"The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening paradise."
So had it been even if nature alone had surrounded him. But Paine had been restored by the tenderness and devotion of friends. Had it not been for friendship he could hardly have been saved. We are little able, in the present day, to appreciate the reverence and affection with which Thomas Paine was regarded by those who saw in him the greatest apostle of liberty in the world. Elihu Palmer spoke a very general belief when he declared Paine "probably the most useful man that ever existed upon the face of the earth." This may sound wild enough on the ears of those to whom Liberty has become a familiar drudge. There was a time when she was an ideal Rachel, to win whom many years of terrible service were not too much; but now in the garish day she is our prosaic Leah,--a serviceable creature in her way, but quite unromantic. In Paris there were ladies and gentlemen who had known something of the cost of Liberty,--Colonel and Mrs. Monroe, Sir Robert and Lady Smith, Madame Lafayette, Mr. and Mrs. Barlow, M. and Madame De Bonneville. They had known what it was to watch through anxious nights with terrors surrounding them. He who had suffered most was to them a sacred person.
He had come out of the succession of ordeals, so weak in body, so wounded by American ingrat.i.tude, so sore at heart, that no delicate child needed more tender care. Set those ladies and their charge a thousand years back in the poetic past, and they become Morgan le Fay, and the Lady Nimue, who bear the wounded warrior away to their Avalon, there to be healed of his grievous hurts. Men say their Arthur is dead, but their love is stronger than death. And though the service of these friends might at first have been reverential, it had ended with attachment, so great was Paine"s power, so wonderful and pathetic his memories, so charming the play of his wit, so full his response to kindness.
One especially great happiness awaited him when he became convalescent.
Sir Robert Smith, a wealthy banker in Paris, made his acquaintance, and he discovered that Lady Smith was no other than "The Little Corner of the World," whose letters had carried sunbeams into his prison.* An intimate friendship was at once established with Sir Robert and his lady, in whose house, probably at Versailles, Paine was a guest after leaving the Monroes. To Lady Smith, on discovering her, Paine addressed a poem,--"The Castle in the Air to the Little Corner of the World":
* Sir Robert Smith (Smythe in the Peerage List) was born in 1744, and married, first, Miss Blake of London (1776). The name of the second Lady Smith, Paine"s friend, before her marriage I have not ascertained.
"In the region of clouds, where the whirlwinds arise, My Castle of Fancy was built; The turrets reflected the blue from the skies, And the windows with sunbeams were gilt.
"The rainbow sometimes, in its beautiful state, Enamelled the mansion around; And the figures that fancy in clouds can create Supplied me with gardens and ground.
"I had grottos, and fountains, and orange-tree groves, I had all that enchantment has told; I had sweet shady walks for the G.o.ds and their loves, I had mountains of coral and gold.
"But a storm that I felt not had risen and rolled, While wrapped in a slumber I lay; And when I looked out in the morning, behold, My Castle was carried away.
"It pa.s.sed over rivers and valleys and groves, The world it was all in my view; I thought of my friends, of their fates, of their loves, And often, full often, of you.
"At length it came over a beautiful scene, That nature in silence had made; The place was but small, but"t was sweetly serene, And chequered with sunshine and shade.
"I gazed and I envied with painful good will, And grew tired of my seat in the air; When all of a sudden my Castle stood still, As if some attraction were there.
"Like a lark from the sky it came fluttering down, And placed me exactly in view, When whom should I meet in this charming retreat This corner of calmness, but--you.
"Delighted to find you in honour and ease, I felt no more sorrow nor pain; But the wind coming fair, I ascended the breeze, And went back with my Castle again."
Paine was now a happy man. The kindness that rescued him from death was followed by the friendship that beguiled him from horrors of the past.
From gentle ladies he learned that beyond the Age of Reason lay the forces that defeat Giant Despair.
"To reason [so he writes to Lady Smith] against feelings is as vain as to reason against fire: it serves only to torture the torture, by adding reproach to horror. All reasoning with ourselves in such cases acts upon us like the reasoning of another person, which, however kindly done, serves but to insult the misery we suffer. If Reason could remove the pain, Reason would have prevented it. If she could not do the one, how is she to perform the other? In all such cases we must look upon Reason as dispossessed of her empire, by a revolt of the mind. She retires to a distance to weep, and the ebony sceptre of Despair rules alone. All that Reason can do is to suggest, to hint a thought, to signify a wish, to cast now and then a kind of bewailing look, to hold up, when she can catch the eye, the miniature shaded portrait of Hope; and though dethroned, and can dictate no more, to wait upon us in the humble station of a handmaid."
The mouth of the rescued and restored captive was filled with song.
Several little poems were circulated among his friends, but not printed; among them the following:
"Contentment; or, if you please, Confession. _To Mrs. Barlow, on her pleasantly telling the author that, after writing against the superst.i.tion of the Scripture religion, he was setting up a religion capable of more bigotry and enthusiasm, and more dangerous to its votaries--that of making a religion of Love._
"O could we always live and love, And always be sincere, I would not wish for heaven above, My heaven would be here.
