Page:Toleration and other essays.djvu/14

 and the French Revolution they brought about. He was amazed to hear that they believed in God as firmly as, and much more reasonably than, he and his colleagues did. Voltaire's aim was a sincere effort to rid pure religion of its morbid and abominable overgrowths.

Very good, you say; but why not have set about it more politely? For two plain reasons. First, because the character of his opponents fully justified him in directing his most scathing wit upon them. The Jesuits, whom he chiefly lashed, were in his own time ignominiously expelled by nearly every Catholic Power in Europe, and were suppressed by the Pope. The other clergy were deeply tainted with scepticism in the cities, and befogged with dense ignorance in the provinces. One incident will suffice to justify his disdain. His latest English biographer, S. G. Tallentyre, who is not biassed in his favour, says that it is most probable, if not certain, that while the Catholic authorities were burning his books in Paris, and shuddering at his infidelity, they were secretly tempting him, with the prospect of a cardinal's hat, to join the clergy. It is certain that they invited him to do religious work, and that, at the height of his anti-clerical work, he received direct from the Pope certain relics to put in a chapel he had built for his poor neighbours. Could a prince of irony restrain himself in such circumstances? The other reason is the character of the dogmas and practices he assailed. Read them in the following pages.

It is true that there are passages in Voltaire which none of us would, if we could, write to-day.