res
even unto this day.

* * * * *

It was at Ferney, in his old age, that Voltaire first made open war upon
"revealed religion." All religions that professed a miraculous origin
were to him baneful in the extreme, the foes of light and progress, the
enemies of mankind. He did not perceive, as modern psychology does, that
the period of supernaturalism is the childhood of the mind. Myths and
fairy-tales are not of themselves base--the injury lies with the men who
seek to profit by these things, and build up a tyranny founded on
innocence and ignorance--seeking to perpetuate these things, issuing
threats against growth, and offers of reward to all who stand still.

Voltaire called superstition "The Infamy," and he summoned the thinkers
of the world to crush it beneath a heel of scorn. Letters, pamphlets,
plays, essays, were sent out in various languages, by his own
printing-presses. The wit of the man--his scathing mockery--were weapons
no one could wield in reply. The priests and preachers did not answer
him--they could not--they only grew purple with wrath and hissed.

Says Victor Hugo, "Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled." To which Bernard Shaw
has recently rejoined, "Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled; William Morris
worked."

From the prosperity, peace and security of Ferney, Voltaire pointed a
bony finger at every hypocrite in Christendom, and laughed his mocking
smile. The man expressed himself, and happiness lies in that and
nothing else. Misery comes from lack of full, free self-expression, and
from nothing else. The man who fights for freedom fights for the right
of self-expression for himself and others--and immortality lies in
nothing else.

There is no fight worth making--no struggle worth the while--save the
struggle for freedom.

No name is honored among men--no name lives--save the name of the man
who worked for liberty and light--who has fought freedom's fight.

Run the list in your mind of the names that are immortal, and you will
recall only those of men who have widened the horizon for other men, and
that select number who are remembered in infamy because they linked
their names with greatness by doubting, denying, betraying and
persecuting it--deathless through disgrace.

Voltaire sided with the weak, the defenseless, the fallen. He demanded
that men should not be hounded for their belief, that they should not be
arrested without cause and without knowing why, and without l