The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume II Part 26

About this time Paine published an essay on "The cause of the Yellow Fever, and the means of preventing it in places not yet infected with it Addressed to the Board of Health in America." The treatise, which he dates June 27th, is noticed by Dr. Francis as timely. Paine points out that the epidemic which almost annually afflicted New York, had been unknown to the Indians; that it began around the wharves, and did not reach the higher parts of the city. He does not believe the disease certainly imported from the West Indies, since it is not carried from New York to other places. He thinks that similar filthy conditions of the wharves and the water about them generate the miasma alike in the West Indies and in New York. It would probably be escaped if the wharves were built on stone or iron arches, permitting the tides to cleanse the sh.o.r.e and carry away the acc.u.mulations of vegetable and animal matter decaying around every s.h.i.+p and dock. He particularly proposes the use of arches for wharves about to be constructed at Corlder's Hook and on the North River.

Dr. Francis justly remarks, in his "Old New York," that Paine's writings were usually suggested by some occasion. Besides this instance of the essay on the yellow fever, he mentions one on the origin of Freemasonry, there being an agitation in New York concerning that fraternity.

But this essay---in which Paine, with ingenuity and learning, traces Freemasonry to the ancient solar mythology also identified with Christian mythology--was not published during his life. It was published by Madame Bonneville with the pa.s.sages affecting Christianity omitted.

The original ma.n.u.script was obtained, however, and published with an extended preface, criticizing Paine's theory, the preface being in turn criticized by Paine's editor. The preface was probably written by Colonel Fellows, author of a large work on Freemasonry.

CHAPTER XVIII. A NEW YORK PROMETHEUS

When Paine left Bordentown, on March 1st 1803, driving past placards of the devil flying away with him, and hooted by a pious mob at Trenton, it was with hope of a happy reunion with old friends in more enlightened New York. Col. Few, formerly senator from Georgia, his friend of many years, married Paine's correspondent, Kitty Nicholson, to whom was written the beautiful letter from London (L, p. 247). Col. Few had become a leading man in New York, and his home, and that of the Nicholsons, were of highest social distinction. Paine's arrival at Lovett's Hotel was well known, but not one of those former friends came near him. "They were actively as well as pa.s.sively religious," says Henry Adams, "and their relations with Paine after his return to America in 1802 were those of compa.s.sion only, for his intemperate and offensive habits, and intimacy was impossible."* But Mr. Adams will vainly search his materials for any intimation at that time of the intemperate or offensive habits.

* "Life of Albert Gallatin." Gallatin continued to risk Paine. 360

The "compa.s.sion" is due to those devotees of an idol requiring sacrifice of friends.h.i.+p, loyalty, and intelligence. What a mistake they made! The old author was as a grand organ from which a cunning hand might bring music to be remembered through the generations. In that brain were stored memories of the great Americans, Frenchmen, Englishmen who acted in the revolutionary dramas, and of whom he loved to talk. What would a diary of interviews with Paine, written by his friend Kitty Few, be now worth? To intolerance, the least pardonable form of ignorance, must be credited the failure of those former friends, who supposed themselves educated, to make more of Thomas Paine than a scarred monument of an Age of Unreason.

But the ostracism of Paine by the society which, as Henry Adams states, had once courted him "as the greatest literary genius of his day,"

was not due merely to his religious views, which were those of various statesmen who had incurred no such odium. There was at work a lingering dislike and distrust of the common people. Deism had been rather aristocratic. From the scholastic study, where heresies once written only in Latin were daintily wrapped up in metaphysics, from drawing-rooms where cynical smiles went round at Methodism, and other forms of "Christianity in earnest," Paine carried heresy to the people.

And he brought it as a religion,--as fire from the fervid heaven that orthodoxy had monopolized. The popularity of his writing, the revivalistic earnestness of his protest against dogmas common to all sects, were revolutionary; and while the vulgar bigots were binding him on their rock of ages, and tearing his vitals, most of the educated, the social leaders, were too prudent to manifest any sympathy they may have felt.**

* When Paine first reached New York, 1803, he was (March 5th) entertained at supper by John Crauford. For being present Eliakira Ford, a Baptist elder, was furiously denounced, as were others of the company.

** An exception was the leading Presbyterian, John Mason, who lived to denounce Channing as "the devil's disciple."

Grant Thorbura was psalm-singer in this Scotch preacher's church. Curiosity to see the lion led Thorburn to visit Paine, for which he was "suspended." Thorburn afterwards made amends by fathering Cheetham's slanders of Paine after Cheetham had become too infamous to quote.

