 | Washington and his generals, or, Legends of the Revolution |  |
5. BOOK FIFTH.
THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1776.
MEN AND THEIR MISSION.
The Declaration; its source; its action upon mankind in the
Revolutions of America and France.
THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1776.
I.—THE DAY.
Let me paint you a picture on the canvass of the Past.
It is a cloudless summer day. Yes, a clear blue sky arches and smiles
above a quaint edifice, rising among giant trees, in the centre of a wide city.
That edifice is built of red brick, with heavy window frames and a massy
hall door. The wide-spreading dome of St. Peter's, the snowy pillars of
the Parthenon, the gloomy glory of Westminster Abbey—none of these, nor
any thing like these are here, to elevate this edifice of plain red brick, into
a gorgeous monument of architecture.
Plain red brick the walls; the windows partly framed in stone; the roofeaves
heavy with intricate carvings; the hall door ornamented with pillars
of dark stone; such is the State House of Philadelphia, in this year of our
Lord, 1776.
Around this edifice stately trees arise. Yonder toward the dark walls of
Walnut street gaol, spreads a pleasant lawn, enclosed by a plain board fence.
Above our heads, these trees lock their massy limbs and spread their leafy
canopy.
There are walks here, too, not fashioned in squares and circles, but
spreading in careless negligence along the lawn. Benches too, rude benches,
on which repose the forms of old men with grey hairs, and women with
babes in their arms.
This is a beautiful day, and this a pleasant lawn: but why do those
clusters of citizens, with anxious faces, gather round the State House walls?
There is the Merchant in his velvet garb and ruffled shirt; there the Mechanic,
with apron on his breast and tools in his hands; there the bearded
Sailor and the dark-robed Minister, all grouped together.
Why this anxiety on every face? This gathering in little groups all
over the lawn!
Yet hold a moment! In yonder wooden steeple, which crowns the red
brick State House, stands an old man with white hair and sunburnt face.
He is clad in humble attire, yet his eye gleams, as it is fixed upon the ponderous
outline of the bell, suspended in the steeple there. The old man
tries to read the inscription on that bell, but cannot. Out upon the waves,
he scarcely can spell one of those strange words carved on the surface of
that bell.
By his side, gazing in his free—that sunburnt face—in wonder, stands a
flaxen-haired boy, with laughing eyes of summer blue.
“Come here, my boy; you are a rich man's child. You can read.
Spell me those words, and I'll bless ye, my good child!”
And the child raised itself on tip-toe and pressed its tiny hands against the
bell, and read, in lisping tones, these memorable words:
“Proclaim Liberty to all the Land and all the Inhabitants
thereof.”
The old man ponders for a moment on those strange words; then gathering
the boy in his arms, he speaks,
“Look here, my child? Wilt do the old man a kindness? Then haste
you down stairs, and wait in the hall by the big door, until a man shall give
you a message for me. A man with a velvet dress and a kind face, will
come out from the big door, and give you a word for me. When he gives
you that word, then run out yonder in the street, and shout it up to me.
Do you mind?”
It needed no second command. The boy with blue eyes and flaxen hair
sprang from the old Bell-keeper's arms, and threaded his way down the dark
stairs.
The old Bell-keeper was alone. Many minutes passed. Leaning over
the railing of the steeple, his face toward Chesnut street, he looked anxiously
for that fair-haired boy. Moments passed, yet still he came not. The
crowds gathered more darkly along the pavement and over the lawn, yet
still the boy came not.
“Ah!” groaned the old man, “he has forgotten me! These old limbs
will have to totter down the State House stairs, and climb up again, and all
on account of that child —”
As the word was on his lips, a merry, ringing laugh broke on the ear.
There, among the crowds on the pavement, stood the blue-eyed boy, clapping
his tiny hands, while the breeze blowed his flaxen hair all about his face.
And then swelling his little chest, he raised himself on tip-toe, and shouted
a single word—
“Ring!”
Do you see that old man's eye fire? Do you see that arm so suddenly
bared to the shoulder, do you see that withered hand, grasping the Iron
Tongue of the Bell? The old man is young again; his veins are filled
with new life. Backward and forward, with sturdy strokes, he swings the
Tongue. The bell speaks out! The crowd in the street hear it, and burst
forth in one long shout! Old Delaware hears it, and gives it back in the
hurrah of her thousand sailors. The city hears it, and starts up from desk
and work-bench, as though an earthquake had spoken.
Yet still while the sweat pours from his brow, that old Bell-keeper hurls
the iron tongue, and still—boom—boom—boom—the Bell speaks to the city
and the world.
There is a terrible poetry in the sound of that State House Bell at dead
of night, when striking its sullen and solemn—One!—It rouses crime from
its task, mirth from its wine-cup, murder from its knife, bribery from its
gold. There is a terrible poetry in that sound. It speaks to us like a voice
from our youth—like a knell of God's judgment—like a solemn yet kind
remembrancer of friends, now dead and gone.
There is a terrible poetry in that sound at dead of night: but there was
a day when the echo of that Bell awoke a world, slumbering in tyranny
and crime!
Yes, as the old man swung the Iron Tongue, the Bell spoke to all the
world. That sound crossed the Atlantic—pierced the dungeons of Europe
—the work-shops of England—the vassal-fields of France.
That Echo spoke to the slave—bade him look from his toil—and know
himself a man.
That Echo startled the Kings upon their crumbling thrones.
That Echo was the knell of King-craft, Priest-craft, and all other crafts
born of the darkness of ages, and baptised in seas of blood.
Yes, the voice of that little boy, who lifting himself on tip-toe, with his
flaxen hair blowing in the breeze, shouted—“Ring!”—had a deep and
awful meaning in its infant tones!
Why did that word “Ring!”—why did that Echo of the State House
Bell speak such deep and awful meaning to the world? What did that
“Ring!”—the Echo of that Bell to do with the downfall of the Dishonest
Priest or Traitor King?
Under that very Bell, pealing out at noonday, in an old hall, fifty-six
traders, farmers and mechanics, had assembled to shake the shackles of the
world.
Now let us look in upon this band of plain men, met in such solemn
council It is now half an hour previous to the moment when the Bell-Ringer
responded to the shout of the fair-haired boy.
This is an old hall. It is not so large as many a monarch's ante-room;
you might put a hundred like it within the walls of St. Peter's, and yet it
is a fine old hall. The walls are concealed in dark oaken wainscotting,
and there along the unclosed windows, the purple tapestry comes drooping
down.
The ornaments of this hall?
Over the head of that noble-browed man—John Hancock, who sits calm
and serene in yonder chair—there is a banner, the Banner of the Stars.
Perched on that Banner sits the Eagle with unfolded wings. (Is it not a
precocious bird? Born only last year on Bunker Hill, now it spreads its
wings, full-grown, over a whole Continent!)
Look over the faces of these fifty-six men, and see every eye turned to
that door. There is silence in this hall—every voice is hushed—every face
is stamped with a deep and awful responsibility.
Why turns every glance to that door, why is every face so solemn, why
is it so terribly still?
The Committee of Three, who have been out all night, penning a Parchment,
are about to appear.
The Parchment, with the Signatures of these men, written with the pen
lying on yonder table, will either make the world free—or stretch these
necks upon the gibbet, yonder in Potter's-field, or nail these heads to the
door-posts of this hall!
That was the time for solemn faces and deep silence.
At last, hark! The door opens—the Committee appear. Who are
these three men, who come walking on toward John Hancock's chair?
That tall man, with the sharp features, the bold brow and sand-hued hair,
holding the Parchment in his hand, is the Virginia Farmer, Thomas Jefferson.
The stout-built man with resolute look and flashing eye? That is a
Boston man—one John Adams. And the calm-faced man, with hair drooping
in thick curls to his shoulders—that man dressed in a plain coat, and
such odious home-made blue stockings—that is the Philadelphia Printer,
one Benjamin Franklin.
The three advance to the table. The Parchment is laid there. Shall it
be signed or not?
Then ensues a high and stormy debate—then the faint-hearted cringe in
corners—while Thomas Jefferson speaks out his few bold words, and John
Adams pours out his whole soul.
Then the deep-toned voice of Richard Henry Lee is heard, swelling in
syllables of thunder-like music.
But still there is doubt—and that pale-faced man, shrinking in one corner,
squeaks out something about axes, scaffolds, and a—GIBBET!
“Gibbet!” echoes a fierce, bold voice, that startles men from their seats,
—and look yonder! A tall slender man rises, dressed—although it is
summer time—in a dark robe. Look how his white hand undulates
as it is stretched slowly out, how that dark eye burns, while his words ring
through the hall. (We do not know his name, let us therefore call his
appeal)
THE SPEECH OF THE UNKNOWN.
“Gibbet? They may stretch our necks on all the gibbets in the land—
they may turn every rock into a scaffold—every tree into a gallows, every
home into a grave, and yet the words on that Parchment can never die!
“They may pour our blood on a thousand scaffolds, and yet from every
drop that dyes the axe, or drips on the sawdust of the block, a new martyr
to Freedom will spring into birth!
“The British King may blot out the Stars of God from His sky, but he
cannot blot out His words written on the Parchment there! The works
of God may perish—His Word, never!
“These words will go forth to the world when our bones are dust. To
the slave in the mines they will speak—Hope—to the mechanic in his
workshop—Freedom—to the coward-kings these words will speak, but not
in tones of flattery? No, no! They will speak like the flaming syllables
on Belshazzar's wall—the days of your pride and glory are numbered!
The days of Judgment and Revolution draw near!
“Yes, that Parchment will speak to the Kings in a language sad and
terrible as the trump of the Archangel. You have trampled on mankind
long enough. At last the voice of human woe has pierced the ear of God,
and called His Judgment down! You have waded on to thrones over
seas of blood—you have trampled on to power over the necks of millions—
you have turned the poor man's sweat and blood into robes for your delicate
forms, into crowns for your anointed brows. Now Kings—now purpled
Hangmen of the world—for you come the days of axes and gibbets and
scaffolds—for you the wrath of man—for you the lightnings of God!—
“Look! How the light of your palaces on fire flashes up into the midnight
sky!
“Now Purpled Hangmen of the world—turn and beg for mercy!
“Where will you find it?
“Not from God, for you have blasphemed His laws!
“Not from the People, for you stand baptized in their blood!
“Here you turn, and lo! a gibbet!
“There—and a scaffold looks you in the face.
“All around you—death—and nowhere pity!
“Now executioners of the human race, kneel down, yes, kneel down
upon the sawdust of the scaffold—lay your perfumed heads upon the block
—bless the axe as it falls—the axe that you sharpened for the poor man's
neck!
“Such is the message of that Declaration to Man, to the Kings of the
world! And shall we falter now? And shall we start back appalled when
our feet press the very threshhold of Freedom? Do I see quailing faces
around me, when our wives have been butchered—when the hearthstones
of our land are red with the blood of little children?
“What are these shrinking hearts and faltering voices here, when the very
Dead of our battlefields arise, and call upon us to sign that Parchment, or
be accursed forever?
“Sign! if the next moment the gibbet's rope is round your neck! Sign!
if the next moment this hall rings with the echo of the falling axe! Sign!
By all your hopes in life or death, as husbands—as fathers—as men—sign
your names to the Parchment or be accursed forever!
“Sign—and not only for yourselves, but for all ages. For that Parchment
forever!
“Sign—for that declaration will go forth to American hearts forever, and
speak to those hearts like the voice of God! And its work will not be
done, until throughout this wide Continent not a single inch of ground owns
the sway of a British King!
“Nay, do not start and whisper with surprise! It is a truth, your own
hearts witness it, God proclaims it.—This Continent is the property of a
free people, and their property alone. God, I say, proclaims it! Look at
this strange history of a band of exiles and outcasts, suddenly transformed
into a People—look at this wonderful Exodus of the oppressed of the Old
World into the New, where they came, weak in arms but mighty in God-like
faith—nay, look at this history of your Bunker Hill—your Lexington—
where a band of plain farmers mocked and trampled down the panoply of
British arms, and then tell me, if you can, that God has not given America
to the free?
“It is not given to our poor human intellect to climb the skies, to pierce
the councils of the Almighty One. But methinks I stand among the awful
clouds which veil the brightness of Jehovah's throne. Methinks I see the
Recording Angel—pale as an angel is pale, weeping as an angel can weep
—come trembling up to that Throne, and speak his dread message—
“`Father! the old world is baptized in blood! Father, it is drenched
with the blood of millions, butchered in war, in persecution, in slow and
grinding oppression! Father—look, with one glance of Thine Eternal eye,
look over Europe, Asia, Africa, and behold evermore, that terrible sight,
man trodden down beneath the oppressor's feet—nations lost in blood—
Murder and Superstition walking hand in hand over the graves of their
victims, and not a single voice to whisper, `Hope to Man!'
“He stands there, the Angel, his hands trembling with the black record
of human guilt. But hark! The voice of Jehovah speaks out from the
awful cloud—`Let there be light again. Let there be a New World. Tell
my people—the poor—the trodden down millions, to go out from the Old
World. Tell them to go out from wrong, oppression and blood—tell them
to go out from this Old World—to build my altar in the New!'
“As God lives, my friends, I believe that to be HIS voice! Yes, were
my soul trembling on the wing for Eternity, were this hand freezing in death,
were this voice choking with the last struggle, I would still, with the last
impulse of that soul, with the last wave of that hand, with the last gasp of
that voice, implore you to remember this truth—God has given America to
the free! Yes, as I sank down into the gloomy shadows of the grave, with
my last gasp, I would beg you to sign that Parchment, in the name of the
God, who made the Saviour who redeemed you—in the name of the millions
whose very breath is now hushed in intense expectation, as they look
up to you for the awful words—`You are free!”'
O, many years have gone since that hour—the Speaker, his brethren, all,
have crumbled into dust, but it would require an angel's pen to picture the
magic of that Speaker's look, the deep, terrible emphasis of his voice, the
prophet-like beckoning of his hand, the magnetic flame which shooting from
his eyes, soon fired every heart throughout the hall!
He fell exhausted in his seat, but the work was done. A wild murmur
thrills through the hall.—Sign? Hah? There is no doubt now. Look!
How they rush forward—stout-hearted John Hancock has scarcely time to
sign his bold name, before the pen is grasped by another—another and
another! Look how the names blaze on the Parchment—Adams and Lee
and Jefferson and Carroll, and now, Roger Sherman the Shoemaker.
And here comes good old Stephen Hopkins—yes, trembling with palsy,
he totters forward—quivering from head to foot, with his shaking hands he
seizes the pen, he scratches his patriot-name.
Then comes Benjamin Franklin the Printer, and now the tall man in the
dark robe advances, the man who made the fiery speech a moment ago—
with the same hand that but now waved in such fiery scorn he writes his
name.[1]
And now the Parchment is signed; and now let word go forth to the
People in the streets—to the homes of America—to the camp of Mister
Washington, and the Palace of George the Idiot-King—let word go out to
all the earth—
And, old man in the steeple, now bare your arm, and grasp the Iron
Tongue, and let the bell speak out the great truth:
Fifty-six Traders and Farmers and Mechanics have this day shook
the shackles of the World!
Hark! Hark to the toll of that Bell!
Is there not a deep poetry in that sound, a poetry more sublime than
Shakspeare or Milton?
Is there not a music in the sound, that reminds you of those awful tones
which broke from angel-lips, when the news of the child of Jesus burst on
the Shepherds of Bethlehem?
For that Bell now speaks out to the world, that—
God has given the American Continent to the free—the toiling
millions of the human race—as the last altar of the rights of man
on the globe—the home of the oppressed, forevermore!
Let us search for the origin of the great truth, which that bell proclaimed,
let us behold the great Apostle who first proclaimed on our shores, all
men are alike the children of God.
The name of the Orator, who made the last eloquent appeal before the Signing
of the Declaration, is not definitely known. In this speech, it is my wish to compress
some portion of the fiery eloquence of the time; to embody in abrupt sentences,
the very spirit of the Fourth of July, 1776.
II.—THE APOSTLE TO THE NEW WORLD.
We are with the Past again.
Yes, we are yonder—far over the Ocean of Time, where the Ages like
Islands of eternal granite, rear their awful forms.
At this hour on the shores of the Delaware, just where the glorious river
rich with the tribute of mountain and valley, widens into a magnificent bay,
at this hour along yonder shore, on the slope of a gentle ascent blooms a
fair village, whose white houses rise in the summer air from among gardens
and trees. Away from this hamlet spreads fields, golden with wheat, or
emerald green with Indian corn; away among these fields rank marshes
wind here and there, in all the luxuriance of their untamed verdure; away
and away from marsh, and field, and coast, and bay, green woods arise, their
thick foliage sweeping into the summer sky.
A pleasant village, a glorious country, a green island, and a lordly bay.
Such it is now. But we will back into the past. We will wander into
the shadows of ages. We will stand face to face with the dead.
There was a day when no village bloomed along this coast, nor white-walled
farm-house arose from among the orchard trees. There was a day
when standing on this gentle ascent, you might look forth, and lo! the
waves were dashing to your feet. Yonder is the green aisle, yonder far
away, the dim line of land which marks the opposite shore of the bay, and
there, heaving, and glistening, and roaring, the wide waters melt by slow
degrees into the cloudy sky.
Look to the south! You behold the level coast—white sand mingled
with green reeds—the wide-spreading marsh—the thick woods, glorious
with oak, and beech, and chesnut, and maple. Enclosed in the arms of the
green shore, the bay rolls yonder, a basin of tumultuous waves.
It is noon: above your head you behold the leaden sky. It is noon, and
lo! from the broad green of yonder marsh a pale column of blue smoke
winds up into the clouds. It is noon, and hark! A shrill, piercing, hissing
sound—a footstep—a form! A red man rushes from yonder covert,
bow in hand, while the stricken deer with one proud bound, falls dead at
his feet.
A column of blue smoke from the marsh—an arrow hissing through the
air—a red man's form and a wounded deer? What does all this mean?
Where are we now?
Hist! my friend, for we are now in Indian land. Hist! for we are now
far back among the shadows of two hundred years.
Yet we will watch the motions of this Red Man. He stoops with his
hatchet of flint upraised, he stoops to inflict the last blow on the writhing
deer, when his eye wanders along the surface of the bay. The hatchet
his hands half-raised, in a gesture of deep wonder.
He stands on this gentle ascent, the waves breaking at his feet, the proud
maple spreading its leaves overhead. He stands there, an Apollo, such as
the Grecian artist never sculptured in his wildest dream, an Apollo fashioned
by the Living God, with a broad chest, faultless limbs, quivering nostrils,
and a flashing eye. No robes of rank upon that tawny breast, ah, no! A
single fold of panther's hide around the loins, graces without concealing, the
proportions of his faultless limbs.
Tell us—why stands the lone Indian on this Delaware shore, gazing in
mute wonder across the sweep of yonder magnificent bay.
Look, yes, far over the waters look! What see you there? The bay,
its waves plumed with snowy foam: yes, the rolling, dashing, panting bay,
rushing from the horizon to the shore. Look again, rude Red Man; what
see you now?
The Red Man cannot tell his thoughts; his breast heaves; he trembles
from head to foot.
Strange—yes, terrible spectacle!
A white speck gleams yonder on the horizon; it tosses into view, on that
dim line where waves meet the sky. It enlarges, it spreads, it comes on
gloriously over the waters!
The Red Man standing beneath the giant maple, chilled to his rude heart
with a strange awe.
