Part 7

Alluding to this subject, the Rev. Dr. Minot J. Savage, in a sermon, said: "The pictures that represent him on his knees in the winter forest at Valley Forge are silly caricatures."

Dr. Conway, who was employed to edit Washington's letters, and who is considered one of the best authorities on his domestic life, says: "Many clergymen visited him, but they were never invited to hold family prayers, and no grace was ever said at table."

Washington's library contained the Deistical works of Paine, Voltaire and other Freethinkers. When the French Freethinker Volney visited this country he was the guest of Washington.

"His services as a vestryman had no special significance from a religious standpoint. The political affairs of a Virginia county were then directed by the vestry, which, having the power to elect its own members, was an important instrument of the oligarchy of Virginia."--_General A. W. Greeley in Ladies' Home Journal._

George Wilson, whose ancestors occupied the pew next to Washington's in Virginia, says.: "At that time the vestry was the county court, and in order to have a hand in managing the affairs of the county, in which his large property lay, regulating the levy of taxes, etc., Washington had to be a vestryman."

Jefferson was a more radical Freethinker than Paine, as the following passages from his writings will show. My quotations are from Randolph's edition of Jefferson's works, published in 1829.

In a letter to his nephew and ward, Peter Carr, while at school, Jefferson writes: "Read the Bible as you would Livy or Tacitus... Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God."--_Jefferson's Works, Vol. ii, P. 217._

The God of the Old Testament, the God that Christians worship, Jefferson pronounces "a being of terrific character--cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust."--_Works, vol. iv, p. 325._

In the Four Gospels, which Christians consider the most authentic and the most important books of the Bible, Jefferson discovers what he terms "a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications."--_Ibid._

"Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers [Matthew, Mark, Luke and John], I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, of so much absurdity, so much untruth and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross, restore to him the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some and the roguery of others of his disciples."--_Works, vol. iv. p. 320._

Jefferson made a compilation of the finer alleged sayings of Jesus which have been published and paraded as proof of Jefferson's acceptance of Christ. For the man Jesus, Jefferson, like Paine, Ingersoll and other Freethinkers, had the greatest admiration, but for the Christ Jesus of orthodox Christianity he had the greatest contempt.

"Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Corypheus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus."--_Vol. iv. p. 327._

"It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they believe in the Platonic mysticism that three are one and one is three... But this constitutes the craft, the power and profit of the priests. Sweep away their gossamer fabrics of fictitious religion and they would catch no more flies."--_Ibid, p. 205._

"The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ leveled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticisms of Plato materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order and introduce it to profit, power and preeminence."--_Ibid, p. 242._

"The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God, like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs."--_Ibid, p. 360._

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."--_Ibid, p. 365._

"In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the women. They have their night meetings and praying parties, where, attended by their priests and sometimes by a henpecked husband, they pour forth the effusions of their love to Jesus in terms as amatory and carnal as their modesty would permit to a mere earthly lover."--_Ibid, p. 358._

"Jefferson occupied his Sundays at Monticello in writing letters to Paine (they are unpublished I believe, but I have seen them) in favor of the probabilities that Christ and his Twelve Apostles were only personifications of the sun and the Twelve signs of the Zodiac."--_Dr. Conway._

The correspondence of Jefferson and Paine would fill a volume. In these letters Jefferson unbosomed himself and gave expression to his most radical sentiments. Randolph's edition of Jefferson's works was published twenty years after Paine's death. By this time the Orthodox ghouls had about completed their work and these letters, although containing some of Jefferson's most mature thoughts and best writings, remained unpublished.

In a letter to Dr. Woods, Jefferson says: "I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies." "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."--_Jefferson's Notes on Virginia._

Writing to Jefferson on the 5th of May, 1817, John Adams, giving expression to the matured conviction of eighty-two years, says: "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it." To this radical declaration Jefferson replied: "If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas in which no two of them agree, then your declaration on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of worlds, if there were no religion in it.'"--_Works, vol. iv. p. 301._

Writing to John Adams just before his death Jefferson makes the following declaration of his belief: "I am a Materialist."

