A story for every day...
Voltaire and his lackeys.
Voltaire, this great hater of Christianity, had once invited his two friends, d’Alembert and Diderot, to supper. These having made some impious remarks, Voltaire said to them: “I beg you, never say anything like that in front of my lackeys; wait until they have gone out. For if they regulate their conduct according to the maxims you have just uttered, I am sure that they will cut our necks in the night.” Similarly he wrote in one of his letters, “If I were a prince, I would not tolerate atheist courtiers near me: these people would poison me the first moment they found their interest in it.”
– Voltaire still has many imitators among the proud of the world. While they have no religion for themselves, they hold to it outwardly, especially for their subordinates, because they fear for their lives and their safes; they know that religion has a salutary influence on the conscience of men and turns them away from crime.
