Junius Unmasked Part 18

I have heretofore given the views of Junius on _Prayer_. See page 172.

It now remains to give Mr. Paine's views. In his Letter to Samuel Adams he says: "A man does not serve G.o.d when he prays, for it is himself he is trying to serve; and as to hiring or paying men to pray, as if the Deity needed instruction, it is, in my opinion, an abomination."

They both believe in the divine justice of retribution and future punishment. Junius says: "The divine justice of retribution seems now to have begun its progress. Deliberate treachery entails punishment upon the traitor. There is no possibility of escaping it."--Let. 66. "A death-bed repentance seldom reaches to rest.i.tution."--Dedication.

Mr. Paine says, in Crisis, ii, to Lord Howe: "How many you have thus privately sacrificed we know not, and the account can only be settled in another world." And in Crisis, v, to the same man, he says: "You may, perhaps, be unwilling to be serious, but this destruction of the goods of Providence, this havoc of the human race, and this sowing the world with mischief, must be accounted for to him who made and governs it."

But I will give a positive affirmation of the fact. In the Age of Reason, near the close of the Second Part, he says: "The existence of an Almighty power is sufficiently demonstrated to us.... We must know, also, that the power that called us into being can, if he pleases, and when he pleases, call us to account for the manner in which we have lived here; and therefore, without seeking any other motive for the belief, it is rational to believe that he will, for we know beforehand that he can.... The probability that we may be called to account hereafter, will, to a reflecting mind, have the influence of belief; for it is not our belief or unbelief that can make or unmake the fact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher or even the prudent man, that would live as if there were no G.o.d."

Religiously, he can quite properly be cla.s.sed with Theodore Parker. He stands close at his side, and, having preceded him, a shoulder higher.

Yet, in this regard, Mr. Parker treats him with contempt.

The reader will be pleased to read the following letters; the one from Horace Seaver to Mr. Parker, and the reply:

_Boston_, January 11, 1843.

REV. AND DEAR SIR:--As chairman of the committee of arrangement for the celebration of Thomas Paine's birth-day in this city, on the 30th instant, I am instructed to perform the highly pleasing duty of soliciting the honor of your company at the dinner; and to say to you in addition, that it would give the committee great pleasure, as well as many others of your personal friends, if your health and time will allow you to comply with this invitation.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

HORACE SEAVER.

_West Roxbury_, January 14, 1843.

DEAR SIR:--Your favor of the 11th instant came in my absence from home, and I now hasten to reply to the invitation you offer me.

With the views I entertain of Mr. Paine's character in his later years, I could not, consistently with my own sense of duty, join with you in celebrating his birth-day. I feel grateful, truly so, for the services rendered by his _political_ writings, and his practical efforts in the cause of freedom; though with what I understand to be the spirit of his writings on theology and religion, I have not the smallest sympathy.

I am, respectfully, Your obedient servant, THEODORE PARKER.

This is one arch-heretic trampling on his brother in the holy name of religion. Yet the great work which Thomas Paine performed before Mr.

Parker was conceived in the womb of Time, made a Theodore Parker possible. Parker stood on the shoulders of Thomas Paine, and he uttered scarcely a thought on religion and theology which Mr. Paine had not written before him. Mr. Parker translated DeWette, but Mr. Paine's second part of the Age of Reason, as an original investigation and critical examination of the Bible, will be read when Parker's translation of DeWette is forgotten. The latter is a scholar's effort, dry, voluminous, costly, and soon to be laid away forever; the former, a friend's offering to mankind, brought within the reach of their understanding and their means. As an argument it has never been equaled; as a theological work it is fair and candid; as a religious work it breathes the spirit of forbearance, kindness, morality, and brotherly love. I have searched in vain to find the authority for Mr. Parker's religious hatred to Thomas Paine. They taught the same morality and religion, the same theology, the same retributive justice, and denounced boldly the same errors in politics and religion; and differed only in this that Mr. Parker said his prayers in public, and Mr. Paine in private. The hatred to Mr. Paine is perhaps inherited, and we stand in awe of him as of the devil, without a reason and without knowing why.

