Voltaire : a lecture

25 OEHSTT'S.

VOLTAIRE.

LECTURE

BY

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

"Voltaire gave the death stab to modern superstition." — CARLVLE.

NEW YORK.
C. P. FARRELL, PUBLISHER,

1895.

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LIBKARY

Vcltaira,

VOLTAIRE.

A LECTURE

BY

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

Voltaire was the greatest man of his century, and did more to free the human
race than any other of the sons of men.

NEW YORK.

C. P. FARRELL, PUBLISHER,
1895.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895,

BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.

THE ECKLER

35 r<JLTON v5

NEW YORK.

VOLTAIRE.

I.

'T'HE infidels of one age have often been the au-
reoled saints of the next.

The destroyers of the old are the creators of the
new.

As time sweeps on the old passes away and the
new in its turn becomes old.

There is in the intellectual world, as in the physi-
cal, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of
buried age stand youth and joy.

The history of intellectual progress is written in
the lives of infidels.

Political rights have been preserved by traitors ;
the liberty of mind by heretics.

To attack the king was treason ; to dispute the
priest was blasphemy.

For many centuries the sword and cross were

4 VOLTAIRE.

allies. Together they attacked the rights of man.
They defended each other.

The throne and altar were twins — two vultures
from the same egg.

James I. said : " No bishop, no king." He might
have added : No cross, no crown. The King owned
the bodies of men ; the priest, the souls. One lived
on taxes collected by force, the other on alms col-
lected by fear — both robbers, both beggars.

These robbers and these beggars controlled two
worlds. The king made laws, the priest made
creeds. Both obtained their authority from God,
both were the agents of the infinite.

With bowed backs the people carried the burdens
of one, and with wonder's open mouth received the
dogmas of the other.

If the people aspired to be free, they were crushed
by the king, and every priest was a Herod, who
slaughtered the children of the brain.

The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and
both by both.

The king said to the people : " God made you
peasants, and He made me king ; He made you to
labor, and me to enjoy ; He made rags and hovels
for you, robes and palaces for me. He made you to

VOLTAIRE. 5

obey, and me to command. Such is the justice of
God."

And the priest said : " God made you ignorant
and vile ; He made me holy and wise ; you are the
sheep, I am the shepherd ; your fleeces belong to
me. If you do not obey me here, God will punish
you now and torment you forever in another world.
Such is the mercy of God."

" You must not reason. Reason is a rebel. You
must not contradict — contradiction is born of ego-
tism ; you must believe. He that hath ears to hear
let him hear." Heaven was a question of ears.

Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and
there have been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, in-
vestigators, lovers of liberty, men of genius who
have given their lives to better the condition of their
fellow- men.

It may be well enough here to ask the question :
" What is greatness ? "

A great man adds to the sum of knowledge, ex-
tends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the
Bastile of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious
seas, gives new islands and new continents to the
domain of thought, new constellations to the firma-
ment of mind. A great man does not seek applause

6 VOLTAIRE.

or place ; he seeks for truth ; he seeks the road to
happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others.

A great man throws pearls before swine, and the
swine are sometimes changed to men. If the great
had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would
be barbarians now.

A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon
in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy.

Greatness is not the gift of majorities ; it cannot
be thrust upon any man ; men cannot give it to an-
other ; they can give place and power, but not
greatness.

The place does not make the man, nor the sceptre
the king. Greatness is from within.

The great men are the heroes who have freed the
bodies of men ; they are the philosophers and think-
ers who have given liberty to the soul ; they are
the poets who have transfigured the common and
filled the lives of many millions with love and song.

They are the artists who have covered the bare
walls of weary life with the triumphs of genius.

They are the heroes who have slain the monsters
of ignorance and fear, who have outgazed the Gorgon
and driven the cruel gods from their thrones.

They are the inventors, the discoverers, the great

VOLTAIRE. 7

mechanics, the kings of the useful who have civilized
this world.

At the head of this heroic army, foremost of all,
stands Voltaire, whose memory we are honoring to-
night.

Voltaire ! a name that excites the admiration of
men, the malignity of priests. Pronounce that name
in the presence of a clergyman, and you will find
that you have made a declaration of war. Pro-
nounce that name, and from the face of the priest
the mask of meekness will fall, and from the mouth
of forgiveness will pour a Niagara of vituperation
and calumny. And yet Voltaire was the greatest
man of his Century, and did more to free the human
race than any other of the sons of men.

On Sunday, the 2ist of November, 1694, a babe
was born — a babe so exceedingly frail that the
breath hesitated about remaining, and the parents
had him baptized as soon as possible. They were
anxious to save the soul of this babe, and they knew
that if death came before baptism the child would be
doomed to an eternity of pain. They knew that
God despised an unsprinkled child. The priest,
who, with a few drops of water, gave the name of
Francois- Marie Arouet, to this babe and saved his
soul — little thought that before him, wrapped in

8 VOLTAIRE.

many folds, weakly wailing, scarcely breathing, was
the one destined to tear from the white throat of
Liberty the cruel, murderous claws of the " Triumph-
ant Beast."

When Voltaire came to this " great stage of fools,"
his country had been christianized — not civilized —
for about fourteen hundred years. For a thousand
years the religion of peace and good-will had been
supreme. The laws had been given by Christian
kings, and sanctioned by " wise and holy men."

Under the benign reign of universal love, every
court had its chamber of torture, and every priest
relied on the thumb-screw and rack.

Such had been the success of the blessed gospel
that every science was an outcast.

To speak your honest thoughts, to teach your
fellow-men, to investigate for yourself, to seek the
truth, these were all crimes, and the " holy-mother
church " pursued the criminals with sword and flame.

The believers in a God of love — an infinite father
— punished hundreds of offences with torture and
death. Suspected persons were tortured to make
them confess. Convicted persons were tortured to
make them give the names of their accomplices.
Under the leadership of the Church, cruelty had be-
come the only reforming power.

VOLTAIRE. • 9

In this blessed year 1 694 all authors were at the
mercy of king and priest. The most of them were
cast into prisons, impoverished by fines and costs,
exiled or executed.

The little time that hangmen could snatch from
professional duties was occupied in burning books.

The courts of justice were traps, in which the in-
nocent were caught. The judges were almost as
malicious and cruel as though they had been bishops
or saints. There was no trial by jury, and the rules
of evidence allowed the conviction of the supposed
criminal by the proof of suspicion or hearsay.

The witnesses, being liable to be tortured, gen-
erally told what the judges wished to hear.

The supernatural and the miraculous controlled
the world. Everything was explained, but nothing
was understood. The Church was at the head.
The sick bought from monks little amulets of conse-
crated paper. They did not send for a doctor, but
for a priest, and the priest sold the diseased and the
dying these magical amulets. These little pieces of
paper with the help of some saint would cure dis-
eases of every kind. If you would put one in a
cradle, it would keep the child from being bewitched.
If you would put one in the barn, the rats would not

IO VOLTAIRE.

eat your corn. If you would keep one in the house,
evil spirits would not enter your doors, and if you
buried them in the fields, you would have good
weather, the frost would be delayed, rain would
come when needed, and abundant crops would bless
your labor. The Church insisted that all diseases
could be cured in the name of God, and that these
cures could be effected by prayers, exorcism, by
touching bones of saints, pieces of the true cross ;
by being sprinkled with holy water or with sanctified
salt, or touched with magical oil.

In that day the dead saints were the best physi-
cians; St. Valentine cured the epilepsy ; St. Gerva-
sius was exceedingly good for rheumatism ; St.
Michael for cancer ; St. Judas for coughs and colds ;
St. Ovidius restored the hearing ; St. Sebastian was
good for the bites of snakes and the stings of poison-
ous insects ; St. Apollonia for toothache ; St. Clara
for any trouble with the eyes ; and St. Hubert for
hydrophobia. It was known that doctors reduced
the revenues of the Church ; that was enough —
science was the enemy of religion.

The Church thought that the air was filled with
devils ; that every sinner was a kind of a tenement
house inhabited by evil spirits ; that angels were on

VOLTAIRE. I I

one side of men and evil spirits on the other, and
that God would, when the subscriptions and dona-
tions justified the effort, drive the evil spirits from
the field.

Satan had power over the air ; consequently he
controlled the frost, the mildew, the lightning and
the flood ; and the principal business of the Church
was with bells, and holy water, and incense, and
crosses, to defeat the machinations of that prince of
the power of the air.

Great reliance was placed upon the bells ; they
were sprinkled with holy water, and their clangor
cleared the air of imps and fiends. And bells also
protected the people from storms and lightning. In
that day the Church used to anathematize insects.
Suits were commenced against rats, and judgment
rendered. Every monastery had its master magi-
cian, who sold incense and salt and tapers, and con-
secrated palms and relics. Every science was
regarded as an enemy ; every fact held the creed of
the Church in scorn. Investigators were regarded
as dangerous ; thinkers were traitors, and the Church
exerted its vast power to prevent the intellectual
progress of man.

There was no real liberty, no real education, no

1 1 VOLTAIRE.

real philosophy, no real science — nothing but cre-
dulity and superstition. The world was under the
control of Satan and the Church.

The Church firmly believed in the existence of
witches and devils and fiends. In this way the
Church had every enemy within her power. It
simply had to charge him with being a wizard, of
holding communications with devils, and the ignorant
mob were ready to tear him to pieces. So preva-
lent was this belief, this belief in the supernatural,
that the poor people were finally driven to make the
best possible terms they could with the spirit of evil.
This frightful doctrine filled every friend with sus-
picion of his friend ; it made the husband denounce
the wife, children their parents, parents their chil-
dren. It destroyed the amenities of humanity ; it
did away with justice in courts ; it broke the
bond of friendship ; it filled with poison the golden
cup of life ; it turned earth into a very perdition
peopled with abominable, malicious and hideous
fiends. Such wras the result of a belief in the super-
natural ; such was the result of giving up the evi-
dence of their own senses and relying upon dreams,
visions and fears. Such was the result of the attack
upon the human reason ; such the result of de-

VOLTAIRE. 13

pending on the imagination, on the supernatural ;
such the result of living in this world for another; of
depending upon priests instead of upon ourselves.
The Protestants vied with Catholics ; Luther stood
side by side with the priests he had deserted in pro-
moting this belief in devils and fiends. To the
Catholic every Protestant was possessed by a devil ;
to the Protestant every Catholic was the home of a
fiend. All order, all regular succession of causes and
effects were known no more ; the natural ceased to
exist ; the learned and the ignorant were on a level.
The priest was caught in the net he had spread for
the peasant, and Christendom became a vast mad-
house, with the insane for keepers.

