By translating into both the English and German languages Le Bon Sens,
containing the Last Will and Testament of the French curate JEAN
MESLIER, Miss Anna Knoop has performed a most useful and meritorious
task, and in issuing a new edition of this work, it is but justice to
her memory [Miss Knoop died Jan. 11, 1889.] to state that her
translation has received the endorsement of our most competent critics.
In a letter dated Newburyport, Mass., Sep. 23, 1878, Mr. James Parton,
the celebrated author, commends Miss Knoop for "translating Meslier's
book so well," and says that:
"This work of the honest pastor is the most curious and the most
powerful thing of the kind which the last century produced. . . . .
Paine and Voltaire had reserves, but Jean Meslier had none. He keeps
nothing back; and yet, after all, the wonder is not that there should
have been one priest who left that testimony at his death, but that all
priests do not. True, there is a great deal more to be said about
religion, which I believe to be an eternal necessity of human nature,
but no man has uttered the negative side of the matter with so much
candor and completeness as Jean Meslier."
The value of the testimony of a catholic priest, who in his last moments
recanted the errors of his faith and asked God's pardon for having
taught the catholic religion, was fully appreciated by Voltaire, who
highly commended this grand work of Meslier. He voluntarily made every
effort to increase its circulation, and even complained to D' Alembert
"that there were not as many copies in all Paris as he himself had
dispersed throughout the mountains of Switzerland." [See Letter 504,
Voltaire to D'Alembert] He earnestly entreats his associates to print
and distribute in Paris an edition of at least four or five thousand
copies, and at the suggestion of D'Alembert, made an abstract or
abridgment of The Testament "so small as to cost no more than five
pence, and thus to be fitted for the pocket and reading of every
workman." [Letter 146, from D'Alembert.]
The Abbé Barruel claims in his Memoirs [See History of Jacobinism by the
Abbé Barruel, 4 vols. 8 VO, translated by the Hon. Robert Clifford, F.
R. S., and printed in London in 1798. The learned Abbé defines
Jacobinism as "the error of every man who, judging of all things by the
standard of his own reason, rejects in religious matters every authority
that is not derived from the light of nature. It is the error of every
man who denies the possibility of any mystery beyond the limits of his
reason, of every one who, discarding revelation in defence of the
pretended rights of Reason, Equality, and Liberty, seeks to subvert the
whole fabric of the Christian religion." B. 4.] to detect in the
writings of Voltaire and of the leading Encyclopedists, a conspiracy not
only against the Altar but also against the Throne. He severely
denounces the "Last Will of Jean Meslier,--that famous Curate of
Etrepigni,--whose apostasy and blasphemies made so strong an impression
on the minds of the populace," and he styles the plan of D'Alembert for
circulating a few thousand copies of the Abstract of the Will, as a "base
project against the doctrines of the Gospel." [Ibid, page 145] He even
asserts his belief that:
"The Jacobins will one day declare that all men are free, that all men
are equal; and as a consequence of this Equality and Liberty they will
conclude that every man must be left to the light of reason. That every
religion subjecting man's reason to mysteries, or to the authority of
any revelation speaking in God's name, is a religion of constraint and
slavery; that as such it should be annihilated in order to reestablish
the indefeasible rights of Equality and Liberty as to the belief or
disbelief of all that the reason of man approves or disapproves: and
they will call this Equality and Liberty the reign of Reason and the
empire of Philosophy." [History of Jacobinism, page 51.]
The results which the Abbé Barruel so clearly foresaw have at length
been realized. The labors of the Jacobins have not been in vain, and the
Revolution they incited has restored France to the government of the
people!
"With ardent hope for the future," says President Carnot in his
centennial address, May 5, 1889, "I greet in the palace of the monarchy
the representatives of a nation that is now in complete possession of
herself, that is mistress of her destinies, and that is in the full
splendor and strength of liberty. The first thoughts on this solemn
meeting turn to our fathers. The immortal generation of 1789, by dint
of courage and many sacrifices, secured for us benefits which we must
bequeath to our sons as a most precious inheritance. Never can our
gratitude equal the grandeur of the services rendered by our fathers to
France and to the human race. . . . The Revolution was based upon the
rights of man. It created a new era in history and founded modern
society."
This is literally true. The freethinkers of France have taught mankind
the doctrines of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. They have taught the
dignity of human reason, and the sacredness of human rights. They have
broken the bondage of the altar, and severed the shackles of the throne;
and it is to be regretted that at the centennial celebration held in
this city on April 30th, 1889, the appointed orator [See the Centennial
Address of the Hon. Chauncey M. Depew.] did not realize the grandeur of
the occasion, and did not, like Carnot, pay a just tribute to our
allies, the reformers of Europe, as well as to the fathers of the
republic. But the people of America will remember what the politician
has forgotten. They will remember the names and deeds of their foreign
benefactors as well as of the American patriots of '76. When they recall
the illustrious Europeans who fought for our liberties they will
remember the name of Lafayette; when they think of the Declaration of
Independence they will not forget the name of Thomas Jefferson; and when
they speak of "the times that tried men's souls" they will recall with
gratitude the name of Thomas Paine.
Although the ecclesiastical conclave at Rome claims the power of working
miracles in defiance of Nature's laws, yet with or without miracles,
they have never answered the simple arguments advanced by Jean Meslier;
although they claim to hold the keys of Paradise, and bind on earth the
souls that are to be bound in heaven, yet year by year their waning
power refutes their senseless boast; although they boldly assert the
dogma of popish infallibility, yet the loss of the temporal power once
wielded by Rome, and the death of each succeeding pontiff, attest both
the Pope's fallibility and the Pope's mortality. Indeed, the successor
of St. Peter is but human--the sacred college at Rome is but mortal; and
faith and dogma cannot forever resist the influence of light and
knowledge. The power of Catholicism is surely declining throughout
Europe; and if it has become aggressive in our American cities, is it
not because the friends of freedom have forgotten the well-known axiom
that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"?