It were unjust to suppose that Paine met with nothing but abuse and maltreatment from ministers of serious orthodoxy in New York. They had warmly opposed his views, even denounced them, but the controversy seems to have died away until he took part in the deistic propaganda of Elihu Palmer.' The following to Col. Fellows (July 31st) shows Paine much interested in the "cause":

"I am glad that Palmer and Foster have got together. It will greatly help the cause on. I enclose a letter I received a few days since from Groton, in Connecticut The letter is well written, and with a good deal of sincere enthusiasm. The publication of it would do good, but there is an impropriety in publis.h.i.+ng a man's name to a private letter. You may show the letter to Palmer and Foster.... Remember me to my much respected friend Carver and tell him I am sure we shall succeed if we hold on. We have already silenced the clamor of the priests. They act now as if they would say, let us alone and we will let you alone. You do not tell me if the Prospect goes on. As Carver will want pay he may have it from me, and pay when it suits him; but I expect he will take a ride up some Sat.u.r.day, and then he can chuse for himself."

The result of this was that Paine pa.s.sed the winter in New York, where he threw himself warmly into the theistic movement, and no doubt occasionally spoke from Elihu Palmer's platform.

The rationalists who gathered around Elihu Palmer in New York were called the "Columbian Illuminati." The pompous epithet looks like an effort to connect them with the Columbian Order (Tammany) which was supposed to represent Jacobinism and French ideas generally. Their numbers were considerable, but they did not belong to fas.h.i.+onable society. Their lecturer, Elihu Palmer, was a scholarly gentleman of the highest character. A native of Canterbury, Connecticut, (born 1754) he had graduated at Dartmouth. He was married by the Rev. Mr. Watt to a widow, Mary Powell, in New York (1803), at the time when he was lecturing in the Temple of Reason (Snow's Rooms, Broadway). This suggests that he had not broken with the clergy altogether. Somewhat later he lectured at the Union Hotel, William Street He had studied divinity, and turned against the creeds what was taught him for their support.

"I have more than once [says Dr. Francis] listened to Palmer; none could be weary within the sound of his voice; his diction was cla.s.sical; and much of his natural theology attractive by variety of ill.u.s.tration.

But admiration of him sank into despondency at his a.s.sumption, and his sarcastic a.s.saults on things most holy. His boldest phillippic was his discourse on the t.i.tle-page of the Bible, in which, with the double s.h.i.+eld of jacobinism and infidelity, he warned rising America against confidence in a book authorised by the monarchy of England. Palmer delivered his sermons in the Union Hotel in William Street."

Dr. Francis does not appear to have known Paine personally, but had seen him. Palmer's chief friends in New York were, he says, John Fellows; Rose, an unfortunate lawyer; Taylor, a philanthropist; and Charles Christian. Of Rev. John Foster, another rationalist lecturer, Dr.

Francis says he had a n.o.ble presence and great eloquence. Foster's exordium was an invocation to the G.o.ddess of Liberty. He and Palmer called each other Brother. No doubt Paine completed the Triad.

Col. John Fellows, always the devoted friend of Paine, was an auctioneer, but in later life was a constable in the city courts. He has left three volumes which show considerable literary ability, and industrious research; but these were unfortunately bestowed on such extinct subjects as Freemasonry, the secret of Junius, and controversies concerning General Putnam. It is much to be regretted that Colonel Fellows should not have left a volume concerning Paine, with whom he was in especial intimacy, during his last years.

Other friends of Paine were Thomas Addis Emmet, Walter Morton, a lawyer, and Judge Hertell, a man of wealth, and a distinguished member of the State a.s.sembly. Fulton also was much in New York, and often called on Paine. Paine was induced to board at the house of William Carver (36 Cedar Street), which proved a grievous mistake. Carver had introduced himself to Paine, saying that he remembered him when he was an exciseman at Lewes, England, he (Carver) being a young farrier there. He made loud professions of deism, and of devotion to Paine. The farrier of Lewes had become a veterinary pract.i.tioner and shopkeeper in New York.

Paine supposed that he would be cared for in the house of this active rationalist, but the man and his family were illiterate and vulgar.

His sojourn at Carver's probably shortened Paine's life. Carver, to antic.i.p.ate the narrative a little, turned out to be a bad-hearted man and a traitor.