"Though many countries I have seen, And more may chance to see, My Little Corner of the World Is half the world to me.
"The other half, as you may guess, America contains; And thus, between them, I possess The whole world for my pains.
"I"m then contented with my lot, I can no happier be; For neither world I "m sure has got So rich a man as me.
"Then send no fiery chariot down To take me off from hence, But leave me on my heavenly ground-- This prayer is _common sense_.
"Let others choose another plan, I mean no fault to find; The true theology of man Is happiness of mind."
Paine gained great favor with the French government and fame throughout Europe by his pamphlet, "The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance," in which he predicted the suspension of the Bank of England, which followed the next year. He dated the pamphlet April 8th, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs is shown, in the Archives of that office, to have ordered, on April 27th, a thousand copies. It was translated in all the languages of Europe, and was a terrible retribution for the forged a.s.signats whose distribution in France the English government had considered a fair mode of warfare. This translation "into all the languages of the continent" is mentioned by Ralph Broome, to whom the British government entrusted the task of answering the pamphlet.* As Broome"s answer is dated June 4th, this circulation in six or seven weeks is remarkable, The proceeds were devoted by Paine to the relief of prisoners for debt in Newgate, London.**
* "Observations on Mr. Paine"s Pamphlet," etc. Broome escapes the charge of prejudice by speaking of "Mr. Paine, whose abilities I admire and deprecate in a breath." Paine"s pamphlet was also replied to by George Chalmers ("Oldys") who had written the slanderous biography.
** Richard Carlile"s sketch of Paine, p. 20. This large generosity to English sufferers appears the more characteristic beside the closing paragraph of Paine"s pamphlet, "As an individual citizen of America, and as far as an individual can go, I have revenged (if I may use the expression without any immoral meaning) the piratical depredations committed on American commerce by the English government. I have retaliated for France on the subject of finance: and I conclude with retorting on Mr. Pitt the expression he used against France, and say, that the English system of finance "is en the verge, nay even in the gulf of bankruptcy.""
Concerning the false French a.s.signats forged in England, see Louis Blanc"s "History of the Revolution," vol. xii., p. 101.
The concentration of this pamphlet on its immediate subject, which made it so effective, renders it of too little intrinsic interest in the present day to delay us long, especially as it is included in all editions of Paine"s works. It possesses, however, much biographical interest as proving the intellectual power of Paine while still but a convalescent. He never wrote any work involving more study and mastery of difficult details. It was this pamphlet, written in Paris, while "Peter Porcupine," in America, was rewriting the slanders of "Oldys,"
which revolutionized Cobbett"s opinion of Paine, and led him to try and undo the injustice he had wrought.
It now so turned out that Paine was able to repay all the kindnesses he had received. The relations between the French government and Monroe, already strained, as we have seen, became in the spring of 1796 almost intolerable. The Jay treaty seemed to the French so incredible that, even after it was ratified, they believed that the Representatives would refuse the appropriation needed for its execution. But when tidings came that this effort of the House of Representatives had been crushed by a menaced _coup d"etat_, the ideal America fell in France, and was broken in fragments. Monroe could now hardly have remained save on the credit of Paine with the French. There was, of course, a fresh accession of wrath towards England for this appropriation of the French alliance.
Paine had been only the first sacrifice on the altar of the new alliance; now all English families and all Americans in Paris except himself were likely to become its victims. The English-speaking residents there made one little colony, and Paine was sponsor for them all. His fatal blow at English credit proved the formidable power of the man whom Washington had delivered up to Robespierre in the interest of Pitt. So Paine"s popularity reached its climax; the American Legation found through him a _modus vivendi_ with the French government; the families which had received and nursed him in his weakness found in his intimacy their best credential. Mrs. Joel Barlow especially, while her husband was in Algeria, on the service of the American government, might have found her stay in Paris unpleasant but for Paine s friendship. The importance of his guarantee to the banker, Sir Robert Smith, appears by the following note, written at Versailles, August 13th:
"Citizen Minister: The citizen Robert Smith, a very particular friend of mine, wishes to obtain a pa.s.sport to go to Hamburg, and I will be obliged to you to do him that favor. Himself and family have lived several years in France, for he likes neither the government nor the climate of England. He has large property in England, but his Banker in that country has refused sending him remittances. This makes it necessary for him to go to Hamburg, because from there he can draw his money out of his Banker"s hands, which he cannot do whilst in France.
His family remains in France.--_Salut et fraternite._
"Thomas Paine."
Amid his circle of cultured and kindly friends Paine had dreamed of a lifting of the last cloud from his life, so long overcast. His eyes were strained to greet that shining sail that should bring him a response to his letter of September to Washington, in his heart being a great hope that his apparent wrong would be explained as a miserable mistake, and that old friendship restored. As the reader knows, the hope was grievously disappointed. The famous public letter to Washington (August 3d), which was not published in France, has already been considered, in advance of its chronological place. It will be found, however, of more significance if read in connection with the unhappy situation, in which all of Paine"s friends, and all Americans in Paris, had been brought by the Jay treaty. From their point of view the deliverance of Paine to prison and the guillotine was only one incident in a long-planned and systematic treason, aimed at the life of the French republic. Jefferson in America, and Paine in France, represented the faith and hope of republicans that the treason would be overtaken by retribution and reversal.
