Anything that threatens to curtail its power it is bound to oppose and suppress, if it can. Men who cease useful work in order to devote themselves to religion, are right in the same class with women who quit work to make a business of love. Men who know history and humanity and have reasonably open minds are not surprised at the treatment visited upon Paine by the country he had so much benefited Superstition and hallucination are really one thing, and fanaticism, which is mental obsession, easily becomes acute and the whirling dervish runs amuck at sight of a man whose religious opinions are different from his own Paine got off very easy; he lived his life, and expressed himself freely to the last. Men who discover continents are destined to die in chains. That is the price they pay for the privilege of sailing on, and on, and on, and on. Said Paine: The moral duty of a man consists in imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation towards all creatures. That seeing as we daily do, the goodness of God to all men, it is an example calling upon all men to practice towards each other, and consequently that everything of persecution and revenge between man and man, and everything of cruelty to animals is a violation of moral duty. HE pen of Paine made the sword of Washington possible And as Paine's book, "Common Sense," broke the power of Great Britain in America, and the "Rights of Man" gave free speech and a free press to England, so did the "Age of Reason" give pause to the juggernaut of orthodoxy Thomas Paine was the legitimate ancestor of Hosea Ballou who founded the Universalist church, and also of Theodore Parker who made Unitarianism in America an intellectual torch. Channing, Ripley, Bartol, Martineau, Frothingham, Hale, Curtis, Collyer, Swing, Thomas, Conway, Leonard, Savage, Crapsey, yes-even Emerson and Thoreau, were spiritual children, all, of Thomas Paine. He blazed the way and made it possible for men to preach the sweet reasonableness of reason. He was the pioneer in a jungle of superstition. Thomas Paine was the real founder of the so-called Liberal Denominations and the business of the liberal denominations has not been to become great, powerful and popular, but to make all other denominations more liberal. So today in all so-called orthodox pulpits one can hear the ideas of Paine, Henry Frank & B. Fay Mills expounded. HDI HW SWVT H The borrower must return this item on or before the last date stamped below. If another user places a recall for this item, the borrower will be notified of the need for an earlier return. Non-receipt of overdue notices does not exempt the borrower from overdue fines. Harvard College Widener Library Cambridge, MA 02138- 617-495-2413 WIDENER CARRLA-310DY CHARGE Please handle with care. Thank you for helping to preserve library collections at Harvard. |