Paine had acc.u.mulated a ma.s.s of fragmentary writings on religious subjects, and had begun publis.h.i.+ng them in a journal started in 1804 by Elihu Palmer,--_The Prospect; or View of the Moral World_. This succeeded the paper called _The Temple of Reason_. One of Paine's objects was to help the new journal, which attracted a good deal of attention. His first communication (February 18, 1804), was on a sermon by Robert Hall, on "Modern Infidelity," sent him by a gentleman in New York. The following are some of its trenchant paragraphs:

"Is it a fact that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, and how is it proved? If a G.o.d he could not die, and as a man he could not redeem: how then is this redemption proved to be fact? It is said that Adam eat of the forbidden fruit, commonly called an apple, and thereby subjected himself and all his posterity forever to eternal d.a.m.nation.

This is worse than visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. But how was the death of Jesus Christ to affect or alter the case? Did G.o.d thirst for blood? If so, would it not have been better to have crucified Adam upon the forbidden tree, and made a new man?"

"Why do not the Christians, to be consistent, make Saints of Judas and Pontius Pilate, for they were the persons who accomplished the act of salvation. The merit of a sacrifice, if there can be any merit in it, was never in the thing sacrificed, but in the persons offering up the sacrifice--and therefore Judas and Pilate ought to stand first in the calendar of Saints."

Other contributions to the _Prospect_ were: "Of the word Religion"; "Cain and Abel"; "The Tower of Babel"; "Of the religion of Deism compared with the Christian Religion"; "Of the Sabbath Day in Connecticut"; "Of the Old and New Testaments"; "Hints towards forming a Society for inquiring into the truth or falsehood of ancient history, so far as history is connected with systems of religion ancient and modern"; "To the members of the Society styling itself the Missionary Society"; "On Deism, and the writings of Thomas Paine"; "Of the Books of the New Testament" There were several communications without any heading. Pa.s.sages and sentences from these little essays have long been a familiar currency among freethinkers.

"We admire the wisdom of the ancients, yet they had no bibles, nor books, called revelation. They cultivated the reason that G.o.d gave them, studied him in his works, and rose to eminence."

"The Cain and Abel of Genesis appear to be no other than the ancient Egyptian story of Typhon and Osiris, the darkness and the light, which answered very well as allegory without being believed as fact."

"Those who most believe the Bible are those who know least about it."

"Another observation upon the story of Babel is the inconsistence of it with respect to the opinion that the bible is the word of G.o.d given for the information of mankind; for nothing could so effectually prevent such a word being known by mankind as confounding their language."

"G.o.d has not given us reason for the purpose of confounding us."

"Jesus never speaks of Adam, of the Garden of Eden, nor of what is called the fall of man."

"Is not the Bible warfare the same kind of warfare as the Indians themselves carry on?" [On the presentation of a Bible to some Osage chiefs in New York.]

"The remark of the Emperor Julian is worth observing. 'If, said he, 'there ever had been or could be a Tree of Knowledge, instead of G.o.d forbidding man to eat thereof, it would be that of which he would order him to eat the most.'"

"Do Christians not see that their own religion is founded on a human sacrifice? Many thousands of human sacrifices have since been offered on the altar of the Christian Religion."

"For several centuries past the dispute has been about doctrines. It is now about fact."

"The Bible has been received by Protestants on the authority of the Church of Rome."

"The same degree of hearsay evidence, and that at third and fourth hand, would not, in a court of justice, give a man t.i.tle to a cottage, and yet the priests of this profession presumptuously promise their deluded followers the kingdom of Heaven."

"n.o.body fears for the safety of a mountain, but a hillock of sand may be washed away. Blow then, O ye priests, 'the Trumpet in Zion,' for the Hillock is in danger."

The force of Paine's negations was not broken by any weakness for speculations of his own. He constructed no system to invite the missiles of antagonists. It is, indeed, impossible to deny without affirming; denial that two and two make five affirms that they make four. The basis of Paine's denials being the divine wisdom and benevolence, there was in his use of such expressions an implication of limitation in the divine nature. Wisdom implies the necessity of dealing with difficulties, and benevolence the effort to make all sentient creatures happy. Neither quality is predicable of an omniscient and omnipotent being, for whom there could be no difficulties or evils to overcome. Paine did not.

confuse the world with his doubts or with his mere opinions. He stuck to his certainties, that the scriptural deity was not the true one, nor the dogmas called Christian reasonable. But he felt some of the moral difficulties surrounding theism, and these were indicated in his reply to the Bishop of Llandaff.