When Voltaire was born the Church ruled and
owned France. It was a period of almost universal
corruption. The priests were mostly libertines, the
judges cruel and venal. The royal palace was a
house of prostitution. The nobles were heartless,
proud, arrogant and cruel to the last degree. The
common people were treated as beasts. It took the
Church a thousand years to bring about this happy
condition of things.

The seeds of the Revolution unconsciously were
being scattered by every noble and by every priest.

14 VOLTAIRE.

They were germinating slowly in the hearts of the
wretched ; they were being watered by the tears of
agony ; blows began to bear interest. There was a
faint longing for blood. Workmen, blackened by
the sun, bowed by labor, deformed by want, looked
at the white throats of scornful ladies and thgught
about cutting them.

In those days witnesses were cross-examined with
instruments of torture ; the Church was the arsenal
of superstition ; miracles, relics, angels and devils
were as common as lies.

In order to appreciate a great man we must know
his surroundings. We must understand the scope
of the drama in which he played — the part he acted,
and we must also know his audience.

In England George I. was disporting with the
" May-pole" and " Elephant," and then George II.,
jealous and choleric, hating the English and their
language, making, however, an excellent image or
idol before whom the English were glad to bow —
snobbery triumphant — the criminal code getting
bloodier every day — 223 offences punishable with
death — the prisons filled and the scaffolds crowded
— efforts on every hand to repress the ambition of
men to be men — the Church relying on supersti-

VOLTAIRE. 1 5

tion and ceremony to make men good — and the
State dependent on the whip, the rope and axe to
make men patriotic,

In Spain, the Inquisition in full control — all the
instruments of torture used to prevent the develop-
ment of the mind, Spain, that had driven out the
Jews, that is, to say, her talent ; that had driven out
the Moors ; that is to say, her taste and her indus-
try, was still endeavoring by all religious means to
reduce the land to the imbecility of the true faith.

In Portugal, they were burning women and chil-
dren for having eaten meat on a holy day, and this
to please the most merciful God,

In Italy, the nation prostrate, covered with swarms
of cardinals and bishops and priests and monks and
nuns and every representative of holy sloth. The
Inquisition there also — while hands that were
clasped in prayer or stretched for alms, grasped with
eagerness and joy the lever of the rack, or gathered
fagots for the holy flame.

In Germany, they were burning men and women
charged with having made a compact with the
enemy of man.

And in our own fair land, persecuting Quakers,
stealing men and women from another shore, steal-

1 6 VOLTAIRE.

ing children from their mother's breasts, and paying
labor with the cruel lash.

Superstition ruled the world !

There is but one use for law, but one excuse for
government — the preservation of liberty — to give
to each man his own, to secure to the farmer what
he produces from the soil, the mechanic what he in-
vents and makes, to the artist what he creates, to
the thinker the right to express his thoughts. Lib-
erty is the breath of progress.

In France, the people were the sport of a king's
caprice. Everywhere was the shadow of the Bas-
tile. It fell upon the sunniest field, upon the happi-
est home. With the king walked the headsman ;
back of the throne was the chamber of torture.- The
Church appealed to the rack, and Faith relied on
the fagot. Science was an outcast, and Philosophy,
so-called, was the pander of superstition.

Nobles and priests were sacred. Peasants were
vermin. Idleness sat at the banquet, and Industry
gathered the crumbs and the crusts.

VOLTAIRE. 1 7

II.

THE DAYS OF YOUTH.

\ 7OLTAIRE was of the people. In the language
of that day, he had no ancestors. His real name
was Francois- Marie Arouet. His mother was Mar-
guerite d'Aumard. This mother died when he was
seven years of age. He had an elder brother,
Armand, who was a devotee, very religious and ex-
ceedingly disagreeable. This brother used to pre-
sent offerings to the Church, hoping to make amends
for the unbelief of his brother. So far as we know,
none of his ancestors were literary people.

The Arouets had never written a line. The Abbe
de Chatilieu was his godfather, and, although an
abbe, was a Deist who cared nothing about religion
except in connection with his salary. Voltaire's
father wanted to make a lawyer of him, but he had
no taste for law. At the age of ten he entered the
college of Louis Le Grand. This was a Jesuit
school, and here he remained for seven years, leav-
ing at seventeen, and never attending any other

1 8 VOLTAIRE.

school. According to Voltaire, he learned nothing
at this school but a little Greek, a good deal of
Latin and a vast amount of nonsense.

In this college of Louis Le Grand they did not
teach geography, history, mathematics or any science.
This was a Catholic institution, controlled by the
Jesuits. In that day the religion was defended, was
protected or supported by the State. Behind the
entire creed were the bayonet, the ax, the wheel,
the fagot and the torture chamber.

While Voltaire was attending the college of Louis
Le Grand the soldiers of the king were hunting
Protestants in the mountains of Cevennes for masfis-

o

istrates to hang on gibbets, to put to torture, to
break on the wheel, or to burn at the stake.

At seventeen Voltaire determined to devote his
life to literature. The father said, speaking of his
two sons Armand and Francois, " I have a pair of
fools for sons, one in verse and the other in prose."

In 1713 Voltaire, in a small way, became a cliplo
mat. He went to The Hague attached to the French
minister, and there he fell in love. The girl's
mother objected. Voltaire sent his clothes to the
young lady that she might visit him. Everything
was discovered and he was dismissed. To this girl

VOLTAIRE. 19

he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the key note
of Voltaire : " Do not expose yourself to the fury
of your mother. You know what she is capable of.
You have experienced it too well. Dissemble ; it is
your only chance. Tell her that you have forgotten
me, that you hate me ; then after telling her, love
me all the more."

On account of this episode Voltaire was formally
disinherited by his father. The father procured an
order of arrest and gave his son the choice of going
to prison or beyond the seas. He finally consented
to become a lawyer, and says : " I have already
been a week at work in the office of a solicitor
learning the trade of a pettifogger."

About this time he competed for a prize, writing
a poem on the king's generosity in building the new
choir in the cathedral Notre Dame. He did not
win it. After being with the solicitor a little while,
he hated the law, began to write poetry and the out-
lines of tragedy. Great questions were then agita-
ting the public mind, questions that throw a flood of
light upon that epoch.

In 1 55 2, Dr. Baius took it into his head to sustain
a number of propositions touching predestination to
the prejudice of the doctrine of free will. The Cor-

20 VOLTAIRE.

delian monks selected seventy-six of the proposi-
tions and denounced them to the Pope as heretical,
and from the Pope obtained what was called a Bull.
This Bull contained a doubtful passage, the meaning
of which was dependent upon the position of a
comma. The friends of Dr. Baius wrote to Rome to
find where the comma ought to be placed. Rome,
busy with other matter, sent as an answer a copy of
the Bull in which the doubtful sentence was left
without any comma. So the dispute continued.

Then, there was the great controversy between
the Jansenists and Molinists, Molini was a Spanish
Jesuit, who sustained the doctrine of free will with a
subtlety of his own, " man's will is free, but God
sees exactly how he will use it." The Presbyterians
of our country are still wrestling with this important
absurdity.

Jansenius was a French Jesuit who carried the
doctrine of predestination to the extreme, asserting
that God commands things that are impossible, and
that Christ did not die for all.

In 1641 the Jesuits obtained a Bull condemning
five propositions of Jansenius. The Jansenists there-
upon denied that the five propositions — or any of
them — were found in the works of Jansenius.

VOLTAIRE. 2 1

This question of Jansenism and Molinism occupied
France for about two hundred years.

In Voltaire's time the question had finally dwindled
down to whether the five propositions condemned
by the Papal Bull were in fact in the works of
Jansenius. The Jansenists proved that the five
propositions were not in his book, because a neice of
Pascal had a diseased eye cured by the application
of a thorn from the crown of Christ.

The Bull Unigenitus was launched in 1713, and
then all the prisons were filled with Jansenists.
This great question of predestination and free will,
of free moral agency and accountability, and being
saved by the grace of God, and damned for the
glory of God, have occupied the mind of what we
call the civilized world for many centuries. All
these questions were argued pro and con through
Switzerland ; all of them in Holland for centuries ;
in Scotland and England and New England, and
millions of people are still busy harmonizing fore-
ordination and free will, necessity and morality, pre-
destination and accountability.

Louis XIV. having died, the Regent took posses-
sion, and then the prisons were opened. The Re-
gent called for a list of all persons then in the prisons

22 VOLTAIRE.

sent there at the will of the King. He found that,
as to many prisoners, nobody knew any cause why
they had been in prison. They had been forgotten.
Many of the prisoners did not know themselves, and
could not guess why they had been arrested. One
Italian had been in the Bastile thirty-three years
without ever knowing why. On his arrival in Paris,
thirty-three years before, he was arrested and sent
to prison. He had grown old. He had survived
his family and friends. When the rest were liberated
he asked to remain where he was, and lived there
the rest of his life. The old prisoners were par-
doned ; but in a little while their places were taken
by new ones.

At this time Voltaire was not interested in the
great world — knew very little of religion or of gov-
ernment. He was busy writing poetry, busy think-
ing of comedies and tragedies. He was full of life.
All his fancies were winged, like moths.

He was charged with having written some cutting
epigrams. He was exiled to Tulle, three hundred
miles away. From this place he wrote in the true
vein — " I am at a chateau, a place that would be
the most agreeable in the world if I had not been
exiled to it, and where there is nothing wanting for

VOLTAIRE. 23

my perfect happiness except the liberty of leaving.
It would be delicious to remain, if I only were al-
lowed to go."

At last the exile was allowed to return. Again
he was arrested ; this time sent to the Bastile, where
he remained for nearly a year. While in prison
he changed his name from Francois- Marie Arouet
to Voltaire, and by that name he has since been
known.

