in him—­a great limitation of spirit.  It has vitiated a large part of his writings; and it has done more than that—­it has obscured, to many of his readers, the real nature and the real value of his work.  For, combined with this inability to comprehend some of the noblest parts of man’s nature, Voltaire possessed other qualities of high importance which went far to compensate for his defects.  If he was blind to some truths, he perceived others with wonderful clearness; if his sympathies in some directions were atrophied, in others they were sensitive to an extraordinary degree.  In the light of these considerations his attitude towards religion becomes easier to understand.  All the highest elements of religion—­the ardent devotion, the individual ecstasy, the sense of communion with the divine—­these things he simply ignored.  But, unfortunately, in his day there was a side of religion which, with his piercing clear-sightedness, he could not ignore.  The spirit of fanaticism was still lingering in France; it was the spirit which had burst out on the Eve of St. Bartholomew, and had dictated the fatal Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.  In every branch of life its influence was active, infusing prejudice, bitterness, and strife; but its effects were especially terrible in the administration of justice.  It so happened that while Voltaire was at Ferney some glaring instances of this dreadful fact came to light.  A young Protestant named Calas committed suicide in Toulouse, and, owing to the blind zealotry of the magistrates of the town, his father, completely innocent, was found guilty of his murder and broken on the wheel.  Shortly afterwards, another Protestant, Sirven, was condemned in similar circumstances, but escaped to Ferney.  A few years later, two youths of seventeen were convicted at Abbeville for making some profane jokes.  Both were condemned to have their tongues torn out and to be decapitated; one managed to escape, the other was executed.  That such things could happen in eighteenth-century France seems incredible; but happen they did, and who knows how many more of a like atrocity?  The fact that these three came to light at all was owing to Voltaire himself.  But for his penetration, his courage, and his skill, the terrible murder of Calas would to this day have remained unknown, and the dreadful affair of Abbeville would have been forgotten in a month.  Different men respond most readily to different stimuli:  the spectacle of cruelty and injustice bit like a lash into the nerves of Voltaire, and plunged him into an agony of horror.  He resolved never to rest until he had not only obtained reparation for these particular acts of injustice, but had rooted out for ever from men’s minds the superstitious bigotry which made them possible.  It was to attain this end that he attacked with such persistence and such violence all religion and all priestcraft in general, and, in particular, the orthodox dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church.  It became the great