MY RELIGION,
BY SPIRIT THOMAS PAINE.
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DELIVERED IN CHICAGO SUNDAY, MARCH 28, 1886.
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INVOCATION.
We would turn unto Thee, 0! Life Divine; unto Thee, Infinite
Love, we would bring our offerings of love; unto Thee, Infinite Wisdom,
we would bring all of wisdom that, in its feebleness, the human mind can
grasp; and unto Thee, Thou source of knowledge, we bring, all tributes
of praise, all aspirations toward that which is divine. May
every life yield to Thee its fruitage of goodly deeds; way every mind give
unto Thee the harvest of its thoughts of wisdom and knowledge, and may
the earth, grown greater, better and wiser in its expression by the
hand of man, also stimulate the human heart to rarer and loftier endeavor;
may all visible things, governed by the perfect law and wisdom of Thy life,
reveal to man also, that invisible kingdom governed by the perfect law
of Thy love; may the material universe, giving its expression and abundance
of gifts, reveal to man, also, the knowledge of that higher and diviner
realm wherein there is abundance of wisdom, of knowledge; of all graciousness
and all divinity; may every heart bring its offerings, its highest aspirations,
its tributes of devotion and lay them upon the altar of Thy love.
Not the altar fashioned by human hands, not before the shrine consecrated
by earthly name, but upon the altar of humanity, before the shrine and
altar of the living spirit, in that temple which is Thy life and Thy love
forevermore; there may all souls praise Thee without ceasing.
Amen.
DISCOURSE.
I believed in an Infinite overruling intelligence, and I hoped for immortal
life; such was my creed when upon earth I walked and talked with mortals;
my religion was the love of the Creator in love and good deeds for humanity,
and in nearly a century of earthly time within the spiritual state
I have no reason to change my belief or my religious convictions.
The lnfinite overruling intelligence is not only manifest in all the visible
works of creation, in that which mathematically and scientifically demonstrates
intelligence, but is more than manifest in the capability within the mind
of man to perceive that law or order which the universes reveals.
With creeds fashioned by man I have nothing to do. With faiths
predicated upon human interpretation I have nothing to do. With all the
various forms of religious thought in the world, I have only to do with
that which is true. Truth is my revelation, and truth is my interpreter
of God and his will forever more. Wherever I find truth, that is God's
written word to me, and if my mind is not capable of perceiving it, then
must I with all powers of thought within we awaken such intelligence as
shall enable me to perceive that truth. The quickening power of Infinite
love is manifest in all ways alike, but the power of perceiving that love
depends upon human conditions, and human circumstances and the individual
spiritual attainments. I know no other way of serving and worshiping
the Deity, than by acknowledging the laws that govern the universe in my
mental power, and by acknowledging the laws that govern human life
in my relations with humanity. I know no higher worship than that which
is accorded in the lives of mankind in doing good unto others; in endeavoring
to assist those who are more unfortunate than myself, in striving
by every possible means to
overcome the shadows of misfortune that may surround humanity.
But a century of, spiritual perception, and a large portion of that time
in an existence which is independent of material sorrow and material joy,
enables one to perceive more nearly the sources of things; to analyze more
clearly the relation of mind to mind, and spirit to spirit. Man is
hampered in his perception of humanity by his physical senses, and the
material seemings of life often swallow up the deeper and diviner reality;
while the daily cares and sorrows of his existence, the weary treadmill
of toil, the persecution of tyranny, the bondage enforced by slavery of
all kinds, must make man for the time being seemingly the prey and victim
of the circumstances by which he is surrounded. But that this is not finally
true is evident from the fact that steadily through all past ages man has
grown to higher conditions of unfoldment; that human governments have become
wiser and better and more advanced; that human life on the aggregate represents
higher moral purpose, and a broader degree of intelligence, and that
human servitude is growing less and less in proportion as enlightenment
takes the place of ignorance, and kindly feeling takes the place of selfishness,
and human despotism is disappearing rapidly before the light of that truth,
that humanity itself is the highest and divinest representation of Deity
on the earth.
I wage unceasing war, as once before, upon every kind of human despotism;
forever my voice cries out against all kinds of tyranny, and that might
which establishes itself as right upon the earth because of physical prowess,
I must forever, in any world or state of existence, condemn and censure.
While I wage war Against King Craft, against the despotism that would wield
sway over human life, it is not the individual king or ruler that I am
warring with; he may be the most abject slave, he may be the most
pitiable object; it is against the principle that I must forever contend.
While I wage war against any man standing between God and man, and holdingi
man's conscience in his keeping, it is not priest, nor prelate, nor the
external man that I condemn, it is the principle of that hierarchy that
claims to adjudicate between the conscience of man and the Divinity that
is the source of all conscience and moral excellence. I would not
take from any human life a needed prop or stay, I would not take from any
child the leading strings that it requires; nor would I take from humanity
any knowledge, or aids, or assistance to higher knowledge and loftier growth.