"A question has been raised as to Thomas Jefferson's religious views. There need be no question, for he has settled that himself. He was an Infidel, or, as he chose to term it, a Materialist. By his own account he was as heterodox as Colonel Inger-soll, and in some respects even more so."--_Chicago Tribune._

Alluding to Jefferson's belief the Rev. Dr. Wilson in his sermon on "The Religion of the Presidents," previously quoted, says: "Whatever difference of opinion there may have been at the time [of his election], it is now rendered certain that he was a Deist.... Since his death, and the publication of Randolph, [Jefferson's Works], there remains not the shadow of doubt of his Infidel principles. If any man thinks there is, let him look at the book itself. I do not recommend the purchase of it to any man, for it is one of the most wicked and dangerous books extant."

"In religion he was a Freethinker; in morals pure and unspotted."--_Benson J. Lossing, in his "Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence!'_

"Surely, Christians, your cause must be growing desperate, when, to sustain it, you must needs claim for its support so bitter an enemy as Thomas Jefferson--a man who affirmed that he was a Materialist; a man who recognized in your religion only "our particular superstition," a superstition without "one redeeming feature;" a man who divided the Christian world into two classes--"hypocrites and fools;" a man who asserted that your Bible is a book abounding with "vulgar ignorance;" a man who termed your Father, Son, and Holy Ghost a "hocus-pocus phantasm;" a man who denounced your God as "cruel, vindictive, and unjust;" a man who intimated that your Savior was "a man of illegitimate birth;" a man who declared his disciples, including your oracle Paul, to be a "band of dupes and impostors and who characterized your modern priesthood, of all denominations, as cannibal priests" and an "abandoned confederacy" against public happiness."--_The Fathers of Our Republic._

Franklin rejected Christianity when a boy and remained a Rationalist to the end of his life.

"Some volumes against deism fell into my hands. They were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the deists, which were cited in order to be refuted, appealed to me much more forcibly than the refutation itself. In a word I soon became a thorough Deist."--_Franklin's Autobiography._

Writing to Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, when he was eighty-four, he says: "I have with most of the Dissenters in England, doubts as to his [Christ's] divinity."

"By heaven we understand a state of happiness, infinite in degree and eternal in duration. I can do nothing to deserve such a reward.... I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect, or the ambition to desire it."--_Franklin's Works, vol. vii., p. 75._

"I wish it [Christianity] were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it. I mean real good works, works of kindness, charity, mercy, and public spirit, not holy-day keeping, sermon hearing and reading, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments, despised even by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity."--_Ibid._

"Nowadays we have scarcely a little parson that does not think it the duty of every man within his reach to sit under his petty ministration, and that whoever omits this offends God. To such I wish more humility."--_Franklin's Works, vol. vii. pp. 76,77._

"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion," affirmed Washington (treaty with Tripoli). "Keep the church and the state forever separate," said Grant (Des Moines speech). And yet, in spite of this declaration and this admonition religious liberty has been ignored and a practical union of church and state has been maintained--the exemption of ecclesiastical property from taxation, the employment of chaplains, appropriations for sectarian purposes, religious services, including the use of the Bible, in our public schools, the appointment of religious festivals, the judicial oath and the enforced observance of Sunday as a Sabbath. Concerning these and similar privileges of his time and of our time, Franklin says: "I think they were invented not so much to secure religion as the emoluments of it. When a religion is good I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it, so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."--_Franklin's Works, vol. viii., p. 506._

Theodore Parker, in his "Four Historic Americans," writes as follows concerning Franklin's belief: "If belief in the miraculous revelation of the Old Testament and the New is required to make a man religious, then Franklin had no religion at all. It would be an insult to say that he believed in the popular theology of his time, or of ours, for I find not a line from his pen indicating any such belief."

The eminent statesman John Hay, in an article on "Franklin in France," published after his death in the _Century Magazine_ for January, 1906, ascribes much of Franklin's popularity in France to his espousal of Freethought. He says: "Franklin became the fashion of the season. For the court dabbled a little in liberal ideas. So powerful was the vast impulse of Freethought that then influenced the mind of France--that susceptible French mind, that always answers like the wind harp to the breath of every true human aspiration--that even the highest classes had caught the infection of liberalism." Among Franklin's most intimate companions in France Mr. Hay mentions Voltaire, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, and Condorcet, four of France's most radical Freethinkers.

Dr. Franklin and Dr. Priestley were intimate friends. After Franklin's death Dr. Priestley wrote: "It is much to be lamented that a man of Franklin's general good character and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and also have done as much as he did to make others unbelievers."--_Priestley's Autobiography, p. 60._

This great man was himself denounced as an Infidel. He was a Unitarian, and was mobbed and driven from England on account of his heretical opinions and his sympathy with the French Revolution. Franklin's Infidelity must have been very pronounced to have provoked the censure of Dr. Priestley.