* Soon after Jefferson became President Paine wrote to him, suggesting that Sir Robert"s firm might be safely depended on as the medium of American financial transactions in Europe.
CHAPTER XIII. THEOPHILANTHROPY
In the ever-recurring controversies concerning Paine and his "Age of Reason" we have heard many triumphal claims. Christianity and the Church, it is said, have advanced and expanded, unharmed by such criticisms. This is true. But there are several fallacies implied in this mode of dealing with the religious movement caused by Paine"s work.
It a.s.sumes that Paine was an enemy of all that now pa.s.ses under the name of Christianity--a t.i.tle claimed by nearly a hundred and fifty different organizations, with some of which (as the Unitarians, Universalists, Broad Church, and Hick-site Friends) he would largely sympathize. It further a.s.sumes that he was hostile to all churches, and desired or antic.i.p.ated their destruction. Such is not the fact. Paine desired and antic.i.p.ated their reformation, which has steadily progressed. At the close of the "Age of Reason" he exhorts the clergy to "preach something that is edifying, and from texts that are known to be true."
"The Bible of the creation is inexhaustible in texts. Every part of science, whether connected with the geometry of the universe, with the systems of animal and vegetable life, or with the properties of inanimate matter, is a text for devotion as well as for philosophy--for grat.i.tude as for human improvement. It will perhaps be said, that, if such a revolution in the system of religion takes place, every preacher ought to be a philosopher. _Most certainly_. And every house of devotion a school of science. It has been by wandering, from the immutable laws of science, and the right use of reason, and setting up an invented thing called revealed religion, that so many wild and blasphemous conceits nave been formed of the Almighty. The Jews have made him the a.s.sa.s.sin of the human species, to make room for the religion of the Jews. The Christians have made him the murderer of himself, and the founder of a new religion, to supersede and expel the Jewish religion.
And to find pretence and admission for these things they must have supposed his power and his wisdom imperfect, or his will changeable; and the changeableness of the will is the imperfection of the judgment. The philosopher knows that the laws of the Creator have never changed with respect either to the principles of science, or the properties of matter. Why then is it to be supposed they have changed with respect to man?"
To the statement that Christianity has not been impeded by the "Age of Reason," it should be added that its advance has been largely due to modifications rendered necessary by that work. The unmodified dogmas are represented in small and eccentric communities. The advance has been under the Christian name, with which Paine had no concern; but to confuse the word "Christianity" with the substance it labels is inadmissible. England wears the device of St. George and the Dragon; but English culture has reduced the saint and dragon to a fable.
The special wrath with which Paine is still visited, above all other deists put together, or even atheists is a tradition from a so-called Christianity which his work compelled to capitulate. That system is now nearly extinct, and the vendetta it bequeathed should now end. The capitulation began immediately with the publication of the Bishop of Llandaff"s "Apology for the Bible," a t.i.tle that did not fail to attract notice when it appeared (1796). There were more than thirty replies to Paine, but they are mainly taken out of the Bishop"s "Apology," to which they add nothing. It is said in religious encyclopedias that Paine was "answered" by one and another writer, but in a strict sense Paine was never answered, unless by the successive surrenders referred to.
As Bishop Watson"s "Apology" is adopted by most authorities as the sufficient "answer," it may be here accepted as a representative of the rest. Whether Paine"s points dealt with by the Bishop are answerable or not, the following facts will prove how uncritical is the prevalent opinion that they were really answered.
Dr. Watson concedes generally to Paine the discovery of some "real difficulties" in the Old Testament, and the exposure, in the Christian grove, of "a few unsightly shrubs, which good men had wisely concealed from public view" (p. 44).* It is not Paine that here calls some "sacred" things unsightly, and charges the clergy with concealing them--it is the Bishop. Among the particular and direct concessions made by the Bishop are the following:
* Corey"s edition. Philadelphia, 1796.
1. That Moses may not have written every part of the Pentateuch. Some pa.s.sages were probably written by later hands, transcribers or editors (pp. 9-11, 15). [If human reason and scholarship are admitted to detach any portions, by what authority can they be denied the right to bring all parts of the Pentateuch, or even the whole Bible, under their human judgment?]
2. The law in Deuteronomy giving parents the right, under certain circ.u.mstances, to have their children stoned to death, is excused only as a "humane restriction of a power improper to be lodged with any parent" (p. 13). [Granting the Bishop"s untrue a.s.sertion, that the same "improper" power was arbitrary among the Romans, Gauls, and Persians, why should it not have been abolished in Israel? And if Dr. Watson possessed the right to call any law established in the Bible "improper,"
how can Paine be denounced for subjecting other things in the book to moral condemnation? The moral sentiment is not an episcopal prerogative.]
3. The Bishop agrees that it is "the opinion of many learned men and good Christians" that the Bible, though authoritative in religion, is fallible in other respects, "relating the ordinary history of the times"