Voltaire, as full of life as summer is full of blos-
soms, giving his ideas upon all subjects at the ex-
pense of prince and king, was exiled to England.
From sunny France he took his way to the mists
and fogs of Albion. He became acquainted with
the highest and the best in Britain. He met Pope,
a most wonderful verbal mechanic, a maker of arti-
ficial flowers, very much like natural ones, except
that they lack perfume and the seeds of suggestion.
He made the acquaintance of Young, who wrote
the " Night Thoughts ; " Young, a fine old hypo-
crite with a virtuous imagination, a gentleman who
electioneered with the king's mistress that he might
be made a bishop. He became acquainted with
Chesterfield — all manners, no man ; with Thompson,
author of " The Seasons," who loved to see the sun

24 VOLTAIRE.

rise in bed and visit the country in town ; with
Swift, whose poisoned arrows were then festering in
the flesh of Mr. Bull — Swift, as wicked as he was
witty, and' as heartless as he was humorous — with
Swift, a dean and a devil ; with Congreve, whom
Addison thought superior to Shakespeare, and who
never wrote but one great line, " The cathedral
looking' tranquillity."

VOLTAIRE. 25

III.

THE MORN OF MANHOOD.

A 7OLTAIRE began to think, to doubt, to inquire.
He studied the history of the Church, of the creed.
He found that the religion of his time rested on the
inspiration of the scriptures — the infallibility of the
Church — the dreams of insane hermits — the ab-
surdities of the Fathers — the mistakes and false-
hoods of saints — the hysteria of nuns — the cun-
ning of priests and the stupidity of the people. He
found that the Emperor Constantine, who lifted
Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta
and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he
convened the Council of Nice, to decide whether
Christ was a man or the Son of God. The Council
decided, in the year 326, that Christ was consub-
stantial with the Father. He found that the Church
was indebted to a husband who assassinated his
wife — a father who murdered his son, for settling
the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior. He
found that Theodosius called a council at Constanti-

26 VOLTAIRE.

nople in 381, by which it was decided that the Holy
Ghost proceeded from the Father — that Theodosius,
the younger, assembled a council at Ephesus in 431,
that declared the Virgin Mary to be the mother of
God — that the Emperor Marcian called another
council at Chalcedon in 45 1, that decided that
Christ had two wills — that Pognatius called an-
other in 680, that declared that Christ had two
natures to go with his two wills — and that in 1274,
at the council of Lyons, the important fact was found
that the Holy Ghost " proceeded," not only from the
Father, but also from the Son at the same time.

So, it took about 1,300 years to find out a few
things that had been revealed by an infinite God to
his infallible Church.

Voltaire found that this insane creed had filled the
world with cruelty and fear. He found that vest-
ments were more sacred than virtues — that images
and crosses — pieces of old bones and bits of wood
were more precious than the rights and lives of men,
and that the keepers of these relics were the ene-
mies of the human race.

With all the energy of his nature — with every
faculty of his mind — he attacked this ''Triumphant
Beast."

VOLTAIRE. 27

Voltaire was the apostle of common sense. He
knew that there could have been no primitive or
first language from which all other languages had
been formed. He knew that every language had
been influenced by the surroundings of the people.
He knew that the language of snow and ice was not
the language of palm and flower. He knew also
that there had been no miracle in language. He
knew that it was impossible that the story of the
Tower of Babel should be true. He knew that
everything in the whole world had been natural.
He was the enemy of alchemy, not only in language
but in science. One passage from him is enough to
show his philosophy in this regard. He says ; " To
transmute iron into gold, two things are necessary.
First, the annihilation of the iron ; second, the crea-
tion of gold."

Voltaire gave us the philosophy of history.

Voltaire was a man of humor, of good nature, of
cheerfulness. He despised with all his heart the
philosophy of Calvin, the creed of the sombre, of the
severe, of the unnatural. He pitied those who
needed the aid of religion to be honest, to be cheer-
ful. He had the courage to enjoy the present and
the philosophy to bear what the future might bring.

28 VOLTAIRE.

And yet for more than a hundred and fifty years the
Christian world has fought this man and has maligned
his memory. In every Christian pulpit his name has
been pronounced with scorn, and every pulpit has
been an arsenal of slander. He is one man of whom
no rthodox minister has ever told the truth. He
has been denounced equally by Catholics and Prot-
estants.

Priests and ministers, bishops and exhorters, pre-
siding elders and popes have filled the world with
slanders, with calumnies about Voltaire. I am
amazed that ministers will not or cannot tell the
truth about an enemy of the Church. As a matter
of fact, for more than one thousand years, almost
every pulpit has been a mint in which slanders have
been coined.

Voltaire made up his mind to destroy the super-
stition of his time.

He fought with every weapon that genius could
devise or use. He was the greatest of all caricatur-
ists, and he used this wonderful gift without mercy.
For pure crystallized wit, he had no equal. The art
of flattery was carried by him to the height of an
exact science. He knew and practiced every sub-
terfuge. He fought the army of hypocrisy and pre-
tense, the army of faith and falsehood.

VOLTAIRE. 29

Voltaire was annoyed by the meaner and baser
spirits of his time, by the cringers and crawlers, by
the fawners and pretenders, by those who wished to
gain the favor of priests, the patronage of nobles.
Sometimes he allowed himself to be annoyed by
these wretches ; sometimes he attacked them. And,
but for these attacks, long ago they would have
been forgotten. In the amber of his genius Voltaire
preserved these insects, these tarantulas, these
scorpions.

It is fashionable to say that he was not profound.
This is because he was not stupid. In the presence
of absurdity he laughed, and was called irreverent.
He thought God would not damn even a priest for-
ever — this was regarded as blasphemy. He en-
deavored to prevent Christians from murdering each
other, and did what he could to civilize the disciples
of Christ. Had he founded a sect, obtained control
of some country, and burned a few heretics at slow
fires, he would have won the admiration, respect and
love of the Christian world. Had he only pretended
to believe all the fables of antiquity, had he mum-
bled Latin prayers, counted beads, crossed himself,
devoured now and then the flesh of God, and carried
fagots to the feet of Philosophy in the name of

VOLTAIRE.

« might have been in Heaven this moment,
g a sight of the damned.

t had only adopted the creed of his time — if
he had asserted that a God of infinite power and
mercy had created millions and billions of human
beings to suffer eternal pain, and all for the sake of
his glorious justice — that he had given his power of
attorney to a cunning and cruel Italian Pope, author-
izing him to save the soul of his mistress and send
honest wives to hell — if he had given to the nostrils
of this God the odor of burning flesh — the incense
of the fagot — if he had filled his ears with the
shrieks of the tortured — the music of the rack, he
would now be known as Saint Voltaire.

For many years this restless man filled Europe
with the product of his brain. Essays, epigrams,
epics, comedies, tragedies, histories, poems, novels,
representing every phase and every faculty of the
human mind. At the same time engrossed in busi-
ness, full of speculation, making money like a million-
aire, busy with the gossip of courts, and even with
the scandals of priests. At the same time alive to
all the discoveries of science and the theories of
philosophers, and in this Babel never forgetting for
one moment to assail the monster of superstition.

VOLTAIRE. 3 1

Sleeping and waking he hated the Church. With
the eyes of Argus he watched, and with the arms of
Briareus he struck. For sixty years he waged con-
tinuous and unrelenting war, sometimes in the open
field, sometimes striking from the hedges of oppor-
tunity— taking care during all this time to remain
independent of all men. He was in the highest
sense successful. He lived like a prince, became
one of the powers of Europe, and in him, for the
first time, literature was crowned.

It has been claimed by the Christian critics that
Voltaire was irreverent ; that he examined sacred
things without solemnity ; that he refused to remove
his shoes in the presence of the Burning Bush ; that
he smiled at the geology of Moses, the astronomical
ideas of Joshua, and that the biography of Jonah
filled him with laughter. They say that these
stories, these sacred impossibilities, these inspired
falsehoods, should be read and studied with a believ-
ing mind in humbleness of spirit ; that they should
be examined prayerfully, asking God at the same
time to give us strength to triumph over the conclu-
sions of our reason. These critics imagine that a
falsehood can be old enough to be venerable, and
that to stand covered in its presence is the act of an

32 VOLTAIRE.

irreverent scoffer. Voltaire approached the mythol-
ogy of the Jews precisely as he did the mythology
of the Greeks and Romans, or the mythology of the
Chinese or the Iroquois Indians. There is nothing
in this world too sacred to be investigated, to be
understood. The philosopher does not hide. Se-
crecy is not the friend of truth. No man should be
reverent at the expense of his reason. Nothing
should be worshipped until the reason has been
convinced that it is worthy of worship.

Against all miracles, against all holy superstition,
against sacred mistakes, he shot the arrows of ridi-
cule.

These arrows, winged by fancy, sharpened by wit,
poisoned by truth, always reached the centre.

It is claimed by many that anything, the best and
holiest, can be ridiculed. As a matter of fact, he
who attempts to ridicule the truth, ridicules himself.
He becomes the food of his own laughter.

The mind of man is many-sided. Truth must be,
and is, willing to be tested in every way, tested by
all the senses.

But in what way can the absurdity of the " real
presence " be answered, except by banter, by rail-
lery, by ridicule, by persiflage ? How are you going

VOLTAIRE. 33

to convince a man who believes that, when he
swallows the sacred wafer, he has eaten the entire
Trinity, and that a priest drinking a drop of wine
has devoured the Infinite ? How are you to reason
with a man who believes that, if any of the sacred
wafers are left over, they should be put in a secure
place, so that mice should not eat God ?

What effect will logic have upon a religious gen-
tleman who firmly believes that a God of infinite
compassion sent two bears to tear thirty or forty
children in pieces for laughing at a bald-headed
prophet ?

How are such people to be answered ? How can
they be brought to a sense of their absurdity ? They
must feel in their flesh the arrows of ridicule.

So Voltaire has been called a mocker.

What did he mock ? He mocked kings that were
unjust ; kings who cared nothing for the sufferings
of their subjects. He mocked the titled fools of his
day. He mocked the corruption of courts ; the
meanness, the tyranny and the brutality of judges.
He mocked the absurd and cruel laws, the barbarous
customs. He mocked popes and cardinals and
bishops and priests, and all the hypocrites on the
earth. He mocked historians who filled their books

34 VOLTAIRE.

with lies, and philosophers who defended supersti-
tion. He mocked the haters of liberty, the persecu-
tors of their fellow-men. He mocked the arrogance,
the cruelty, the impudence, and the unspeakable
baseness of his time.

