An American Judge on Infidelity.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 178, 29 July 1893, Page 4 (Supplement)

An American Judge on Infidelity.

Sharp Arraignment of Great Leaders

of Infidelity.

VOLTAIIIE, GIBEcN AND HtJME AS TYPES,

In a recent interview, Judge Bedford, an eminent American jurist, said : ' Of conrso anyone can be an infidel if he chooses and no one has a right to interfere, but I musb

say that I have the utmost contempt for

''he infidel who publicly preaches his unbelief. Why, I would not ba in his place for ten times the wealth of a Crresus. YY hat a fearful responsibility does that man assume. By his assertions he insidiously implants in many a happy home the seeds of disbelief and distrust and finally wrecks that home forever. It ia far better to believe and be deceived than to disbelieve and after death to find one has made a mistake. The deathbed, if one be conscious, is the test of the man, fciio test of his principles — a test of his prospect? in the vvoild to come. Take, for iastance, the life and death ot Voltaire—in his day an intellectual giant among men. In his prime and health he said it required twelve men to write Christianity up and boasted he would show one man could write it down. Did Voltaire succeed ? On the contrary he ignominiously failed. Christianity to-day is strongor than it was in his timeand everyyear willincreaseitsstrength.

'Voltaire,in his coarse and virulontattick on Christianity, his oft repeated expression was, when speaking of our Saviour, " Ecrasez l'infaine " (Crush the wretch).

'The last visit that this inlidel made to Paris he was at the zenith of his fame, and while being publicly crowned at the theatre as the idol of France, he was seized with a hemorrhage that terminated his life. When death had placed its icy hand upon him he

sent for a priest, desired to make a full confession of his sins and ask pardon of God for his scandalous attack on Christianity. He made a written renunciation of his infidelity, bub oven that did not allay his terrible anguish. The death iiconoswcro frightful and appalling to contemplate. ' His physician declared that tho torments of Orestes by tho fabled Furies would give but a faint idea of Voltaire's agony, and expressed tho wish that those who had been perverted by the infidel's writings could nave been present at his death, when they could not have failed to find an antidote to the poison. Voltaire's nurse repeatedly exclaimed that "for all the wealth of Europe she would never see another infidel die." It was a scene of horror—and such is the well attested end of Voltaire. Ha died like a coward, rotracting all his attacks on Christianity, thus giving the lie to his whole life and all his works. He once said, "I wish that I had never been born." Would for the sake of humanity he never had been. Cases of Gibbon and Home. ' Gibbon, whon we compare him with other infidel writers, " was tailor than any of them from the shoulders upward," and when he came forth "defying the armies of tho living God, tho etatl'of his spear is like a weaver's beam." He was an apostate ancj was tilled with hate, enmity and bitterness —as all apostates are. Gibbon devoted twenty years of hia lite to producing the "History of tho Declino and Fall of the Roman Empire"—a work which stand? nmong the most) splendid achievements of human intellect aud the most dangerous of the attacks ovor made upon divine revelation. He has so constructed tho whole as to make it a running libel on Christianity. But his sneers are comparatively harmless.

' What might have been the foolings of Gibbon had he been conscious that his end was so near ie is impossible to say, for within twenty hours before ho expired he said he thought he was good for ten, twelve or twenty years.

'Hume, whose history of England has been described by the gifted Hannah More as "a serpent under a bed of roaee," held a conspicuous plnce in tho ranks of infidelityHe devoted much of his lifo to the destiuction of Christianity, but he failed.

' As Hume's life was drawing to a close his friends, like those of Voltaire, woro desirous thab ho should evince no fear and should persisb in hie infidelity to the laeb. But they overacted so far as to betray themselves. Hume knew that he was on tlio brink of the grave, and while at the gamine table with his infidel companions would try and appear utterly unconcerned and full of composure But the dying man had to throw the mask of hypocrisy aeido onco in a while. His deathbed greatly resembled the horrors of Voltaire's. We nre told that at midnight, when he was alone and thought no one was present, he became filled wilh remorse and fear ; his trembling frame caused the very bed boneath him to shake; his moans of mental distress became so appalling as to rsnder ib painful for his attendants to remain noar him, and yot hip dread of being alone was so frrent that ho would not allow fchoir absence for a moment. 1 ' If I had time,' said the judfrc, 'I could speak of the famous? Talleyrand, Sir Francos Newport, Lord Chesterfield. Rousseau, Pedorot, Condorcet, and other?, But I think having selected (lie three ?ronb champions of infidelity—Voltaire, Gibbon, and Hamo—l have shown how dangerous and unwise ib is to be severed from Christianity by their tennhinrrs, nr the teachings of any infidel, no matter who he may bo.'

Judge Bedford^ warming up, paid :—' I am pleased to say that, the infidels of the presenfclionrlinve not advanced fi "intrle original idea with which toattnckOhrisbnnifcy and religion. Their arguments are stale, and all stolen from tho works and writings of the above named infido's. Let mo now drop the curtain, and shut out from the' Christian's view bho dark and hopeless death bed of the infirlol. Permit, me in closing to r|uoto from a learned divine the following beautiful lines :—

'" Grnnb.if you will for a momsnh,that fclie Gospel is lint a fable, our faith in it a mere delusion and bhab our hops and joy from it aro but n dronm.

' " What dream was evor liko ib? Wlint dream was ever ro blessed ? If wo do but droara in all thab we hopo and believe, whether living or dying, in mercy to ua, let us dream on, let us dream for over. Tho man that would awake v? is our worst enemy. For when he hasdispolled our dream, so joyous and heavenly as we find it, what has ho to give us in its place but bitter despair?" '