The Egyptian children still startle at the name of "Bonaparte;" the American children at the name of Thomas Paine; and Mr. Parker never outgrew this superst.i.tion of his youth. But the historian may safely record: _Without Thomas Paine, there would have been no Theodore Parker_.

The reader can not fail to see the substantial elements of the Quaker character in Junius, if we let Mr. Paine define it. In the Age of Reason, second part, he says: "The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers, and the only reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deists than Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, and they call the Scriptures a dead letter."

The Quakers have no priesthood. With them the power to teach is the immediate gift of G.o.d, and they speak as they are moved by the Spirit, and what they say is by the inspiration of the inner light. They have neither pulpit nor church, and in their meeting there is neither ceremony nor song, nor the dull routine of stated prayers. They oppose war, slavery, intemperance, litigation, extravagance, profanity, and priestcraft. Dancing and dressing in the fashion of the day they forbid. Their religion consists in morality; not in ceremony and show.

They hate a bishop as they hate a tyrant, and they hold an honest man the n.o.blest work of G.o.d. What could be more like Junius than this? But if this does not satisfy the reader the evidence of Junius himself would have little weight. But he positively affirms the principles of the Quakers as the true religion, and this ought to satisfy the most doubtful. At the close of Letter 41, he says: "An _honest_ man, _like the true religion_, appeals to the understanding, or modestly confides _in the internal evidences_ of his conscience. The _impostor_ employs _force_ instead of argument, imposes silence when he can not convince, and _propagates his character by the sword_." This proves Junius to be a Quaker, in principle. No one can mistake the expression: "The internal evidences of the conscience," which often comes so forcibly from Junius.

And says Paine also: "As for morality, the knowledge of it exists in every man's conscience." Were an artist called upon to produce a picture of Junius' moral, political, and religious character, he could give no shade or stroke which he could not find full and distinct in the living character of Mr. Paine.

Although Thomas Paine was not a professed Quaker, yet the rigid Quaker principles of moral conduct spoke out in every action; and while he did not spare their errors, he spoke highly of them as a sect. He chastised them with an unsparing hand, but it was in friendship, not in revenge.

He loved their austere worship, he sought their society, he walked in their ways, and often paid them a tribute of praise. In short, by birth he was a Quaker, but by profession not. He was himself, an original man thrown out upon earth, born for a purpose, which he fulfilled.

But the moral character of Junius was the same; he proves it so in a hundred different ways; in his pride of character, in his love of justice, in his sympathies for the people, in his declaration of human rights, in the austerity of his morals, in his faith in the interior evidence of the conscience, in his hatred to bad men and bad measures, in his moral courage to attack the strongholds of political corruption.

No one but a man having a double portion of Quaker principles and Quaker spirit could talk as did Junius to the king, unmasking him before the public, and exposing his weakness, wickedness, folly, and stupidity. And herein nature comes powerfully in to my aid in my argument. In fact, it is my only object to trace the lines of argument which nature has drawn, and never to descend to art.

Says Mr. Paine: "It sometimes happens, as well in writing as in conversation, that a person lets slip an expression that serves to unravel what he intends to conceal." I will take him at his word and quote two short pa.s.sages of his own, giving a few strokes of his personal history: "If I have anywhere expressed myself over-warmly, 'tis from a fixed, immovable hatred I have, and ever had, to cruel men and cruel measures. I have likewise an aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man, but I never troubled others with my notions till very lately, nor ever published a syllable in England in my life. What I write is pure nature, and my pen and my soul have ever gone together. My writings I have always given away, reserving only the expense of printing and paper, and sometimes not even that. I never courted either fame or interest, and my manner of life, to those who know it, will justify what I say. My study is to be useful."

The above was thrown into the body of Crisis, ii, and addressed to Lord Howe. Let us examine its separate counts:

I. "Hatred to cruel men and cruel measures." See on this head the _hatred_ of Junius to the _tyrant_ in any form, to the "h.o.a.ry lecher,"

Lord Irnham, to the "_monsters_" of the house of Bedford, and the "worst man in the kingdom," Lord Mansfield.