He has been blamed because he used the weapon
of ridicule.

Hypocrisy has always hated laughter, and always
will. Absurdity detests humor, and stupidity de-
spises wit. Voltaire was the master of ridicule. He
ridiculed the absurd, the impossible. He ridiculed
the mythologies and the miracles, the stupid lives
and lies of the saints. He found pretense and men-
dacity crowned by credulity. He found the igno-
rant many controlled by the cunning and cruel few.
He found the historian, saturated with superstition,
filling his volumes with the details of the impossible,
and he found the scientists satisfied with " they say."

Voltaire had the instinct of the probable. He
knew the law of average, the sea level ; he had the
idea of proportion, and so he ridiculed the mental
monstrosities and deformities — the non sequiturs —
of his day. Aristotle said women had more teeth
than men. This was repeated again and again by
the Catholic scientists of the Eighteenth Century.

VOLTAIRE. 35

Voltaire counted the teeth. The rest were satisfied
with " they say."

Voltaire for many years, in spite of his surround-
ings, in spite of almost universal tyranny and oppres-
sion, was a believer in God and what he was pleased
to call the religion of Nature. He attacked the
creed of his time because it was dishonorable to his
God. He thought of the Deity as a father, as the
fountain of justice, intelligence and mercy, and the
creed of the Catholic Church made him a monster of
cruelty and stupidity. He attacked the Bible with
all the weapons at his command. He assailed its
geology, its astronomy, its ideas of justice, its laws
and customs, its absurd and useless miracles, its
foolish wonders, its ignorance on all subjects, its in-
sane prophecies, its cruel threats and its extravagant
promises.

At the same time he praised the God of naiure,
the God who gives us rain and light, and food and
flowers, and health and happiness — he who fills the
world with youth and beauty.

Attacked on every side, he fought with every
weapon that wit, logic, reason, scorn, contempt,
laughter, pathos and indignation could* sharpen,
form, devise or use. He often apologized, and the

36 VOLTAIRE.

apology was an insult. He often recanted, and the
recantation was a thousand times worse than the
thing recanted. He took it back by giving more.
In the name of eulogy he flayed his victim. In his
praise there was poison. He often advanced by re-
treating, and asserted by retraction.

He did not intend to give priests the satisfaction
of seeing him burn or suffer. Upon this very point
of recanting he wrote :

"They say I must retract. Very willingly. I
" will declare that Pascal is always right. That if St.
" Luke and St. Mark contradict one another, it is
" only another proof of the truth of religion to those
" who know how to understand such things ; and
" that another lovely proof of religion is that it is
" unintelligible. I will even avow that all priests
" are gentle and disinterested ; that Jesuits are hon-
" est people ; that monks are neither proud nor
" given to intrigue, and that their odor is agreeable ;
" that the Holy Inquisition is the triumph of human-
" ity and tolerance. In a word, I will say all that
" may be desired of me, provided they leave me in
" repose, and will not persecute a man who has done
" harm to none."

He gave the best years of his wondrous life to

VOLTAIRE. 37

succor the oppressed, to shield the defenseless, to
reverse infamous decrees, to rescue the innocent,
to reform the laws of France, to do away with tor-
ture, to soften the hearts of priests, to enlighten
judges, to instruct kings, to civilize the people, and
to banish from the heart of man the love and lust
of war.

You may think that I have said too much ; that I
have placed this man too high. Let me tell you
what Goethe, the great German, said of this man :

" If you wish depth, genius, imagination, taste,
" reason, sensibility, philosophy, elevation, original-
" ity, nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude, facility, flexi-
" bility, precision, art, abundance, variety, fertility,
"warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle sweep
" of vision, vast understanding, instruction rich, tone
" excellent, urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness,
" purity, clearness, eloquence, harmony, brilliancy,
" rapidity, gaiety, pathos, sublimity and universality,
" perfection indeed, behold Voltaire."

Even Carlyle, that old Scotch terrier, with the
growl of a grizzly bear, who attacked shams, as I
have sometimes thought, because he hated rivals,
was forced to admit that Voltaire gave the death
stab to modern superstition !

38 VOLTAIRE.

It is the duty of every man to destroy the super-
stitions of his time, and yet there are thousands of
men and women, fathers and mothers, who repudiate
with their whole hearts the creeds of superstition,
and still allow their children to be taught these lies.
They allow their imaginations to be poisoned with
the dogma of eternal pain. They allow arrogant
and ignorant parsons, meek and foolish teachers, to
sow the seeds of barbarism in the minds of their
children — seeds that will fill their lives with fear
and pain. Nothing can be more important to a
human being than to be free and to live without fear.

It is far better to be a mortal free man than an
immortal slave.

Fathers and mothers should do their utmost to
make their children free. They should teach them
to doubt, to investigate, to inquire, and every father
and mother should know that by the cradle of every
child, as by the cradle of the infant Hercules, crawls
the serpent of superstition.

VOLTAIRE. 39

IV.

THE SCHEME OF NATURE.

A T that time it was pretended by the believers in
God that the plan, or the scheme of nature,
was not cruel ; that the lower was sacrificed for the
benefit of the higher ; that while life lived upon life,
while animals lived upon each other, and while man
was the king or sovereign of all, still the higher lived
upon the lower. Consequently, a lower life was sac-
rificed that a higher life might exist. This reasoning
satisfied many. Yet there were thousands that
could not see why the lower shoulcl be sacrificed, or
why all joy should be born of pain. But, since the
construction of the microscope, since man has been
allowed to look toward the infinitely small, as well as
toward the infinitely great, he finds that our fathers
were mistaken when they laid down the proposition
that only the lower life was sacrificed for the sake of
the higher.

Now, we find that the lives of all visible animals
are liable to be, and in countless cases are, destroyed
by a far lower life ; that man himself is destroyed by

4<D VOLTAIRE.

the microbes, the bacilli, the infinitesimal. We find
that for the sake of preserving the yellow fever
germs millions and millions have died, and that
whole nations have been decimated for the sake of
the little beast that gives us the cholera. We have
also found that there are animals, call them what you
please, that live on the substance of the human
heart, others that prefer the lungs, others again so
delicate in their palate that they insist on devouring
the optic nerve, and when they have destroyed the
sight of one eye have sense enough to bore through
the cartilage of the nose to attack the other. Thus
we find the other side of this proposition. At first
sight the lower seemed to be sacrificed for the sake
of the higher, but on closer inspection the highest
are sacrificed for the sake of the lowest.

Voltaire was, for a long time, a believer in the
optimism of Pope — " All partial evil, universal
good." This is a very fine philosophy for the fortu-
nate. It suits the rich. It is flattering to kings and
priests. It sounds well. It is a fine stone to throw
at a beggar. It enables you to bear with great for-
titude the misfortunes of others.

It is not the philosophy for those who suffer — for
industry clothed in rags, for patriotism in prison, for

VOLTAIRE. 41

honesty in want, or for virtuous outcasts. It is a
philosophy of a class, of a few, and of the few who
are fortunate ; and, when misfortune overtakes them,
this philosophy fades and withers.

In 1755 came the earthquake at Lisbon. This
frightful disaster became an immense interrogation.
The optimist was compelled to ask, " What was my
God doing? Why did the Universal Father crush
to shapelessness thousands of his poor children, even
at the moment when they were upon their knees re-
turning thanks to him ?"

What could be done with this horror ? If earth-
quake there must be, why did it not occur in some
uninhabited desert, on some wide waste of sea?
This frightful fact changed the theology of Voltaire.
He became convinced that this is not the best pos-
sible of all worlds. He became convinced that evil
is evil here, now, and forever.

The Theist was silent. The earthquake denied
the existence of God.

42 VOLTAIRE.

V.

His HUMANITY.

r"POU LOUSE was a favored town. It was rich in
* relics. The people were as ignorant as wooden
images, but they had in their possession the dried
bodies of seven apostles — the bones of many of the
infants slain by Herod — part of a dress of the
Virgin Mary, and lots of skulls and skeletons of the
infallible idiots known as saints.

In this city the people celebrated every year with
great joy two holy events : The expulsion of the
Huguenots, and the blessed massacre of St. Bartholo-
mew. The citizens of Toulouse had been educated
and civilized by the church.

A few Protestants, mild because in the minority,
lived among these jackals and tigers.

One of these Protestants was Jean Calas — a small
dealer in dry goods. For forty years he had been
in this business, and his character was without a
stain. He was honest, kind and agreeable. He

VOLTAIRE. 43

had a wife and six children — four sons and two
daughters. One of the sons became a Catholic.
The eldest son, Marc Antoine, disliked his father's
business and studied law. He could not be allowed
to practice unless he became a Catholic. He tried
to get his license by concealing that he was a Prot-
estant. He was discovered — .grew morose. Finally
he became discouraged and committed suicide, by
hanging himself one evening in his father's store.

The bigots of Toulouse started the story that his
parents had killed him to prevent his becoming a
Catholic.

On this frightful charge the father, mother, one
son, a servant, and one guest at their house, were
arrested.

The dead son was considered a martyr, the church
taking possession of the body.

This happened in 1761.

There was what was called a trial. There was no
evidence, not the slightest, except hearsay. All the
facts were in favor of the accused.

The united strength of the defendants could not
have done the deed.

Jean Calas was doomed to torture and to death
upon the wheel. This was on the 9th of March,

44 VOLTAIRE.

1762, and the sentence was to be carried out the
next day.

On the morning of the loth the father was taken
to the torture room. The executioner and his
assistants were sworn on the cross to administer the
torture according to the judgment of the Court.

They bound him by the wrists to an iron ring in
the stone wall four feet from the ground, and his feet
to another ring in the floor. Then they shortened
the ropes and chains until every joint in his arms
and legs was dislocated. Then he was questioned.
He declared that he was innocent. Then the ropes
were again shortened until life fluttered in the torn
body ; but he remained firm.

This was called the question ordinaire.

Again the magistrates exhorted the victim to con-
fess, and again he refused, saying that there was
nothing to confess.

Then came the question extraordinaire.