That white speck is dim and distant no longer. It is nearer now. It
spreads forth huge wings of snow-white; it displays a massive body of jet-black;
it comes on, this strange wondrous thing, tearing the waves with its
beak. Beak? Yes, for it is a bird, a mighty bird, sent by Manitto from
the Spirit-Land, sent to save or to destroy!
Gloriously over the bay it comes. Larger and larger yet it grows.
White and beautiful spread its fluttering wings over the dark waters.
The Red Man sinks aghast. He prays. By the rustling in the leaves,
by the voice of his own heart, he knows that Manitto hears his prayer.
The White Bird comes for good!
Leaving the rude Indian to gaze upon the sight of wonder with his own
eyes, let us also look upon it with ours.
A noble ship, dashing with wide-spread sails over the waters of the Delaware
Bay! Such is the sight which two hundred years ago, excited the
wonder and awe of the rude Indian, who never beheld ship or sail before.
Ship and sail had tossed and whitened along this bay full many a time before,
but the Indian dwelling in the fastnesses of impenetrable swamps, had
never laid eyes upon this wondrous sight until this hour.
It is near the Indian now. It comes dashing over the waters toward the
Island, triumphing over the waves, which roar and foam in its path. Look!
you can see the people on its deck, the sailors among its white wings.
sailor's song; and a boat comes speeding over the waters, urged along by
sinewy arms.
Yes, while the noble ship rides at anchor, under the shelter of yonder
isle, that small boat comes tossing over the waters. It nears the spot
where the Indian stands; he can see the bearded faces and strange costume
of the sailors, he can see that Form standing erect in the prow of the boat.
That Form standing there under the leaden sky, with the uncovered
brow, bared to breeze and spray! Is it the form of a spirit sent by Manitto?
The Indian sees that form—that face! He kneels—yes, beneath the
maple tree, by the bleeding deer, tomahawk in hand he kneels, gazing with
fixed eyes upon that face. As the boat comes near let us look upon that
face, that form.
A man in the prime of life, with the flush of manhood upon his cheek,
its fire in his eye, attired in a brown garb, plain to rudeness, stands in the
prow of the boat, as it comes dashing on.
And yet that Man is the Apostle of the Living God to the New
World.
Yes, on a mission as mighty as that of Paul, he comes. His coat is
plain, but underneath that plain coat beats a heart, immortal with the pulsations
of a love that grasps at all the human race.
He is an Apostle, and yet his eyes are not hollow, his cheeks not gaunt
and cadaverous, his hair not even changed to grey. An Apostle with a
young countenance, a clear blue eye, a cheek flushed with rose-bud hues,
a broad brow shadowed by light brown hair, a mouth whose red lips curve
with a smile of angel like love.
An Apostle with a manly form, massive chest, broad shoulders, and bearing
far beyond the majesty of kings.
He stands in the prow, his blue eye flashing as the boat nears land.
Splash, splash—do you hear the oars? Hurrah—hurrah! How the
waves shout as they break upon the beach.
The boat comes on, nearer and nearer. A swelling wave dashes over
the dying deer, whilst the spray-drops wet the face of the kneeling Indian.
The keel grates the sand.
For a moment that man with the fair countenance and chesnut hair,
stands in the prow of the boat, his blue eyes upraised to God. For a moment
he stands there, and behold! The clouds are severed yonder. A
gush of sunshine pours through their parting folds, and illumines the
Apostle's brow. In that light he looks divine.
Say through those parting clouds, cannot you see the face of the Saviour
bending down, and smiling eternal love upon his Apostle's brow?
For a moment the Apostle stood there, and then—with no weapon by his
side, nor knife, nor pistol, nor powder-horn—but with love beaming from
his brow, that man stepped gently on the sand.
The Indian looked up and saw that face, and was not afraid. Love,
gentleness, God—these were written on that face.
Was it not a beautiful scene?
The kneeling Indian, his knife sunken in the earth, the dying deer by
his side, looks up with a loving awe gleaming from his red face. The
Apostle standing there upon that patch of sod, the surf breaking round his
feet, the sunlight bursting on his brow. The bearded sailors, their faces
hushed with deep awe; while their oars hang suspended in mid-air.— On
one side the leafy maple—on the other the river, the ship, the island, and
the wide extending bay.
And then the blue sky, looking out from amid a wilderness of floating
clouds, as though God himself smiled down his blessing on the scene.
That was the picture, my friends, and O, by all the memories of Home
and Freedom, paint that picture in your hearts.
Columbus, with his eye fixed on land—the land of the New World—
Pizarro gazing on the riches of Peru, Cortez with the Temples of Montezuma
at his feet—these are mighty pictures, but here was a mightier than
them all.
Mighter than that historic image of Columbus gazing for the first time
on land? Yes! For Columbus but discovered a New World, while this
Apostle first planted on its shores the seed of a mighty tree, which had lain
buried for sixteen hundred years, beneath an ocean of blood.
The shade of that tree is now cast abroad, far over this Continent, far
over the World. That tree was called Toleration. In the day of its
planting, it was a strange thing. The Nations feared it. But now watered
by God it grows, and on its golden fruit you may read these words:
“Every man hath a right to worship God after the dictates of
his own conscience.”
For a moment, spell-bound, the Indian looked up into the Apostle's face.
Then that Apostle slowly advancing over the sod, beneath the shade of the
Maple tree, clasped him by the hand, and called him Brother!
Soon a fire flamed there upon the sod. Soon columns of blue smoke
wound upward, in the thick green leaves of the Maple tree.
Roar O, surf! roll ye clouds! beam O, sun! For now beneath the
Maple tree, on the shores of the Delaware, the Apostle in the plain garb
shares the venison and corn of the rude Indian, sits by his side, while the
red woman stealing from the shadows, prepares the pipe of peace, as her
large dark eyes are fixed upon that manly face.
Around scattered over the sod, were grouped the stout forms of the
sailors. In the distance the ship, like a giant bird, tossed slowly on the
waves. The summer breeze bent the reeds upon the green isle, and played
among the leaves of the Maple tree. The sky above was clear, the last
the distant horizon.
It was a calm hour.
The Pipe of Peace was lighted—its smoke arose, curling around the
beaming face of the Apostle, while the red man looked upon him in rude
love, and the woman, her form thrown carelessly on the sod, her long hair
showering in glossy blackness to her waist, gazed in his blue eyes with a
mute reverence, as though she beheld the Messenger of God.
That Apostle built a Nation without a Priest, without an Oath, without a
Blow. Yet he never wronged the poor Indian.[2]
That Apostle reared the Altar of Jesus, on the Delaware shore, and
planted the foundations of a Mighty People, amid dim old forests. Yet he
never wronged the poor Indian.
He died, with his pillow smoothed by the blessings of the rude Indian
race. To this hour the Indian Mother, driven far beyond the Mississippi,
driven even from the memory of the Delaware, takes her wild boy upon
her knee, and tells him the wild tradition of the Good Miquon.
My friends, when I think of this great man who in a dark age, preached
Toleration, or in other words, the Love of Jesus, a dream rushes upon
my soul.
One night in a dream, I beheld a colossal rock, a mountain of granite,
rising from illimitable darkness into bright sunshine. Around its base was
midnight; half-way up was twilight; on the very summit shone the light of
God's countenance.
A voice whispered—This awful rock, built upon midnight, girdled by
twilight, with the light of God's face shining upon its brow, this awful rock
is The History of the World.
Far down in blackest midnight, I beheld certain lurid, horrible shapes,
going wildly to and fro. These, said the voice, these are the butchers of
the human race, called Conquerors.
Half-way up in the dim twilight, a multitude of Popes, Reformers, Pretended
Prophets and Fanatics, were groping their way with stumbling footsteps,
darkness below and twilight around them. These, said the voice, are
the numerous race of Creed-Makers, who murder millions in the name
of God.
But far up this terrible rock,—yes, yonder in the eternal sunshine, which
and the Apostles, stood a commanding form, clad in an unpretending garb,
with a mild glory playing over his brow; that form, the Apostle of God to
the New World, William Penn.
Note.—It is stated, (whether by history or by tradition only I am not informed,)
that William Penn first put his foot on New World soil, on the shore opposite Reedy
Island, at the head of Delaware Bay, where now stands and flourishes the pleasant
village of Port Penn. From this legend of William Penn, we will pass to the life
of his Divine Master, who first asserted the truth which the Declaration of Independence
promulgated, after a lapse of eighteen hundred years—“ALL MEN ARE
ALIKE THE CHILDREN OF God.”
III.—“BACK EIGHTEEN HUNDRED YEARS!”
Ere we come down to the days of the Revolution, let us go on a journey
into a far country and a long past age.
Kings and Priests have asked us, from whence do you derive the principle—All
men in the sight of God are equal—from what work of philosophy,
from what dogma of musty parchments, or thesis of monkish schools.
From none of these! We go higher, for the origin of the noble words
contained in the Declaration of Independence, even to the foot of that
Judean mount, which one day beheld a universe in mourning for the crimes
of ages.
We pass by our Kings and Priests; we leave behind us the long column
of crowned robbers, and anointed hypocrites; to the altar where the light
burns, and the truth shines forever, we hasten, with bended head and reverent
eyes.
Come with me to a far distant age.
There was a day when the summer sun shone from the centre of the
deep blue sky, in the far eastern clime.
It was the hour of high noon.
Come with me—yes—while the noonday sun is pouring his fierce rays
over the broad landscape, let us for a moment turn aside into the deep woods
—the deep green woods, not far from yonder town.
What see you here?
Here sheltered from the rays of the sun by a thick canopy of leaves, a
quiet stream stretches away into the dim woods.
Is it not beautiful? The water so deep, so clear—trembling gently
along its shores, fragrant with myrtle—the thick canopy of leaves overhead
—the white lilies on yonder bank, dipping gently into the still waves!
There is the balm of summer flowers, the stillness of noonday, the tranquil
beauty of calm waters and stout forest trees—all are here!
And look yonder! There, under the boughs of that spreading cedar, a
fountain of dark stone breaks on your eye.
It is but a pile of dark stone, and yet, cool water, trickling from the rock
above, shines and glimmers there—and yet, hanging from the boughs of
that giant cedar, thick clusters of grapes dip into the waters of that spring,
—and lo! a single long gleam of sunlight streams through the thick boughs
upon the cold water, and the purple grapes.
Is it not a beautiful picture, nestling away here in dim woods, while the
noonday sun pours its fierce rays over hill and valley, far along the land?
And yet we must leave this scene of quiet beauty, for the hot air and the
burning sun.
Look there, at the foot of yonder giant cedar, beside the fountain, murmuring
such low music on the air, look yonder and behold a path winding
up, into the still woods.
We will follow that path, up and on with tired steps we go, we leave the
woods, we stand in the open air under the burning sun.
There, not a hundred paces from our feet, the white walls of a quiet town
break into the deep blue of the summer sky.
Come with me, to that town; over the hot dust of the flinty road, come
with me!
Let us on through the still streets—for the heat is so intense that the
rich and the proud have retired to their homes—nay, even the poor have
fallen exhausted at their labor. Let us on; without pausing to look in upon
that garden, adorned with temples, musical with fountains, with the rich
man reclining on his bed of flowers.—
Let us not even pause to look in through the doors of yonder gorgeous
temple, where pompous men in glittering robes, and long beards are mumbling
over their drowsy prayers.
Here we are in the still streets—still as midnight, even at broad noon—
and around us rise the white walls of rich men's mansions, and the glittering
dome of the synagogue.
Let us ask the name of this town! Let us ask yonder solitary man, who
with his hands folded among his robes of fine linen, his long beard sweeping
his breast—his calm self-complacent brow is striding haughtily along the
deserted streets.
“Tell us good sir, the name of this town!” That richly clad way-farer
answers one question with a haughty scowl, and passes on.
You perceive that man is too holy to answer the question of sinful men
—his robe is too rich, his phylactery too broad—his knowledge of the law
too great to speak to men of common garb. That is a holy man, a Pharisee.
And this town is the town of Nazareth; and we stand here tired and
fainting in the dusty streets; with the drowsy prayers from that synagogue,
the music of rich men's fountains breaking on our heavy ears.
But hark! The deep silence of this noonday hour is broken by sharp,
quick sound—the clink of a hammer, the grating of a saw!
Let us follow that sound!
Look there, between those two massive domes of rich men, there, as if
crouching away from the hot sun, in the thick shadow, nestles the rude hut
of a Carpenter. Yes, the rude hut of a Carpenter, with the sound of hammer
and saw, echoing from that solitary window.
We approach that window—we look in! What is the strange sight
we see?
—Strange sight? Call you this a strange sight, when it is nothing more
than a young man, clad in the laborer's garments, the laborer's sweat upon
his brow, bending down to his labor, amid piles of timber and unhewn
boards—Call you this a strange sight?
Why it is but a sight of every day life—a common sight, a familiar thing,
a dull, every day fact.
But hold a moment,
Look as that young man raises his head, and wipes the thick drops from
his brow—look upon that face! Look there, and forget the Carpenter's
shop, the boards, the hammer, the saw, nay, even the rough laborer's dress.
It is is a young face—the face of a boy—but O, the calm beauty of that
hair, flowing to the shoulders in waving locks—mingling in its hues, the
purple of twilight with the darkness of midnight—O, the deep thought of
those large, full eyes, O, the calm radiance of that youthful brow!
Ah, that is a face to look upon and love—and kneel—and worship—even
though the form is clad in the rough carpenter's dress. Those eyes, how
deep they gleam, more beautiful than the stars at dead of night; that brow,
how awfully it brightens into the Majesty of God!
And now, as you are looking through the window—hold your breath as
you look—do not, O, do not disturb the silence of this scene!
As that boy—that apprentice boy—stands there, with a saw in one hand,
the other laid on a pile of boards—a strange thought comes over his soul!
He is thinking of his brothers—the Brotherhood of Toil! That vast
family, who now swelter in dark mines, bend in the fields, under the hot
sun, or toil, toil, toil on, toil forever in the Workshops of the World.
He is thinking of his brothers in the huts and dens of cities; sweltering
in rags and misery and disease. O, he is thinking of the Workmen of the
World, the Mechanics of the earth, whose dark lot has been ever and yet
ever—to dig that others may sleep—to sow that others may reap—to coin
their groans and sweat and blood, into gold for the rich man's chest, into
purple robes for his form and crowns for his brow. This had been the fate
of the Mechanic—the Poor man from immemorial ages!
Never in all the dark history of man, had the Mechanic once looked from
his toil—his very heart had always beat to that dull sound—Toil—Toil—
Toil!
Never since the day when Jehovah gave the word, “By the sweat of thy
brow thou shalt live!” never had that Great Army of Mechanics once looked
up, or felt the free blood dance in their veins.
By the sweat of the brow? Was it thus the Poor man was to live? And
how had he lived for four thousand years?
Not only by the sweat of his brow, but the blood of his heart, the groans
of his soul.
This had been the fate of the Mechanic—the Poor Man, for four thousand
years.
And now, that Young Carpenter stood there, in the Carpenter's shop of
Nazareth, thinking over the wrongs of the Poor, his brothers, his sisters,
THE Poor!
At that moment, as if a flood of light from the throne of God, had poured
down into his soul, that young Mechanic stood there, with an awful light
hovering over his brow.
At that moment he felt the Godhead fill his veins—at that moment he
stood there a God. Yes, a God in a Mechanic's gaberdine; with carpenter's
tools in his hand.
At that moment he felt the full force of his mission on earth; yes, standing
there, his brow gleaming, his eyes flashing with Eternal light, Jesus the
Carpenter of Nazareth, resolved to redress the wrongs of the Poor.
And as he stands there, behold. A mildly beautiful woman, steals from
yonder door, and pauses on tip-toe at the very shoulder of the young man;
herself unseen, she stands with hands half-raised, gazing upon her son, with
her large full eyes.
That mildly beautiful woman is Mary the Virgin-Mother.
Is it not a picture full of deep meaning?—There stands the Bride of
the Living God, gazing upon that young Carpenter, whose body is human—
whose soul is very God!
From that moment, these words became linked in one—Jesus and Man.
Yes, follow the Blessed Nazarene over the dust of the highway, hehold
him speaking hope to the desolate, health to the sick, life to the dead, eternal
life to the Poor! Last night he had his couch on yonder mountain-top
—to-night he shares you poor crust; to-morrow he goes on his way again;
his mission still the Redemption of the Poor.
Does he share the rich man's banquet or the rich man's couch? Is he
found waiting by rich men's elbows, speaking soft things to their drowsy
souls! Ah, no! Ah, no!
For the rich, the proud, the oppressor, his brow darkens with wrath, his
tongue drops biting scorn.
But to the Poor—to his poor. Ah, how that mild face looks in upon
their homes, speaking within dark huts, great words, which shall never die;
ah, how the poor love him; their Apostle, their Redeemer, more than all,
their brother.
Follow him there by the pool of Siloam—look! A man clad in a faded
garb, with long hair sweeping down his face,—that face covered with sweat
and dust—stamped with the ineffable Godhead—goes there by the waves
of dark Galilee—communes there at night with his soul—speaks to the stars
which he first spake into being!
Or far down in the shades of Gethsemane, there he kneels pleading, with
bloody drops upon his brow, for his brothers, his sisters the poor—
Or yonder on that grim heighth frowning over Jerusalem, nailed to the
Cross in scorn—pain, intense pain quivering through his racked sinews—
there, at the moment when it is made his fierce trial, to doubt his Divine
Mission!
Look as the Awful Godhead is struggling with his human nature. Hark
to that groan going up to God, from that Man of Nazareth, stretched there
upon the cross!
“Eloi—Eloi—lama Sabacthani!”
My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me!
I could bear the scorn of these High Priests; I could bear this cross;
these bloody hands, this streaming brow!
Nay, I could bear that very People, whose sick I have healed, whose
dead I have raised, the very People, who yesterday strewing palm branches
in my way, shouted Hosannah to my name; I could bear that these People
—these brothers of my soul—should have been the first to shriek—Crucify
him, Crucify him.
But Thou O God—Why hast thou forsaken me!
Ah, was not that a dark hour, when the Man of Nazareth doubted his mission
to the Poor, to Man—when God in human flesh doubted his Divinity?
And why this life of Toil—this bloody sweat in Gethsemane—this awful
scene—these bloody hands, this thorn-crowned brow—this terrible Doubt
on Calvary?
Was it only to root the Kings more firmly on their thrones—to grind the
faces of the poor yet deeper in the dust!
No! No! The bloody sweat of Gethsemane—the groans of Calvary—
the soul of Jesus answers no! no! no!
Yes, to-day from that Carpenter's shop in Nazareth, a Voice speaks out
to the workshops of the world—that voice speaks to Toil—yes, to dusty,
tired, half-clad, starving Toil—that voice speaks, and says,—“Look up
brother, for the day of your redemption draweth near!”
Ere we survey the result of this great mission of the Saviour, its action
upon Man, after the lapse of eighteen hundred years, we will behold two
scenes in his life, and learn the solemn lesson which they teach.
V.—THE WILDERNESS.
The Wilderness, dark and vast, illumined by the faint light of the breaking
dawn!
It is a wild place, this broken plain, gloomy by day, terrible by night;
ghostly when the cold moonbeam shines over these rugged rocks. On
every side, from the barren earth, rude shapes of granite rock, struggle into
the dim light of morning. Here are grand old trees, towering aloft, strong
with the growth of ages, their colossal trunks looming through the mists of
the dawn, like the columns of some heathen temple, made unholy by the
rites of bloody sacrifice.