II. "An aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man." This is the key-note to Junius.

III. "Never troubled others with my notions till very lately." This was dated January 13, 1777, just one year after Common Sense, and just five years after the last Letter of Junius. _Very lately_ is an indefinite expression, and is meant to pave the way for the next, which was designed to mislead the unwary, and here we see unmistakable evidence of Junius.

IV. "I never _published_ a syllable in England in my life." When Woodfall was prosecuted for publishing Junius' Letter to the king, the jury found him "_guilty of publishing only_." Then Junius, whoever he was, never published a syllable of the Letters. But Mr. Paine wrote a pamphlet, "The Case of the Excise Officers," while in England, and it was published by a Mr. Lee. To the unthinking, the sentence: "I never published a syllable in England in my life," would be proof at first that he never wrote for the press, but a moment's thought will show it to be an innocent subterfuge. But why this subterfuge, if Mr. Paine was not Junius, and he had not yet a work to perform in England? If not Junius, what is the meaning of it? Why did he say it? The reader must answer.

V. "My writings I have always given away." Junius gave to Mr. Woodfall the whole of his Letters. See his Preface.

VI. "I never courted either fame or interest." Says Junius: "To write for profit, without taxing the press; to write for fame and be unknown; to support the intrigues of faction, and be disowned by every party in the kingdom, are contradictions," etc. That is, he was charged with writing for fame and interest, and he thus contradicts it.

VII. "What I write is pure nature." Thus, Junius says: "The works of a master require no index, his features and coloring are taken from nature;" and a hundred other examples could be given.

VIII. "My study is to be useful." Thus also Junius: "Is there no merit in dedicating my life to the information of my fellow-subjects? He is not paid for his labor, and certainly has a right to choose his employment."

It is thus I could take every statement of Thomas Paine, either of previous life, private purpose, or public principle, and find its counterpart in Junius. This could not be done were not the two characters the same person. Take again, for example, the statement in Crisis, xv. Speaking of the part he took in the revolution, he says:

I. "So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed to conciliate the affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep the mind of the country together; (II) and the better to a.s.sist in this foundation work of the revolution, I have avoided all places of profit or office, either in the State I live in or in the United States, kept myself at a distance from all parties and party connections, and even disregarded all private and inferior concerns; and when we take into view the great work which we have gone through, and feel, as we ought to feel, the first importance of it, we shall then see that the little wranglings and indecent contentions of personal parley are as dishonorable to our characters as they are injurious to our purpose.

(III) It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind, and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her--A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE--made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: (IV) and if in the course of more than seven years I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prost.i.tution."

Compare now the above with Junius, as follows: I. "It is time for those who really mean the _Cause_ and the _People_, who have no view to private advantage, and who have virtue enough to prefer the general good of the community to the gratification of personal animosities: it is time for such men to interpose. Let us try whether these fatal dissensions may not yet be reconciled, or if that be impracticable, let us guard at least against the worst effects of division, and endeavor to persuade these furious partisans, if they will not consent to _draw together_, to be separately useful to that _cause_ which they all pretend to be attached to." II. "To write for profit without taxing the press, to write for fame and to be unknown, to support the intrigues of factions and to be disowned as a dangerous anxiliary by every party in the kingdom are contradictions which the minister must reconcile before I forfeit my credit with the public." III. "It was the cause of America that made me an author," says Paine. This is true of Junius; for the troubles which called him forth are well known to be those of America.

But he would never have been known, perhaps, had he not written _Common Sense_, which was published anonymously, and was at first attributed to Benjamin Franklin. IV. "The reputation of these papers is an honorable pledge for my attachment to the people.... These letters, my lord, are read in other countries and in other languages. For my own part, I claim no merit from endeavoring to do a service to my fellow-subjects. I have done it to the best of my understanding, and without looking for the approbation of other men, my conscience is satisfied."

REVIEW.

Let us now retrace our steps, and see how strong a case is made out.

1. Twelve facts in the life of Mr. Paine shown to be the same as those in Junius.

2. An apparent contradiction proven to be a parallel fact.