Into the mouth of the victim was placed a horn
holding three pints of water. In this way thirty
pints of water were forced into the body of the suf-
ferer. The pain was beyond description, and yet
Jean Galas remained firm.

He was then carried to the scaffold in a tumbril.

VOLTAIRE. 45

He was bound to a wooden cross that lay on the
scaffold. The executioner then took a bar of iron,
broke each leg and each arm in two places, striking
eleven blows in all. He was then Jeft to die if he
could. He lived for two hours, declaring his inno-
cence to the last. He was slow to die, and so the
executioner strangled him. Then his poor lacerated,
bleeding and broken body was chained to a stake
and burned.

All this was a spectacle — a festival for the
savages of Toulouse. What would they have done
if their hearts had not been softened by the glad
tidings of great joy — peace on earth and good will
to men.

But this was not all. The property of the family
was confiscated ; the son was released on condition
that he become a Catholic ; the servant if she would
enter a convent. The two daughters were con-
signed to a convent, and the heart-broken widow
was allowed to wander where she would.

Voltaire heard of this case. In a moment his soul
was on fire. He took one of the sons under his
roof. He wrote a history of the case. He corre-
sponded with kings and queens, with chancellors
and lawyers. If money was needed, he advanced

46 VOLTAIRE.

it. For years he filled Europe with the echoes of
the groans of Jean Calas. He succeeded. The
horrible judgment was annulled — the poor victim
declared innocent and thousands of dollars raised to
support the mother and family.
This was the work of Voltaire.

THE SIRVEN FAMILY.

Sirven, a Protestant, lived in Languedoc with his
wife and three daughters. The housekeeper of the
bishop wanted to make one of the daughters a
Catholic.

The law allowed the bishop to take the child of
Protestants from their parents for the sake of its
soul. This little girl was so taken and placed in a
convent. She ran away and came back to her
parents. Her poor little body was covered with the
marks of the convent whip.

" Suffer little children to come unto me."

The child was out of her mind — suddenly she
disappeared, and a few days after her little body was
found in a well, three miles from home.

VOLTAIRE. 47

The cry was raised that her folks had murdered
her to keep her from becoming a Catholic.

This happened only a little way from the Christian
City of Toulouse while Jean Calas was in prison.
The Sirvens knew that a trial would end in convic-
tion. They fled. In their absence they were con-
victed, their property confiscated. The parents
sentenced to die by the hangman, the daughters to
be under the gallows during the execution of their
mother, and then to be exiled.

The family fled in the midst of winter ; the mar-
ried daughter gave birth to a child in the snows of
the Alps ; the mother died, and, at last reaching
Switzerland, the father found himself without means
of support.

They went to Voltaire. He espoused their cause.
He took care of them, gave them the means to live,
and labored to annul the sentence that had been
pronounced against them for nine long and weary
years. He appealed to kings for money, to Catha-
rine II. of Russia, and to hundreds of others. He
was successful. He said of this case : The Sirvens
were tried and condemned in two hours in January,
1762, and now in January, 1772, after ten years of
effort, they have been restored to their rights.

48 VOLTAIRE.

This was the work of Voltaire. Why should the
worshippers of God hate the lovers of men ?

THE ESPENASSE CASE.

Espenasse was a Protestant, of good estate. In
1 740 he received into his house a Protestant clergy-
man, to whom he gave supper and lodging.

In a country where priests repeated the parable of
the " Good Samaritan," this was a crime.

For this crime Espenasse was tried, convicted and
sentenced to the galleys for life.

When he had been imprisoned for twenty-three
years his case came to the knowledge of Voltaire,
and he was, through the efforts of Voltaire, released
and restored to his family.

This was the work of Voltaire. There is not time
to tell of the case of General Lally, of the English
General Byng, of the niece of Corneille, of the Jesuit
Adam, of the writers, dramatists, actors, widows and
orphans, for whose benefit he gave his influence, his
money and his time. But I will tell another case :

VOLTAIRE. 49

In 1765, at the town of Abbeville, an old wood-
en cross on a bridge had been mutilated — whittled
with a knife — a terrible crime. Sticks, when
crossing each other, were far more sacred than
flesh and blood. Two young men were suspect-
ed— the Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde.
D'Etallonde fled to Prussia and enlisted as a com-
mon soldier.

La Barre remained and stood his trial.

He was convicted without the slightest evidence,
and he and D'Etallonde were both sentenced :

First, to endure the torture, ordinary and extra-
ordinary.

Second, to have their tongues torn out by the
roots with pincers of iron.

Third, to have their right hands cut off at the
door of the church.

Fourth, to be bound to stakes by chains of iron
and burned to death by a slow fire.

" Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive trios
who trespass against us."

Remembering this, the Judges mitigated the sen-
tence by providing that their heads should be cut off
before their bodies were given to the flames.

The case was appealed to Paris ; heard by a

5o VOLTAIRE.

Court composed of twenty-five Judges, learned in
the law, and the judgment was confirmed.

The sentence was carried out on the first day of
July, 1766.

When Voltaire heard of this judicial infamy he
made up his mind to abandon France. He wished
to leave forever a country where such cruelties were
possible.

He wrote a pamphlet, giving the history of the
case.

He ascertained the whereabouts of D'Etallonde,
wrote in his behalf to the King of Prussia ; got him
released from the Army ; took him to his own
house ; kept him for a year and a half ; saw that he
was instructed in drawing, mathematics, engineer-
ing, and had at last the happiness of seeing him a
captain of engineers in the army of Frederick the
Great.

Such a man was Voltaire. He was the champion
of the oppressed and the helpless. He was the
Caesar to whom the victims of Church and State ap-
pealed. He stood for the intellect and heart of his
time.

And yet for a hundred and fifty years those who
love their enemies have exhausted the vocabulary

VOLTAIRE. ' 5 I

of hate, the ingenuity of malice and mendacity, in
their efforts to save their stupid creeds from the
genius of Voltaire.

From a great height he surveyed the world. His
horizon was large. He had some vices — these he
shared in common with priests — his virtues were
his own.

He was in favor of universal education — of the
development of the brain. The church despised
him. He wished to put the knowledge of the whole
world within the reach of all. Every priest was his
enemy. He wished to drive from the gate of Eden
the cherubim of superstition, so that the children of
Adam might return and eat of the fruit of the tree
of knowledge. The church opposed this because it
had the fruit of the tree of ignorance for sale.

He was one of the foremost friends of the Ency-
clopedia— of Diderot, and did all in his power to
give information to all. So far as principles were
concerned, he was the greatest lawyer of his time.
I do not mean that he knew the terms and decisions,
but that he clearly perceived not only what the law
should be, but its application and administration.
He understood the philosophy of evidence, the dif-
ference between suspicion and proof, between belief

52 VOLTAIRE.

and knowledge, and he did more to reform the laws
of the kingdom and the abuses at Courts than all the

o

lawyers and statesmen of his time.

At school, he read and studied the works of
Cicero — the lord of language — probably the great-
est orator that has uttered speech, and the words of
the Roman remained in his brain. He became, in
spite of the spirit of caste, a believer in the equality
of men. He said :

" Men are born equal."

" Let us respect virtue and merit."

" Let us have it in the heart that men are equal."

He was an abolitionist — the enemy of slavery in
all its forms. He did not think that the color of
one man gave him the right to steal from another
man on account of that man's color. He was the
friend of serf and peasant, and did what he could to
protect animals, wives and children from the fury of
those who loved their neighbors as themselves.

It was Voltaire who sowed the seeds of liberty in
the heart and brain of Franklin, of Jefferson and
Thomas Paine.

Puffendorf had taken the ground that slavery
was, in part, founded on contract.

Voltaire said : " Show me the contract, and if it is

VOLTAIRE. 53

signed by the party to be the slave, I may believe
you."

He thought it absurd that God should drown the
fathers, and then come and die for the children.
This is as good as the remark of Diderot : " If
Christ had the power to defend himself from the
Jews and refused to use it, he was guilty of suicide."

He had sense enough to know that the flame of
the fagot does not enlighten the mind. He hated
the cruel and pitied the victims of Church and State.
He was the friend of the unfortunate — the helper of
the striving. He laughed at the pomp of kings —
the pretensions of priests. He was a believer in the
natural and abhorred with all his heart the miracu-
lous and absurd.

Voltaire was not a saint. He was educated by
the Jesuits. He was never troubled about the salva-
tion of his soul. All the theological disputes ex-
cited his laughter, the creeds his pity, and the
conduct of bigots his contempt. He was much
better than a saint.

Most of the Christians in his day kept their re-
ligion not for every day use but for disaster, as ships
carry life boats to be used only in the stress of
storm.

54 VOLTAIRE.

Voltaire believed in the religion of humanity — of
good and generous deeds. For many centuries the
church had painted virtue so ugly, sour and cold,
that vice was regarded as beautiful. Voltaire taught
the beauty of the useful, the hatefulness and hideous-
ness of superstition.

He was not the greatest of poets, or of dramatists,
but he was the greatest man of his time, the greatest
friend of freedom and the deadliest foe of supersti-
tion.

He did more to break the chains of superstition —
to drive the phantoms of fear from the heart and
brain, to destroy the authority of the church and to
give liberty to the world than any other of the sons
of men. In the highest, the holiest sense he was the
most profoundly religious man of his time.

VOLTAIRE. 55

VI.

THE RETURN.

A FTER an exile of twenty-seven years, occupying
-** during all that time a first place in the civil-
ized world, Voltaire returned to Paris. His journey
was a triumphal march. He was received as a con-
queror. The Academy, the Immortals, came to
meet him — a compliment that had never been paid
to royalty. His tragedy of " Irene " was performed.
At the theatre he was crowned with laurel, covered
with flowers ; he was intoxicated with perfume and
with incense of worship. He was the supreme
French poet, standing above them all. Among the
literary men of the world he stood first — a monarch
by the divine right of genius. There were three
mighty forces in France — the throne, the altar and
Voltaire.

The king was the enemy of Voltaire. The Court
could have nothing to do with him. The Church,
malign and morose, was waiting for her revenge, and

56 VOLTAIRE.

yet, such was the reputation of this man — such the
hold he had upon the people — that he became, in
spite of Throne, in spite of Church, the idol of
France.

