"Long live the man, in early contest found,Who spoke-his heart when dastards trembled round;Who, fired with more than Greek or Roman rage,Flashed truth on tyrants from his manly page."—Dr. Joseph B. Ladd.
Rev. Brooke Hereford: "Thomas Paine was the great defender of human rights and merits the everlasting gratitude of man."
Rev. Dr. David Swing: "He was one of the best and grandest men that ever trod the planet."
Charles Phillips: "Thomas Paine, no matter what may be the difference of opinion as to his principles, must ever remain a proud example of mind, unpatronized and unsupported, eclipsing the factitious beams of rank, and wealth, and pedigree. I never saw him in his captivity, or heard the revilings by which he has since been assailed, without cursing in my heart that ungenerous feeling which, cold to the necessities of genius, is clamorous in the publication of its defects.
"Ye great ones of his nation [England]! ye pretended moralists, so forward now to cast your interested indignation upon the memory of Paine!—where were you in the day of his adversity? Which of you, to assist his infant merit, would diminish even the surplus of your debaucheries? Where the mitred charity, the practical religion? Consistent declaimers, rail on! What though his genius was the gift of Heaven, his heart the altar of friendship! What though wit and eloquence and anecdote flowed freely from his tongue, while Conviction made his voice her messenger! What though thrones trembled, and prejudice fled, and freedom came, at his command! He dared to question the creed which you, believing, contradicted, and to despise the rank which you, boasting of, debased."
William Lee:
"Immortal Paine, thy fame can never die!"
C. Fannie Allyn:
"Because you left a record that has floated down the years,Because your words undying have conquered low-born jeers,Because the ones who listened are victors over fears,As Thomas Paine the Hero we salute you!"Philanthropist and Patriot, a-down the Yet-to-be!Your thoughts are sweeping deathless as breezes o'er the sea,And hearts of men and women by you are made more free,As Thomas Paine the Future will salute you!"
Alden Freeman: "One hundred years ago today there passed from life into the undying fame of assured immortality a chieftain among the Fathers of our Country, the foremost agitator of the American Revolution—Thomas Paine."
Samuel H. Preston: "He who will live forever in the history of this republic as the author-hero of the Revolution; he who consecrated a long, laborious life in both hemispheres to the sacred cause of humanity; he who, in his sublime patriotism, adopted the world for his country, and who, in his boundless philanthropy, embraced all mankind for his brethren; this man—this great, and grand, and good, and heroic man—has been robbed of honor and reputation, and blackened and hunted by the sleuth-hounds of superstition, as though he had been the embodied curse of earth.
"But, so sure as the affairs of men have an eternal destiny, shall justice be awarded Thomas Paine. The flowers of poesy will be woven in amaranthine wreaths above his last resting-place, and his once-blackened name will whiten with purity through all the wasteless years."
Rev. Frank S. C. Wicks: "Why this ingratitude? In one word, bigotry! Religious bigotry, that serpent that has left its trail of slime all over the pages of human history.
"He was pursued by religious bigotry, and but for religious bigotry the name of Thomas Paine would share with Washington the love and honor of his countrymen."
Rev. Thomas B. Gregory: "Our gratitude has been abundantly shown to Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and others who figured in the great drama, but to our shame it must be said we have been slow in acknowledging our debt to the man who did more than any other to bring about this country's freedom.
"But superstition is slowly dying, ignorance is gradually disappearing, and by and by Thomas Paine will come into his own and take his place along with the greatest in our national pantheon."
Rev. Solomon Southwick, D.D.: "Had Thomas Paine been a Grecian or Roman patriot in olden times, and performed the same services as he did for this country, he would have had the honor of an Apotheosis. The Pantheon would have been opened to him, and we should at this day regard his memory with the same veneration that we do that of Socrates and Cicero. But posterity will do him justice. Time, that destroys envy and establishes truth, will clothe his character in the habiliments that justly belong to it."
"Paine was one of the glories of his age.... He has a powerful vindicator—posterity."—M. M. Mangasarian.