It is the early dawn, and yonder beyond this dreary plain, rugged with
scattered masses of antediluvian rock, yonder beyond those aged trees, the
oaks grouped in a venerable circle, the palm rising in solitary magnificence,
we behold a gloomy waste of dark water, heaving sullenly in the first beam
of the day.
Ah, that waste of dark water is invested with a fearful gloom; silence
deeper than the grave broods over its impenetrable deep, like a raven over
the breast of the dead. Here and there, along the black shores, are scattered
dismal trees, stunted in their growth, blasted by lightning, withered in
trunk and branch, as with the weariness of long ages. Here and there,
from the edge of its sullen waters, huge masses of dark rock arise, their
fantastic shapes presenting images of hideous meaning, some rising like
fabled demons, some like beasts of prey, some like men, transformed by
infernal passions, into monuments of despair.
Altogether this dread, dark lake, this silent wilderness, strikes your heart
with a strange awe.
Let us seat ourselves upon this rude stone, and see the morning come
on, in solitary grandeur. Let us behold those snowy mists moving slowly
over the dark waters, like spirits of the blest over shades of unutterable
woe. Hark—a sound, harsh, crashing, and loud as thunder. In a moment
it is gone. It was but the last groan of an aged oak, which, eaten by the
tooth of ages, has fallen with one sudden plunge into the waters of the
lake. All is silent again, but such a silence—O, it chills the blood to dwell
in this place of shadows!
Tell us, do fair forms ever visit these gloomy wastes, do the voices of
home ever break in upon this heavy air, do kind faces ever beam upon these
rugged rocks? Tell us, does anything wearing the form of man ever press
this barren earth with a footstep?
The raven croaking from the limb of a blasted tree, the wolf, gaunt and
grim, stealing from his cave by the waters, the hyena howling his unearthly
laugh, these all may be here, but man—why should he ever dare this solitude,
more terrible than the war of battle?
Well may this place seem terrible by day, ghostly by night, blasted, as
with the judgment of God at all times! For yonder beneath those dark
waters, heaving with sullen surges on the blackened shore lies entombed
in perpetual judgment, the Cities of the Plain!
Yes, there beneath those waves are mansions, streets, gardens, temples
and domes, all crowded with people, all thronged with a silent multidude,
who stand in the doors, or throng the pathways, or kneel in the halls of
worship, ghostly skeleton people, who never speak, nor move, nor breathe,
but they are there, deep beneath the bituminous waves, petrified monuments
of Almighty vengeance. The cities of the Plain are there, Sodom and
Gomorrah.
Therefore is this desert so silent, so breathlesly desolate; therefore does
over the waste, like the knell of a lost world.
We are in the desert, and the lake before us, is the Dead Sea.
Yet hold—there is a footstep breaking upon the silence of the desert air.
Lo! From behind yonder granite rock, a form comes slowly into view,
a form rounded with the outlines of early manhood, attired in the rude
gaberdine of toil.
Who is he that comes slowly on, with gently-folded arms and downcast
head, framed in the curling beard and flowing hair?
Let us look well upon him!
He wears the garb of labor; his feet from which the worn sandals have
fallen away, are wounded by the desert flint. Slowly he comes, his head
upon his breast, his eyes fixed on the earth. Yet we may see that his
form combines in one view, all that is graceful in outline, or manly in vigor,
or beautiful in gesture.
Hold—and gaze! For he lifts his head.
Ah why do we desire to kneel—to love—to worship him, this man in
the rude garb? Why do our eyes seek that face with a glance of deep and
absorbing interest? Why do broken ejaculations bubble from our full
hearts, while our souls, all at once, seem lifted beyond these houses of
clay?
Look upon that face and find your answer.
O, the rapture of that calm white brow, O, the speechless love of those
large full eyes, O, the eloquence of those gently-parted lips! It is a young
face, with flowing hair, and curling beard, whose hues combine the darkness
of midnight, the rich purple of a summer's eve, while the brow is
clear as alabaster, the eyes dark with that excess of melting radiance. That
face touches your inmost soul.
Let us kneel, let us worship here, for the Carpenter of Nazareth comes
near us, clad in the garments of toil, yet with the Godhead beaming serenely
from his radiant brow.
Here, in this desert he has wandered forty days and forty nights. Not
a crust has passed those lips, not a cup of water moistened that throat,
whose beautiful outline is seen above the collar of his coarse garb.
Here he has dwelt for forty days companioned by day with silence, by
night with the stars, at all times by an Almighty presence, shining unutterable
images of beauty into his soul.
Ah, in this time, his heart has throbbed for man; yes, in the workshop
degraded by oppression in the mine, burdened by the chain, in the field with
the hot sun pouring over his brow, still Man his Brother!
Yes—beneath the calm light of the stars, amid the silence of noonday,
at twilight, when the long shadows of the palms, rested upon the bosom of
the Dead Sea, has his great mission come home to his soul, calling him
with its awful voice, to go forth and free his brother!
And the serene moon, shining from the sky of impenetrable blue, has
oftentimes revealed that earnest face stamped with unutterable thoughts,
lifted up to God, glowing already with a consciousness of the dim future.
O, my friends, when I follow this pure Being on his desert way, and
mark his tears as they fall for the sorrows of Man, and listen to his sighs,
as his heart beats with warm pulsations for the slave of toil, or see him
standing on yonder cliff, his form rising in the moonbeams, as he stretches
forth his hands to the sky and whispers an earnest prayer to God, for the
Millions of the human race, who have been made the sport of Priest and
King, for a dreary length of ages—then I feel my heart also warm, with
Hope that the Day is near, when Labor shall bless the whole earth, when
Man shall indeed be free!
This Jesus of Nazareth, dwelling for forty days and nights, alone with
his Soul, has ever for me, a calm, divine beauty.
But lo! he hungers, he thirsts at last. Where shall he find bread or
water? Not from these rocks, covered with rank moss, shall grow the
bread that nourishes, not from the dead wave of yonder sea, shall the bent
palm-leaf be filled with pure water.
Jesus hungers, thirsts; the hot sky is above, the arid earth below. But
neither bread nor water meet his gaze.
At this moment, hark! A footstep is heard, and a man of royal presence,
clad in purple robes, glistening with gems and gold, and contrasted
with the snowy whiteness of fine linen, comes striding into view, with the
air of majesty and worldly power. His ruddy countenance blushes with
the genial glow of the grape; his eyes sparkle with the fire of sensual
passion; his dark hair curls around a brow, which lofty and massive, is
stamped with that cunning, which among the people of this world, often
passes for Intellect.
In fact, he stands before us the inpersonation of Worldly Power, a goodly
looking man withal, whom it were policy and prudence to bow down and
reverence.
With his sandalled feet, glittering with diamonds that gleam as he walks,
he comes on: he stands before the humbly-clad Jesus. At a glance, he
reads the light of Godhead on that brow, he feels the immeasurable power
of those earnest eyes.
Come! he cries, taking Jesus of Nazareth by the hand, come! And
the desert is passed, and rocks are gone, and the Dead sea has faded from
the view. Come! repeats the Prince of this World, and as he speaks,
behold! A mountain swells before them, towering above the plain, green
with the venerable cedars and grey with colossal rocks.
Come! re-echoes the Prince, and up the steep mountain paths, and
through the deep mountain shadows, and along the dark mountain ravines,
they hurry on. Now they are in the clouds, now the mists of the summit
gather them in.
At last, upon this rock, projecting over an awful abyss, they stand, Jesus
of Nazareth in his laborer's garb, and the Prince of this world in his royal
robes.
Ah, what a doleful mockery of speech and common sense, was that
which painted the Incarnation of Evil, in a hideous shape, with all the
grotesque mummery of satyr's hoof and tail, poor as the poorest of earth's
toiling children! Whom could Satan ever tempt in a garb like this? No,
the Prince of this World, when he comes to tempt Man from the voice of
God, speaking forever in his inmost soul, comes in purple robes and fine
linen, with the flash of grapes upon his cheeks, the well-filled purse in his
fair hands, the marks of good cheer and rich banquets upon his portly form.
So, in all his pride and glory, stood he before the humbly-clad Jesus of
Nazareth.
Look! he cries, pointing with his hand towards that sublime panorama
of Empire crowded on Empire, which spreads far into the haze of distance,
from the foot of this colossal cliff; Look! All these will I give thee, if
thou wilt fall down and worship me!
Jesus bends from that awful cliff and gazes in mute wonder upon that
scene. Ah, who may describe that spectable, what power of imagery
depict the majestic drapery of glory which floated around that boundless
view?
There, rising into golden sunlight, were cities, glittering with innumerable
spires, grand with swelling domes, rank after rank, they grew into space,
and shone with the glory of all ages. Yes, the glory of the past, the glory
of the present, the glory of the future were there! Nineveh of old, rising
from a boundless plain, scattered with palms, her giant walls looming in
the light, her solitary temple towering over her wilderness of domes—
Nineveh was there! And there the Romes of all ages swelling in contrasted
glory. Imperial Rome—behold her! Magnificent with colosseum
and theatre, her streets crowded with the victorious legions, her white temples
encircled by the smoke of incense, her unconquered banner S. P. Q. R.
floating over the heads of kneeling millions—Imperial Rome, clad in the
drapery of the Cæsars, was there.
By her side arose another Rome; the Papal Rome of after years, with
her immense cathedral breaking into space, over the ruins of the ancient
city, while solemn Pontiffs, carried in gorgeous canopies, on the shoulders
of liveried guards, through the long files of kneeling worshippers, pointed to
the Cross, the Image and the Sword, and waved their heavy robes, rich
with lace and gold and jewels, as they swelled the anthem to the praise of
Rome, Papal Rome, the mistress of the souls of men!
Jesus beheld it all.
Renounce thy mission, forsake the Voice which now calls thee forth, to
Behold thy reward—all these, and more than these will I give thee, if
thou wilt fall down and worship me!
Then from the unbounded field of space, high over Rome the Imperial,
Rome the Papal, high over Babylon the great, yes, above gorgeous empires,
whose names have been lost in the abyss of ages, there rose another Empire,
terrible to behold in her bloody beauty.
She rose there, towering into light; an immense sea seemed to shut her
cities in its girdle of blood-red waves.
The white sails of her ships were on that sea, the tread of armed warriors,
crowding in millions, was heard in her palace gates, along her marts
of commerce, nay, in her temples of religion! She had grown strong with
the might of ages. Mightier than Imperial Rome, her dominion ended only
with the setting sun, her banners were fanned by every breeze that swept
the earth, the ice-wind of the north, the hot blast of the tropics, the summer
gales of more lovely climes.
She was terrible to behold that unknown empire, for her temples were
built upon the skulls of millions, her power was fed on human flesh, her
Red Cross Flag was painted with the blood of martyrs, moistened with the
tears of the widow, fanned by the sighs of the orphan!
Dismal in her lurid grandeur, she towered there, above all other nations,
claiming their reverence, nay, her loftiest dome pierced the sky, blazing
with texts from the Book of God, as though she would excuse her crimes in
the face of Divinity himself, glossing Murder over, with a soft word, and
sanctifying Blasphemy with a prayer!
O, it was a terrible picture, drawn by the hand of Satan, there on the
golden haze of infinite space.
These, these will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me!
Only renounce the Voice which calls thee forth to the relief of suffering
Man, only forsake this dream of Good—a beautiful Dream it may be, yet
still only a dream—which tells thee that thou canst lift up the toiling
Millions of the human race, and the glory of all ages, the grandeur of all
empires shall be thine!
As the Tempter speaks in that soft persuasive voice, fluttering his jewelled
robes as he prayed this Jesus of Nazareth, clad in his humble garb, to
descend into the herd of Conquerors and Kings, to become like them a
drinker of human blood, a butcher of human hearts, let us look upon the
face of the Tempted one.
Lo! At that moment, as if the light of God's presence shone more
serenely in his soul, this Man of Nazareth stands there, with a lofty scorn
upon his brow, an immortal glory in his eyes.
Solemnly he lifts his hand, his voice swells on the air:
Get thee hence Satan, he exclaims in that voice of deep-toned music,
Jehovah thy God, and him only shalt thou serve!
It is written not only in the Page of Revelation, but here upon the heart,
thou shalt not worship Gold nor Superstition, nor tinselled Hypocrisy;
thou shalt not bow down to Pomp, whose robes are stained in blood, nor
reverence Power, whose throne is built on skulls, but thou shalt worship
Jehovah the Father. To do good to Man is to worship God.
Ah—blasted on the brow, trembling in each limb, the abashed Devil—
attired as he is, in all the pomp of the world—crawls from the presence of
that humbly clad Jesus of Nazareth.
My friends shall we leave this beautiful passage in the life of Jesus, without
listening to its moral, without taking to our hearts the great truth which
it teaches?
To you, O, Man of Genius, to you, O, Student, to you O, Seeker after
the Beautiful, it speaks in a voice of strange, solemn emphasis:
There will come a time in your life, when like Jesus, you will be led up
from the wilderness of neglect and want, by the Prince of this world, into
the eminence of Trial. You will have the good things of this world spread
out before you, you will hear the voice of the Tempter:
Crush the voice that is now speaking to your soul—that voice which
bids you go out and speak boldly and act bravely for the rights of man
—drown every honest thought—trample on every high aspiration, and
Lo! These shall be thine! The praise of men, the flattery of sycophants,
the pleasure of rich men's feasts and the hum of mob applause!
These shall be thine, if thou wilt fall down and worship me!
Does he not speak thus to you, O, Student, this purple-robed tempter,
with his soft persuasive voice?
Do you tell him, in tones of scorn, like your Jesus before you: Get thee
hence! I will obey the voice which impels me to speak out for Man—I
will go on my dread way, my only object the Welfare of the Millions! I
will worship the Lord Jehovah!
Then the Prince of this World, tells you with a sneer—Go on! Go on
with your imaginary schemes for the good of man, and yonder in the
distance the Cross awaits you! Go on! and behold your reward for this
honesty of purpose, as you call it! You will be despised in the synagogue,
stoned in the mart, spit upon in the halls of the great, crucified to
public scorn, as a robber and a murderer!
So spake the Tempter to the Man of the Revolution, the signers of the
Declaration. Is it not true?
Does not the Tempter in this our day, appeal to the most bestial emotion
of the human heart—Fear?
Yes, the truth must be told, it was the curse of public opinion in the day
of '76,—as it is now—that shivering dread of the pompous Name, or the
infalliable Synagogue—in press and church and home—alike it rules—that
word—“Fear.”
Let but the Reformer of our time, who feels that God has given him
powers for the good of his brethren, dare to be honest, dare to speak out
boldly in his own way, against hideous evils, which glared in his face—
Behold his reward! Scorn, hissed from serpent-tongues, malice howled
from slanderous throats, the portentous bray of a Public Opinion, made up
by men whose character and name, would not stand in the light of a farthing
candle.
Does the Author in the pages of a book, dare to picture the character of
some lecherous Pharisee, who has crawled up into a pulpit, clothing his
deformities with sacerdotal robes? Behold—every lecherous Pharisee who
may possess a pulpit, or mouth the holy name of Jesus for his thousand
per year, assails that Reformer from his cowardly eminence, excommunicates
him from the synagogue, with bell, book, and candle, and more terrible
than all, stamps on his brow, the portentous word—Infidel!
Or does that Author with the honest impulse of a full heart, dare to drag
up from the obscurity of undeserved scorn, some great name of the Past,
and render justice to martyred intellect, which in days by-gone, shone into
the hearts of millions with holy and refreshing light, then the vengeance of
these worshippers of the Prince of the World, knows no bounds. The
Pharisaical pulpit, the obscene Press, work hand in hand to accomplish
that young man's ruin. No lie is too base, no slander too gross, no epithet
too malignant for the purpose of these atoms of an hour. If they cannot
charge the patriot with Crime, they charge him with Poverty. If they cannot
say that he is an Adulterer in holy robes, or a Scurvy Politician, feeding
on the drippings of office, or a Forger clothing himself with the fruits
of fraud, they wreak their vengeance in one word, and say, as their proto-types
of old said of the Lord Jesus; He is poor!
Thus in the Revolution, spoke the liveried and gowned pensioners of
King George, against the Signers and their partners in the work of freedom.
The British pulpit, and the British Press, joined their voices and spoke of
the “Infidel Jefferson” who denied the divine right of Kings; the “Traitor
Washington” who at the head of his “Ragmuffin Mob” in poverty and
rebellion, held the huts of Valley Forge.
Far be it from me, my friends, to say one word against that pure Minister
of the Gospel, who follows reverently in the footsteps of his Lord. Far be
it from me to whisper a breath against that high-souled Editor, who never
prostitutes his press to the appetites of the malignant and obscene. Such a
Minister, such an Editor I hold in reverence; they are worthy of our
respect and honor.
Yet we cannot disguise the fact, that there exists now as in the
time of the Revolution, a band of creatures calling themselves Ministers, a
congregation of reptiles who assume the position of Directors of Public
Religion, than the poor wretch who sold his Master, for thirty pieces of silver.
Who made these fellows Ministers of Almighty God? Who clothed
them with all the solemn gravity of the portentous nod, the white cravat,
and the nasal twang? Who lifted them from their obscurity into Priests
of the Altar, qualified to minister the holy rites of the sacrament, admonish
the living, bury the dead? Who!
We do not wish to investigate their title, for our search might end on the
same rock where the Prince of this World tempted the Lord Jesus.
Then my friends, there is species of the genus reptile, calling himself
an Editor, who merits a passing word. The servile tool of some corrupt
politician, paid to libel at so much per line, he is always the first to fear the
cause of Religion. Reeking with the foul atmosphere of the brothel, he is
the first to shudder for the danger of public morals. Fresh from the boon
companionship of “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” he is a virulent moral
lecturer. Were this creature alone in his work of infamy, not much fear
need be taken on his account. Like the rattlesnake he can but leap his
own slimy length. Yet a hundred reptiles together, hissing and stinging in
chorus may appal the stoutest heart, so does this Reptile Editor join himself
to other reptiles, and form an association of venom which poisons the life-springs
of many a noble soul, and distils its saliva even in the fountains of
home. This viper of the Press is not peculiar to our day—he hissed and
stung, in the time when our freedom was but dawning from the long night
of ages. The Tory Press of the Revolution, from Rivington of the New
York Royal Gazette, down to his less notorious compeers of the Philadelphia
loyalist Press, in their malignant attacks upon Washington, did not
even spare his private life. Forged letters were published day after day,
in their papers, signed with the name of Washington, in which the very
heart-strings of the chieftain were torn, by the leprous hand of Editorial
pestilence! The Father of his Country avoided these things, the Reptile
Editor and the Reptile Preacher, as he would have shunned a rabid dog.
He turned their path, as you would from the path of a viper. Had the
generous indignation of his soul found vent in words, he might have said
like the Saviour to their Judean proto-types—
“O! Scribes, Pharisees, Hypocrites, how shall ye escape the damnation
of hell!”—
With the vengeance, or rather the venom of men like these, Jesus was
assailed in his day, because he refused to worship their master. So Washington
was assailed because he refused obedience to the King. Think not
my friends, to escape the trial of your Saviour, if you follow in his footsteps.
Think not, be honest and bold in your actions and your words, without
feeling the fang of the viper in your soul. But in the darkest hour of your
life, when slander poisons your soul, and persecution blasts your frame, then
remember these blessed words:
—Then the devil leaveth him, and behold! Angels came and ministered
unto him.—
Yes, after hunger and thirst and temptation, behold the Blessed Jesus,
sitting on yonder granite rock, while forms of beauty group about him, their
beaming eyes fixed upon his divine countenance. Forms of beauty, yes
the most beautiful of forms—all that is pure in woman, lovely in the bloom
of her face, beaming in the glance of her eye, rounded and flowing in the
outlines of her shape,—bend there before the Saviour, in the guise of Angels!
Lo! one radiant form with floating tresses of golden hair brings the cup
of water; another, with those eyes of unutterable beauty presents the wild
honey-comb, the purple grapes, the fragrant fruit of the fig-tree, a third, gliding
around him, with steps that make no sound, soothes his brow with the
pressure of soft, white hands.
—“Behold, angels ministered unto Him!”
It is before me now, that beautiful picture, created in the wild desert, with
the background of the Dead Sea; Jesus sitting calm and serene on the
rugged rock, while angel-forms kneel at his feet, bend over his shoulders,
smile in his face, group in shapes of matchless loveliness around him.
Hark, that song? was ever hymn so soft and dreamy, heard in this desert
wild before? It swells over the dark mass of rocks, it glides along the
sullen waters of the lake, it bursts up to the morning sky in one choral
murmur of praise.
Angels cheer the Lord Jesus with their hymns.
So, O, man of genius, O, Student, O, Seeker after the beautiful, shall
angels cheer thee, and bless thee, and sing to thee; after thou hast passed
the fiery ordeal of hunger, thirst, neglect and temptation. From the book
of God, Jesus speaks to thee, and his word is given; it shall be.—Behold
Washington and Jefferson, with all the heroes and signers, rise triumphant
through all time, over the Tempter and Pharisees of the Revolution!
VI.—“THE OUTCAST.”
We will now behold another scene in the Divine Master's life. To the
very rock of Nazareth, we will trace the truths of the immortal Declaration.
The scene changes yet once more. We are in Nazareth, that city built
on a cliff, with the white walls of its synagogue arising in the calm blue
sky, above the mansions of the rich, the cottages of the poor. Let us still
our hearts with awe, let us hush our breath with deep reverence, for it is the
Sabbath, and we are in the Synagogue.
Yonder from the dome overhead, a dim, solemn light steals round the
place, while a sacred silence pervades the air.
Four pillars support that dome, four pillars inscribed with burning words
from the book of God.
In the centre of the place behold the ark, in which is placed the holy
scroll of the law. Beside the ark a small desk arises where the reader of
and desk, from the light of the dome to the darker corners of the place,
throng the people of Nazareth sitting on benches which encircle the centre
of the temple. Yonder, behind the ark and desk, on loftier benches are
the elders, their white beards trailing on each breast, the flowing robes
wound about each portly form, the broad phylactery on each wrinkled brow.
These are the rich men that rule the synagogue.
In the dark corners, you see the gaunt faces, the ragged forms of the poor,
who have skulked into the temple, ashamed of their poverty, yet eager to
hear the word of the Lord. Around the altar are seated all classes of life,
the merchant with his calculating face, the mechanic with his toil-worn
hands, the laborer with his sunburnt visage.
But here, on the right of the altar, amid that throng of women, beheld a
matron seated in front of the rest, her form, with its full outlines, indicating
the prime of womanhood, just touched, not injured by age, while her serene
face, relieved by brown hair, silvered with grey, is lighted by large blue
eyes. There are wrinkles on that brow, yet when you gaze in those earnest
eyes, you forget them all.
This is Mary the mother of Jesus. The sunbeam stealing from yonder
dome, light up her serene face, and reveals that smile, so soft, and sad, and
tender.
Her son is to preach to day in the Synagogue; his fame is beginning to
stir the world. The mother awaits his appearance with a quiet joy, while
yonder, in that toil-wrung man with the grey hair and sunburnt face, who
leans upon his staff with clasped hands, you behold Joseph the Carpenter.
A deep silence pervails in the temple.
Yonder, in front of the elders is seated the Minister (or Reader) of the
Synagogue, venerable in his beard, broad in his phylactery, with the scroll
of the law in his hand. He has just finished the prayers of the Sabbath;
and all is silent expectation. They wait for the appearance of this Jesus,
who the other day, was toiling with his father, at the carpenter's bench.
Now, it is said he has become an eloquent Preacher; his name is bruited
on every wind; it is even said that he worked miracles yonder in Galilee.
He, Jesus, the carpenter's son!
A murmur deepens through the synagogue. Eyes are cast toward the
door; faces turned over the shoulder; whispers resound on every side.
The mother yonder rises from her seat; how her blue eye fires! The
father lifts his head from his staff; a flush warms his wrinkled brow.
He comes! Yes, his rude garments, travel-worn, his long hair floating
to his shoulders, embrowned by the roadside dust, he comes, the object of
every eye, walking through the agitated crowd towards the altar.
The poor, yes the ragged, toil-trodden poor, bend over the shoulders of
the rich, eager to catch the gleam of those mild deep eyes, the silent eloquence
of that white brow, the love of those smiling lips. For it is said,
pomp of broad phylacteries and venerable beards. So the rumor runs.
Jesus advances; one glance to that Dear Mother, and their eyes kindle
in the same blaze, one reverent inclination to that Father, and he passes into
the desk.
Every eye beholds him!
Do you not see him also, standing calm and erect, as his large earnest
eyes slowly pass from face to face, while his countenance already glows
with inward emotion? He is there before me, one hand laid upon the unopened
scroll, while the other rises in an earnest gesture.
The silence grows deeper.
He opens the scroll; it is the book of the Prophet Isaiah, that Poet and
Seer, whose burning words are worth all your Virgils and Homers, were
their beauties multiplied by thousands.
Hark, that voice, how it rings through the temple:
“The Spirit of Jehovah is upon me!' he exclaims, as he stands there,
glowing with Divinity; He hath anointed me to preach good tidings to
the Poor!”
A deep murmur fills the synagogue. The Elders bend forward in
wonder, the Poor start up from their dark corners with a silent rapture.
Mary clasps her hands and looks into the face of her Son. Still that bold,
earnest voice rings on the Sabbath air.
“He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to
the captive, sight to the blind, liberty to them that are bruised!—”
Then while the murmur deepens, while the Elders start from their seats,
and the Poor come hurrying forward, do you see that frame dilate, that eye
burn, as his voice swells again through the temple,
“To preach the acceptable Year of the Lord.—”
Yes, freedom to the slave, hope to the Poor, the Great Millenium of God
—when Beauty shall dwell on earth forever—to all the Sons of Men!
Then while wonder and indignation and rapture and scorn thrill round
the temple, this Jesus closes the book and from that desk, proclaims himself
the ANOINTED ONE of God, the Redeemer of the Poor!
Ah, what eloquence, what soul, what fire! How he pictures the degradation
of Man, now crouching under the foot of Priest and King, how he
thunders indignant scorn into the face of Pharisee and scribe, how, stretching
forth his arms, while his chest heaves and his eye burns, he proclaims the
coming of that blessed day, when Man shall indeed be free!
He stood there, not like an humble pleader for the right, but with the
tone and look and gesture of Divinity, who exclaims, Let there be light and
light there was!
Yet look! Those bearded men with broad phylacteries, have started
from their seats; they encircle him with flushed faces and eyes gleaming
scorn.
I see the most reverend of them all, stand there, with the sneer deepening
over his face, while his straightened finger points to the face of Jesus—
Look! he cried, turning to his brethren, Is not this Joseph the Carpenter's
son?
Is not this the man of toil, who, the other day was working at a rude
bench? Behold his mother—a poor woman! Behold his father—a carpenter?
Does he come to teach us, the Elders of the synagogue, broad in
our phylacteries, flowing in our robes, voluminous in our prayers?
But the Poor press forward too, and one rude son of toil kneels there
before him, pressing the hem of his gaberdine, while his eyes are lifted to
his face. Mary—ah, let us pity the poor Mother now!—for starting to her
feet, she clasps her hands, while her lips part and her eye dilates as she
awaits the end.
Joseph has buried his head upon his bosom.
Jesus rises supreme above them all. Yes, unawed by the scowling
brows, unmoved by the words of scorn, he spreads forth his arms, his
voice rings on the air once more!
—“A Prophet is not without honor save in his own country and his own
house!—”
These words have scarce passed his lips, when the uproar deepens into
violence.
Forth with him! the cry yells through the synagogue, Forth with him,
blasphemer! Forth with him from the synagogue and the city! To the
rock, to the rock with the Infidel!
With one accord they hurl him from the desk, they, the venerable elders,
with the broad phylacteries. Rude hands grasp him, demoniac voices yell
in his ear. At this moment, even as they drag him from the desk, a little
child, with flowing hair and dilating eyes, affrighted by the clamor, steals
up to Jesus, seizing his robe with its tiny hands. His face, alone calm and
smiling in the uproar, seems to promise shelter to the startle child.
Through the passage of the synagogue they drag him, and now he is in
the open air, with the Sabbath sun pouring upon his uncovered brow. Along
the streets, from the city, over the flinty stones—to the rock with the
blasphemer!
The city is built upon a rock, which yawns over an abyss. Plunged
from this rock, dashed into atoms on the stones below, this blasphemer shall
blaspheme no more!
All the while, poor Mary, weeping, trembling, clasping her hands in anguish,
follows the crowd, imploring mercy for her son. Do you see the
finger of scorn pointed at her face, the brutal sneer levelled at her heart?
Joseph humbled and abashed, has gone quietly away, perhaps to his carpenter
shop, to weep that this bold Jesus ever dared to beard the Synagogue.
Out from the city with shouts and yells and curses! Out along the
flinty path—behold the crowd attains the rock.
Surrounded by these forms, trembling with passion, these faces scowling
with rage, Jesus looks calmly over the abyss, while a rough hand pinions
each arm. It is an awful sight, that steep wall of rock, rising from the
ravine below. Even the elders, who hold this Carpenter's son on the verge
of the rock, start back affrighted. The dizzy heighth appals their souls.
The shouts, cries, curses, deepen. Man never looks so much like a
brute, as when engaged in an act of violence, but when this act is mob violence,
where many join to crush a solitary victim, then man looks like a
brute and devil combined.
There is not one face of pity in that frenzied crowd. From afar some
few poor men, slaves of the rich and afraid to brook their anger, gaze upon
the crowd with looks of sympathy for Jesus stamped upon their rude faces.
Mary too, do you not see her kneeling there, some few paces from the
crowd, her hands uplifted, while her brown hair, slightly touched with grey,
floats wildly to the breeze. She has sunken down, exhausted by the conflict
of emotions, even yet she shrieks for mercy, mercy for this Jesus,
her Son!
Jesus looks over the dizzy rock.
Nearer they urge him to its verge, nearer and nearer; ah—he is on the
edge—another inch and he is gone—hark! his foot brushes the earth from
the brink; you hear it crumbling as he stands there, looking into the abyss,
At this moment, pinioned by rude arms, he turns his face over his shoulder;
he gazes upon that crowd.
O, the immortal scorn, the withering pity of that gaze! His brow glows,
his eyes fire, his lips wreathe in a calm smile.
As one man the crowd shrink back, they cannot face the lustre of those
eyes. Behold—the Pharisees who grasp the arm of Jesus, fall on their
knees with their faces to the flint. That radiant brow strikes terror to their
souls.
In a moment he is free, free upon the edge of the cliff, the glory of Divinity
radiating in flashes of light around that white brow, while the rough
carpenter's robes seem to change into new garments, flowing as the morning
mist, luminous as sunshine. Even his long hair, falling to his shoulders,
seems to wave in flakes of light.
Give way ye Pharisees, give way ye bearded Elders, give way ye makers
of long prayers, with your flowing robes and broad phylacteries, for Jesus
the Carpenter's son would pass through your midst!
And he comes on from the verge of the cliff, even through their midst.
Jesus comes in silent grandeur.
Where are these men who shouted Infidel—Dog—Blasphemer—a moment
ago? Crouching on the earth, their faces to the flint, their flowing
robes thrown over their heads, there they are, these solemn men, with venerable
beards and broad phylacteries.
Jesus passes on.
Silently, his beautiful countenance beaming with immortal love, his arms
folded on his breast, he passes on.
Yes, it is written in the book of God; “He passing from the midst of
them, went his way.”
He is gone from their city. They raise their affrighted faces, while
malice rankles in their hearts, and follow his form with flashing eyes.
Mary gazes upon him, also, weeping bitterly for Jesus, her Outcast son,
now a wanderer and exile from the home of his childhood.
Can you imagine a picture like this?
Yonder on the summit of a hill, the last which commands a view of
Nazareth, its synagogue and rock, just where the roadside turns and follows
the windings of a shadowy valley, stands Jesus, resting his clasped hands
on his staff, while his eyes are fixed upon the distant city.
Who may picture the untold bitterness of that gaze?
It is home, the town in which he was reared, beneath the fond light of a
Mother's eyes. There is the carpenter shop in which he toiled; there the
walks of his solitary hours, nay, the temple in which he was wont to kneel
in prayer.
And now, with scorn and curses and rude hands, they have thrust him
forth, AN OUTCAST from his home.
It was his earnest, yearning desire to do good in that town; to reveal
his high mission there; to proclaim the great year of Jehovah, to the people
of his childhood's home.
And now he stands there, gazing upon the town, while the mark of their
rude grasp yet reddens on his arms, while the words, Blasphemer, Infidel,
Dog, yet echo in his ears.
He is an Outcast, this Jesus the Carpenter's son.
O, if there is one drop in the cup of persecution more bitter than another,
it is the galling thought of neglect and wrong which sinks into the heart of
that Man, who has been driven forth like a venomous snake, from his childhood's
home, even in the moment when his soul burned brightest with its
love for God and Man!
Welcome indeed is the grasp of a friend in a foreign land, but dark and
terrible is the blow which hurls us from the threshhold of our HOME!
God in all his dispensations of affliction, with which he visits us for our
good, has no darker trial than this!
My friends, I confess from the fulness of my heart, as I behold the
solemn lesson which this passage in our Saviour's life, has for the man of
genius, the student, the seeker after the beautiful, I am wrapt in wonder, in
pity, in awe, that one man of intellect ever doubted the truth of this Revelation.
Behold the lesson!
Here on this rock of the hill-top, stands Jesus the Outcast, gazing on his
childhood's home. Godly Pharisees have thrust him forth; sanctimonious
Elders have hissed the words, Infidel, dog, blasphemer in his ears!
The day will come, when the beards and phylacteries of these men will
have crumbled in the same forgotten grave, where their flesh and bones rot
into dust. Their paltry town will be the abiding place of the Gentile and
the scoffer; their religion crushed beneath the horse's hoofs of invading
legions.
That town will claim a name in history, only because it was once the
Home of Jesus. That religion be remembered only, because it prepared
the way for the Religion of Jesus. Yes, the name of the Outcast, who now
stands upon this hill, gazing upon the distant town, will one day cover the
whole earth; it will throb in the heart of Universal Man, like the Presence
of a God!
Who will remember the Pharisees, who record the names of the Elders?
Into what dim old grave shall we look for their dust?
Where are the hands that smote the Lord Jesus, where the tongues that
hissed Blasphemer! in his ears?
Eighteen centuries have passed, and the name of this Jesus—where
does it not shine?
Shouted on the scaffold, with the last gasp of martyrs, whose flesh was
crumbling to cinder, breathed by the patriot, dying on the battlefield for the
rights of man, echoed by millions of worshippers, who send it up to Heaven,
with prayer and incense, every hour of the day, every moment of the hour,
that NAME has dared the perils of untrodden deserts, ascended hideous
mountains, traversed unknown seas, encompassed the globe with its glory.
It has done more than all—it has survived the abuses with which Pharisees
and Hypocrites, like their fathers of old, have not hesitated to darken
its light, through the long course of eighteen hundred years.
Even the fang of the Dishonest Priest has failed to tear that name from
the heart of Man.
Even long and bloody religious wars, crowding the earth with the bodies
of the dead, darkening the heaven with their blood-red smoke, have not
effaced this name of Jesus!
Not even the fires of Smithfield, nor that Hell revealed on earth, the Inquisition,
nor that cold-blooded murder, done by a remorseless Bigot, in the
open square of Geneva, the victim a weak and unoffending man, nor a
thousand such fires, inquisitions and murders, all working their barbarities
in this Holy Name, have been able to drag it from the altar where it shines,
the only hope of Man.
Still the Name of Jesus lives; who shall number the hearts in which it
throbs, with every pulsation of love and joy and hope? Who shall number
the sands on the shore, or count the beams of the sun?
And when that blessed day shall come—and come it will, as sure as
Jehovah lives!—When Kings and Priests shall be hurled from their thrones
of wrong and superstition, when Labor shall be no longer trodden down, by
the feet of task-masters, when every man who toils shall receive his equal
portion of the fruits of the earth, when a church gorgeously appareled in
all the splendor of lofty temples, uncounted revenues, hosts of pensioned
ministers shall be demanded no more, when this Earth shall indeed be the
Garden of God, and men indeed be Brothers—
Then crowning the great work with its awful and blessed benediction,
one name shall swell to the sky, echoed by the voices of innumerable Millions,
the name of Him whom Pharisees and Elders thrust ignominiously
forth, from the synagogue of Nazareth, the Friend of the Poor, the God of
Washington and the signers—the name of Jesus.
VII.—THE HOPE OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED YEARS.
Now let us see how the Great Hope of the Redeemer's Life was fulfilled,
after the lapse of some eighteen hundred years!
We will come down to the year 1775—we will make a rapid journey
over the earth—
Saviour of the world where are thy People, where are the millions for
whom thou didst suffer, and bleed, and die?
Let us look over Europe—what see we there?
Magnificent temples—crowds of Priests—rivers of blood!
But thy millions, Saviour of the World—where are they? The children
of Toil—those who wear the Mechanic's garb—those for whom thou
didst weep such bitter tears, in the Ages long ago—where are they?
In the deep mines—in the hot fields—in the hotter workshops—bending
beneath heavy burdens—crouching beneath the lash—these, these are thy
People, O Redeemer of the World!
And was it for this, that the tears of Gethsemane fell—the groans of
Calvary arose?
Was it to build these temples—to rear these thrones—to crush these toiling
millions into dust?
Here, in Rome where St. Paul spoke forth words that made Emperors
tremble for their thrones—here you see nothing but lordly priests
walking on to power, over a strange highway—the necks of a kneeling and
down-trodden People!
But this is Rome—benighted—Pagan Rome—let us go to liberal enlightened,
Protestant Europe!
Go to Germany—go to the scene of the Reformation—what see you
there?
Why the tears of persecuted Innocence rain down upon the very grave
Great Reformer's grave, and drench his bones!
But ah, this is Germany—doubtless Protestant Persecution rages here,
and dyes the land in blood—but still there is a hope for the human race!
Let us pass by benighted France, with its Monarch, its Priests, its slaves
—its throne—its temples—its huts and its Bastile—let us go over the
channel to Christian England!
Here Saviour of the world, here thy Religion has found a home—for is
not the broad Isle crowded with churches—is there an hour in the day unsanctified
by a Prayer?
It is true, for every church there is a factory, a poor-house, or a jail—it
is true for every prayer that ascends to heaven, a miserable convict is
pitched from some gibbet into Eternity—it is true, that if every groan
wrung from the Poor Man's heart, could harden into a pebble, then might
these Priests build them a church, as large as ten thousand St. Pauls heaped
on each other—
But is not this enlightened, liberal, Protestant, Reformed England!
Look, in yonder palace of Windsor, sits a man with a glassy unmeaning
eye—a drivelling lip—a man buried in robes of Purple, a crown on his receding
brow, a sceptre in his gouty hand!
And this is Thy Representative, O, Man of Nazareth! This is the
Head of the Church—Defender of the Faith—this, this is the British
Pope!
Yes, this is the Defender of the Faith!—And let us look at this faith—
so kind, so merciful, so beautiful!
So anxious is Pope George to defend the Faith, that even now he is
gathering Missionaries, who will carry this faith across three thousand
miles of ocean!
Go there to the barracks—the dockyards—go there and find his missionaries,
preparing for their high duties with bayonets in their hands!
A goodly band of Missionaries! Look—their numbers are swelled by
convicts from the jail—nay even the Murderer on the gibbet comes down—
takes the rope from his neek—puts a red coat on his back, a musquet on
his shoulder—and stands forth—a Holy Missionary of Pope George!
And whom are these Missionaries to convert?
Blessed Redeemer look yonder, far over the waters! Look yonder,
upon that New World, where the Outcasts of the old world have built a
Home, a Nation, a Religion! That Home a refuge for the oppressed of
all the earth—that nation a Brotherhood founded by the Men of Plymouth
rock—by the Catholic of Baltimore—by the Quaker of the Delaware!
That Religion, Hope to Man! Hope to Toil! Hope to Misery in its
hut—Despair in its cell!
And now after this nation—this home—this religon—have built the altar
of the rights of man in the wilderness—behold George the Pope of England
butcher its men, to dishonor its women, to drench its soil in blood!
Already the brothers of these missionaries have begun their work—
already they have endeavored to teach their mild persuasive doctrines to the
people of the new world—but these heathens reject the British Missionaries—yes,
on Bunker Hill, Concord, Lexington, the heathens of the new
world, trample the flag of England into dust—and bury that flag beneath
the dead bodies of these Missionaries of the British Pope!
And while these new crowds of Missionaries are leaving the shores of
England, look yonder I pray you, and behold that solitary man, short in
stature, clad in a plain brown coat—see him embark on shipboard, behold
him leave the shores of England.
Do you know that yonder solitary man in the brown coat, is destined
to do more harm to the British Pope, than centuries will repair? Did
George of Hanover but know, what great thoughts are stirring in the
brain of this little man, as leaning over the side of the receding ship, he
gazes back upon the white cliffs of Albion—he would tear his royal robes
for very spite, nay offer the little man an earldom, a title, wealth, baubles,
power, rather than he should depart from the English shore with such great
thoughts working in his great soul.
Let us follow this unknown man in the brown coat.
We are in Philadelphia in 1775—it is the time when a body of rebels
who impudently style themselves, the “Continental Congress,” hold their
sessions, on yonder edifice somewhat retired from Chesnut Street, called
Carpenter's Hall.
You may have seen this building? It still is standing there—yes, up a
dark alley in Chesnut Street, between Third and Fourth it stands, the hall of
the first Continental Congress, now used as the sale room of an auctioneer!
We have a great love for antiquities in Philadelphia—we reverence the
altars of the past, for lest any lying foreigner should charge us with the deseretion
of holy places, we tear down the old house of William Penn, sell
chairs and clocks and ponies in Carpenter's Hall, and degrade Independence
Hall, that altar of the world, into a nest for squabbling lawyers!
VIII.—COUNCIL OF FREEMEN.
It was in the time when a band of rebels sate in Carpenter's Hall—when
the smoke of Lexington and Bunker Hill, was yet in the sky, and the undried
blood of Warren and the martyrs, was yet upon the ground—that a
scene of some interest took place, in a quiet room, in the city of William
Penn.
Look yonder, and behold that solitary lamp, flinging its dim light around
a neatly furnished room.
Grouped around that table, the full warmth of the light, pouring full in
Philadelphia Doctor, and a Virginia Farmer.
Come with me there to that lonely room—let us seat ourselves there—
let us look into the faces of these men—the one with the bold brow and
resolute look, is one John Adams from Boston; next to him sits the calm-faced
Benjamin Rush—then you see the marked face of the Printer, one
Benjamin Franklin, and your eye rests upon a man, distinguished above all
others by his height, the noble outlines of his form, the calm dignity of his
forehead, the quiet majesty of his look. That man is named Washington
—one Mr. George Washington, from Mount Vernon.
These men are all members of the Rebel Congress; they have met here
to night to talk over the affairs of their country. Their talk is deep-toned
—cautious—hurried. Every man seems afraid to give free utterance to the
thoughts of his bosom.
They talk of Bunker Hill—of Lexington—of the blood-thirsty British
Ministry—of the blood-thirsty British King!
Then, from the lips of Franklin comes the great question—Where is this
War to end? Are we fighting only for a change in the British Ministry,
or—or—for the Independence of our land?
There is silence in that room.
Washington, Adams, Rush—all look into each other's faces—and are
silent!
Bound to England by ties of ancestry—language—religion—the very
idea of separation from Her, seems a Blasphemy!
Yes, with their towns burnt, their people murdered—Bunker Hill smoking
there, and Lexington bleeding yonder—still, still, these Colonists cling to
the name of England, still shudder at that big word, that chokes their throats
to speak—Independence.
At this moment, while all is still, a visitor is announced—look there! As
that unknown man in the brown coat enters—is introduced by Franklin—takes
his seat at the table—is informed of the topic in discussion—look there upon
his brow, his flashing eye, as in earnest words he speaks forth his soul!
Washington, Rush, Franklin, Adams, all are hushed into silence! At
first the little man in the brown coat startles—horrifies them with his
political blasphemy!
But as he goes on, as his broad, solid brow warms with fire, as his eye
flashes the full light of a soul roused into all its life, as those deep earnest
tones speak of the Independence of America—her glorious future—her destiny,
that shall stride on over the wrecks of thrones, to the Universal Empire
of Western Continent, then behold!
They start from around the table—they press that stranger in the brown
coat, by the hand—they beg him for God's sake, to write these words in a
book,—a book that shall be read in all the homes, thundered from all the
pulpits of America!
Do you see that picture, my friends?
That little man in the brown coat, standing there, flushed, trembling with
the excitement of his own thoughts; the splendidly formed Virginia
planter on one side, grasping him by the hand; those great-souled men
encircling him on the other side, John Adams the Lawyer, Benjamin Rush
the Doctor, Benjamin Franklin the Printer.
Let this scene pass: let us follow this little man in the brown coat, thro'
the year 1775.
The day after this scene, that modest Virginia Planter, George Washington,
was named Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Armies.
IX.—THE BATTLE OF THE PEN.
And on the summer days of '75, that stranger in the brown coat, was
seen walking up and down, in front of the old State House, his great forehead
shown in full sunlight, while with hands placed behind his back, he
went slowly along the pavement.
Then that humble man would stride to his lonely garret, seize the quill,
and scratch down the deep thoughts of his brain! Then forth again, for
a walk in the State House square—up and down under these old trees, he
wanders all the afternoon—at night, there is a light burning in yonder
garret window, burning all night till break of day!
Let us look in that garret window—what see you there?
A rude and neglected room—a little man in a brown coat, sitting beside
an old table, with scattered sheets of paper all about him—the light of an
unsnuffed candle upon his brow—that unfailing quill in his hand!
Ah, my friends, you may talk to me of the sublimity of your battles,
whose poetry is bones and skulls—but for me, there is no battle so awfully
sublime, as one like this, now being fought before our eyes.
A poor, neglected Author, sitting in his garret,—the world, poverty, time,
and space, all gone from him—as with a soul kindled into one steady blaze,
he plies that fast-moving quill. That quill puts down words on that paper,
words that shall burn into the brains of Kings, like arrows winged with fire,
and pointed with vitriol!
Go on brave Author, sitting in your garret alone, at this dead hour—go
on—on through the silent hours—on, and God's blessings fall like breezes
of June upon your damp brow—on, and on, for you are writing the Thoughts
of a Nation into Birth!
For many days, in that year '75, was that little man in a brown coat,
seen walking up and down the State House square—look yonder! There
in you garret, night after night, burns that solitary light—burns and burns
on, till the break of day.
At last the work is done! At last grappling the loose sheets in his
trembling hands—trembling, because feverish with the toil of the brain—
scattered to the Homes of America! But look ye—not one printer will
touch the book—not a publisher but grows pale at the sight of those dingy
pages! Because it ridicules the British Pope—ridicules the British Monarchy—because
it speaks out in plain words, that nothing now remains to
be done, but to declare the New World free and Independent!
This shocks the trembling printers; touch such a mass of treasonable
stuff—never! But at last a printer is found—a bold Scotchman, named
Robert Bell—he consents to put these loose pages into type—it is done;
and on the first of January, 1776, Common Sense burst on the People of
the new world! Bursts upon the hearts and homes of America, like a light
from heaven! That book is read by the Mechanic at his bench, the Merchant
at his desk, the Preacher in his pulpit reads it, and scatters its great
truths with the teachings of Revelation!
“It burst from the Press”—says the great Doctor Rush,—“with an
effect which has rarely been produced by types or paper, in any age or
country!”
That book of Common Sense said strange and wonderful things: listen
to it for a moment:—
“But where, say some, is the King of America? I'll tell you, friend, he
reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind, like the Royal Brute of
Britain! Yet that we may not appear to be defective in earthly honors, let
a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the Charter, let it be brought
forth, placed on the divine law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed
thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of Monarchy,
that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments
the king is law, so in free countries the Law ought to be king, and there
ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the
crown at the conclusion of the ceremony, be demolished, and scattered
among the People, whose Right it is!”
Was not that bold language, from a little man in a brown coat, to a great
King, sitting there in his royal halls, at once the Tyrant and the Pope of
America?
Listen to “COMMON SENSE” again:
“A greater absurdity cannot be conceived of, than three millions of
people, running to their sea coast, every time a ship arrives from London,
to know what portion of Liberty they should enjoy.”
Or again—here is a paragraph for George of England to give to the
Archbishops of Canterbury, to be read in all churches after the customary
prayers for the Royal Family:—
“No man,” says Common Sense, “was a warmer wisher for a reconciliation,
than myself, before the fated 19th April, 1775,”—the day of the
Massacre of Lexington—“but the moment the event of that day was made
known, I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharoah of England
of his People, can unfeelingly hear of their slaughter, and composedly sleep
with their blood upon his soul.”
Listen to the manner in which this great work concludes:
* * * Independence is the only bond that can tie us together. * * * * *
Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be heard
among us, than those of a good citizen; an open and resolute friend: and
a virtuous supporter of the rights of Mankind, and of the Free and Independent
States of America.
Need I tell you, my friends, that this work, displaying the most intimate
knowledge of the resources of America—the nerve of her men, the oak of
her forests, the treasures of her mines,—displaying an insight into the future
greatness of the American Navy, that was akin to Prophecy, need I tell
you, that this work, cutting into small pieces the cobwebs of Kingship and
Courtiership—the pitiful absurdity of America being for one hour dependent
upon Britain—struck a light in every American bosom—was in fact the
great cause and forerunner of the Declaration of Independence!
And is there a heart here that does not throb with emotion, at the
name of the author of that Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, the Statesman-Hero?
And do your hearts throb at the mention of his name, and yet refuse to
pay the tribute of justice to the memory of his brother-patriot, his forerunner
in the work of freedom, the Author-Hero of the Revolution—Thomas
Paine?
X.—THE AUTHOR-SOLDIER.
Now let us follow this man in the brown coat, this Thomas Paine,
through the scenes of the Revolution.
In the full prime of early manhood, he joins the army of the Revolution;
he shares the crust and the cold, with Washington and his men—he is with
those brave soldiers on the toilsome march—with them by the camp-fire—
with them in the hour of battle!
And why is he with them?
Is the day dark—has the battle been bloody—do the American soldiers
despair? Hark! That printing press yonder, that printing press that
moves with the American host, in all its wanderings—is scattering pamphlets
through the ranks of the army!
Pamphlets written by the author-soldier, Thomas Paine, written sometimes
on the head of a drum—or by the midnight fire, or amid the corses
of the dead—Pamphlets that stamp great Hopes and greater Truths in Plain
words, upon the souls of the Continental Army!
Tell me, was not that a sublime sight, to see a man of Genius, who might
have shone as an Orator, a Poet, a Novelist, following with untiring devotion,
the footsteps of the Continental army?
Yes, in the dark days of '76, when the soldiers of Washington tracked
their footsteps on the soil of Trenton, in the snows of Princeton—there,
first among the heroes and patriots, there, unflinching in the hour of defeat,
writing his “Crisis,” by the light of the camp-fire, was the Author-Hero.
Thomas Paine!
Yes, look yonder—behold the Crisis read by every Corporal in the army
of Washington, read to the listening group of soldiers—look what joy, what
hope, what energy, gleams over those veteran faces, as words like these
break on their ears:
“These are the times that try men's souls! The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot, will in this CRISIS, shrink from the service of his country;
but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman. Tyranny like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
triumph!—”
Do not words like these stir up the blood?
Yet can you imagine their effect, when read to groups of starved and
bleeding soldiers, by the dim watch-fire, in the cold air of the winter dawn?
Such words as these stirred up the starved Continentals to the attack on
Trenton, and there, in the dawn of glorious morning, George Washington,
standing sword in hand, over the dead body of the Hessian Ralle, confessed
the magic influence of the Author-Hero, Thomas Paine!
—The lowest libeller that ever befouled a pen, a vulgar and infamous
fellow,—we need not name him—who has written a Lie of some 347
pages, and called it, “The Life of Thomas Paine,” this libeller, who spits
his venom upon the memory of Franklin and Jefferson—in fact, combines,
in his own person, more of the dirty in falsehood—the disgusting in obscenity—the
atrocious in perjury—than any penster that ever wrote for
British Gold, at the dictation of a British Court—this Biographer, I say,
who after the object of his spite was dead, sought out for something eneffably
disgusting, with which to befoul the dead man's memory, and finding
nothing so foul as his own base soul, poured out that soul, in all its native
filth, upon the dead man's bones—this creature, whom it were a libel upon
human nature to call—Man—Atheist, Blasphemer, libeller of the dead as
he was—even He confessed, that “the Pen of Tom Paine was as formidable
to the British, as the cannon of Washington!”
X.—THE PEOPLE AND THE CRIMINAL.
Now, my friends we will change the scene.
Come with me over three thousand miles of waves, come with me to
Paris.
Come with me, past yon heap of rocks and burnt embers:—the ruins of
in the streets—hush! hold your breath as you enter this wide hall.
What see you now?
A splendid chamber—splendid, because encircled with the architectural
trophies of four hundred years—a splendid chamber, crowded by one dense
mass of human beings. Here—and here—wherever you look, you see
nothing but that wall of human faces.
Does not the awful silence that broods here, in this splendid saloon, strike
upon your hearts, with an impression of strange omen?
Tell me, oh tell me, and tell me at once, what means the horror that I
see brooding and gathering over this wall of faces? Listen!
Here in this hall, the people of France have gathered, yes, from the dear
vallies of Provence and Dauphine—from the wilds of Bretagne—from
the palaces and huts of Paris, the people have gathered to try a great
Criminal.
That criminal sits yonder in the felon's seat—a man of respectable appearance—sitting
there, with a woman of strange loveliness by his side—
sitting there, with the only uncovered brow in all this vast assemblage!
That criminal is Louis Capet, he is to be tried here to day, for treason to
the people of France.
And when you look upon that mild-visaged man, sitting there, with the
beautiful woman by his side, and feel inclined to pity him—to weep for
that tender woman—as you see the lowering looks, of this vast crowd directed
to the pair—as you feel that this awful silence, brooding and gathering
on every side, speaks a terror, a horror more to be feared than the loudest
words.—
Then as pity, sympathy, gather over your hearts, then I pray you in the
name of God to remember, that this man here, sits clothed with the groans,
the tears, the blood of fifteen million people—yes, that the mildly beautiful
pearls, that rise and fall, with every pulsation of that woman's bosom, if
transformed into their original elements, would flood the wide hall with two
rivers—a river of tears, a river of blood!
And now, as the great question is about to be decided—Shall Louis the
Traitor-King, live or die!—let us for a moment, I beseech you, look at
the great moral, the great truth of this scene
Ah, is it not a sublime sight, this that breaks upon our eye—a King on
Trial for treason to his People! For ages, and for ages, these Kings have
waded up to thrones, through rivers of blood, yes built their thrones upon
islands of dead bodies, centered in those rivers of blood—and now, and
now, the cry of vengeance, rising from fifteen millions up to God, has
pierced the eternal ear, and called his vengeance down!
It is a sublime sight that we have here—a King on trial for his crimes—
his people the judges and the executioners.
Do you know the regret that seizes my soul, when I contemplate this
scene?
That we Americans, after our Revolution, did not bring our Traitor-King.
George the Third, to Independence Hall! and there, while the dead of the
Revolution gathered around him—yes crowded the hall and darkened far
over Independence Square—and there while the widows and the orphans
of the Massacred heroes came to the bar, blasting the Kingly Murderer,
with their cries and tears—I do regret, that we, the people, did not try the
Traitor-King, the Murderer-Pope for his crimes.
Ah would not that have been a solemn scene! While the deep groans
the orphans wail sadly like organ-music pealing from the grave, while the
dead gather round thronging to the witness-seat—yes, here, come the Ministers
of Religion kneeling around the Felon-King—with the Book of God
in their hands, they pray for his guilty soul—they bid him prepare for the
judgment of the people. They point to yonder square—they point to the
Scaffold—the AXE! George of England, prepare! This day convicted of
Treason to the people, convicted of wholesale Murder, committed upon a
whole Nation—“This day you die!”
Ah, would not that have been a sight for a world to see? To have laid
his anointed head upon the block—to have sent him down, the shades
death, the dead around him, and the curses of millions in his ears!
Then to have written over his grave—“Here lies the Traitor-King, convicted
of Murder and sentenced to death one month after the capture of
Yorktown!”
But we are in Paris again—again we stand in that wide hall, where Louis
of France, awaits his fate.
Hark! at this moment as the vote is about to be taken, a man short in
stature, yet with a bold brow rises yonder—rises and pleads for the life of
the Traitor-King!
Yes, with outstretched hands, an earnest voice, a gleaming eye, that man
pleads for the life of Louis of France!
Let us not, he exclaims, stain our glorious cause, even with the blood of
a King! all punishments of death, are abhorrent in the eyes of God! Let
us tell to the world that we found this King guilty of Treason, Treason to
his People! But that we scorned to take his guilty life! Punishment by
death is a libel on God and Man—let us spare the Traitor-King! Let us
remember that his Government with its ocean of crimes, had one redeeming
trait—it was this King who gave arms and men to Washington, in the
war of the American Revolution!
Let then these United States be the safeguard and asylum of Louis
Capet.—There, far removed from the miseries and crimes of royalty, he
may learn that the system of government, consists not in Kings but in the
People.
And who was the unknown man, who companioned only by men like La
Stranger, that while all around were scowling death in his face, dared to beg
the life of the Traitor-King?
Ah that little man who stood there, alone in that breathless hall, with
such mighty eloquence warming over his lofty brow?
That little man was one of that illustrious band, who had been made
citizens of France—France the Redeemed and New Born! Yes, with
Macintosh, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson and Washington, he had been
elected a citizen of France—with these great men he hailed the era of the
French Revolution as the dawn of God's Millennium—he had hurried to
Paris, urged by the same deep love of man, that accompanied him in the
darkest hours of the American Revolution,—and there, there pleading for
the Traitor-King, alone in that breathless hall he stood, the Author-Hero,
Thomas Paine!
XI.—KING GUILLOTINE.
Need I tell you that his pleading was in vain? Need I tell you that ere
the last word died on his lip, up, up, from a thousand souls—up, up, to the
coiling arose the terrible syllable Death!
And the People without, the legions of new-born freemen, extending far
through the streets of Paris, took up the word—“Death, Death, Death!”
Now Louis of France—now take from your anointed brows, the holy
crown, for to day it will not save your royal head!
Now Marie Antoinette, fair woman whose soft form has hitherto reposed
on beds of down, now take from your snow-white bosom that string of
pearls, for this day they will not save your queenly neck!
Need I picture my friends, the terrible scenes, which followed the condemnation
of Louis Capet?
Now Louis Capet being dethroned, there reigned in Paris another King
—let us go there through the streets black with People, and look at him!
There in the centre of this dense crowd, he raises his gory head—there the
sun streams over his bloody outlines—there gleams his dripping axe—there
there, towering above the heads of millions behold his Bloody Majesty,
the new Lord of Paris, King Guillotine!
A strange king have we here—and look there, standing on the scaffold, a
burly ruffian towers into light, his bared arms red with blood, his hot brow
covered by a hideous scarlet cap! That half-clad ruffian is one of the
Courtiers of the new king, that is The Hangman, Prime Minister to King
Guillotine!
Now let us take our station by his throne; let us behold the offerings
which are brought to King Guillotine!
See—the crowd gives way—hark! That shout! Louis of France
kneels, lays his head upon the block—the axe falls! Behold the first
offering to the Bloody Majesty of France—King Guillotine!
Look—another scene breaks on our view! The soft light of morning
breaks over these palaces, over the spires of Notre Dame—the crowd give
way.
Great Heaven, what sight is this!
The crowd give way—a lovely woman comes trembling up the scaffoldsteps!
Oh, how beautiful! Life in her eyes, on her dewy lip, life in her young
veins, life on the white bosom, that heaves tremulously into light.
Look! with one rude grasp the Hangman tears aside the robes from that
white bosom—she kneels—Oh, God!
Is not that a fair and beautiful neck to lay upon the block? She kneels
—the axe glimmers—falls!
Ah, can that head rolling there like a football, beneath the Executioner's
feet, that head with the long hair dabbled in blood, can that be the head of
Marie Antoinette of France?
Now let us wait by King Guillotine all day long—here, from the death-carts
tumbled out upon the scaffold—here old man and maid, here Poet,
Warrior, Felon, here they come! They kneel—hark! The sound of the
falling axe! The sawdust of the scaffold is drunk with blood—there is a
pile of human heads rising in the light! Behold the offerings to King
Guillotine!
Thus from morning till night, that axe glimmers and falls! Thus from
morning till night, King Guillotine plies his task—the gutters of Paris run
blood, down to the waters of the Seine—the graveyards are full. King
Guillotine knows not where to bury his dead—the stones of the prison
yards are taken up—deep pits are dug—here bring your dead-carts, here
into these yawning cavities, pitch them all, the warrior with his mangled
form, the old man with his grey hair, the maiden with her trampled bosom
—here pitch them all, and let the earth hide these offerings to King
Guillotine.
Now search the streets of Paris for the noblest and pure-souled Patriots
of the Revolution—and search in vain! They are gone—La Fayette and
Paine, and all the heroes are gone. In their place speaks that great orator,
King Guillotine.
XII.—TRUTH FROM THE CARNAGE.
And here, my friends, let us for a moment pause, even amid these rivers
of blood, to look the Great Truth of the French Revolution in the face:
Shall I, because the blood is yonder in curdling pools, shall I declare that
the Principle of the French Revolution was wrong?
No! No! No!
For it was for this same principle that Jesus toiled—endured—died! It
was for this Principle that every man is alike the child of God, that the
tears of Gethsemane fell, that the groans of Calvary arose!
Shall I, because the blood flows in rivers in the streets of France, declare
truth to be a liar—prate of the atrocities of the Revolution—or sing psalms
over the graves of tyrants and kings?
Remember, my friends—and O, write this truth upon your hearts—that
this French Revolution was the first effort of Man, to assert his rights since
the crucifixion of the Saviour.
Remember, that between the Death of the Blessed Redeemer and the Era
of the French Revolution, every atrocity that the imagination of the devils
could invent, had been heaped upon mankind, by Kings and Priests in the
name of God.
Remember—wherever Bigotry has reared her temples, there has the
name of God been polluted by the foul lips of Priests
The Hindoo Mother gives her child to the Ganges, in the name of God—
the car of the Juggernaut crushes its thousands, in the name of God!
In a single war—a war that swept over Germany and Bohemia—nine
million souls went down to one bloody grave, because their King and his
Priests quarrelled in relation to this great question—whether a Church
should have a cross, whether a Preacher should say his prayers in Latin
or Dutch! And then after the war was over, booted Priests and gowned
troopers, shouted the holy name of God, over a land which could show no
fruits, than the graves of nine million people!
In this fair land of the New World, the children of the forest were hunted
and butchered in the name of God! That name mingled with the blood-hound's
yell. In this land, helpless women and aged men were scourged
and burnt to death by grim sectarians, who calmly gazed upon the writhing
and blackened flesh of their victims, and shouted Glory to the name of
God!
In this name, earth has been desolated ten thousand times, and ten thousand
times again. In this name, the gardens of the world have been transformed
into howling deserts; the heart of man changed into the heart of a
devil—in this name home has been made a hell.
These things have been done in the name of God! You may say that
they were the work of ignorance, of superstition, of fanatacism, but still that
blistering fact stands out from the brow of history—These things were
done in the name of God!
And shall I therefore declare, that God is a Lie? Shall I therefore declare,
that his Book is a Fable? Shall I, because the name of God has
been polluted, his holy word profaned, shall I declare, that there is no God
—no Revelation?
As well these absurdities, as declare that the Principle of the French
Revolution—all men are alike the children of God—is false, because that
Principle was profaned by deeds of Massacre—by his bloody Majesty,
King Guillotine.
Remember, my friends, as you are gazing here, upon this immense crowd,
remember also to gaze upon yonder balcony, projecting from the wall of
the Palace of the Kings of France?
Well—what of that balcony
Why, my friends, on that balcony, not a hundred years ago, stood Royal
Charles of France, while the darkness of night was broken by the flames
of St. Bartholomew!
Yes, there he stood, gazing with a calm religious joy, upon the murder
old men, women, little children,—going forward in the streets below! Yes,
there, with that Woman-Fiend, Catharine of Medici, by his side, there stood
the King, with his musquet in his hand, shooting down his own people—
and as that old man is writhing there, as that woman falls, crushed by his
shot—while the groans of three hundred thousand human beings, murdered
in a single night, between the setting and the rising of the sun, go up to
Heaven, He, the King, solemnly calls upon Jesus and on God!
Multiply the victims of the French Revolution by ten myriads, and they
will not make a mole hill, beside the mountain of victims of Religious
bigotry, who have been murdered in the name of GOD.
XIII.—THE REIGN OF THE KING OF TERROR.
But while the orgies of the Revolution are filling Paris with horror, let
us search for Thomas Paine!
He is not in his home—nor in the Convention, nor in the streets—then
where is he?
Come with me, at dead of night, and I will show you a strange
scene.—
In the central chamber of yonder Royal palace, a solitary, dim, flickering
light burns in the socket.
Yes, a solitary light stands in the centre of that chamber, stands on the
table there, flinging its feeble rays out upon the thick darkness of that room.
It is a spacious chamber, but you can discover nothing of its lofty doors
—nothing of the tapestry that adorns its walls—for all save that spot in the
centre of the chamber, where the light is burning, all is darkness.
I ask you to steep your souls in the silence, in the gloom of this place,
and then listen to that creaking sound of an opening door—that low—stealthy
footstep.
Behold a figure advances—stands there with one hand on the table—
It is the figure of a slenderly formed man dressed in the extreme of
dandyism—a jaunty blue coat—spotless white vest, lined with crimson
satin—a faultlessly white cravat.
There is a diamond on his bosom—ruffles round his wrists.
Look for a moment at his face—the features small and mean—the hue a
discolored yellow; the eyes bleared and blood-shot. Who is this puny,
night?
That puny dandy, is the King of King Guillotine, that is Maximilian
Robespierre! The paper that he grasps in his sallow hands, is a letter
from King Robespierre to King Gullotine! Eighty victims are to feed the
sawdust and the axe to-morrow: their names are on that paper.
And now as we stand here in this Palace Hall, gazing upon this Blood-thirsty
dandy, let us look at his malicious lip, how it writhes, at his blood-shot
eye, how it gleams with spite and hate. These eighty victims sacraficed;
eighty of the noblest and the best of France; then the Guillotine
can be locked up forever, then the name of Robespierre, will be lost in the
name of his supreme equality, Maximillen, the First, King of France!
And as he stands there, the full light of the lamp, streaming over his discolored
face; let us look over his shoulder; let us read the names on this
death-scroll!
There are the names of Hero-men, of Hero-women, and first in the
scroll, you see the names of Madame La Fayette and Thomas Paine.
Yes, the eye of Robespierre gleams with a terrible light, as he it rests
upon that name; the name of the most determined foe.
Thomas Paine! To night he paces the damp floor of his sleepless-cell
—to-morrow into the death-cart, and on to the Guillotine—ho, ho, so ends
the Author-hero, Thomas Paine!
XIV.—THE FALL OF KING GUILLOTINE.
Let us take one bold look, into the Hall of the National Assembly, on
the next day! What see we here?
Here are the best, the bravest, aye and the bloodiest of all France, sitting
silent—speechless—awed, before that orange-visaged dandy, who crouches
on the Tribune, yonder!
Not a man in that crowd, dares speak! Robespierre—the Guillotine,
Terror, have taken fast hold upon their hearts! Every man in that densely-throunged
hall looks upon his neighbor with suspicion; for every other
man, there is already singled out as the victim of the orange-faced King, in
the snow-white vest! It is not known who the next victim shall be;
where the tyrant will next strike and kill!
Robespierre has carried his list of death; has made his fiery speech:
France, the people, the bloody and the brave, sit crouching in that hall,
before that slender man, with blood-shot eyes!
Robespierre in fact is King—do you see, that biting smile stealing over
his withered face! There is triumph in that mockery of a smile!
At this awful moment, when all is silence in the crowded hall—behold—
that unknown man, rising yonder, far from the Tribune—that unknown man,
who trembling from head to foot, pale as a frozen corpse,—rises and speaks
a word that turns all eyes upon him:
“Room!” he whispers; and yet his whisper is heard in every heart—
“Room there ye dead!”
He pauses, with his eye fixed on vacancy.—All is still—the Convention
hold their breath—even Robespierre listens—
“Room there ye dead!”[3]
again whispers that unknown man; and then
pointing to the white-vested Tyrant, his voice rises in a shriek—“Room ye
dead! Room there—Room ye ghosts—room in hell for the soul of Maximilien
Robespierre!”
Like a voice from the grave, that word startles the Convention—look!
Robespierre has risen—coward as he is, that voice has palsied his soul.
But the unknown man does not pause! In that some deep tone, he heaps
up the crimes of Robespierre in short and fiery words, he calls the dead
from their graves to witness the atrocities of the Tyrant; trembling with
the great deed he has taken upon himself, he shrieks, Go, tyrant, go!
Go, and wash out your crimes on the gory sawdust of King Guillotine!”
From that hour, Robespierre the Tyrant was Robespierre, the convicted
criminal! Look! Covered with shames and scorns, he rushes from the
hall—Hark! The report of a pistol! What does it mean?
Let us away to King Guillotine and ask him!
Ha! Give way there Paris, give way, who is it that comes here—comes
through the maddened crowd; who is it, that more dead than living, comes
on, shrinking, crouching, trembling, to the feet of Holy King Guillotine?
Ah! That horror-stricken face, yes, that face with that bloody cloth
bound around the broken jaw—look! even through that cloth, the blood
drips slowly; he bleeds, it is Robespierre!
Grasped in the arms of men, whom the joy of this moment has maddened
into devils, he is dragged up to the scaffold—
One look over the crowd—great Heaven, in all that mass of millions,
there is no blessing for Maximilien Robespierre!
“Water!” shrieks the Tyrant, holding his torn jaw, “Water, only a cup
of water!”
Look—his cry is answered! A woman rushes up the scaffold—a woman
who yesterday was a mother, but now is widowed, because Robespierre and
Death have grasped her boy.
“Water?” she echoes; “Blood, tyrant, blood! You have given France
blood to drink—you have drank her blood! Now drink your own!”
Look—oh, horror—she drags the bandage from his broken jaw—he is
bathed in a bath of his own blood. Down on the block, tyrant! One
gleam of the axe—hurrah for brave King Guillotine!
There is a head on the scaffold—and there, over the headless corse,
stands that Widow, shrieking the cry she heard in the Convention to-day:
“Room ye dead! Room—for the Soul of Maximilien Robespierre!”
XV.—THE BIBLE.
We have seen Thomas Paine standing alone in the Judgment Hall of the
French Nation, pleading—even amid that sea of scowling faces—for the life
of King Louis.
We have seen him with Washington, Hamilton, Macintosh, Franklin,
and Jefferson, elected a Citizen of France. With these great men, he
hailed the dawn of the French Revolution as the breaking of God's Millennium;
as the first great effort of Man to free himself from the lash and
chain, since the crucifixion of the Saviour.
But soon the dawn was overcast; soon the light of burning rafters flashed
luridly over scenes of blood; soon all that is grotesque, or terrible, or loathsome
in murder, was enacted in the streets of Paris. The lantern posts
bore their ghastly fruit; the streets flowed with crimson rivers, the life-blood
of ten thousand hearts, down even to the waters of the Seine. King
Louis was dead; but this was not all. Liberty was dead also; butchered
by her fireside.
In her place reigned an orange-faced Dandy, with shrivelled cheeks and
blood-shot eyes. La Fayette and Paine, and all the heroes were gone from
the councils of France, but in their place, aye, in the place of Poetry,
Enthusiasm and Eloquence, spoke a mighty orator — King Guillotine!
For eleven months, Thomas Paine lay sweltering in a gaol, the object of
the fierce indignation of Maximilien Robespierre. At last there came a day
when he was doomed; when his name was written in the Judgment List
of the orange-faced Dandy.
Let us go to the prison, even to the Palace Prison of the Luxemburg. It
is high noon. A band of eighty, clustered around that prison door, silently
await their fate. Here amid white-haired old men, here amid trembling
women, all watching for the coming of the death-messenger,—here, silent,
stern, composed, stands the author-hero, Thomas Paine
Soon that prison door will open; soon the death cars will roll; soon the
axe will fall, and these eighty forms, now fired with the last glow of life,
will be clay.
But look—the gaoler comes! A man of dark brow and savage look; his
arms bared to the shoulder, displaying the sinews of a giant. He comes,
trudging heavily through the crowd of his victims, the massive key of the
Palace Prison in his hand. He stands for a moment, looking gloomily over
the faces of his prisoners; he places the key in the lock. Then the gloom
vanishes from his rough face; a look of frenzied joy gleams from his eyes;
his brawny chest swells with a maniac shout.
“Go forth!” he shrieks, rushing the first through the opened gates; “go
forth, young and old; go forth all!—for Catiline Robespierre is dead!”
And forth—while the air is filled with frenzied shrieks of joy—forth from
the Palace Prison walks the freed hero, the Man of Two Revolutions,
Thomas Paine.
Now comes the darkest hour of his life. Now comes the hour when we
shall weep for Genius profaned; when we shall see the great and mighty,
fallen from the pedestal of his glory into the very sink of pollution.
Now let us follow the path of Thomas Paine, as his first step is to reclaim
the Manuscript of a work which he wrote eleven months ago, before his
entrance into prison. He grasps that package of Manuscript again; let us
look at its title: “The Age of Reason.”
Here, my friends, let us pause for a moment. Let us ask that man of
the high brow, the eloquent eye, the face stamped with a great soul—let us
ask Thomas Paine, as he goes yonder through the streets of Paris, to do a
great and holy deed?
That deed—what is it?
Let us ask him to take the Manuscript in his hand, to tear it in twain,
and hurl the fragments there, beneath the dripping axe of the Guillotine.
Yes, let the Guillotine do its last work upon this Manuscript of Falsehood;
let the last descent of the gory axe fall on its polluted pages. For while
this “Age of Reason” speaks certain great Thoughts, announcing the author's
belief in a God and Immortality—thoughts derived from the Bible—it is
still a jest book, too vile to name.
It is true, it speaks of God and Immortality; but it also heaps its vile
jests, its vulgar scorn upon Jesus, the Redeemer of Man, and Mary the
Virgin Mother.
Let me tell you at once, my friends, that I stand here to-night, a prejudiced
man. Let me at once confess, that it has ever been my study, my
love, to bend over the dim pages of the Hebrew volume—to behold the
awful form of Jehovah pending over chaos; to hear that voice of Omnipotence
resound through the depths of space, as these words break on my
soul: “Vayomer Aloheim: yehee aur vayehee aur!”—Then spake
God: let there be light and light there was!”
Or yet again, to behold that Jehovah, descended from the skies, walking
yonder with the Patriarchs, yonder where the palms arise, and the tents
whiten over the plain. Or, in the silence of night, to look there, through
the lone wilderness, where the Pillar of Fire beacons Moses the Deliverer
towards the Promised Land; or to enter the solemn temple of Jerusalem,
and behold the same Jehovah, shining in the holiest place, shining over the
Ark of the Covenant, so awfully serene, yet sublime.
Let me tell you, that I have been with the Arab, Job, as he talked face
to face with God, and in images of divine beauty, spoke forth the writhings
of his soul; as in words that your orators of Greece and Rome never spoke
the sweet, dear rest of the untroubled grave. “There the wicked cease
from troubling and the weary be at rest.”
I have bent over this New Testament, and traced the path of God as he
walked the earth enshrined in human flesh. Is there no beauty here, to
warm the heart and fire the brain? Even as we read, does not the face
of Jesus start from the page—that face that painter never painted, with its
serene Divinity looking out from the clear, deep eyes. That face which
we may imagine, with its flowing hair falling gently down from the brow
where “God” is written in every outline, with the lips wreathing with such
eternal love for poor forsaken man, whether he sweats in the workshop or
grovels in the mine. Yes, I have followed that face, as it appeared above
the hill-top at even, in the golden twilight of Palestine, and approached the
Poor Man's hut, and shone in the dark window, upon the hard crust of the
slave. How the Poor rose up to welcome that face; how rude men bent
down before it and wept; how tender women knelt in its light and gazed
in those Divine eyes! Then how the voice of Jesus rung out upon the
air, speaking in dark huts great words that shall never die!
Yes, I have followed that Man of Nazareth over stony roads, by the
waves of Galilee, into the Halls of Pilate; and there—yes, up the awful
cliffs of Calvary, when Jerusalem poured through its gates by tens of thousands,
under the darkened heavens, over the groaning earth, to look upon
the face of the dying God, as the heavy air rung with that unspeakable
agony: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!”
Let me at once confess, that if the Bible is a Fable, it is a Fable more
beautiful than all the classics of Greece and Rome. Paint for me your
Cicero and Demosthenes in all their glory, and I will paint you that bold
forehead and those earnest eyes of Saint Paul, as, rising from his midnight
toil, his voice echoes the words he has just written; those words that live
forever, as though each word was an Immortal Soul—
In a moment, in a twinkling of the eye, at the last trump, for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed.
For this corruption must put on incorruption, and this mortal must
put on immortality.
Search your Poets for scenes of that quiet pathos which at once melts
and elevates the soul—search your Homer, your Shakspeare; search them
all, the venerable Seers of Ages, and I will point you to a single line that
puts them all to shame! It is in the New Testament, where Jesus the
Christ is dead and buried. It is on that serene morning, when the sunbeams
shine over the sepulchre of the Saviour. Three women, the blessed
Maries, come there to weep over the body of their Lord. Yes, all the
world has forsaken him: all save Peter the Faithless yet Lion-hearted,
John the Beloved, and these three women. They look into the sepulchre
this moment, a poor, abandoned woman, whom the good Christ had lifted
up to virtue and forgave, even as she washed his feet with her tears—yes,
at this moment, sad, tearful, Mary Magdalene approaches a being whom she
mistakes for the gardener. Listen to the words of scripture. This being
speaks:
“Woman, why weepest thou?”
She, supposing him to be the gardener, said unto him,
“Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him,
and I will take him away.”
Jesus saith unto her, “Mary!”
She turned herself and said unto him, “Master!”
This is all the gospel says of the matter, but is not this one line full of
eternal beauty: “Jesus saith unto her, `Mary!”' No long explanations,
no elaborate phrase, no attempt to awe or surprise; but one simple word,
that word her name, spoken in the tones she loved to hear.
Can you not hear his voice, speaking in those well-remembered tones?
Can you not see his hand extended in a gesture of benediction, as his eye
lights up with an expression of brotherly tenderness?
That one scene by the sepulchre, where the Magdalene, an image of
beauty purified by religion, bends delighted before the serenely divine face
of the risen Jesus, while the sunbeams of that calm dawn fell gently over
the grave-clothes which no longer clasp the dead—that one scene, sublime
in its very simplicity considered as a mere composition, is worth all the
pathos of Greece and Rome.
Yes, if the Bible is a fable, it is a fable more beautiful than all the iron-hearted
sophistry of your cold-blooded Philosophers—it is a Fable that
through all time has girded up the hearts of patriots on the scaffold and the
battle-field—it is a Fable that has shone like a glory over ten thousand
dying beds. If that Bible is a Fable, then is it a Fable that bursts like a
blaze of love and beauty through the dark cloud of human guilt, and lights
a way from the dull grave up to Immortality and God.
Ah, had I been Thomas Paine—had his great brain, his great soul been
mine, then would I have taken my stand here on the Bible with Jesus.
Then from this book would I have told the host of hypocrites who like
slimy lizards, crawl up on the Altar of God and sit there in all their loathsomeness,
then would I have told these mockers of God, that here from this
Bible, even the mild spirit of Jesus is roused—to rebuke—to scorn—to speak
terror to their souls!
Because hypocrites have made merchandize of God's Book, and split his
cross into pedlar's wares, shall I therefore heap scorn upon that serenely
beautiful face, looming out from the Bible; that face of Jesus, the Redeemer
of Man? Because hypocrites and kings have taken the seamless robe of
Christ and parted it into cords, to bind men's necks and hands and hearts,
the clouds of human guilt, the only Redeemer of Man, the only Messiah
of the Poor?
Here was the terrible mistake of Thomas Paine. He mistook the cloud
which marred the sun for the sun itself; he mistook the abuses of men, the
frauds of hypocrites, the lies of fabulists, which have been done and uttered
in the name of Christianity, for Christianity itself.
He lived in an age when Light and Darkness struggled together, when
the earth was convulsed from cottage to throne. He had done a great deed
when he wrote that book of “Common Sense,” which derives its strongest
arguments from the Bible, for it quotes the memorable words of the prophet
Samuel against Monarchy and King-worshippers. This book of Common
Sense, founded on the Bible, was the forerunner of the Declaration of Independence.
But now Paine fell into the deplorable error of mistaking certain wolves,
who assumed the fleece of religion, for the true sheep of the Lord Jesus.
He attacked Christianity in this ribald book, written in that style of controversial
blackguardism, which was first used by pretended followers of Christ,
who reduced their Master to an Enigma, his religion to a sophistry. This
pitiable style which makes up in filth what it wants in grandeur, and mistakes
a showy falsehood for a solid truth, was used by Paine in his Age of
Reason. It was beneath him; far beneath the genius of the man who
wrote “Common Sense.” It has left his name, as the author of this work,
but a wreck on a desert shore; while that name, when known as the author
of “Common Sense,” is cherished by the wise and good all over the
land.
The position which I have assumed in this history is a plain one. No
one but a fool can mistake it. I found the character of “Thomas Paine,
Author of Common Sense,” wronged and neglected. I took up that character,
defended it, placed it on the pedestal where Washington and Jefferson
had placed it once before. No selfish motive actuated me in this work.
Paine has no relatives living to thank me; nor—if my object was money—
has he any rich friends to pay me for the task. I think, therefore, that the
most prejudiced man will acknowledge that my motives here have been
pure, honest, above all mercenary considerations.
A fact that speaks for itself, is this: while an Atheistical paper abuses
me as a Bigot, another paper, governed by no particular morality or belief,
but supplying the place of Religion with Bigotry, calls me an—Infidel!
Does not this speak volumes? In this case extremes meet, for the
snake puts his tail in his mouth.
Without one sordid motive, without one base fear, have I called up the
records of the past, the voices of the dead, to testify the character and
genius of Thomas Paine, the Author of Common Sense.
And now, without one sordid motive, without one base fear, do I record
Age of Reason; my detestation of the style and principles of that work;
my pity for the individual who, in our day, could be turned from his Saviour
by arguments and sneers so puerile as are written in its pages.
For the Religion of Jesus is not a thing of an hour or a day, that it
should be undermined by a sneer or crushed by a falsehood. It is built up
in too many hearts, it brings too much hope to poor desolate man, it holds
out too glittering beacons of Immortality, ever to die. When it survived
the wounds it received from pretended friends during a course of eighteen
hundred years, shall it die of a single Voltaire or Paine? The Christianity
of the heart, which cheers us in toil, lights our homes with a gleam from
God's heaven, smoothes our pillow in sickness, and in the sad, stern hour
of death, sings hymns to our parting soul and leads it gently home to Immortality—Can
this Religion of the heart ever die?
Speak, Mother, bending over your child, as you tell him of the Jesus who
gathered the little children to his breast—can this Religion die? Speak,
Father, old man, now bending beside your daughter's corse, gazing upon
that face cold in death, with your earnest eyes, speak and tell us! Can a
Religion that comforts you in an hour like this, that assures you your child
is not dead but gone home, can this Religion die! Speak, slave of the
workshop and mine, now toiling on for a hard crust, with the sweat on
your brow, the agony in your heart—can this Religion die? This Religion
which tells you that God himself did not disdain to take the form of a man
of toil, in order to make your fate better in this world, and give you Immortality
in the next?—Speak, Bigot—even you, whom Christ pities and
forgives—even you, last object of imbecility and malice—speak and tell us!
Can a Religion that stoops so far in its mercy, as to save you, ever die?
Speak, Universal Man, and answer us! Can a Religion which binds
itself to your heart, links its eternal form with your joys and sorrows, hopes
and fears, soothes you in toil and sickness, appeals to your imagination
with its images of divine loveliness, elevates you with its Revelation of Immortality
from a mere lump of clay almost into Godhead—Can this Religion
of the heart ever die?
Here is the mournful lesson of Thomas Paine's life: A great man, when
he utters a great truth, raises himself to the dignity of an Angel: the
same great man, uttering a Lie, degrades himself below the beast.
When Thomas Paine wrote “Common Sense,” he uttered a Truth,
(founded on the Bible,) which aroused a whole Continent to its destiny.
For this we honor him.
When the same Thomas Paine wrote the `Age of Reason,' he uttered an
Error, opposed to the Bible and in direct contradiction of his former work,
Common Sense. For this we pity him.
The effect of the “Age of Reason,” has long since passed away, but the
good work of “Common Sense,” is seen in this great spectacle of Twenty-nine
Aroostook to the Rio Grande.
Have I made myself sufficiently plain?—Has that man a well-balanced
mind who can now mistake my position? If there is such a man within
sound of my voice, I would remind him that it is my duty to supply him
with information, but a Divine Power alone can furnish with brains.
Again I repeat—had I been Thomas Paine, I would have learned this
great truth: The path of the true Reformer is not against, but ever and evermore
with Jesus.
XVI.—THE DEATH-BED OF THOMAS PAINE.
Come with me to that Long Island shore—come with me to the farm of
New Rochelle, where an old man is dying.
Let us enter this rude and neglected room. There, on yonder bed, with
the June breeze—oh, it is sweet with the perfume of land and ocean,—with
the June breeze blowing softly through the open window—with gleams of
June sunlight upon his brow—there, propped up by pillows, on his deathbed,
sits an old man.
That form is shrunk—that face stamped with the big wrinkles of age and
alcohol—yet the brow still looms out, a tower of thought, the eye still glares
from that wreck of a face—glares with soul.
He is dying. Death in the trembling hands—death in the brightening
eyes—death in every bead of sweat upon the brow.
And who is here to comfort that old man? Wife, child? Ah, none of
these are here! No softly-whispered voice speaks love to the passing
soul—no kind and tender hand puts back the grey hair from the damp
brow.
Yet still that old man sits there against the pillow, silent, calm, firm.
Softly blow the June breezes—softly pours the mild sunlight—sunlight
and breezes, he is about to leave forever, and yet he is firm.
Oh, tell me, my friends, why does this death-room seem so awfully still
and desolate?
It is not so much because there is no wife, no child here—not because
there is no kind hand to smooth back the grey hairs from the damp brow—
but O, Father of souls—
Here in this still room, with its poor furniture, its stray sunlight, and its
summer breeze,—here, in this still room, there is no mildly-beautiful face
of Jesus, the redeemer, to look upon the old man, to gleam beside his bed,
to smile immortality in his glazing eyes.
This makes the room so awfully still and desolate.
There is no Jesus here!
Yes, without a word of recantation on his lip—firm to his belief—one
God, and no Jesus—firm to his stoical creed, which is all reason and no
calmly by the hand.
Now look, in this dread hour two men come forward, a Doctor and a
Preacher. What is their mission here! Do they take the old man's hands
within their own, and chafe away the death-chill? Oh, no!
While one has note and pencil in hand, the other leans over the bed.
Don't you see his pitiful, whining face? He leans over the bed and whispers,
or rather screeches,—Mister Paine, we wish to know whether you
have changed your religious opinions? Do you believe in our creed?
And while the Doctor is ready, with his pencil, the Preacher leans gaspingly
there—awaits his answer!
Does not this scene disgust you? There are two pedlars of death-bed
confessions, waiting to catch the last gasp of poor Tom Paine!
Do you think, my friends, that the cause of Christ depends upon narrow-souled
bigots like these—who, instead of placing the cup of cold water to
the lips of the death-stricken, come here, around the death-bed, smelling of
creeds, and breathing cant all the while—and insult, with their paper and
pencil, the last hours of a dying old man?
Would your Fenelon, your Luther, your Wesley, have done thus?
Would your Bishop White, or your Channing, talked to a dying man, with
paper and pencil in hand, instead of moistening his lips with the cup of
water, or soothing his soul with the great truths of Christ! Nay—would
the blessed Redeemer himself, who ever lifted up the bowed head, ever forgave
the trembling sinner, ever reached forth the arms of his Godhead to
snatch despair from its sins and woes—would he have entered thus the
chamber of a dying man, to talk of creeds, when there was a soul to be
redeemed! The thought is blasphemy!
Now listen to the only answer, what these bigots could expect. The
old man looked in their faces, stamped with the petty lines of sectarian
Pharicaism, and answered—
“I have no desire to believe in anything of the kind!” says the old man,
and turned his face to the wall.
At this moment, look! Another man appears on the scene. He is
dressed in the garb of a Quaker. He pushes the bigots aside—waves these
Pencillers from the room, and then—God's blessing upon his head—takes
the old man by the hand, and silently smooths back the damp hair from his
brow.
Paine looks his speechless thanks to that stout-hearted Quaker's face.
“Friend Thomas,” says the Friend, “trust in Christ. He died for thee.
His mercy is fathomless as the sea!”
Never did the plain coat and broad-brimmed hat look more like an Angel's
garb than then. Not even in the hour when William Penn, under the Elm
of Shackamaxon, spoke immortal words to rude red men. Never did the
Quaker “thee” and “thou” sound more lovely, more like an angel's tongue,
from the shores of Delaware, to all the world, the great message of Peace
and Toleration.
Thomas Paine grasped that Quaker by the hand, and gazed in his face
with dim eyes.
Now, my friends, do not let your hearts falter, but go with me to the end
of this scene. What is the mission of this Quaker to the author of “Common
Sense?” Why, he has been abroad all the morning, trying to secure
a grave—a quiet, secluded, unknown resting-place for Tom Paine. He has
been to all the churches—all! For a dark thought troubles the last hours
of Paine, the thought that his remains will rest unhonored, above ground,
unsheltered by the repose of a grave.
This was but human, after all. He believed his soul would not die. He
did not wish the aged clay which enshrined that soul to be the object of
contempt or insult, after his death.
Now look—while the Quaker grasps his hand, the dying man looks in
his face.
“Will they,” he murmurs in a husky whisper, “will they give me a
grave?”
The Quaker turns his head away. He cannot answer. Still Paine
clutches that hand—still repeats the question. At last, with tears in his
eyes, with choking utterance, the Quaker gasps a syllable:
“No! Friend Paine—no! I have been to them all—to all the Christian
churches—all! And all—yea, all of these followers of Jesus, who forgave
the thief on the Cross—all refuse thy bones a grave!”
That was a crushing blow for poor Tom Paine. That was the last drop
in the full cup of his woe; the last kick of Bigotry against the skull of a
dying old man.
He never spoke again.
As if this last scorn of these Infidel-Christians had gathered his heart
and crushed it like a vice, then the old man silently released his hand from
the grasp of the Quaker—silently folded his arms over his breast—dropped
his head slowly down, and was—DEAD!
Now look yonder, as the soul of that old man goes up to judgment—look
there, as the soul of Thomas Paine stands arrayed before that face of Infinite
Mercy, and answer me!
Who would not sooner be Tom Paine—there, before that bar of Jesus
—with all his virtues and errors about him, than one of the misguided
bigots who refused his bones a grave?
Think of the charity which Jesus preached before you answer!
And as we quote the terrible truth of those words, which I found written
in an old volume, in the dim cloisters of the Franklin Library—
“He has no name. The country for which he labored and suffered,
knows him not. His ashes rest in a foreign land. A rough, grass-grown
the Continent of America, to tell of the Hero, the Statesman, the friend
of Man!”
I say, as we quote the terrible truth of these words, let us go yonder to
that deserted spot, near New Rochelle. Let us bend over that deserted
mound, covered with rank grass, read the inscription on that rough stone,
and then—while the Unbeliever is with his God, into whose awful councils
nor bigotry nor hate can enter—let us remember, that this simple monument
is the only memorial on the Continent of America, of that Author-Hero
who first stood forth the Prophet of our rights, the compatriot of
Jefferson, the friend of Washington, the author of “Common Sense,”—
poor Tom Paine!
Remember, then, that the hand which mouldered to dust, beneath this
stone, was the first to write the words—
“The Free and Independent States of America.”
XVII.—REVIEW OF THE HISTORY.
This is a strange and crowded history. Not only the great day on which
the Declaration was signed, and a Continent declared free, has been described,
but the eternal cause of that Declaration, reaching over a dark chaos of
eighteen hundred years, has been recognized in its characters of light and
beauty. From the day of July the Fourth, 1776, we have gone to the day
when the world was in mourning for its God—incarnating in the form of a
mechanic, by the death of shame, on the felon's cross. We have traced the
great facts of the Rights of Man, from humble Independence Hall, to the
awful cliff of Calvary. From Christ the Redeemer, we have followed the
track of light through the mist of ages, down to his great apostle, the Paul
of the seventeeth century, William Penn. From Penn to Washington and
Jefferson and Adams and Paine, all human, yet rising into heroes through
the majesty of their intellect. The career of Paine,—now writing his bold
book in darkness, hunger and cold, now following the footsteps of Washington's
army, striking mortal blows with his pen, into the very heart of
British cruelty—has led us into the vortex of the French Revolution, the
glorious and bloody child of our own. Through the cloud of that fearful
time, we have endeavored to follow the track of light, separating its rays
from the dark shadow of the Guillotine, and beholding its omen of good,
even above the crimson waves of the Seine.
Nor have we faltered, when it became our sad task to witness the downfall
of Thomas Paine. An awful lesson is conveyed in his sad history. So
bright the dawning of that star, so dark its going out into hopeless night!
Now, the intimate friend of Washington and the other heroes, and again, a
desolate old man, withered by the bigot's breath, and dying—desolate, O!
how desolate and alone!
It becomes our task now, to follow four of the Signers, in their way
through the valley of the shadow of death. We have not space nor time
to picture the lives of all the signers; from among the host of heroes, we
will select but four immortal names.
From the death-chamber of Paine, to other scenes where the voice of the
messenger falls on the freezing ear, and his cold finger seals the glassy
eye.
XVIII.—THE LAST DAY OF JEFFERSON AND ADAMS.
Fifty years passed away: the Fourth of July, 1776 had been made
Immortal by its Declaration; the Fourth of July, 1826 was to be forever
rendered a Holy Day by the hand of Death.
On that serene morning, the sun rose beautifully upon the world, shining
to the Gulf of Mexico, with the Atlantic glittering like a belt of waves and
beams along its eastern shore, the Mississippi winding four thousand miles
through its western border, while ruggedly sublime, the Alleghanies towered
in the centre of the land.
The same sun, fifty years before, and lighted up with its smile of good
omen, a little nation of Thirteen provinces, nestling between the Alleghanies
and the Atlantic, and fighting even for that space, bounded by mountains
and waves, with the greatest and bloodiest power in the world.
The battle of eight years had been fought; England foiled in the Revolution,
had been humbled in the dust again; fifty years had passed away;
the thirteen Provinces of this bloody Monarchy, had swelled into Twenty-Four
States of a Free People. The banner that had waved so gloriously in
the Revolution, unveiling its Thirteen stars to the blood-red glare of battle,
now fluttering in the summer morning air, from Home and Church and
Council Hall, flashed from its folds the blaze of Twenty-Four stars, joined
in one Sun of Hope and Promise.
The wild Eagle, who had swooped so fiercely on the British host, some
fifty years ago, now sat calmly on his mountain crag, surveying his Banner,
crimsoned with the light of victory, while the peaceful land, beautiful with
river and valley, blossomed on every side.