"The Book of Job belongs either to the ancient Persians, the Chaldeans, or the Egyptians; because the structure of it is consistent with the dogma they held, that of a good and evil spirit, called in Job G.o.d and Satan, existing as distinct and separate beings, and it is not consistent with any dogma of the Jews.... The G.o.d of the Jews was the G.o.d of everything. All good and evil came from him. According to Exodus it was G.o.d, and not the Devil, that hardened Pharaoh's heart. According to the Book of Samuel it was an evil spirit from G.o.d that troubled Saul. And Ezekiel makes G.o.d say, in speaking of the Jews, 'I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they should not live.'... As to the precepts, principles, and maxims in the Book of Job, they show that the people abusively called the heathen, in the books of the Jews, had the most sublime ideas of the Creator, and the most exalted devotional morality. It was the Jews who dishonored G.o.d. It was the Gentiles who glorified him."

Several pa.s.sages in Paine's works show that he did not believe in a personal devil; just what he did believe was no doubt written in a part of his reply to the Bishop, which, unfortunately, he did not live to carry through the press. In the part that we have he expresses the opinion that the Serpent of Genesis is an allegory of winter, necessitating the "coats of skins" to keep Adam and Eve warm, and adds: "Of these things I shall speak fully when I come in another part to speak of the ancient religion of the Persians, and compare it with the modern religion of the New Testament" But this part was never published.

The part published was transcribed by Paine and given, not long before his death, to the widow of Elihu Palmer, who published it in the _Theophilanthropist_ in 1810. Paine had kept the other part, no doubt for revision, and it pa.s.sed with his effects into the hands of Madame Bonneville, who eventually became a devotee. She either suppressed it or sold it to some one who destroyed it. We can therefore only infer from the above extract the author's belief on this momentous point. It seems clear that he did not attribute any evil to the divine Being. In the last article Paine published he rebukes the "Predestinarians" for dwelling mainly on G.o.d's "physical attribute" of power. "The Deists, in addition to this, believe in his moral attributes, those of justice and goodness."

Among Paine's papers was found one ent.i.tled "My private thoughts of a Future State," from which his editors have dropped important sentences.

"I have said in the first part of the Age of Reason that 'I hope for happiness after this life,' This hope is comfortable to me, and I presume not to go beyond the comfortable idea of hope, with respect to a future state. I consider myself in the hands of my Creator, and that he will dispose of me after this life, consistently with his justice and goodness. I leave all these matters to him as my Creator and friend, and I hold it to be presumption in man to make an article of faith as to what the Creator will do with us hereafter. I do not believe, because a man and a woman make a child, that it imposes on the Creator the unavoidable obligation of keeping the being so made in eternal existence hereafter. It is in his power to do so, or not to do so, and it is not in our power to decide which he will do." [After quoting from Matthew 25th the figure of the sheep and goats he continues:] "The world cannot be thus divided. The moral world, like the physical world, is composed of numerous degrees of character, running imperceptibly one into the other, in such a manner that no fixed point can be found in either. That point is nowhere, or is everywhere. The whole world might be divided into two parts numerically, but not as to moral character; and therefore the metaphor of dividing them, as sheep and goats can be divided, whose difference is marked by their external figure, is absurd. All sheep are still sheep; all goats are still goats; it is their physical nature to be so. But one part of the world are not all good alike, nor the other part all wicked alike. There are some exceedingly good, others exceedingly wicked. There is another description of men who cannot be ranked with either the one or the other--they belong neither to the sheep nor the goats. And there is still another description of them who are so very insignificant, both in character and conduct, as not to be worth the trouble of d.a.m.ning or saving, or of raising from the dead. My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good, and endeavouring to make their fellow mortals happy, for this is the only way in which we can serve G.o.d, will be happy hereafter; and that the very wicked will meet with some punishment. But those who are neither good nor bad, or are too insignificant for notice, will be dropt entirely. This is my opinion. It is consistent with my idea of G.o.d's justice, and with the reason that G.o.d has given me, and I gratefully know that he has given me a large share of that divine gift."

The closing tribute to his own reason, written in privacy, was, perhaps pardonably, suppressed by the modern editor, and also the reference to the insignificant who "will be dropt entirely." This sentiment is not indeed democratic, but it is significant. It seems plain that Paine's conception of the universe was dualistic. Though he discards the notion of a devil, I do not find that he ever ridicules it. No doubt he would, were he now living, incline to a division of nature into organic and inorganic, and find his deity, as Zoroaster did, in the living as distinguished from, and sometimes in antagonism with, the "not-living".

In this belief he would now find himself in harmony with some of the ablest modern philosophers.*

* John Stuart Mill, for instance. See also the Rev. Dr.

Abbott's "Kernel and Husk" (London), and the great work of Samuel Laing, "A Modern Zoroastrian."