Writing on miracles, Voltaire asks: “For what purpose would God perform a miracle? To accomplish some particular design upon living beings? He would then, in reality, be supposed to say—I have not been able to effect by my construction of the universe, by my divine decrees, by my eternal laws, a particular object; I am now going to change my eternal ideas and immutable laws, to endeavor to accomplish what I have not been able to do by means of them. This would be an avowal of his weakness, not of his power; it would appear in such a being an inconceivable contradiction. Accordingly, therefore, to dare to ascribe miracles to God is, if man can in reality insult God, actually offering him that insult. It is saying to him—You are a weak and inconsistent being. It is therefore absurd to believe in miracles; it is, in fact, dishonoring the divinity.” Those who are inclined to attack the character of Voltaire should read the account of his endeavors for the Calas family. How, when old Calas had been broken alive on the wheel at Toulouse, and his family were ruined, Voltaire took up their case, aided them with means, spared no effort of his pen or brain, and ultimately achieved the great victory of reversing the unjust sentence, and obtaining compensation for the family. If, then, these Voltaire-haters have not learned to love this great heretic, let them study the narrative of his even more successful endeavors on behalf of the Sirvens; more successful, because in this case he took up the fight before an unjust judgment could be delivered, and thus prevented the repetition of such an iniquitous execution as had taken place in the Calas case. The cowardly slanders as to his conduct when dying are not worth notice; those spit on the grave of the dead who would not have dared to look in the face of the living.