He was an old man of eighty-four. He had been
surrounded with the comforts, the luxuries of life.
He was a man of great wealth, the richest writer
that the world had known. Among the literary men
of the earth he stood first. He was an intellectual
king — one who had built his own throne and
had woven the purple of his own power. He was a
man of genius. The Catholic God had allowed him
the appearance of success. His last years were filled
with the intoxication of flattery — of almost worship.
He stood at the summit of his age.

The priests became anxious. They began to fear
that God would forget, in a multiplicity of business,
to make a terrible example of Voltaire.

Towards the last of May, 1778, it was whispered
"n Paris that Voltaire was dying. Upon the fences
of expectation gathered the unclean birds of super-
stition, impatiently waiting for their prey.

" Two days before his death, his nephew went to
seek the Cure" of Saint Sulpice and the Abbe Guatier,
and brought them into his uncle's sick chamber.

VOLTAIRE. 57

'Ah, well ! ' said Voltaire, ' give them my compliments
and my thanks.' The Abbe spoke some words to
him, exhorting him to patience. The Cure of Saint
Sulpice then came forward, having announced him-
self, and asked of 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 coif, shoving him back and cried, turning
abruptly to the other side, ' Let me die in peace.'
The Cure seemingly considered his person soiled
and his coif dishonored by the touch of a philoso-
pher. He made the nurse give him a little brushing
and went out with the Abbe Guatier."

He expired, says Wagniere, on the 3Oth of May,
1778, at about a quarter-past eleven at night, with
the most perfect tranquillity. A few moments before
his last breath he took the hand of Morand, his valet
de chambre, who was watching by him, pressed it,
and said : "Adieu, my dear Morand, I am gone."
These were his last words. Like a peaceful river
with green and shaded banks, he flowed without a
murmur into the waveless sea, where life is rest.

From this death, so simple and serene, so kind, so
philosophic and tender, so natural and peaceful ;
from these words, so utterly destitute of cant or

58 VOLTAIRE.

dramatic touch, all the frightful pictures, all the
despairing utterances, have been drawn and made.
From these materials, and from these alone, or
rather, in spite of these facts, have been constructed
by priests and clergymen and their dupes all the
shameless lies about the death of this great and
wonderful man. A man, compared with whom all
of his calumniators, dead and living, were, and are,
but dust and vermin.

Let us be honest. Did all the priests of Rome in-
crease the mental wealth of man as much as Bruno ?
Did all the priests of France do as great a work for
the civilization of the world as Voltaire or Diderot ?
Did all the ministers of Scotland add as much to the
sum of human knowledge as David Hume ? Have
all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests,
bishops, cardinals and popes, from the day of
Pentecost to the last election, done as much for
human liberty as Thomas Paine ?

What would the world be if infidels had never
been ?

The Infidels have been the brave and thoughtful
men ; the flower of all the world ; the pioneers and
heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love ; the
generous spirits of the unworthy past ; the seers and

VOLTAIRE. 69

prophets of our race ; the great chivalric souls,
proud victors on the battlefields of thought, the cred-
itors of all the years to be.

Why should it be taken for granted that the men
who devoted their lives to the liberation of their
fellow-men should have been hissed at in the hour of
death by the snakes of conscience, while men who
defended slavery — practiced polygamy — justified the
stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, and
lashed the naked back of unpaid labor, are supposed
to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces
of the angels ? Why should we think that the brave
thinkers, the investigators, the honest men, must have
left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear,
while the instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholo-
mew ; the inventors and users of thumb-screws, of
iron boots and racks ; the burners and tearers of
human flesh ; the stealers, the whippers and the en-
slavers of men ; the buyers and beaters of maidens,
mothers and babes ; the founders of the Inquisition ;
the makers of chains ; the builders of dungeons ; the
calumniators of the living ; the slanderers of the
dead, and even the murderers of Jesus Christ, all
died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven
hands folded upon the breasts of peace, while the

60 VOLTAIRE.

destroyers of prejudice, the apostles of humanity, the
soldiers of liberty, the breakers of fetters, the crea-
tors of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of
God?

In those days the philosophers — that is to say, the
thinkers — were not buried in holy ground. It was
feared that their principles might contaminate the
ashes of the just. And they also feared that on the
morning of the Resurrection they might, in a mo-
ment of confusion, slip into heaven. Some were
burned, and their ashes scattered ; and the bodies of
some were thrown naked to beasts, and others buried
in unholy earth.

Voltaire knew the history of Adrienne Le
Couvreur, a beautiful actress, denied burial.

After all, we do feel an interest in what is to be-
come of our bodies. There is a modesty that be-
longs to death. Upon this subject Voltaire was
infinitely sensitive. It was that he might be buried
that he went through the farce of confession, of ab-
solution, and of the last sacrament. The priests
knew that he was not in earnest, and Voltaire knew
that they would not allow him to be buried in any
of the cemeteries of Paris.

His death was kept a secret. The Abbe Mignot

VOLTAIRE. 6 1

made arrangements for the burial at Romilli-on-the-
Seine, more than 100 miles from Paris. On Sunday
evening, on the last day of May, 1778, the body of
Voltaire, clad in a dressing gown, clothed to re-
semble an invalid, posed to simulate life, was placed
in a carriage ; at its side, a servant, whose business
it was to keep it in position. To this carriage were
attached six horses, so that people might think a
great lord was going to his estates. Another
carriage followed, in which were a grand nephew
and two cousins of Voltaire. All night they trav-
eled, and on the following day arrived at the court-
yard of the Abbey. The necessary papers were
shown, the mass was performed in the presence of
the body, and Voltaire found burial. A few mo-
ments afterwards, the Prior, who " for charity had
given a little earth," received from his Bishop a
menacing letter forbidding the burial of Voltaire. It
was too late.

Voltaire was dead. The foundations of State and
Throne had been sapped. The people were becom-
ing acquainted with the real kings and with the act-
ual priests. Unknown men born in misery and want,
men whose fathers and mothers had been pavement
for the rich, were rising towards the light, and their

62 VOLTAIRE.

shadowy faces were emerging from darkness. Labor
and thought became friends. That is, the gutter
and the attic fraternized. The monsters of the Night
and the angels of the Dawn — the first thinking of
revenge, and the others dreaming of equality, liberty
and fraternity.

VOLTAIRE. 63

VII.

THE DEATH-BED ARGUMENT.

A LL kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet
^^ death with reasonable serenity. As a rule,
there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any
discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the
scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly ex-
horts the multitude to meet him in heaven. . The
man who has succeeded in making his home a hell,
meets death without a quiver, provided he has never
expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ, or
the eternal " procession '' of the Holy Ghost. The
king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has
filled countries with widows and fatherless children,
with the maimed and diseased, and who has suc-
ceeded in offering to the Moloch of ambition the
best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint.

All the believing kings are in heaven — all the
doubting philosophers in perditions All the perse-
cutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who

64 VOLTAIRE.

burned their brothers, sleep in consecrated ground.
Libraries could hardly contain the names of the
Christian wretches who have filled the world with
violence and death in defence of book and creed,
and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and
no priest, no minister, describes the agony and fear,
the remorse and horror with which their guilty souls
were filled in the last moments of their lives. These
men had never doubted — they had never thought
— they accepted the creed as they did the fashion of
their clothes. They were not infidels, they could
not be — they had been baptized, they had not
denied the divinity — of Christ — they had partaken
of the " last supper." They respected priests —
they admitted that Christ had two natures and the
same number of wills ; they admitted that the Holy
Ghost had " proceeded," and that, according to the
multiplication table of heaven, once one is three, and
three times one is one, and these things put pillows
beneath their heads and covered them with the
drapery of peace.

That, while kings and priests did nothing worse
than to make their fellows wretched, that so long as
they only butchered and burnt the innocent and
helpless, God would maintain the strictest neutrality ;

VOLTAIRE. 65

but, when some honest man, some great and tender
soul, expressed a doubt as to the truth of the Scrip-
tures, or prayed to the wrong God, or to the right
one by the wrong name, then the real God leaped
like a wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his
quivering flesh tore his wretched soul.

There is no recorded instance where the uplifted
hand of murder has been paralyzed — no truthful
account in all the literature of the world of the inno-
cent child being shielded by God. Thousands of
crimes are being committed every day — men are at
this moment lying in wait for their human prey • —
wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity
and death — little children begging for mercy, lifting
imploring, tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of
fathers and mothers — sweet girls are deceived,
lured and outraged, but God has no time to prevent
these things — no time to defend the good and pro-
tect the pure. He is too busy numbering hairs and
watching sparrows. He listens for blasphemy ;
looks for persons who laugh at priests ; examines
baptismal registers ; watches professors in college
who begin to doubt the geology of Moses and the
astronomy of Joshua. He does hot particularly ob-
ject to stealing, if you won't swear. A great many

66 VOLTAIRE.

persons have fallen dead in the act of taking God's
name in vain, but millions of men, women and chil-
dren have been stolen from their homes and used as
beasts of burden, but no one engaged in this infamy
has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of God.
Now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intel-
lectual honesty, has appeared. Such men have de-
nounced the superstitions of their day. They have
pitied the multitude. To see priests devour the
substance of the people — priests who made beg-
ging one of the learned professions — filled them
with loathing and contempt. These men were hon-
est enough to tell their thoughts, brave enough to
speak the truth. Then they were denounced, tried,
tortured, killed by rack or flame. But some escaped
the fury of the fiends who love their enemies, and
died naturally in their beds. It would not do for
the Church to admit that they died peacefully. That
would show that religion was not essential at the last
moment. Superstition gets its power from the ter-
ror of death. It would not do to have the common
people understand that a man could deny the Bible
-refuse to kiss the cross — contend that Humanity
was greater than Christ, and then die as sweetly as
Torquemada did, after pouring molten lead into the

VOLTAIRE. 67

ears of an honest man ; or as calmly as Calvin after
he had burned Servetus ; or as peacefully as King
David after advising with his last breath one son to
assassinate another.

The Church has taken great pains to show that
the last moments of all infidels (that Christians did
not succeed in burning) were infinitely wretched
and despairing. It was alleged that words could
not paint the horrors that were endured by a dying
infidel. Every good Christian was expected to, and
generally did, believe these accounts. They have
been told and retold in every pulpit of the world.
Protestant ministers have repeated the lies invented
by Catholic priests, and Catholics, by a kind of theo-
logical comity, have sworn to the lies told by the
Protestants. Upon this point they have always
stood together, and will as long as the same false-
hood can be used by both.