Frances Wright D'Arusmont: "Rest in peace, noble patriot; a glorious resurrection awaits thee."
"For nearly a century this noble man—the real founder of our republic—has been buried beneath the cruel stones of obloquy. But slowly the angels of Justice are rolling back these stones from his sepulchre, and the resurrection of Thomas Paine is at hand."—Six Historic Americans.
Current Literature: "The present indications are that posterity will preserve the favorable, rather than the unfavorable, picture of Thomas Paine. His influence is steadily growing."
Col. John C. Bundy: "Paine's influence is waxing broader, deeper and more aggressive with each succeeding generation. At the end of a century, more of his theological and political works are sold each year than those of any other theologian or politician America has ever known. All the progress of the century has been in the direction in which he steered."
The Nation (London): "The magnitude, variety, and immediate efficacy of Paine's writings constitute him one of the chief personal forces of the revolutionary age.... He carried into the New England across the water a consuming passion for human justice and liberty, not as platform phrases, but as hard, concrete goods worth fighting and dying for, which set America afire, when she was confusedly pondering an impossible and unnatural reconciliation. From America to France, fresh in the throes of her great upheaval, he passed, not as an incendiary, but as a moderating and constructive influence in her national convention, risking his very life for the cause of clemency in dealing with a traitorous king. From France to England, carrying the same doctrines of liberty in politics and religion, not a cold utilitarian conception of individual rights, but a rich human gospel of a commonwealth sustained by a passion of humanity as deep and real as ever influenced the soul of man.
"He will recover a glorious though tardy fame among those who take the necessary trouble to rectify false estimates and to do honor to one of the most truly honorable men who have striven to serve mankind."
"He died broken with many griefs, to be remembered by a later age as the great Commoner of mankind."—Library of The World's Best Literature.
Charles Edward Russell: "The soul of Thomas Paine was 'like a star and dwelt apart.' He kept his own self-respect and the integrity of his mind."
"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. 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 kept his own. His life is what the world calls a failure, and what history calls success."—Ingersoll.
Daniel Edwin Wheeler: "History continually reverses her statements at the command of Truth, and the latter is slowly but certainly rehabilitating the name and fame of Paine. The slime of a mythology which has for over a century stained his reputation is disappearing and the prophet pamphleteer is coming into his own."
Dr. Muzzey, of New York, honored by Harvard, the Sorbonne of Paris, and the University of Berlin, at the tomb of Thomas Paine, in 1909, gave utterance to this tribute: "The democracy for which Robert Burns sang and for which Thomas Paine labored is still a bright ideal in the distant future, the star of brotherhood over a humanity still in the cradle. Today, and only today, Thomas Paine is beginning to be appreciated as the prophet of that democracy which means full human brotherhood. His fame will grow with the years. The marvelous services of his brain, of his pen, which was never dipped in the ink of malice or slander, of his wonderful devotion as a soldier, as a prophet of freedom,... is coming to be understood. As the realization of that service of Paine grows, it will loom larger and larger. And when the day of democracy shall have come, when the principles for which Paine stood shall have fully replaced the awful dogmas of the past, as they are slowly and surely replacing those dogmas, then he will come to his own."
Rev. James Kay Applebee: "I see Thomas Paine as he looms up in history—a great, grand figure. The reputation bigots have created for him fades away, even as the creeds for which they raved and lied fade away; but distinct and luminous, there remains the noble character of Thomas Paine created by himself."
"The stigma is on his detractors, not on him."—Rev. Eugene Rodman Shippen.
R. B. Marsh: "No feeling of shame has been so poignant as that which overwhelmed me when I saw that ignorantly and blindly following my instructors I had added my voice to the all but universal outcry against this man.
"His fame and memory have been obscured for a hundred years, only to shine with greater luster when the truth is known. The day-dawn of his fame even now is brightening the sky.
"He has been the victim of almost infinite injustice; but I rejoice in the confident belief that time will fully vindicate his memory, and restore him to his just rank among the heroes of humanity."—Hon. George W. Julian.
That there is a rapidly growing disposition to do justice to the memory of Thomas Paine is attested by a recent occurrence. On the 14th of October, 1905, at New Rochelle, where, less than one hundred years before, Paine, because of his religious belief, was denied burial in a Christian cemetery, the beautiful monument erected at his grave by admiring friends was rededicated and assigned to the custody of that city, where, held as a sacred treasure, it is now guarded with watchful and loving care. The nation, the state, and the city united to make the event a memorable one. Major General Frederick D. Grant sent two companies of United States troops and a regimental band; the state of New York sent a battery which fired a salute of thirteen guns; the mayor delivered a eulogy on Paine, and the city council participated in the exercises. The school children of New Rochelle sang the "Star Spangled Banner" and one of Paine's own songs. Various civic and military societies also took part in the celebration—the Grand Army of the Republic, Woman's Auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic, Spanish War Veterans, Minutemen, Washington Continental Guards, and Sons of the American Revolution. Dr. Conway, Paine's faithful biographer, sent a letter of greeting from Paris, and a daughter of France a handsome wreath to lay upon the patriot's tomb.
Henry S. Clark (Mayor of New Rochelle):
"This memorial should serve and will remain an object lesson, inculcating not only patriotism, but the fundamental idea which appeared only in Paine's writings—political equality for all men."
"We accept this splendid memorial and pledge ourselves to ever protect and preserve it."
"The two chief centers by which the lovers of liberty, humanity and progress will love to linger and gather inspiration in America will henceforth be the mausoleum of Washington by the Potomac, and this monument of Paine by his old home in your lovely city of New Rochelle."—T. B. Wakeman.
"Ah! well may we cherish this spot sacred to Paine the Patriot. Perhaps his dream will come true, and when there is a Republic of the World, here will be the shrine of all nations."—A. Outrant Sherman.
John Burroughs: "I honor the memory of Thomas Paine and am glad to know that it shines brighter and brighter as time goes on."
Rear Admiral George W. Melville: "Greater honor is coming to the name of Thomas Paine as the years roll on.... In America he will always be known as one of the greatest and brightest minds that stood for the liberties of men."
Hon. D. W. Wilder: "After a century of abuse it is pleasing to know that a pure patriot and a very great man is at last being appreciated."
Theodore Schroeder: "Paine's sympathy for mankind had made kings his foes, his mercy cost him his liberty, his generosity kept him in poverty, his charity made him enemies, and by intellectual honesty he lost his friends. Federalist judges of election, for whose liberty he had fought, denied him the right to vote, because he was a citizen of France; imprisoned in France because he was not a citizen of France; maligned because he was brave; shunned because he was honest; hated by those to whom he had devoted his whole existence; denied a burial place in the soil he helped make free by the church which first taught him the lesson of humanity; thus ended the life of Thomas Paine.
"The world is growing better, more just and more hospitable. The narrow intolerance which once threatened to erase Paine's hame from the pages of history is passing away. Gradually we are coming to know that a kingly crown or priestly robe never rested upon a nobler man."
"His unselfish devotion to the rights of man is now being recognized, and the brutal intolerance which tried to obliterate his name from history is rapidly disappearing."—Yoshiro Oyama.
"The verdict of a century is being reversed today. In a little while the voice of detraction will be hushed forever."—Marshall J. Gauvin.
Hector Macpherson: "The wheel of time has come round full circle. Men of all sorts and conditions are willing to do justice to the man who, in the midst of great obstacles and with unflinching and self-sacrificing purpose held aloft the lighted torch of humanitarianism, and passed it on to succeeding generations."
George Allen White: "What turbulent curses and ravenous conspiracies fell for decades afoul thy noble head! How did the welkin ring with the uttermost invectives of hell-brewed hate! But a hundred years later and Thomas Paine—Thomas Paine the unspeakable—has been rehabilitated. His fame is secure and untarnished now. Rising the monuments. Splendid the horoscope of his future. Smoking the calumets. Like an impossible, unbelievable dream vanishes the memory of those tempestuous days of shameless bigotry."
Judge Charles B. Waite: "King and priest stood side by side, the one enslaving the body, the other the mind. Men and women were subjected to the most atrocious cruelties. Now and then, while mankind were struggling with their destiny, voices were heard—voices in the night—penetrating the surrounding gloom and reaching every ear. Such a voice was that of Shelley; such a voice was that of Voltaire; such a voice was that of Goethe; such was that of Thomas Paine.
"Thomas Paine has been pursued with falsehood and calumny for more than a hundred years, but his name and fame grow brighter and brighter as the years roll by. Already he is enrolled among the immortals as one of the real saviors of the World."
Mrs. Josephine K. Henry: "Thomas Paine—'One of the few, the immortal names that were not born to die."
"As an American woman I enshrine with gratitude the memory of the philosopher, poet, counselor, historian, moralist, statesman and liberator—the immortal Thomas Paine."
J. Atwood Culbertson: "Whether his remains now lie wrapped in the immaculate shroud of winter snow, or, hid beneath earth's coverlet of green, feed to fragrance the springtime flowers, kissed to life by April sun; or whether his dust imparts the gold to the summer's grain, or lends the tint to the autumn leaf, we do not know, we cannot say; but immortal is the name of Thomas Paine."
Charles Watts: "Not of one age, but for all time."
William Thurston Brown: "Thomas Paine belongs to the ages—not because he was Thomas Paine, but because the light which illumined his mind and the principles which motived his life are the noblest and richest blossoms the tree of human life can bear. Toward the heights he climbed leads every upward road that the fearless feet of seekers after truth in this or any age have trod."
"The purpose of his life, unequaled in purity, beneficence and grandeur of hope, 'lives and ever will live in the republics he invented, inspired and organized, and in the Religion of Humanity upon which they rest."—T. B. Wakeman.
"These words [Religion of Humanity] have blessed every religion. These three magic words, first uttered by Paine, will work on and on forever."—Ibid.
Harry Weir Boland:
"His heart the world embracingHe served our sorest need,His mind his church displacing,Humanity his creed.Humanity his creed,Truth follows in his train,And of all those names the fairestIs that of Thomas Paine."
Mrs. Mattie Parry Krekel: "Let us all, then, lay the trifle of a word, a thought, a tear on the altar of the memory of him who will be one of the pillars of that coming church where all men's hands shall be clasped in the beautiful light of the sun of truth; the church which shall give us one Father—Nature, and one brotherhood—the whole wide world."
"I for one here cheerfully, reverently, throw my pebble on the cairn of his memory."—Walt Whitman.
Napoleon Bonaparte: "A statue of gold ought to be erected to you in every city in the universe."
Andrew Jackson: "Thomas Paine needs no monument made by hands; he has erected himself a monument in the hearts of all lovers of liberty."
J. P. Bland, B.D.: "Thomas Paine needs no marble to perpetuate his name, needs no granite to preserve his fame; for scattered through the whole wide world he has to-day a million living monuments, the harbingers of millions yet to come, and who, till time shall be no more, will bow the head in reverence and lift the heart in praise of him who so gloriously stood for reason and for right."
Dr. John E. Roberts: "So long as human rights are sacred and their defenders held in grateful remembrance; so long as liberty has a flag flung to the skies, a sanctuary in the hearts of men; so long, upon the eternal granite of history, luminous as light and imperishable as the stars, will be engraven the name of Thomas Paine."
Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll: "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."
"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."
George E. Macdonald:
"O Champion, bravest in all the past!O Freedom, fairest of all the dames.Long may the pledge of your fealty last,Forever united be your names.And long as the flowers from the sod shall spring,Touched by a May day's warmth and light,A blossom and tear shall the lady bringTo drop on the grave of her faithful knight."
