THOMAS PAINE was born in Thetford, England. He came from the common
people. At the age of thirty-seven he left England for America. He
was the first to perceive the destiny of the New World. He wrote the
pamphlet "Common Sense," and in a few months the Continental Congress
declared the colonies free and independent States--a new nation was
born. Paine having aroused the spirit of independence, gave every energy
of his soul to keep the spirit alive. He was with the army. He shared
its defeats and its glory. When the situation became desperate, he gave
them "The Crisis." It was a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night,
leading the way to freedom, honor, and to victory.
The writings of Paine are gemmed with compact statements that carry
conviction to the dullest. Day and night he labored for America, until
there was a government of the people and for the people. At the close
of the Revolution, no one stood higher than Thomas Paine. Had he been
willing to live a hypocrite, he would have been respectable, he at least
could have died surrounded by other hypocrites, and at his death there
would have been an imposing funeral, with miles of carriages, filled
with hypocrites, and above his hypocritical dust there would have been a
hypocritical monument covered with lies.
Having done so much for man in America, he went to France. The seeds
sown by the great infidels were bearing fruit in Europe. The eighteenth
century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of progress.
Upon his arrival in France he was elected a member of the French
Convention--in fact, he was selected about the same time by the people
of no less than four Departments. He was one of the committee to draft
a constitution for France. In the Assembly, where nearly all were
demanding the execution of the king, he had the courage to vote against
death. To vote against the death of the king was to vote against his own
life. This was the sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he
was arrested, imprisoned, and doomed to death. While under sentence of
death, while in the gloomy cell of his prison, Thomas Paine wrote to
Washington, asking him to say one word to Robespierre in favor of the
author of "Common Sense." Washington did not reply. He wrote again.
Washington, the President, paid no attention to Thomas Paine, the
prisoner. The letter was thrown into the wastebasket of forgetfulness,
and Thomas Paine remained condemned to death. Afterward he gave his
opinion of Washington at length, and I must say, that I have never found
it in my heart to greatly blame him.
Thomas Paine, having done so much for political liberty, turned his
attention to the superstitions of his age. He published "The Age of
Reason;" and from that day to this, his character has been maligned by
almost every priest in Christendom. He has been held up as the terrible
example. Every man who has expressed an honest thought, has been
warningly referred to Thomas Paine. All his services were forgotten. No
kind word fell from any pulpit. His devotion to principle, his zeal for
human rights, were no longer remembered. Paine simply took the ground
that it is a contradiction to call a thing a revelation that comes to us
second-hand. There can be no revelation beyond the first communication.
All after that is hearsay. He also showed that the prophecies of the Old
Testament had no relation whatever to Jesus Christ, and contended that
Jesus Christ was simply a man. In other words, Paine was an enlightened
Unitarian. Paine thought the Old Testament too barbarous to have been
the work of an infinitely benevolent God. He attacked the doctrine that
salvation depends upon belief. He insisted that every man has the right
to think.
After the publication of these views every falsehood that malignity
could coin and malice pass was given to the world. On his return to
America, after the election to the presidency of another infidel, Thomas
Jefferson, it was not safe for him to appear in the public streets. He
was in danger of being mobbed. Under the very flag he had helped to put
in heaven his rights were not respected. Under the Constitution that he
had suggested, his life was insecure. He had helped to give liberty to
more than three millions of his fellow-citizens, and they were willing
to deny it unto him. He was deserted, ostracized, shunned, maligned, and
cursed. He enjoyed the seclusion of a leper; but he maintained through
it all his integrity. He stood by the convictions of his mind. Never for
one moment did he hesitate or waver.
He died almost alone. The moment he died Christians commenced
manufacturing horrors for his death-bed. They had his chamber filled
with devils rattling chains, and these ancient lies are annually
certified to by the respectable Christians of the present day. The truth
is, he died as he had lived. Some ministers were impolite enough to
visit him against his will. Several of them he ordered from his room.
