It is said that truth is generally revealed by dying lips. When men full
of health and enjoying all the pleasures of life, exert themselves
without ceasing, to excite minds and to take advantage of their
fanaticism by wearing the mask of religion, it will not be without
interest or importance to know what other men, invested with the same
ministry, have taught under the impulse of a conscience quickened by the
approach of the final hour. Their confessions are more valuable because
they carry with them the spirit of contrition. It is then that the
truth, which is no longer obscured by narrow passions and sordid
interests, presents itself in all its brilliancy, and imposes upon him
who has kept it hidden during his life, the duty, and even the
necessity, of unveiling it fully at his death. It is then that human
speech, losing in a measure its terrestrial nature, becomes persuasive
and convincing.
We know this fact of a celebrated preacher who in the beginning of the
Revolution stood in the same pulpit which we are pleased to call the
pulpit of truth, and with his hand upon his heart declared that till
then he had taught only falsehood. He did more; he implored his
parishioners to forgive him for the gross errors in which he had kept
them, and congratulated them upon having at last arrived at a period
when it was permitted to establish the empire of reason upon the ruins
of prejudice. Times have changed very much, it is true; however, so long
as the press shall be able to combat the fatal errors of religious
fanaticism, and perhaps even to some extent prevent its violence, it
will be the duty of every friend of humanity to reproduce continually
the full retractions which opposed the sincerity and conscience of the
dying to the bad faith and hypocritical avidity of the living. Guided by
this intention, and ashamed to see the human race, in a land just freed
from the yoke of prejudice, give birth to a disgraceful juggling which
will terminate in dominating authority, and associate itself with the
persecutions of which our incredulous or dissenting ancestors were the
sad victims, we believe it useful to reprint the last lessons of a
priest--an honest man--bequeathed to his fellow-citizens and to posterity.
The service we render to Philosophy will be so much the greater when we
can consider as immutable, perpetual, permanent, and ready to appear in
the hour of need, the edition which we are preparing of "COMMON SENSE,
BY THE PRIEST JEAN MESLIER, AND HIS DYING CONFESSION."
To do justice to these two works, to which we have added analytical
notes, which will greatly facilitate our researches, we will limit
ourselves by giving the imposing approbation of two philosophers of the
eighteenth century--Voltaire and d'Alembert. They certainly understood
much better the sublimity of evangelical morality, and spoke of it in a
manner more worthy of its author, than did those who deified it to
profit by its divinity, and who abused so cruelly the ignorance and
barbarity of the first centuries, to establish, in the interest of their
fortunes and power, so many base prejudices, so many puerile and
superstitious practices.
Here is what Voltaire and d'Alembert thought of the curate Meslier and
of his work. Their letters are presented here in order to excite
curiosity and convince the judgment: