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
faith, the old man, Thomas Paine, picks at the coverlid, and takes death
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,
than then! Not even when, from the lips of Apostle William, it sent forth
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
mound, from which the bones have been purloined, is all that remains on
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.”