A couple of Catholic priests, in all the meekness of hypocrisy, called
that they might enjoy the agonies of a dying friend of man. Thomas
Paine, rising in his bed, the few embers of expiring life blown into
flame by the breath of indignation, had the goodness to curse them both.
His physician, who seems to have been a meddling fool, just as the cold
hand of death was touching the patriot's heart, whispered in the dull
ear of the dying man: "Do you believe, or do you wish to believe, that
Jesus Christ is the son of God?" And the reply was: "I have no wish to
believe on that subject."
These were the last remembered words of Thomas Paine. He died as
serenely as ever Christian passed away. He died in the full possession
of his mind, and on the very brink and edge of death proclaimed the
doctrines of his life.
Every Christian, every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty,
should feel under obligation to Thomas Paine for the splendid service
rendered by him in the darkest days of the American Revolution. In the
midnight of Valley Forge, "The Crisis" was the first star that glittered
in the wide horizon of despair. Every good man should remember
with gratitude the brave words spoken by Thomas Paine in the French
Convention against the death of Louis. He said: "We will kill the king,
but not the man. We will destroy monarchy, not the monarch."
Thomas Paine was a champion, in both hemispheres, of human liberty; one
of the founders and fathers of this Republic; one of the foremost men of
his age. He never wrote a word in favor of injustice. He was a despiser
of slavery. He abhorred tyranny in every form. He was, in the widest and
best sense, a friend of all his race. His head was as clear as his heart
was good, and he had the courage to speak his honest thought.
He was the first man to write these words: "The United States of
America." He proposed the present Federal Constitution. He furnished
every thought that now glitters in the Declaration of Independence.
He believed in one God and no more. He was a believer even in special
providence, and he hoped for immortality.
How can the world abhor the man who said:
"I believe in the equality of man, and that religious duties consist
in doing justice, in loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our
fellow-creatures happy."--
"It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to
himself."--
"The word of God is the creation which we behold."--
"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."--
"My opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good
and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy
hereafter."--
"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests."--
"I believe in one God, and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this
life."--
"Man has no property in man"--and "The key of heaven is not in the
keeping of any sect!"
Had it not been for Thomas Paine I could not deliver this lecture here
to-night..
It is still fashionable to calumniate this man--and yet Channing,
Theodore Parker, Longfellow, Emerson, and in fact all the liberal
Unitarians and Universalists of the world have adopted the opinions of
Thomas Paine.
Let us compare these Infidels with the Christians of their time:
Compare Julian with Constantine,--the murderer of his wife,--the
murderer of his son,--and who established Christianity with the same
sword he had wet with their blood. Compare him with all the Christian
emperors--with all the robbers and murderers and thieves--the parricides
and fratricides and matricides that ever wore the imperial purple on the
banks of the Tiber or the shores of the Bosphorus.
Let us compare Bruno with the Christians who burned him; and we will
compare Spinoza, Voltaire, Diderot, Hume, Jefferson, Paine--with the men
who it is claimed have been the visible representatives of God.
Let it be remembered that the popes have committed every crime of which
human nature is capable, and that not one of them was the friend of
intellectual liberty--that not one of them ever shed one ray of light.
Let us compare these Infidels with the founders of sectarian churches;
you will see how narrow, how bigoted, how cruel were their founders, and
how broad, how generous, how noble, were these infidels.
Let us be honest. The great effort of the human mind is to ascertain the
order of facts by which we are surrounded--the history of things.
Who has accomplished the most in this direction--the church, or
the unbelievers? Upon one side write all that the church has
discovered--every phenomenon that has been explained by a creed, every
new fact in Nature that has been discovered by a church, and on the
other side write the discoveries of Humboldt, and the observations and
demonstrations of Darwin!
Who has made Germany famous--her priests, or her scientists?
Goethe.
Kant: That immortal man who said: "Whoever thinks that he can please
God in any way except by discharging his obligations to his fellows, is
superstitious."