80
“GIBBON, VOLTAIRE, HUME,” The Gospel Trumpet, vol. 2 (1823), p. 63.
“N.Y. Amer.”
The Gospel Trumpet (Springfield and Dayton, Ohio) was published by Saul & Moses M. Henkle in 2 volumes from 1822 and 1823. On the Gospel Trumpet see Gaylord P. Albaugh, History and Annotated Bibliography of American Religious Periodicals and Newspapers (Worcester, 1994), vol. 1, pp. 481–3; API, p. 95.
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The following singular facts were stated at a meeting of a public society in Sheffield, England: Gibbon, who in his celebrated history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, has left an imperishable memorial of his enmity to the gospel, resided many years in Switzerland, where with the profits of his works he purchased a considerable estate. This property has descended to a gentleman who out of its rents, expends a large sum annually in the promulgation of that very gospel which his predecessor insidiously endeavoured to undermine. Voltaire boasted that with one hand he could overthrow that edifice of christianity which required the hands of the twelve apostles to build up. At this day the press which he employed at Ferney to print his blasphemies, is actually employed at Geneva in printing the Holy Scriptures. It is a remarkable circumstance, also, that the first provisional meeting for the formation of the Auxiliary Bible society, at Edinburgh, was held in the very room in which Hume died. N.Y. Amer.