f the circumstances in which each arose. The suppression of
church festivals in Protestant countries he thought due to the greater
need and zest for labor in the North. He accounted for the alleged fact
that Protestantism produced more free-thinkers by saying that their
unadorned cult naturally aroused a less warm attachment than the sensuous
ritual of Romanism.

[Sidenote: Voltaire]

One of the greatest of historians was Voltaire. None other has made
history so nearly universal as did he, peering into every side of life
and into every corner of the earth. No authority imposed on him, no fact
was admitted to be inexplicable by natural laws. It is true that he was
not very learned and that he had strong prejudices against what he called
"the most infamous superstition that ever brutalized man." But with it
all he brought more freedom and life into the story of mankind than had
any of his predecessors.

For his history of the Reformation he was dependent on Bossuet, Sarpi,
and a few other general works; there is no evidence that he perused any
of the sources. But his treatment of the phenomena is wonderful. {708}
Beginning with an enthusiastic account of the greatness of the
Renaissance, its discoveries, its opulence, its roll of mighty names, he
proceeds to compare the Reformation with the two contemporaneous
religious revolutions in Mohammedanism, the one in Africa, the other in
Persia. He does not probe deeply, but no one else had even thought of
looking to comparative religion [Sidenote: Comparative religion] for
light. In tracing the course of events he is more conventional, finding
rather small causes for large effects. The whole thing started, he
assures us, in a quarrel of Augustinians and Dominicans over the spoils
of indulgence-sales, "and this little squabble of monks in a corner of
Saxony, produced more than a hundred years of discord, fury, and
misfortune for thirty nations." "England separated from the pope because
King Henry fell in love." The Swiss revolted because of the painful
impression produced by the Jetzer scandal. The Reformation, in
Voltaire's opinion, is condemned by its bloodshed and by its appeal to
the passions of the mob. The dogmas of the Reformers are considered no
whit more rational than those of their opponents, save that Zwingli is
praised for "appearing more zealous for freedom than for Christianity.
Of course he erred," wittily comments our author, "but how humane it i