oltaire. If he will read
the life of Luther by Lord Brougham, he will find that in his
ordinary conversation he was exceedingly low and vulgar, and that
no respectable English publisher could be found who would soil
paper with the translation. If he will take the pains to read an
essay by Macaulay, he will find that twenty years after the death
of Luther there were more Catholics than when he was born. And
that twenty years after the death of Voltaire there were millions
less than when he was born. If he will take just a few moments to
think, he will find that the last victory of Protestantism was in
Holland; that there has never been one since, and will never be
another. If he would really like to think, and enjoy for a few
moments the luxury of having an idea, let him ponder for a little
while over the instructive fact that languages having their root
in the Latin have generally been spoken in Catholic countries, and
that those languages having their root in the ancient German are
now mostly spoken by people of Protestant proclivities. It may
occur to him, after thinking of this a while, that there is something
deeper in the question than he has as yet perceived. Luther's last
victory, as I said before, was in Holland; but the victory of
Voltaire goes on from day to day. Protestantism is not holding
its own with Catholicism, even in the United States. I saw the
other day the statistics, I believe, of the city of Chicago, showing
that, while the city had increased two or three hundred per cent.,
Protestantism had lagged behind at the rate of twelve per cent.
I am willing for one, to have the whole question depend upon a
comparison of the worth and work of Voltaire and Luther. It may
be, too, that the gentleman forgot to tell us that Luther himself
gave consent to a person high in office to have two wives, but
prudently suggested to him that he had better keep it as still as
possible. Luther was, also, a believer in a personal Devil. He
thought that deformed children had been begotten by an evil spirit.
On one occasion he told a mother that, in his judgment, she had
better drown her child; that he had no doubt that the Devil was
its father. This same Luther made this observation: "Universal
toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal
hell." From this you will see that he was an exceedingly good man,
but mistaken upon many questions. So, too, he laughed at the
Copernican system, and w