The finger of the atheists' own divinity, Reason, wrote on the wall the appalling judgments that there is no God; that the universe is only matter in spontaneous motion; and, most grievous word of all, that what men call their souls die with the death of the body, as music dies when the strings are broken.

Returning to America he soon entered definitely upon a literary career. It speedily passed through many editions was translated into French Dutch German and Russian. John Lothrop Motley a Memoir (Boston 1878); and John Lothrop Motley and his Family: Further Letters and Records (1910) edited by his daughter Mrs Susan St John Mildmay.