hostile authority, the evangelical Guizot, the eminent French historian, makes the admission that "innate love of justice and horror of fanaticism inspired Voltaire with his zeal in behalf of persecuted Protestants," and that Voltaire contributed most powerfully to the triumphs of those conceptions of Humanity, Justice, and Freedom which did honor to the eighteenth century.
Were we to form an estimate of Voltaire's character and transcendent ability through such a temperate non-sectarian writer as the Hon. John Morley, we would conclude with him that when the right sense of historical proportion is more fully developed in men's minds, the name of Voltaire will stand out like the names of the great decisive movements in the European advance, like the Revival of Learning, or the Reformation, and that the existence, character, and career of Voltaire constitute in themselves a new and prodigious era. We would further agree with Morley, that "no sooner did the rays of Voltaire's burning and far-shining spirit strike upon the genius of the time, seated dark and dead like the black stone of Memnon's statue, than the clang of the breaking chord was heard through Europe and men awoke in a new day and more spacious air." And we would probably say of Voltaire what he magnanimously said of his contemporary, Montesquieu, that "humanity had lost its title-deeds and he had recovered them."
Were we acquainted only with that Voltaire de-
