Dillon

 The miscreant always acted against his better knowledge. His life gives us many examples of this fact. I will relate one for you. When he broke a blood vessel on one occasion, he begged his assistants to hurry for the priest. He confessed, signed with his hand a profession of faith, asked pardon of God and the Church for his offences, and ordered that his retractation should be printed in the public newspapers; but, recovering, he commenced his war upon God anew, and died refusing all spiritual aid, and crying out in the fury of despair and agony, "I am abandoned by God and man." Dr. Fruchen, who witnessed the awful spectacle of his death, said to his friends, "Would that all who have been seduced by the writings of Voltaire had been witnesses of his death, it would be impossible to hold out, in the face of such an awful spectacle." But that spectacle was forgotten, and consequently,

before ten years passed, the world saw the effects of his works.

Speaking of the French Revolution, Condorcet, in his "Life of Voltaire," says of him, "He did not see all that which he accomplished, but he did all that which we see. Enlightened observations prove to those who know how to reflect that the first author of that Great Revolution was without doubt Voltaire."

I have thus far spoken of Voltaire and his teachings in order to introduce with greater clearness the important subject to which I ask the favour of your attention this evening. It never was the intention of this man to let his teachings die, or beat the air, so to speak, with mere words. He determined that his

fatal gospel should be perpetuated, and should bring forth as speedy as possible its fruits of death. Even in his life-time, we have evidence that he constantly conspired with his associates for this end, and that with them he concocted in secret both the means by which his doctrines should reach all classes in

Europe, and the methods by which civil order and Christianity might be best destroyed. St. Beauve writes of him and of his, in the Journal des Debats, 8 November, 1852:-"All the correspondence of Voltaire and D'Alembert is ugly. It smells of the sect, of the conspiracy of the Brotherhood, of the secret

society. From whatever point it is viewed it does no honour to men who make a principle of lying, and who consider contempt of their kind the first condition necessary to enlighten them.

'Enlighten and despise the human race.' A sure watchword this, and it is theirs. March on always sneering, my brethren, in the way of truth.' That is their perpetual refrain." But not only did he and his, thus conspire in a manner which might seem to arise naturally from identical sentiments and aims, but what was of infinitely greater consequence, the demon, just as their sad gospel was ripe for propagation, called into existence the most efficacious means possible for its extension amongst men, and for the wished-for destruction of the Church, of Christian civilization, and of every form of existing Christianity. This was the spread amongst those already demoralized by Voltaireanism, of Freemasonry and its cognate systems of secret Atheistic organization. This is the point upon which I am most anxious to fix your attention this evening.