The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1880-11-18
FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Parker pillsbury's Second Lecture.

Last evening Mr.. Pillsbury delivered the
second and last lecture on the French Revolu-
ton in the Mechanics Library Room.
Beginning, Mr.. Pillsbury resumed the
thread of his historical review where he left it
with the life of Rousseau on the evening pre-
vious. The life and times of Voltaire were
then discussed by the speaker, who spoke fer
yently of the man who dared to write and
work, not alone against religion, but against
royalty, and who when banished from France
found refuge in England Refuge was not all
he found in Great Britain; he found in its
criminal code worse atrocities than in his
native France. Men were put to death for
many forms of felony. Sir William Black
stone wrote of this condition of things, that
in Britain there were "no less than l60
felonies punishable by death without benefit
of the clergy" Earlier, 200 forms OF felony
had been declared so punishable, and writer
of that day had said that according to the
popular Interpretation Of the criminal code
changing was not punishable enough for
murderers and house-breakers." Fearful
punshments were inflicted. With such at
rocities existing, amelioration could only come
from some outside and foreign agency. 1t
came through Voltaire, the foreigner from
man outside of the Protest ant and Catholic
churches, and the most noted OF even English
writers had to admit that "the reform in
Europe might be traced to that Voltalrean
humanity" The speaker considered Voltaire
a most vigorous writer against the abuses OF
the priestly and princely Off ers, and simply
because he had figured in revealing those
abuses and thereby in laying foundation for
the French revolution, all christendom had
united in charging him with being the origin
ator of the abuses The speaker himself had
been taught when child, that he must re-
gard Voltaire as an atheist, blaSphemer and
the personi6ca cation of nearly all that was bad.
Mr.. Pilsbury proposed TO correct some Of the
mistakes, not of Moses, but of the American
teachers and preachers who had been accus-
toned to denounce Voltaire. He would grant
that he considered the preachers of to-day as
innocent of any knowledge on the subject OF
this discourse as to the babe born yesterday;
but this did not alter the drift of their
teachings. He said Voltaire. the SO called
atheist" had characterised "atheism as al
ways fatal to virtue" This same atheist
had said of Christianity, "1f this belief shall
have prevented but ten iniquitous judgments
on the whole earth, hold it worthy of being
subscribed to by mankind" Under the head
ing of Religion" in his mental dictionary,
Voltaire had written a beautiful tribute to the
great, intelligent Being who ruled the uni
verse: His writings upon and against war
would gild with sublime glory the literature
of all Christendom. OF him Lord Campbell,
the great English lawyer, had said: can in
discriminate abuse of Voltaire has
and orthodoxy throughout Britain An
other writer, no less distinguished for his in
sight into natures and their actuating motives
had said of the same Frenchman that he was
'the greatest leader in the emancipation of
free thought since Martin Luther" But alas!
what did we hear from the pulpit of the pres
ent age, concerning him? All! the world had
learned little yet concerning the causes of the
French revolution. The speaker then went on
to portray the destruction of the Bastile, and
said of it, "Never before had the world seen
u =
known such period; but let us believe that
the worst abuses of that day went down with
it, till earth and all its nations seemed to
breathe free once more" From tins stage of
his lecture Mr.. Pillsbury passed on to consider
the French constitution which was the out
growth of the great struggle described. He
said it was monarchical in form, but in spirit
it was almost as republican as the American
constitution under which George Washington
was inaugurated only four years before. He
also alluded in detail to some of the many
blessings attaching to and growing out of the
constitution. But the French people were not
the American people, and their constitutional
assembly was soon divided in two factions, to
which might be traced those scenes which
British tyranny had baptised with the reign of
terror. 1t was during that reign of terror that
Madame Roland, dying on the scaffold, said
"Oh, Liberty! Liberty! How many crimes are
committed in thy name!" Then in 1776, the
cry, GIVE us liberty or give us death,'' re-
sounded in America and was repeated in
France. The people of America TODAY could
justify the English revolt under Cromwell,
though it was one of religious bloodshed; they
could glorify the American reyo ution; but the
French revolution was smothered under the
worlds curses, though it was thousand times
more needed than any other in thousand
years.
Leaving Voltaire, Mr.. Pillsbury proceeded
to allude in his lecture to Robespierre-"t
grand high priest of all denominations" if
clerical testimony might be taken as of any
wo. tn. But other and greater thinkers than
coming into recognition of Robespierre in
his true light. Lamartine had given an ad-
dress, recently published, which characterized
this ostracised Frenchman of the eighteenth
century as THE Martin Luther of the French
row luton" In this carefully prepared ad-
dress Robespierre had been described as a
child and young man tender and considerable
of the feelings of others and sympathetic with
them in their Sufferings. AS man, he never
would sit on a jury where a human life was in
peril. His admirable individuality and his
home surroundings, as recorded by the histo-
rian, were described by the speaker Robe
sphere, in his addresses to the French assembly
had shown how much justice there was in the
cry of to-day that he was an atheist He
said that he, as member of the national as
sembly, abhorred the sys EN- and the belief
upon which the prosecutions against Christ
ianity were founded. He it was who said,
Atheism is arstocratic, but the idea that
there is God, who watches over hnman
destines and who Furnishes crime, is every
where acknowledged. From infancy I have
not existed, it would have been necessary
to invent His existence" Robespierre
exhausted his strength in his daring and
in his asserting the supremacy of his
conscience. He had said that the ideas
of the soul and its emancipation were
md had hon fho IN ap1
i've to justice, and he had questioned
whether the idea of annihilation would inspire
any of the worther attributes of men. The
speaker was no French scholar, but he said he
knew that Robespierre never read, wrote nor
uttered word that was not an honor to his
existence, for it was he who said and who
taught that death is the commencement of
immortality" This man, denounced as a
monster, blasphemer, had fortified himself
and had endeavored to consecrate himself by
forming personal alliance with all the adj
vanced ideas OF his age. La his case, however,
like that of another whom men read, the null
titudes were crying before him one day, Clos
anna in the highest!'' and on the next day,
Cruelty him! Cruelty him!" They who were
still repeating this cry against Robespierre
would do well to read the closing paragraphs
of his last address to the National Assembly,
in which he said Remember that where
justice reigns not, the passions of magistrates
are at large, and the people have changed
their letters, but not their destiny" The peo-
pie were the real monarchs, yet under the
sway OF injustice they were so 'often treated
as slaves. He who thus loved justice and who
said, "Let my enemies reach the scaffold by
the path of crime shall reach it by the path
of virtue!''-he it was who at last took the
sword, and with his death the French revolu-
ton died. He was the conscience of the
French revolution, and was sacrificed because
he was so misunderstood. VIM. LLOYD Garri-
son and John Brown had been thus misun der
stood, and so had Jesus Christ long before
them. But were they dead? Were they and
their lives Municipalities which would ever
die? Oh, no. So Robespierre would yet come
to be better known and would be Judged ac-
cordingly.
Personal.
Col. A. E. Coe of New York is at the Fall