Paine was the prophet of his age. From the dim twilight of the eighteenth century his prophetic eye pierced through the intervening years to and beyond the gray dawn of the twentieth. And when he viewed man's progress and beheld his glorious destiny, this matchless seer "rang out the old, rang in the new," rang out the rule and tyranny of king, rang out the dogmas and the ghosts of priest; rang in the reign of liberty and justice, rang in the faith of Reason and Humanity.
Yes, in the cause of man the battle of his life was fought, a fierce and stormy conflict. And as the night of death closed over the eventful struggle, from her accursed abode the gaunt figure of Bigotry stalked forth, and with demoniac peals of laughter danced around his prostrate form, rejoicing that her deadliest foe was gone. Her imps still live. How often do we see one of them in the pulpit take up this good man's name, and after covering it with all the slime that the venomous spirit of calumny has distilled, hold it up before his congregation, and with a counterfeited look of holy horror, affecting all the meekness of an expiring calf, rolling up the whites of his snaky eyes to cover the blackness of his brutal soul, exclaim, "This is Tom Paine!"
Vile creatures! let them do their worst. Let them summon to their aid all their hideous allies. Let Ignorance array her countless hosts; let the dark shades of Prejudice becloud the sky; let Hatred rave and curse; let the darts of Calumny pierce the white breast of Truth, and Slander clothe the tongues of all their minions. They strive in vain. The Crisis is past, the Age of Reason has dawned. Common Sense is fast supplanting Superstition, the Rights of Man are bound to triumph, and the author-hero's name will gather lustre as the years roll by.
"That man is thought a knave or fool,Or bigot plotting crime,Who for the advancement of his kind,Is wiser than his time.For him the hemlock shall distil,For him the axe be bared;For him the gibbet shall be built,For him the stake prepared.Him shall the scorn and wrath of menPursue with deadly aim;And malice, envy, spite, and liesShall desecrate his name.But never a truth has been destroyed,They may curse it, and call it crime;Pervert and betray, and slander and slayIts teachers for a time:But the sunshine, aye, shall light the sky,As round and round we run;And the truth shall ever come uppermost,And justice shall be done."
Ungrateful Athens bade her savior drain the poisoned cup. It did its work, the spark of life was quenched; but the name of Socrates shines on, undimmed by the flight of more than twenty centuries. Columbus languished in chains, forged by the nation he had made renowned; but no chains can bind the towering fame his genius won. Religious zealots sealed the lips of a philosopher; but could they stop the revolving earth? Could they control the rising tide that rolled upon the boundless sea of thought? No! the earth went round, the wave rolled on. To-day, the very church that persecuted Galileo reveres his name, accepts his teachings, and through his telescope, the instrument she once, condemned, her votaries, with eager eye and throbbing pulse, explore the starry fields of heaven. It is ever so: "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again." Each fierce Thermopylae she meets inspires some crowning Salamis. The wrongs of Thomas Paine shall be avenged. In vain his country passed to him the bitter cup; the fetters forged to chain his noble spirit to the dust were forged for naught; loving lips whisper, "It still moves!"
I pity the man whose soul is so small that he cannot rise above the level of his creed to do justice to those whose religious opinions have not been gauged by his particular standard. I am no Christian, but may I never become so ungrateful as to ignore my obligations to those who are. When war was desolating our fair land, and my young heart yearned to enlist in its defense, a Christian mother printed a kiss upon the cheek of her only boy and bade him go; Christian hands made the grand old flag we followed; Christian women visited our hospitals, ministering to the sick and wiping the death-damp from the brows of the dying; Christian generals led their troops on many a hard-fought field; and tonight the stately oak, the drooping willow, and the moaning pine stand sentinel by many a Christian soldier's grave. But they are not alone. Beside his Christian comrade—beneath the shadows of the same trees—a martyr to the same cause—sleeps the unbeliever. And would you strew with flowers and moisten with tears the grave that enfolds the one, and trample with scorn the turf that grows upon the other? Side by side they grandly marched to war; side by side they bravely fought; side by side heroically they fell; and in the murmuring stream that, wanders by their resting-place is heard the funeral chant of no religious creed, but nature's eternal sweet, sad requiem to all.
