle is wrongly printed as Henri Bayle on
page 12.
Works by John E. Remsburg
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