It was the Fourth of July, 1826. From little villages, came joyous bands,
—white-robed virgins and sinless children—scattering flowers by the way;
in the deep forests, the voice of praise and prayer arose to God; from the
Pulpit the preacher spoke; beside the old cannon, which had blazed at
Germantown, stood the veteran of the Revolution, as battered as the cannon
which he fired; in the wide cities ten thousand hearts throbbed with one
common joy: and the flowers that were scattered by the way, the words
that the Preacher spoke, and the hymn that the forest echoes sent to
Heaven, the blaze of the cannon and the joy of the wide city, all had one
meaning: “This land that was once the Province of a King, is now
the Homestead of a People!”
And yet, even while the hearts of fourteen million people palpitated with
the same joy, there came an unseen and shadowy Messenger, who touched
two brave hearts with his hand, and froze them into clay.
Even while the Jubilee of Freedom rung its hosannas from every wood
and hill, Death was in the land. Silently, with that step that never makes
a sound, with that voice which speaks the language of eternity—and which
we never hear translated until we die—Death glided into the chambers of
two heroes, and bade them Home to God!
Almost at the same moment, almost within the compass of the same hour,
two hearts—that once warmed with the passion of freedom, the frenzy of
eloquence—were stopped in their beatings forever.
We will go to the room of old age, we will stand beside the bed of death,
brows of the Brother Heroes.
The First Home!
Does it not look beautiful, the very picture of rustic comfort and unpretending
wealth, as it rises yonder on the soil of Massachusetts, the land of
Hancock and Warren, that mansion with many windows, a porch extending
along its front, fair flowers and richly foliaged trees blooming from its hall-door
to the roadside gate? The hour is very still. It is near high noon.
You can see the roof, with corniced eaves and balustraded summit marked
boldly out, against the deep blue summer sky.
While the thunder of cannon is in our ears, we will pass the gate, enter
the hall-door, and glide softly up the stairs. Softly, for death is here, in this
Home of Quincy.
With heads bowed low and stealthy tread, we enter the darkened room.
The sound of gasping breath, the sob of manhood in its agony, the wail of
women, the music of the summer air among the leaves, all at once rush on
our ears.
We enter—and gaze—and start back, awed and dumb.
All the windows of this room, save one, are dark. Yonder to the east,
you see that window, its white curtains flung aside, the perfume of the
garden and the joy of the sunshine gushing through its aperture, into the
shadowy Death-Chamber.
Yonder on the thickly curtained bed, an old man is dying.
Resting against the pillow, his shrunken form lost in the folds of the
silken coverlet, he awaits the hour of his summons, while the softened sunlight
plays gently on his brow and the summer breeze plays with his hair.
That brow is withered into wrinkles, and moistened by the death-sweat,
yet as you gaze it lights up with the fire of fifty years ago, and the lips
move and the unclosed eye blazes as though the heart of the Hero was
back again with the Immortal band of Signers.
It is stout-hearted John Adams, sinking calmly into the surges of death.
Every moment the waves come higher; the ice of the grave comes slowly
through the congealing veins, up the withered limbs; the mist of death
gathers about the old man's eyes.
At this moment, while all is still, let us from the crowd of mute spectators,
select a single form. Beside the death pillow, on which his right hand
rests, gazing in his father's face, his own noble brow bathed in a solitary
gleam of the sun, he stands, the Son, the Statesman and President.
Fifty years ago, his father, in the State House of Philadelphia, uttered
words that became History as they rung from his indignant lips, and now
wielding the Presidential Sceptre, which his father received from the hand
of Washington, the Son of the Hero gazes with unspeakable emotion, in the
face of the dying old man.
Again our eyes wander from the faces of the encircling spectators, to the
quivering in the lips, so sunken in the cheeks, and yet for all, it shines as
with the last ray of its closing hour!
Hark! The thunder of cannon, softened by distance, comes through the
window. The old man hears it; at once, his eye fires, he trembles up in
the bed, and gazes toward the light.
“It is —” his dying voice rings with the fire of fifty years ago—“It is
the Fourth of July!”
That old man, sitting erect in his death-couch, his ghastly face quivering
into youth again, may well furnish a picture for the painter's art. Gaze
upon him in this hour of his weakness, when with his fingers blue with the
death-chill and his brow oozing with the death-sweat, he starts up, and
knows the voice of the cannon, and answers its message—“It is, it is the
Fourth of July!” Gaze upon that wreck of a body, now quivering with
the soul about to leave it forever, quivering and glowing into youth again,
and tell me, if you can the soul is not immortal?
It was a sight too holy for tears! The spectators—man and woman and
child,—feel their hearts hushed with one common feeling, admiration
mingled with awe. The son winds his arm about his Father's neck, and
whispers, “Fifty years to-day, you signed the Declaration, which made us
Free!”
How the Memory of the old time rushes upon the old man's heart!
Fifty years ago—the Hall thronged with the Signers—the speech that rung
from his lips, when his Country's destiny hung palpitating on his words—
the eloquence of his compatriots, Jefferson standing in the foreground of a
group of heroes, Hancock smiling serenely over the crowd, in front of the
old State House hall—it rushed upon his soul, that glorious memory, and
made him live again, with the men of '76.
Higher rose the waves of death! Higher mounted the ice of the grave!
Bluer the fingers, damper the brow, hollow and faint the rattling voice!
The old man sank slowly back on the bed, while the arm of his son, the
President, was about his neck. His eyes were closed, his hands placed on
his breast. He was sliding gently, almost imperceptibly into Death. The
belt of sunlight that poured through the window over the floor, moved along
the carpet like the shadow of a dial shortened, and was gone. Still he
lived: still a faint fluttering of the shrunken chest, showed that the soul
was not yet gone home.
It would have made you grow in love with death, to see how calmly he
died. Just as the shadows of the trees were cast far over the meadow by
the declining sun, just as the shout of the People, the thunder of cannon,
the tone of the orator came softened on the breeze, the old man raised his
head, unclosed his eyes—
“Jefferson yet survives!” he said, and the wave of Death reached his
lips, and he breathed no more.
It was four o'clock on the afternoon of July 4th, 1826, when John Adams
closed his life of glorious deeds.
“Jefferson yet survives!”
While the words of the venerable Adams yet linger in our ears, let us
hasten away to the Second Home, where Death has crossed the threshhold.
Emerging from the shadows of this beautiful valley of Virginia, we ascend
a slight elevation, and by the light of the morning sun, behold a strange
structure, standing amid a grove of forest trees. But one story in heighth,
with elegant pillars in front, and a dome rising above its roof, it strikes you
with its singular, almost oriental style of Architecture, and yet seems the
appropriate Hermitage of Philosophy and Thought.
That structure, relieved by the background of towering trees, is the Home
of a Hero. Beneath that Grecian portico, the Poets, Artists and Philosophers
of the old world have often passed, eager to behold the Statesman of
the New World, the author of the Declaration of Independence.
It is noonday now; the summer sun streams warmly on yonder dome;
the leaves are scarcely stirred into motion by the faintest breath of air.
Uncovering our heads, we will prepare to look upon Death, and with our
hearts subdued in awe, we will enter Monticello.
There is a group around the death-bed in yonder room. Every eye is
centred on the visage of a dying man; the beautiful woman, whom you
behold standing near his pillow, her eyes eloquent with emotion, is his
beloved child.
As he rests before us, on the bed of death, the centre of the silent group,
we will approach and look upon him. A man of tall and muscular frame;
his face denoting in every marked feature, the power of a bold and fearless
intellect, his lip compressed with stern determination, his blue eye flashing
with the light of a soul, born to sway the masses of men, by the magic of
Thought.
As we approach, he looks up into the face of the beautiful woman, and
utters these memorable words:
“Let no inscription be placed upon my tomb but this: Here rests
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence,
and the Friend of Religious Freedom.”
As he speaks, he describes a faint gesture, with his withered right hand.
That hand, fifty years ago, wrote the Declaration of Independence. It is
feeble and withered now; time was, when it wrote certain words that sank
into the heart of universal man, and struck the shackles from ten thousand
hearts.
Against the frauds practised by priests and kings from immortal time—
against the tricks of courtiers, the malice of bigots, the falsehoods of time-servers
who are paid to be religious, hired to be great—against all manner of
barbarity, whether done by a New Zealand cannibal, who eats the wretch
whom he has butchered, or the Spanish Inquisition, which after burning its
John Calvin, who calmly beheld the skull of an unoffending man crumble
into ashes, and then wiped his bloody hands and praised his God, that he
was such a holy man—against all wrong, worked by the infamous or the
weak upon Man the child of Divinity, was directed the eloquence of his
Pen. The hand that once wielded that pen of power, is now chilled with
the damps of death!
As we stand gazing upon the dying man—held enchained by the majesty
of that intellect, which glows brightly over the ashy face, and flashes vividly
in the clear blue eye—the beautiful woman takes the icy hands within her
own, and kisses the cold brow.
The hand of Death is on him now.
“Thank God that I have lived to see this glorious day!” he utters in a
firm voice; and then raising his glazing eyes, he gazes in his daughter's
face, while the death-rattle writes in his throat—“Nunc dimmitis domine!”
were the last words of Thomas Jefferson.
At the same hour of noon, when the fervid sun poured straight down on
the dome of his hermitage, when not a breath of air ruffled the leaf or
stream, when in the midst of a weeping throng, stood his beloved daughter,
placing her soft fingers on his glassy eyeballs, pressing her warm mouth to
his cold lips, died Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence.
He died some four hours before Adams surrendered his soul. When the
Patriot of Quincy gasped “Jefferson still survives,” the soul of Jefferson
was already before his God.
It would have been deemed a wonderful thing, had either of these men
died on the Fourth of July, just half a century after the day of 1776.
But that the Brothers in the work of freedom, the master spirits of the
Council, who stirred up men's hearts with godlike impulses, and moved
their arms in glorious deeds, in the dark hour of Revolution, should have
died not only on the Fourth of July, but on the same day, within a few
hours of each other, while bodily separated by hundreds of miles, their souls
borne to Heaven by the hymns of a People, freed by their labors, looks to
me as though Almighty God had sent his Messenger and called his Servants
home, thus sanctifying by this two-fold death, the Fourth of July forevermore.
They met before the Throne of God, and stood, solemn and awful, amid
the throng of heroes clustered there.
Compare the death-beds of these men, with the closing hour of their
compeer in the work of freedom, Thomas Paine! They surrounded by
friends, who smiled fondly on their glazing eyes; encircled by beautiful
women, who pressed their warm hands to the icy brow, and kissed the
Quaker; no hope, save that which dropped from the envenomed tongues
of the Pharisees, who came to feast their eyes with his death struggles, even
as savages amuse their idle hours by torturing the wretch whom they purpose
to burn to death.
Pity Thomas Paine, my friends, and ask yourselves the question—“Tried
by the same kind of justice, that has darkened his errors into sins worse
than murder or incest, and converted his heroic virtues into crimes, what
would become of Jefferson and Adams?”
Imagine the biography of Jefferson and Adams, written by one of those
ignoble wretches, who heaped their slanders on the grave of Thomas Paine!
I stand upon the grave of this deeply wronged hero, and ask my countrymen
to do him justice! I admit his errors, and pity them, for the sake of
his substantial virtues. I boldly point to the records of the past for proof,
when I state, that Thomas Paine was the co-worker of Jefferson and Adams,
in the great deed of Independence. My voice may fall unheeded now, but
one hundred years hence, the name of the Infidel will be forgotten in the
glory of the Patriot, Thomas Paine.
XVIII.—THE NAMELESS DEATH.
There is another of the Signers, whose death I would like to picture, but
am afraid.
In the fearful hour of the Revolution, when our army was without arms,
our treasury bankrupt, this Signer, by the force of his personal character
alone, gave muskets, swords and cannon to the soldiers, hundreds of thousands
of dollars to the Continental Congress. He was the life, the blood,
the veins of our financial world. To him the Congress looked for aid, to
his counting house Washington turned his eyes, in his direst peril, and was
not denied. The dollars of this Signer fed our starving soldiers; his personal
credit gave us throughout this world, that which is worth more than
gold—confidence.
And yet, he died—how? Not in a duel, like Button Gwinett, nor surrounded
by the peaceful scenes of home, like Jefferson and Adams. Nor
did he meet his fate in battle. But he died—
I am ashamed, afraid to tell it.
Not two hundred yards from the old State House, there rose some years
ago, an edifice, whose walls were black, whose only echoes were sobs and
groans, whose ornaments, some iron manacles and a stout timber gibbet. It
seemed like a Curse frozen into stone, a Pestilence impersonified in bars
and bolts and black walls. In the Revolution, while the British held the
city, this edifice rung all day and night, with the horrible cries of rebel prisoners,
dying the death of dogs, their heart eaten up by a Plague, which
had been created by the filth and corruption of the den. After the Revolution,
of thieves, pirates, assassins, felons of every grade. Among the various
groups of felons, who blasphemed all day in this stone Pandemonium, there
was a certain class, distinguished from the others by their silence, their pale
faces stamped with mental agony, their evident superiority in point of appearance
and education.
Some of this latter class were men, some were women; torn from their
homes by the hands of brutes, in the shape of officers of the law, they were
hurled through the gates, and left to rot in the company of the robber, the
pirate, the murderer.
This class of felons were guilty of a hideous crime, deserving of worse
penalties than theft or murder.
They were called Insolvent Debtors.
To me, this law of imprisonment for debt has ever seemed a holy thing,
worthy of the golden age of New Zealand, when burning little children and
innocent women, was a pleasant pastime for the jocular cannibals. It is
indeed a blessed law, worthy of the blood and tears which were shed in the
Revolution to establish our liberties. It merely converts your honest man
into a felon, inviting him most cordially to commit robbery, forgery or murder,
for these things are not punished with half the severity that visits the
head of your Unfortunate Debtor. Your forger can buy his Law—sometimes
his Judge—your Murderer may procure a pardon from a merciful
Governor, but what mercy is there for the wretch who owes money, which
he cannot pay?
In order more effectually to demonstrate the beauty of this law as it
existed some thirty years ago, in all its purity, let me beseech you to look
through the grated windows of Walnut street gaol, in the quiet of this evening
hour.
It is a cell that we behold; four bare walls, a chair or too, a miserable
couch. There is some sunshine here. Yes, the evening sun shines through
the grates, on the floor of the cell, and lights up the sad face of the Mother,
who with her children bends over the couch. You must not mind their
tears; you must laugh at their sobs, for the Husband, the Father, who
writhes on that couch, is an Insolvent Debtor.
He was once a man of noble presence, somewhat tall in stature, with a
frank, ingenious countenance, deep tranquil eyes, and a brow that bore the
marks of a strong intellect.
Now, the mere wreck of a man—face, form, brow, all withered, eyes
dimmed, and jaw fallen—he quivers on the couch of this Walnut street
gaol.
Why this change? For long years, pursued by honest gentlemen, with
thin lips, pinched faces, eyes bleared with the lust of gain, this Man—for he
is still a Man—has went through all the tortures with which poets, in their
imaginary hells, afflict the damned. They have hounded him in the streets,
and at last driven him into the gaol.
He is there, dying; his wife, his children by his side. The curses of
pirates, thieves, pickpockets, murderers, echo through the iron-banded
door.
Mother! Take your children by the hand; lead them to the window;
bid them look through the green trees, and behold yonder steeple glittering
in the sun. That is Independence Hall.
And here, on the debtor's couch, in the felon's gaol, lies one of the
Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Here, dying in slow agony,
writhes the man who gave arms to Washington, money to Congress; and
by his resolute energy, saved his country in the darkest hour of peril.
Robert Morris dying in a felon's gaol—
It is too much! For the honor of our country, for the sake of that
respect which honest shame and honorable poverty claims in every clime,
among all men, we cannot go on.
But those times, when Men were made felons by the holy law of Imprisonment
for Debt have passed away. The law exists no longer in any
civilized community. It is true, that in two or three barbarous despotisms
—we cannot call them states—this law does yet remain in force, but this
merely leaves us to infer, that the majority of its honest citizens are felons,
needing infamous enactments to keep them in order.
No man can call himself an American citizen, who dwells in such a
community, or submits to such a despotism.
What beautiful words these are for history, to be read in connection with
each other—Robert Morris! A felon's gaol!
XX.—THE LAST OF THE SIGNERS.
Come to the window, old man!
Come, and look your last upon this beautiful earth! The day is dying;
the year is dying; you are dying; so light and leaf and life, mingle in one
common death, as they shall mingle in one resurrection.
Clad in a dark morning gown, that revealed the outlines of his tall form,
now bent with age—once so beautiful in its erect manhood—he rises from
his chair, which is covered with pillows, and totters to the window, spreading
forth his thin white hands.
Did you ever see an old man's face, that combines all the sweetness of
childhood, with the vigor of matured intellect? Snow-white hair falling in
flakes around a high and open brow, eyes that gleam with mild clear light,
a mouth moulded in an expression of benignity almost divine?
It is the Fourteenth of November, 1832; the hour is sunset, and the man
Charles Carroll of Carrolton, THE LAST OF THE SIGNERS.
Ninety-five years of age, a weak and trembling old man, he has summoned
his dark gown contrasted with the purple curtains.
He is the last!
Of the noble Fifty-Six, who in the Revolution stood forth, undismayed
by the axe or gibbet, their mission the freedom of an age, the salvation of a
country, he alone remains!
One by one the pillars have crumbled from the roof of the temple, and
now the last—a trembling column—glows in the sunlight, as it is about to fall.
But for the pillar that crumbles there is no hope, that it shall ever tower
aloft in its pride again, while for this old man about to sink in the night of
the grave, there is a glorious hope. His memory will live. His soul will
live, not only in the presence of its God, but on the tongues and in the
hearts of millions. The band in which he counts one, can never be
forgotten. The last!
As the venerable man stands before us, the declining day imparts a warm
flush to his face, and surrounds his brow with a halo of light. His lips
move without a sound; he is recalling the scenes of the Declaration, he is
murmuring the names of his brothers in the good work.
All gone but him!
Upon the woods—dyed with the rainbow of the closing year—upon the
stream, darkened by masses of shadow, upon the homes peeping out from
among the leaves, falls mellowing the last light of the declining day.
He will never see the sun rise again.
He feels that the silver cord is slowly, gently loosening; he knows that
the golden bowl is crumbling at the fountain's brink. But Death comes on
him as a sleep, as a pleasant dream, as a kiss from beloved lips!
He feels that the land of his birth has become a Mighty People, and
thanks God that he was permitted to behold its blossoms of hope, ripen into
full life.
In the recess near the window, you behold an altar of prayer; above it,
glowing in the fading light, the Image of Jesus seems smiling even in
agony, around that death-chamber.
The old man turns aside from the window. Tottering on he kneels beside
the altar, his long dark robe drooping over the floor. He reaches forth
his white hands; he raises his eyes to the face of the Crucified.
There in the sanctity of an old man's last prayer, we will leave him.
There where amid the deepening shadows, glows the Image of the Saviour,
there where the light falls over the mild face, the wavy hair, and tranquil
eyes of the aged patriarch.
The smile of the Saviour was upon the Declaration on that perilous day,
the Fourth of July, 1776, and now that its promise has brightened into
fruition, He seems—he does smile on it again—even as his sculptured
image meets the dying gaze of Charles Carroll of Carrolton,
THE LAST OF THE SIGNERS.
| Washington and his generals, or, Legends of the Revolution | |