who
ever lived or died. He appealed to the common sense of mankind--he
held up the great contradictions of the sacred scriptures in a way that
no man, once having read him, could forget. For one, I thank Voltaire
for the liberty I am enjoying this moment. How small a man a priest
looked when he pointed his finger at him; how contemptible a king.

Toward the last of May, 1778, it was whispered in Paris that Voltaire
was dying. He expired with the most perfect tranquility. There have
been constructed most shameless lies about the death of this great and
wonderful man, compared with whom all his calumniators, living or dead,
were but dust and vermin. From his throne at the foot of the Alps he
pointed the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Europe. He was the
pioneer of his century.

In 1771, in Scotland, David Hume was born. Scotch Presbyterianism is
the worst form of religion that has ever been produced. The Scotch
Kirk had all the faults of the Church of Rome, without a redeeming
feature. The church hated music, despised painting, abhorred statuary,
and held architecture in contempt. Anything touched with humanity,
with the weakness of love, with the dimple of joy, was detested by the
Scotch Kirk. God was to be feared; God was infinitely practical; no
nonsense about God. They used to preach four times a day. They
preached on Friday before the Sunday upon which they partook of the
sacrament, and then on Saturday; four sermons on Sunday, and two or
three on Monday to sober up on. They were bigoted and heartless. One
case will illustrate. In the beginning of this nineteenth century a
boy seventeen years of age was indicted at Edinburgh for blasphemy. He
had given it as his opinion that Moses had learned magic in Egypt, and
had fooled the Jews. They proved that on two or three occasions, when
he was real cold, he jocularly remarked that he wished he was in hell,
so that he could warm up. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be
hanged. He recanted; he even wrote that he believed the whole
business; and that he just said it for pure devilment. It made no
difference. They hung him, and his bruised and bleeding corpse was
denied to his own mother, who came and besought them to let her take
her boy home. That was Scotch Presbyterianism. If the devil had been
let loose in Scotland he would have improved that country at that time.

David Hume was one of the few Scotchmen who was not owned by the
church