You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty;
you have burned us at the stake--wasted us upon slow fires--torn
our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains--treated us as
outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives
and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have
denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded us
with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial.
In the name of your religion, you have robbed us of every right; and
after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this
world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored
your God to torment us forever.
Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines--that we despise your
creeds--that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power--that
we are free in spite of you--that we can express our honest thought, and
that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light?
Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that Infidelity
has ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of
conscience, and for the happiness of all?
Can you wonder that we are proud to know that we have always been
disciples of Reason, and soldiers of Freedom; that we have denounced
tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human
blood?
We deny that religion is the end or object of this life. When it is so
considered it becomes destructive of happiness--the real end of life.
It becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible coils from the
heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering
hearts of men. It devours their substance, builds palaces for God, (who
dwells not in temples made with hands,) and allows his children to
die in huts and hovels. It fills the earth with mourning, heaven with
hatred, the present with fear, and all the future with despair.
Virtue is a subordination of the passions to the intellect. It is to
act in accordance with your highest convictions. It does not consist in
believing, but in doing. This is the sublime truth that the Infidels in
all ages have uttered. They have handed the torch from one to the other
through all the years that have fled. Upon the altar of Reason they have
kept the sacred fire, and through the long midnight of faith they fed
the divine flame.
Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery. In every creed man is
the slave of God--woman is the slave of man and the sweet children are
the slaves of all.
We do not want creeds; we want knowledge--we want happiness.
And yet we are told by the church that we have accomplished nothing;
that we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without building again.
Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it
nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science?
Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? Is it nothing to
grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons,
the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are
chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the
song of a bird, the murmur of a stream; to see the dull eyes open and
grow slowly bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused
hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice?
Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of
day--to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and
hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe
the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched
and furrowed cheeks? Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an
insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with
stars, the grand word--Freedom?
Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of
pity--to unbind the martyr from the stake--break all the chains--put
out the fires of civil war--stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the
bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science?
Is it a small thing to make men truly free--to destroy the dogmas of
ignorance, prejudice and power--the poisoned fables of superstition, and
drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of Fear?
It does seem as though the most zealous Christian must at times
entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For
eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. For more than
a thousand years the church had, to a great extent, the control of the
civilized world, and what has been the result? Are the Christian nations
patterns of charity and forbearance? On the contrary, their principal
business is to destroy each other. More than five millions of Christians
are trained, educated, and drilled to murder their fellow-christians.
Every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred in carrying on war
against other Christians, or defending itself from Christian assault.
The world is covered with forts to protect Christians from Christians,
and every sea is covered with iron monsters ready to blow Christian
brains into eternal froth. Millions upon millions are annually expended
in the effort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of
death. Industry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is
taxed to defray the expenses of Christian warfare. There must be some
other way to reform this world. We have tried creed, and dogma and
fable, and they have failed; and they have failed in all the nations
dead.
The people perish for the lack of knowledge.
Nothing but education--scientific education--can benefit mankind. We
must find out the laws of nature and conform to them.
We need free bodies and free minds,--free labor and free
thought,--chainless hands and fetterless brains. Free labor will give us
wealth. Free thought will give us truth.
We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts,
and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. We need have
no fear of being too radical. The future will verify all grand and brave
predictions. Paine was splendidly in advance of his time; but he was
orthodox compared with the Infidels of to-day.
Science, the great Iconoclast, has been busy since 1809, and by the
highway of Progress are the broken images of the Past.
On every hand the people advance. The Vicar of God has been pushed from
the throne of the Caesars, and upon the roofs of the Eternal City falls
once more the shadow of the Eagle.
All has been accomplished by the heroic few. The men of science have
explored heaven and earth, and with infinite patience have furnished
the facts. The brave thinkers have used them. The gloomy caverns of
superstition have been transformed into temples of thought, and the
demons of the past are the angels of to-day.
Science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it
explored the starry depths of heaven. Science wrested from the gods
their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark, freighted with thought
and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea. Science took a tear
from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, created a giant
that turns with tireless arm, the countless wheels of toil.
Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual heroes--one of the men to whom
we are indebted. His name is associated forever with the Great Republic.
As long as free government exists he will be remembered, admired and
honored.
He lived a long, laborious and useful life. The world is better for his
having lived. For the sake of truth he accepted hatred and reproach for
his portion. He ate the bitter bread of sorrow. His friends were untrue
to him because he was true to himself, and true to them. He lost the
respect of what is called society, but kept his own. His life is what
the world calls failure and what history calls success.
If to love your fellow-men more than self is goodness, Thomas Paine was
good.
If to be in advance of your time--to be a pioneer in the direction of
right--is greatness, Thomas Paine was great.
If to avow your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of
death is heroic, Thomas Paine was a hero.
At the age of seventy-three, death touched his tired heart. He died
in the land his genius defended--under the flag he gave to the skies.
Slander cannot touch him now--hatred cannot reach him more. He sleeps in
the sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars.
A few more years--a few more brave men--a few more rays of light, and
mankind will venerate the memory of him who said:
"ANY SYSTEM OF RELIGION THAT SHOCKS THE MIND OF A CHILD CANNOT BE A TRUE
SYSTEM;"
"The world is my Country, and to do good my Religion."