An Oration On The Life And Services Of Thomas Paine Part 2

Cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants--temples frescoed and groined and carved, and gilded with gold--altars and tapers, and paintings of virgin and babe--censer and chalice, chasuble, paten and alb--organs and anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest--maniple, amice and stole--crosses and crosiers, tiaras and crowns--mitres and missals and ma.s.ses--rosaries, relics and robes--martyrs and saints, and windows stained as with the blood of Christ, never for one moment awed the brave, proud spirit of the Infidel. He knew that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with liberty--that priceless jewel of the soul. In looking at the cathedral he remembered the dungeon. The music of the organ was as not loud enough to drown the clank of fetters. He could not forget that the taper had lighted the f.a.got. He knew that the cross adorned the hilt of the sword, and so where others wors.h.i.+ped, he wept and scorned.

The doubter, the investigator, the Infidel, have been the saviors of liberty. This truth is beginning to be realized, and the intellectual are beginning to honor the brave thinkers of the past.

But the Church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any Infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power.

I will tell the Church why.

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 G.o.d 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 superst.i.tion, 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 G.o.d, (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 pa.s.sions 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 G.o.d--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, where the souls of men are chained to the 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 h.e.l.l 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 superst.i.tion, 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, control of the civilized world, and what has been the result? Are the Christian nations patterns of charity and forbearance?

On the contrary, their princ.i.p.al 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 themselves from Christian a.s.sault. 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 G.o.d 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 superst.i.tion 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.sociated 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 he 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."