Instead of doing these things, Voltaire wilfully
closed his eyes to the light of the gospel, examined
the Bible for himself, advocated intellectual liberty,
struck from the brain the fetters of an arrogant
faith, assisted the weak, cried out against the torture
of man, appealed to reason, endeavored to establish
universal toleration, succored the indigent, and de-
fended the oppressed.

68 VOLTAIRE.

He demonstrated that the origin of all religions is
the same, the same mysteries — the same miracles—
the same imposture — the same temples and cere-
monies — the same kind of founders, apostles and
dupes — the same promises and threats — the same
pretence of goodness and forgiveness and the prac-
tice of the same persecution and murder. He proved
that religion made enemies — philosophy friends —
and that above the rights of Gods were the rights of
man.

These were his crimes. Such a man God would
not suffer to die in peace. If allowed to meet death
with a smile, others might follow his example, until
none would be left to light the holy fires of the auto
dafe. It would not do for so great, so successful an
enemy of the Church, to die without leaving some
shriek of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghast-
ly prayer of chattered horror, uttered by lips covered
with blood and foam.

For many centuries the theologians have taught
that an unbeliever — an infidel — one who spoke or
wrote against their creed, could not meet death with
composure ; that in his last moments God would fill
his conscience with the serpents of remorse.

For a thousand years the clergy have manufac-

VOLTAIRE. 69

tured the facts to fit this theory — this infamous con-
ception of the duty of man and the justice of God.

The theologians have insisted that crimes against
man were, and are, as nothing compared with crimes
against God.

Upon the death-bed subject the clergy grow elo-
quent. When describing the shudderings and
shrieks of the dying unbeliever, their eyes glitter
with delight.

It is a festival.

They are no longer men. They become hyenas.
They dig open graves. They devour the dead.

It is a banquet.

Unsatisfied still, they paint the terrors of Hell.
They gaze at the souls of the infidels writhing in the
coils of the worm that never dies. They see* them
in flames — in oceans of fire — in gulfs of pain — in
abysses of despair. They shout with joy. They
applaud.

It is an auto dafe, presided over by God.

7O VOLTAIRE.

VIII.

THE SECOND RETURN.

COR four hundred years the Bastile had been the
outward symbol of oppression. Within its walls
the noblest had perished. It was a perpetual threat.
It was the last, and often the first, argument of king
and priest. Its dungeons, damp and rayless, its mas-
sive towers, its secret cells, its instruments of torture,
denied the existence of God.

In 1789, on the i4th of July, the people, the mul-
titude, frenzied by suffering, stormed and captured
the Bastile. The battle-cry was " Vive Voltaire."

In 1791 permission was given to place in the Pan-
theon the ashes of Voltaire. He had been buried
1 10 miles from Paris. Buried by stealth, he was to
be removed by a nation. A funeral procession of a
hundred miles ; every village with its flags and
arches ; all the people anxious to honor the philoso-
pher of France — the Savior of Calas — the De-
stroyer of Superstition.

On reaching Paris the great procession moved
along the Rue St. Antoine. Here it paused, and

VOLTAIRE. 7 1

for one night upon the ruins of the Bastile rested the
body of Voltaire — rested in triumph, in glory -
rested on fallen wall and broken arch, on crumbling
stone still damp with tears, on rusting chain and bar
and useless bolt — above the dungeons dark and
deep, where light had faded from the lives of men
and hope had died in breaking hearts.

The conqueror resting upon the conquered.—
Throned upon the Bastile, the fallen fortress of
Night, the body of Voltaire, from whose brain had
issued the Dawn.

For a moment his ashes must have felt the Pro-
methean fire, and the old smile must have illumined
once more the face of death.

The vast multitude bowed in reverence, hushed
with love and awe heard these words uttered by a
priest : " God shall be avenged."

The cry of the priest was a prophecy. Priests
skulking in the shadows with faces sinister as night,
ghouls in the name of the Gospel, desecrated the
grave. They carried away the ashes of Voltaire.

The tomb is empty.

God is avenged.

The world is filled with his fame.

Man has conquered.

72 VOLTAIRE.

Was there in the Eighteenth Century, a man
wearing the vestments of the church, the equal of
Voltaire ?

What cardinal, what bishop, what priest in France
raised his voice for the rights of men ? What ec-
clesiastic, what nobleman, took the side of the op-
pressed— of the peasant? Who denounced the
frightful criminal code — the torture of suspected
persons ? What priest pleaded for the liberty of the
citizen ? What bishop pitied the victims of the
rack ? Is there the grave of a priest in France on
which a lover of liberty would now drop a flower or
a tear ? Is there a tomb holding the ashes of a saint
from which emerges one ray of light ?

If there be another life — a day of judgment, no
God can afford to torture in another world the man
who abolished torture in this. If God be the keeper
of an eternal penitentiary, he should not imprison
there the men who broke the chains of slavery here.
He cannot afford to make an eternal convict of
Voltaire.

Voltaire was a perfect master of the French lan-
guage, knowing all its moods, tenses and declina-
tions, in fact and in feeling • — playing upon it as
skillfully as Paganini on his violin, finding' expres-

VOLTAIRE. 73

sion for every thought and fancy, writing on the
most serious subjects with the gayety of a harele-
quin, plucking jests from the crumbling mouth
of death, graceful as the waving of willows, deal-
ing in double meanings that covered the asp with
flowers and flattery — master of satire and com-
pliment— mingling them often in the same line,
always interested himself, and therefore interesting
others — handling thoughts, questions, subjects as a
juggler does balls, keeping them in the air with per-
fect ease — dressing old words in new meanings,
charming, grotesque, pathetic, mingling mirth with
tears, wit and wisdom, and sometimes wickedness,
logic and laughter. With a woman's instinct know-
ing the sensitive nerves — just where to touch-
hating arrogance of place, the stupidity of the solemn
—snatching masks from priest and king, knowing
the springs of action and ambition's ends — perfectly
familiar with the great world — the intimate of kings,
and their favorites, sympathizing with the oppressed
and imprisoned, with the unfortunate and poor,
hating tyranny, despising superstition, and loving
liberty with all his heart. Such was Voltaire writing
" CEdipus " at seventeen, " Irene " at eighty-three,
and crowding between these two tragedies the ac-
complishment of a thousand lives.

74 VOLTAIRE.

From his throne at the foot of the Alps, he
pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in
Europe. For half a century, past rack and stake,
past dungeon and cathedral, past altar and throne, he
carried with brave hands the sacred torch of Reason,
whose light at last will flood the world.

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Cabinet, 25cts. Ingersoll and granddaughter Eva III , (a home picture,) 35 cts.

About the Holy Bible. Just out. A new Lecture About the Holy
Bible. Price, paper, 25 cents.

Shakespeare. Ingersoll's Great Lecture on Shakespeare, with a rare and
handsome half-tone picture of the Kesselstadt Death Mask. Paper, 25 cts.

Lecture on Abraham Lincoln, just out. with a handsome, new

portrait. Price, paper, 25 cents.

The Great Ingersoll Controversy, containing the Famous

Christmas Sermon, by Colonel R. G. Ingersoll, the indignant protests thereby
evoked from ministers of various denominations, and Col. Ingersoll's replies
to the same. A work of tremendous interest to every thinking man and woman.
Price, paper, 25 cts.

IS Suicide a Sin? "Something Brand New!" Ingersoll's startling,
brilliant and thrillingly eloquent letters, which created such a sensation when
published in the New York World, together with the replies of famous clergymen
and writers, a verdict from a jury of eminent men of New York, Curious Facts
About Suicides, celebrated essays and opinions of noted men, and an astonish-
ing and original chapter, Great Suicides of History ! Price, paper, 25 cts.

An Open Letter to Indianaoolis Clergymen. By colonel

R. G. Ingersoll. To which is added " The Genesis of Life," by W. H. Lamaster.
Paper, 25 cents.

Col. Ingersoll's Note to the Public.

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 10, 1889.

I wish to notify the public that all books and pamphlets purporting to contain my lec-
tures, and not containing the imprint of Mr. C.P. FARRELL as publisher, are spurious,
grossly inaccurate, filled with mistakes, horribly printed, and outrageously unjust to me.
The publishers of all such are simply literary thieves and pirates, and are obtaining money
from the public under false pretences. These wretches have published one lecture under
four titles, and several others under two or three. I take this course to warn the public
that these publications are fraudulent ; the only correct editions being those published by
Mr. C. P. FARRELL.

R. G. INGERSOLL.

PROSE-POEMS

—AND —

SELECTIONS,

BY

ROBERT fi TWGERSOLL.

VA. A_ ._ ~^~

Third Edition, Revised and Enlarged.

R. ^andsome Quarto, contammg crser 300 pages.

f I 1HIS is, beyond question, the most elegant volume in Liberal literature. Its

mechanical finish is worthy of its intrinsic excellence. No expense has been

spared to make it the thing of beauty it is. The type is large and clear, the

paper heavy, highly calendered and richly tinted, the press-work faultless, and th«

binding. as perfect as the best materials and skill can make it. The book is in every

way an artistic triumph.

As to the contents, it is enough to say that they include some of the choicest
utterances of the greatest writer on the topics treated that has ever lived.

Those who have not the good fortune to own all of Mr. Ingersoll's published
works, vrill have in this book of selections many bright samples of his lofty thought,
his matchless eloquence, his wonderful imagery, and his epigrammatic and poetic
power. The collection includes all of the " Tributes " that have become famous in
literature — notably those to his brother E. C. Ingersoll, Lincoln, Grant, Beecher and
Elizur Wright ; his peerless monograms on " The Vision of War," Love, Liberty,
Science, Nature, The Imagination, Decoration Day Oration, and on the great heroes
of intellectual liberty. Besides these are innumerable gems taken here and there
from the orations, speeches, arguments, toasts, lectures, letters, and day to day con-
versations of the author.

The book is designed for, and will be accepted by, admiring friends as a u,re
personal souvenir. To help it serve this purpose, a fine steel portrait, with autograp1 ,
fac-simile, has been prepared especially for it. In the more elegant styles of bindh- g
it is eminently suited for presentation purposes, for any season or occasion.