There has been published a religious tract, entitled "Don't Unchain the Tiger," which purports to be a letter from Franklin to Paine, advising him not to publish his "Age of Reason." The only thing needed to cause a rejection of this pious fiction is a knowledge of the fact that Franklin had been dead nearly four years when the first page of Paine's book was written. Besides, the opinions expressed in this book were the opinions of Franklin. Paine's biographer, Dr. Conway, says: "Paine's deism differed from Franklin's only in being more fervently religious." Franklin's biographer, James Parton, says: "It ['Age of Reason'] contains not a position which Franklin, John Adams, Jefferson and Theodore Parker would have dissented from."

The Rev. John Snyder, of St. Louis, says: "Paine shared the religious convictions of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Franklin." Concerning the belief of these and other noted men, the Rev. Dr. Swing, of Chicago, says: "Voltaire, Bolingbroke, Pitt, Burke, Washington, Lafayette, Jefferson, Paine and Franklin moved along in a wonderful unity of belief, both political and religious."

"Paine wrote the 'Age of Reason' in Paris some years after Franklin was dead.... The letter called the letter of Franklin to Paine bears no address or date or signature. It may not have been written by Franklin to anybody. The evangelists who cite this letter intend to convey the impression that the 'Tiger' means unbelief. The indication is that the writer had in his mind the beast of fanaticism and detraction. That tiger was let loose by the 'Age of Reason' against its author, and the animal and its whelps are still with us."--_George E. Macdonald._

Another Franklin myth is that concerning Franklin's motion for prayers in the Convention that framed our Constitution. The Convention, it is claimed, had labored for weeks without accomplishing anything when, at Franklin's suggestion, its sessions were opened with prayer, after which its work was speedily performed. While Franklin's proposal was not inconsistent with his Deistic belief it was not adopted. There was not a prayer offered from the opening to the close of the Convention. Franklin himself says: "The Convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary."

Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Paine were four of the greatest and noblest of men. All held substantially the same religious opinions. All were Deists. All rejected Christianity. Yet Washington, Jefferson and Franklin are held in grateful remembrance, while Paine has been reviled as no other man has been reviled. How do we account for this? Paine's mere rejection of Christianity does not account for it.

The "Age of Reason" was suppressed by the government in England. In America it could not be suppressed by law. The only way the clergy could suppress it here was to resort to slander, to cover its author's name with obloquy and make him appear so vile that no respectable bookseller would dare to sell it and no respectable reader dare to read it.

"In England it was easy for Paine's chief antagonist, the bishop of Llandaff [Watson] to rebuke Paine's strong language, when his lordship could sit serenely in the House of Peers with knowledge that his opponent was answered with handcuffs for every Englishman who sold his book. But in America slander had to take the place of handcuffs."--_Dr. Conway._

Henry A. Beers: "His book was denounced from a hundred pulpits and copies of it were carefully locked away from the sight of 'the young,' whose religious beliefs it might undermine."

James B. Elliott, of Philadelphia, says he well remembers the "time when it was impossible to obtain the 'Age of Reason' except under cover of the greatest secrecy and when he who was known to have read it was shunned as a dangerous person."

Hugh O. Pentecost: "Paine's offense was not that he was an Infidel, but that he made his meaning so clear that the common people could become Infidels, too."

"It is true that Paine was Republican and Deist, an enemy of kings and churches. But many men of great and undimmed honor held the same principles: Washington, Jefferson and Franklin and others of the 'Fathers' were Deists, and in England that creed was even fashionable in certain aristocratic quarters. Paine's real sin was not that he preached Deism in the land of Bolingbroke, Hume and Gibbon,... but that he succeeded for the first time in inoculating the people with his heresies."--_The Nation, London._

"Mimnermus," an English writer, says: "There were critics of the Bible, it is true, before Paine's day, but they were mainly scholars whose works were not easily understood by ordinary folk. Paine himself, a man of genius, had sprung from the people, and he spoke their tongue and made their thoughts articulate."

"Paine held that the people at large had the right of access to all new ideas, and he wrote so as to reach the people. Hence, his book must be suppressed."--_Prof. J. B. Bury, LL.D._

John S. Crosby: "The reason why his writings are excluded from our colleges is not on account of what he said about the _prophets_, but for fear that the realization of his ideas may diminish the _profits_."

