ced to create, and back of that an eternity spent in
absolute idleness. Can a spirit exist without matter or without force?
I honestly say I do not know what matter is, what force is, what spirit
is; but if you mean by matter anything that I can touch, or by force
anything that we can overcome then I believe in them. If you mean by
spirit anything that can think and love, I believe in spirits.

"The next critic who assailed me was the Rev. Mr. Kalloch. I am not
going to show you what I can withstand. I am not going to say a word
about the reputation of this man, although he took some liberties with
mine. This gentleman says negation is a poor thing to die by. I would
just as lief die by that as the opposite. He spoke of the last hours
of Paine and Voltaire and the terrors of their death-beds; but the
question arises, is there a word of truth in all he said? I have
observed that the murderer dies with courage and firmness in many
instances, but that does not make me think that it sanctified his
crime; in fact, it makes no impression upon me one way or the other.
When a man through old age or infirmity approaches death the
intellectual faculties are dimmed, his senses become less and less, and
as he loses these he goes back to his old superstition. Old age brings
back the memories of childhood. And the great bard gave in the corrupt
and besotted Falstaff--who prattled of babbling brooks and green
fields--an instance of the retracing steps taken by the memory at the
last gasp. It has been said that the bible was sanctified by our
mothers. Every superstition in the world, from the beginning of all
time, has had such a sanctification. The Turk dying on the Russian
battlefield, pressing the Koran to his bosom, breathes his last
thinking of the loving adjuration of his mother to guard it. Every
superstition has been rendered sacred by the love of a mother. I know
what it has cost the noble and the brave to throw to the winds these
superstitions. Since the death of Voltaire, who was innocent of all
else than a desire to shake off the superstitions of the past, the
curse of Rome has pursued him, and ignorant protestants have echoed
that curse. I like Voltaire. Whenever I think of him it is as a plumed
knight coming from the fray with victory shining upon his brow. He was
once in the Bastille, and while there he changed his name from Francis
Marie Aloysius to Voltaire; and when the Bastille was torn down
"Voltair