Go to the grave of Thomas Paine, my Christian friend. Stand beside the tomb where rest the ashes of this unappreciated genius. Take up his little volume "Common Sense." Open its pages and peruse its burning words. When done, unfold the map upon which are delineated "The Free and Independent States of America." Contemplate the inspiring picture wrought thereon—wrought by the author-hero's magic pen—then refuse the simple tribute of a tear or flower!
Who is responsible for the obloquy that has been cast upon the memory of this noble man? The church, the orthodox church alone, is responsible for it. And let me say to the church, it ill becomes you to point to the alleged moral delinquencies of this man while your own garments are soiled and crimsoned with the vice and crime of centuries. You claim that amid the thunders of Sinai God gave the Decalogue as a moral guide to man. Judged even by this standard the moral character of Thomas Paine will not suffer from a comparison with that of yours.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." "I believe in one God and no more," said Thomas Paine.
"Thou shalt worship no graven image." No worshiper of images was he.
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." He abstained from profanity himself and rebuked it in others.
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." He observed this law as faithfully as did his Christian neighbors.
"Honor thy father and thy mother." His parents were the objects of his reverence and love.
"Thou shalt not kill." He did not kill. He labored to abolish war and murder.
"Thout shalt not commit adultery." He was charged with adultery, and the foul beast who made the charge was forced to pay a heavy fine for his libelous assault.
"Thou shalt not steal." Were all mankind as honest as he was the locksmith's avocation would be gone.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness." From his truthful lips no one ever heard a falsehood fall.
"Thou shalt not covet." A man who consecrates his life to the cause of humanity, and who steadily refuses to be recompensed for his services, cannot be accused of covetousness.
Now, let me ask the church, what is your record? How have you kept even the commandments of your own law?
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." And yet, you have persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, butchered, and burned thousands for not believing in a trinity of gods.
"Before no idol shalt thou bow thy knee." Your places of public worship are filled with idols—virgins, and saints, and crucifixes, and Bibles—objects of as blind adoration as the idols of heathen lands.
"Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain." On every hand our ears are greeted by the oaths of those who, whether belonging to any particular sect or not, believe in the existence of the God and the divinity of the Christ they curse.
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." For eighteen hundred years you have not kept a Sabbath of your God. You observe a day he never authorized you to observe.
"Honor thy father and thy mother." The Christ you worship spurned the loving mother who bore him and declared that he who hated not father and mother could not be his disciple.
"Thou shalt not kill." You have made of earth a slaughter house. For centuries it resounded with the shrieks of murdered millions, victims of your relentless fury. And today your votaries are drenching Europe's soil with blood.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery." Your most immaculate saints violate this commandment and become a stench in the nostrils of decent people.
"Thou shalt not steal." Today the prisons of Europe and America shelter three hundred thousand Christian thieves.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness." Perjury is rife in Christendom; and even in heathen lands the very name of Christianity has become a synonym for falsehood and deceit.
"Thou shalt not covet." Your history is the history of covetousness itself. Christian Rome has tried to devour the world. A little while ago we saw the Greek cross planted upon the Balkan—saw the Russian eagle perched upon those snowy crags, gloating over the misfortunes of Turkey, eager to clutch in his greedy talons the territory of Islam, and prevented only by the jealous wolves of Protestantism.
No wonder that the warmest hearts and brightest intellects are leaving you. Upon your walls they read the fateful words that met the terrified gaze of Babylon's sinful king. Your devotees are looking forward to a millennium when your power on earth shall be supreme. Delusive phantom! your millennium has come and gone. That dark blot on the page of history—that withering pall stretching across the centuries from Constantine to Luther—that constitutes the thousand years of Christian rule foretold in the Apocalypse. But that has past, and your power is vanishing, never to be restored again. From the ashes of that dauntless hero, Giordano Bruno, young Science, phoenixlike, arose, and in the soil prepared by Luther, sowed the seed whose harvest is your death. Even now I hear your death-knell ringing; even now I gaze into a sepulchre where soon must lie your Bible and your creeds—your stakes, your gibbets and your racks—your priests, your devil and your God! And when the last have been entombed, then gather up the crumbling bones of the one hundred million human beings who have perished at your hands, and let this ghastly pile remain, a most befitting monument to your unbounded cruelties and crimes!