PRICES.

In Cloth, beveled boards, gilt edges, - $2.5O

In Half Morocco, gilt edges, - - 5.OO

In Half Calf, mottled edges, library style, - 4.5O

In Full Turkey Morocco, gilt, exquisitely fine, 7.5O

In Full Tree-Calf, highest possible finish, - - 9.OO
Sent to any address, by express, prepaid, or mail, postTree, on receipt of price.

A.DPRESS C. F>. K A. R. R. EIv Iv ,

4OO Fifth Avenue, New York City.

400 YEARS OF
FREETHOUGHT.

By SAMUEL PORTER PUTNAM.

Large Octavo, 1165 pages, Gilt Sides and Back, Marbled
Edges. Price, $5.

141 Full-page Half-tone Portraits of the Most Eminent Free-
thinkers and Philosophers. Living and Dead, of
the Past Four Hundred Years.

The great work of Mr. S. P. Putnam, " FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OF FREE-
THOUGHT," is now ready for delivery, and all of the original subscribers having
been supplied, new orders will be promptly filled.

Every phase of Progress arid development — intellectual, moral, literary,
social, industrial, and political — has been presented, and this development is
shown in orderly sequence in such a manner as to give the best picture possi-
ble of human evolution. This book is in two parts— the first part dealing with
Freethought as an influence and as a power manifesting itself sporadically, as
might be said, in all departments of life and in all portions of the civilized world.
The second part shows how this spirit or power has become organized in
Europe and America; gives the history of its struggles and accomplisments,
together with the lives of the men and women who have taken part in the
movement. It is all deeply interesting and most thoroughly instructive It
must do much in the way of uniting now-living Freethinkers, and it will
preserve imperishably the story of the Freethinkers of the past who so nobly
devoted their lives to the service of mankind. No other work of the kind has
ever been attempted.

Colonel Ingersoll says of it :

"NEW YORK, Nov. 4, 1894.

"DEAR PUTNAM: Well, I have read the " Four Hundred Years of Free-
thought." It is a book that every Freethinker ought to have, and that every
child of superstition ought to read. Every clergyman should study its pages, so
that hereafter he can tell the truth about the mental pioneers of our race.

" I forgive you for having given me too great credit, for having multi-
plied and exaggerated my virtues and ignored my defects.

" The book is written with great clearness— with great force and beauty.
Many of the pages are poems, and these poems are rilled with pliilo«ophy.
Every line is warm, alive, and throbbing with enthusiasm— with love for the
right and for man.

" You have done a great service to a sacred cause, and I thank you with
all my heart. Yours always, R. G. INGERSOLL."

Price, $5, Address C, P, FARRELL, 400 Fifth Avenue, New York,

Works of Thomas Paine.

Common Sense. A Revolutionary pamphlet addressed to t j inhab-
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Paine's first and most important political work. Paper 15 cts.

The CriSiS. 16 numbers. Written during the darkest hours of the American
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The RlghtS Of Man. Being an answer to Burke's attack upon the
French Revolution. A work almost without a peer. Paper, 300.; cloth, 500.

The Age Of ReaSOn. Being an investigation of True and Fabulous
Theology. A new and unabridged edition. For nearly one hundred years
the clergy have been vainly trying to answer this book. Paper 250. ; cloth 500.

Paine's Religious and Theological Works complete.

Comprising the Affe of Reason — An Investigation of True and Fabulous
Theology ; An Examination of the Prophecies of the coming of Jesus
Christ ; The Hooks of Mark, Luke and John ; Contrary Doctrines in the
New Testament between Matthew and Mark ; An Essay on Dreams ;
Private Thoughts on a Future State ; A Letter to the Hon. Thomas
Erskine; Religious Year of the Theophilanthropists; Precise History
of the Theophilanthropists ; A Discourse Delivered to the Society of
Theophilanthropists at Paris; A Letter to Camille Jordan ; Origin of Free-
masonry ; The Names in the Book of Genesis ; Extract from a Reply
to the Bishop of Llandaff ; The Book of Job; Sabbath or Sunday; Future
State; Miracles; An Answer to a Friend on the Publication of the Age
of Reason .- Letters to Samuel Adams and Andrew A. Dean ; Remarks
on Robert Hall's Sermons ; The word Religion ; Cain and Abel ; The
Tower of Babel ; To Members of the Society styling itself the Missionary
Society ; Religion of Deism ; The Sabbath Day of Connecticut ; Ancient
History ; Bishop Moore; John Mason; Books of the New Testament ; Deism
and the Writings of Thomas Paine, etc. The work has also a fine Portrait of
Paine, as Deputy to the National Convention in France, and portraits of
Samuel Adams, Thomas Erskine, Camille Jordan, Richard Watson, and
other illustrations. One vol., post 8vo., 432 pages, paper 50 cts., cloth $1.00.

Paine's Principal Political Works, containing common

Sense ; The Crisis, (16 numbers) , Letter to the Abb6 Raynal • Letter from
Thomas Paine to General Washington ; Letter from General Washington to
Thomas Paine; Rights of Man, parts land II.; Letter to the Abbfi Sieyes.
With portrait and illustrations. In one volume, 655 pages, price, cloth $1.00.

Paine's Political Works complete, in two vois., containing

over 500 pp. each, post 8vo, cloth, with portrait and illustrations. $i oo per vol.

Volume I. contains : Common Sense and the Epistle to the Quakers ; The
Crisis, (the 16 Numbers Complete) ; A Letter to the Abb6 Raynal ; Letter
from Paine to Washington ; Letter from Washington to Paine ; Dissertation
on Government, the Affairs of the Bank and Paper Money ; Prospects on the
Rubicon ; or, an Investigation into the Causes and Consequences of the Poli-
tics to be agitated at the next Meeting of Parliament; Public Good, being an
Examination into the claim of Virginia to the Western Territory, etc.

Volume II. contains : Rights of Man in two Parts, (Part I. being an Answer
to Burke's Attack on the French Revolution ; Part II. contains Principle and
Practice) ; Letter to Abb6 Sieyes ; To the Authors of the Republican ; Letter
Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation ; Letters to Lord
Onslow; Dissertation on First Principles of Government; Letters to Mr.
Secretary Dundas; Speech in the French National Convention; Reasons
for Sparing the Life of Louis Capet ; Letter to the People of France ; On the
Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI. to Trial; Speech in the National Conven-
tion on the Question, " Shall or shall not a Respite of the Sentence of Louis
XVI. take place?" To the People of France and the French Armies; Decline
and Fall of the English System of Finance ; Agrarian Justice, etc.

Life Of Thomas Paine. By the editor of the National, with Preface
and Notes by Peter Eckler. Illustrated with views of the Old Paine Home-
stead and Paine Monument at New Rochelle ; also, portraits of the most
prominent of Paine's friends in Europe and America. As "a man is known
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long disgraced sectarian literature. Post 8vo, paper 50 cts.; cloth 75 cts.

Vindication. A Reply to the New York Observer's attack
upon the Author-hero of tha Revolution, by R. G. Ingersoll. Paper, 15 cts.

OCSB LIBRARY

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3Ieslier*S Superstition ill All Ages. Jean Meslier was a Roman Cath-
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The Great IngerSOll Controversy. Containing an eloquent Christ-
mas Sermon by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, and various protests by eminent
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Dickens' Sunday Under Three Heads.— AS it is; as Sabbath bills

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A 000 609

INGERSOLL'S Lhuuki£

*IN ONE VOLUME.^

CONTENTS:

THE GODS. HUMBOLDT, INDIVIDUALITY,

THOMAS PAINE, HERETICS AND HERESIES.

THE GHOSTS.

THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD,

THE CENTENNIAL ORATION, OR DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE, July 4, 1876.

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.

SPEECH AT CINCINNATI IN 1876. nominating

James G. Blaine for the Presidency.

THE PAST RISES BEFORE ME; OR. VISION OF WAR,
an extract from a Speech made at the Soldiers and Sailors
Reunion at Indianapolis, Indiana, Sept. 21, 1876.

A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL.

SOME MISTAKES OF MOSES.

WHAT MUST WE DO TO BE SAVED?

SIX INTERVIEWS WITH ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

ON SIX SERMONS BY THE Rev. T. DEWITT

TALMAGE, D. D. ; to which is added a

TALMAGIAN CATECHISM.

And FOUR PREFACES, which contain some of Mr. Ingersoll's
wittiest and brightest sayings.

This volume contains a fine steel portrait of the author, and
has had the greatest popularity, is beautifully bound in Half
Morocco, mottled edges, 1,300 pages, good paper, large type,
small 8vo.

Price, post paid, $5.00.

New Books by Col. R. G. IngersoII.
A NEW LECTURE

About the Holy Bible

Price, paper, Twenty-five cents.

a*

"SOMETHING BRAND NEW I"

INGERSOLL'S startling, brilliant and .thr-llingly eloquent letters, which crea-
* ated such a sensation when published in the New York World, together
with the replies of famous clergymen and writers, a verdict from a jury of em-
inent men of New York, Curious Pacts About Suicides, celebrated Essays and
Opinions of noted men, and an astonishing and original chapter, Great Suicides
of History ! Price, heavy paper, with portrait of Col. Ingersoll, 25 cents.

The American Newsman says: "This is something brand new — curious, en-
tertaining, and startling The letters are among the finest products of Colonel
Ingersoll's genius. * * * Bound to have a wide sale."

HIS GREAT LECTURE ON

SHAKESPEARE

Paper, Twenty-five cents.

| Lecture on Abraham Lincoln I

Price, Twenty-five cents, paper.

I THE GREAT INGERSOLL CONTROVERSY. I

CONTAINING THE FAMOUS CHRISTMAS SERMON, BY

COL. R. G. INGERSOLL,

The indignant protests thereby evoked from Ministers of various denomina-

tions, and Colonel Ingersoll's replies to the same.

A work of tremendous interest to every thinking Man and Woman.

Reprinted in full from the Correspondence on the Subject by Special Permission

of "The Evening Telegram." Price, paper, 25 cents.

A.ddress G. !». FA.RRELL, -4OO Fiftli

., JV. Y.