"Recognizing the magic influence that a great name carries with it, the clergy have inscribed in the Christian roster the names of hundreds who were total disbelievers in their dogmas. As the venders of quack nostrums attach the forged certificates of distinguished individuals to their worthless drugs, to make them sell, so these theological venders present the manufactured endorsements of the great to make their nostrums popular. Washington, Jefferson and Franklin have all been denominated Christians, not because they were such, for they were not, but because of the influence that attaches to their names. Paine's opposition to priestcraft was too pronounced and too well known to claim him as an adherent of their faith, and so they have sought to destroy his influence by destroying his good name. Not only this, knowing the prejudice that has prevailed against Atheism, they have misrepresented his theological opinions and declared him an Atheist."--_The Fathers of Our Republic._

"This injustice to him was perpetrated in defense of a system that does not care, because it does not dare to have its credentials and foundation critically examined; in other words, Paine has been maligned for more than a century by those interested in keeping veiled the image; he did what he could--and it was much--to uncover to the gaze of the world."--_E. C. Walker._

William M. Salter, A. M.: "It is to the shame of religious prejudice in our country that he is not freely and gladly given his place alongside of Franklin and Washington."

"The rankest ingratitude the American people have ever exhibited has been that of the systematic attempt to blot the name of Paine from the memory of succeeding generations, and to allow no historical mention in the annals of the nation which he greatly and gloriously helped to found. But with the destruction of every error truth rises clear and bright. The time will come when his picture will be as familiar to school children as those of his great contemporaries, Washington, Jefferson and Franklin."--. _J. B. Wilson._

Pretended reviewers of Paine, including the authors of many encyclopedic articles on Paine, writers who, for the most part, never read the "Age of Reason," characterize it as crude and superficial, declare its arguments to be weak and fallacious and its author to have had little or no influence in changing the religious opinions of his time. It is a sufficient answer to these critics to cite the fact that from thirty to forty elaborate replies from Christian writers followed it in rapid succession, each writer tacitly admitting that it needed answering and that all preceding efforts to answer it had been failures.

Paine's orthodox critics also affect to believe that his "Age of Reason" is no longer read, that it is an "out of print" book for which there is no demand. The fact is ever since the first London and Paris editions were published in 1794 there has been a constant and widespread demand for it.

Millions of copies have been printed and sold during this time, and today the demand for it is greater than ever before.

Dr. John W. Francis (referring to "Age of Reason"): "No work had the demand for readers comparable to that of Paine."

One bookseller of New York says that his sales of the "Age of Reason" now average more than five thousand copies a year. He is but one of many New York booksellers who sell Paine's book, while New York is but one of many cities where it has an extensive sale. A Chicago bookseller says that the "Age of Reason" is his best seller, that he sells thousands of them every year.

William Heaford (1913): "Two large editions of forty thousand copies each will be issued of this invaluable edition of Paine's great text book of Biblical exegesis [by Watts & Co., London]."

"There were sold in Burma [mostly to Buddhists] over ten thousand copies of the 'Age of Reason' last year."--_U. Dhamaloka, President Buddhist Tract Society._

Arthur B. Moss: "During the past fifty years hundreds of thousands of copies of the 'Age of Reason' have been circulated in England and America alone.... The steady circulation of this work has done more than that of any other book to undermine the faith of Christians in all parts of the world."

H. Percy Ward (formerly an English clergyman): "Thomas Paine's 'Age of Reason' gave the first shock to my faith."

Wilson MacDonald: "I read the 'Age of Reason' when a boy, and I said, Paine is the hero for me."

Susan H. Wixon: "I read that book again and again, and always with increased interest. It set me to thinking more than any other bode I had ever read."

Sir Hiram Maxim: "It is indeed a very remarkable work. As a boy I read it with great care; as a man I have read it thoughtfully."

James D. Shaw: "Of all the books ever published, I doubt if any other has ever equaled the 'Age of Reason' in breaking from the human mind superstition's fetters."

"The effect of this pamphlet was vast."--_London Times._

Edwin P. Whipple: "The most influential assailant of the orthodox faith was Thomas Paine."

Francis E. Abbot, Ph.D.: "His 'Age of Reason' was one of the greatest historic blows ever struck for freedom. Paine's name ought to be written in letters of gold in the roll of the world's heroes."

"It is still a living work, read by thousands, and carrying conviction wherever it finds an open mind."--_James F. Morton, Jr._