It is a pleasing thought to know that bigotry is fading from the earth. It can flourish only in the malarial swamps of ignorance and superstition, and the poisonous vapors arising from these loathsome regions are being fast dispelled by the sun of science.
An incident in the life of Nicholas I. of Russia furnishes a fitting parallel to what the bigots of our time are now experiencing. Among the many admirers of that other great Deist, Voltaire, was the Empress Catharine, who ordered a statue of him from the leading sculptor of Europe. When it arrived Catharine was dying, and for years it lay untouched in the box in which it had been shipped.
At length Alexander caused it to be set up in a room of the imperial palace, where it remained until Nicholas ascended the throne. Nicholas was a most admirable type of the religious bigot; he was ignorant and intolerant, and the character of Voltaire was the object of his especial hatred. Hardly had he donned the imperial robes before he began to realize
"How uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."
An insurrection had broken out in one of his provinces. Troubled and perplexed, he was wandering through the halls of the palace when, suddenly, he stood face to face with the statue of Voltaire. That haughty smile, so natural to the face of the living Voltaire, had been transferred to his marble image; and now it seemed to mock the troubled emperor. He summoned one of his ministers and ordered him to remove the offensive work. The minister did so, placing it in an old lumber room of the palace. All went well with the emperor until one night the cry of "fire!" resounded in his ears. The palace was on fire. Rushing to the scene of the conflagration he chanced to pass through the very room to which the statue had been removed, and again he stood before the object of his hatred. The red glare of the flames added to the terrors of the scene, and, for a moment, Nicholas fancied himself translated to the dominions of Satan and standing before his throne. The flames were finally extinguished, the greater portion of the palace was saved, and with it the statue. But the remembrance of this terrible scene haunted him like an apparition all night long. He could not sleep. In the morning he summoned his minister and ordered him to destroy the work of art. Out of respect for the dead Catharine the order was unheeded. Years rolled by; the armies of England and France had invaded the Crimea and defeated with frightful slaughter the armies of the czar. Then flashed to St. Petersburg news of the bombardment of Sebastopol which ultimately fell. It was night, and, wild with anguish, Nicholas was again wandering through those desolate halls—lighted only by the weird moonbeams that came straggling through the palace windows—when, for the third time, he was confronted by the ghostly statue. Again he summoned his minister. But his iconoclastic spirit was broken. He no longer demanded the destruction of the statue, but simply begged his official to remove it to where he should never more behold it. The wily minister bethought him of a place never visited by his sovereign, and accordingly had it removed to the imperial library. Nicholas is no more; but the statue remains—a silent monarch in that realm of thought—an object, not of abhorrence and dread, but of admiration.
As the Russian bigot was haunted by the statue of Voltaire, so the bigots of our day and country are haunted by the memory of Paine. Theological insurrections are breaking out on every hand; the intellectual fires of the twentieth century are encircling and consuming the rude palace of Superstition; they hear the cannon of Science thundering before the walls of their Sebastopol. Terror-stricken, aimlessly and hopelessly they wander on, only to be confronted at every turn by the ghost of Thomas Paine. Unhappy beings, this will not forever last. Not always will the good name of Thomas Paine stand as a phantom to frighten bigots. Gently and lovingly his friends are removing it, passing it on from generation to generation, to a better and a grander age—to an age across whose threshold no bigot's foot shall ever pass. Then, when the Republic of the World has been established, and the Religion of Humanity has become the universal religion, all mankind will recognize the worth and revere the memory of him who wrote the political and religious creed of this glorious day:
—THE WORLD IS MY COUNTRY, TO DO GOOD MY RELIGION.
THE END.