re 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
forever. This was regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored 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, and had he
mumbled 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 Christ, he might have been in heaven this moment, enjoying
a sight of the damned.

If he 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, authorizing 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 St. Voltaire.

Instead of doing these things he willfully 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 defended the oppressed. He demonstrated that the origin
of all religions is the same, the same mysteries--the same
miracles--the same impostures--the same temples and ceremonies--the
same kind of founders, apostles and dupes--the same promises and
threats--the same pretense of goodness and forgiveness and the practice
of the same persecution and murder. He proved that religion made
enemies--philosophy, friends--and that above the rites 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 smi