It is only the bonds that I would take away, only the gyves and fetters,
only the chains forged by ignorance, and I would only do this in
the hour when man is ready. But if one does not uplift his voice
when the thought comes to him; if having an idea of freedom a man does
not speak it; if understanding what he deems to be a truth he does not
give expression to it; if feeling that fetters are wrong and that chains
are useless, a man does not rise up to strike them from humanity, then
he is the greater slave who keeps silent knowing what is the truth. But
in all things l believe that the mind and spirit of man is capable of adjudicating
matters that pertain to human freedom, and human enlightenment, and to
the knowledge of that which is divine.
Beyond that reason, which is the external guide of human thought, there
is the divine prompting coming from within; from a realm of which I had
little knowledge when on earth, but which now is the divine reality of
being, viz., the realm of intuition, the realm of the spirit, the inner
and diviner nature of every human being which determines for him the right,
which declares to him the truth, which reveals to him the higher and nobler
pathway. Remember, in this I bear in mind that the human conscience
is often perverted by education, that the conscience of each nation or
class of people is liable to be that which the education of the moral and
intellectual unfoldment of the nation will warrant. I am also aware
that conscientiously many atrocious acts have been performed in the history
of the human race, under the mandate of religious zeal, or that which seems
to be the promptings of the highest conscience, men have been put to death.
The rack, the guillotine, the car of the inquisition, the massacre
of the Huguenots, the persecutions, alike, of the Protestants and Roman
Catholics, all the terrors that were heaped upon the early Christians,
and that they in turn heaped upon one another have come under the category
of deeds performed in the name of conscience; but conscience is but the
register of the moral and religious sense of community. Deeper than
this is the spiritual perception which, independent of education,
would stay the man's hands, though prompted to deeds of violence by his
belief.
Much is mistaken for religion that is only fanaticism, and much is mistaken
for fanaticism, that the purest and clearest thought in the world.
Men judge one another from their individual standpoints, whole nations
have perished from the judgment of their people, because of the opposite
view which each would take on the simple proposition of right and wrong,
and the whole world and its history therefore presents the collision between
opposing and contending parties, opposing and contending nation.
The true basis of all is human selfishness, cupidity and ignorance and
these must be charged with the results.
Remember I never blamed anything that could pass for true religion,
for the deeds of violence that man performs towards his follow man; remember
I never thought the Infinite intelligence responsible for the deeds of
violence that man performs towards his fellow man; and remember still farther,
that I held accountable each human spirit in proportion to its moral growth
and unfoldment; but there is a deeper law of our being, we are neither
to blame the Infinite for that which seems to us horrible, not to charge
humanity with duplicity and willful ignorance, because humanity cannot
understand the highest and divinest truth. The law of human life
is that the race begins in blindness and in ignorance, without knowledge
of their surroundings, with scarcely a prompting of the mind or reason
wherewith to measure their surroundings, they are to grow in knowledge,
they are to attain wisdom, they are to discover by experience that light
that is to guide them. All avenues are closed to the child, or to
the childhood of humanity, but by slow degrees the child conquers his physical
feebleness, he became able to master his physical form; then the mental
power puts forth its various endeavors, the child becomes the man, and
the man accomplished his earthly existence. In the infancy of the
race all avenues seem closed to humanity, that he may find the only avenue
that leads to a clear perception of what he is. He is not endowed
with sagacity of the elephant, the horse or the dog; the wild beasts of
the desert wilderness have more instinct than he. He is not accomplished
in any one direction of life, in his native state he begins by experience,
and the something that is within him, that is beyond experience and superior
to the form in which he is placed, incapable of receiving all the impressions
that the material life can make.
Many materialistic minds declare that all impression are from the external
world but it is absurd to credit matter with making impressions upon matter
of that which is beyond material life; excepting there were something that
had prepared the mind of man to receive this impression there could be
no knowledge gained by experience and it is precisely this something which
makes it possible for the experiences of humanity to be valuable;
that reconciles man to the various states and degrees of imperfection in
which the world has been found. History, viewed from the standpoint
of material life alone, is a monstrosity. Humanity viewed from the
standpoint alone of the senses is an excrescence, and the earth might better
have yielded as her final fruit the order of beings that are said to be
beneath man; but viewed from the standpoint of intelligence, and comprehended
from that which comes from within the life and prepares the senses to receive
these impressions the whole human history becomes a series of lessons of
experiences, that have left their indelible stamp upon human life, and
have yielded to the nineteenth century of human time all the wealth of
the storied nations of the part. You have the wisdom of all the ages
to draw from; you have the experience of all nations before; you have the
record and history of all the mistakes of so called civilization; kings
and rulers have yielded to you the mandates of their prowess and have sunk
away into darkness. Nations and empires have risen and fallen upon
the basis of material power, have given their offerings unto the life of
Mammon; but mankind can observe what their fate has been.
The whole human race has marched steadily forward from the feebleness
of the first perception of infantile thought to the grandeur and glory
of the achievements of science, of art, of intelligence, and the moral
and political excellence of today. We have in the past endeavored
to gather the truths of the greatest minds; we have bowed before the shrine
of Confucius; we have worshiped at the altar of Plato; we are made one
with the great teachers of antiquity, we have followed in the line of christian
thought, not the thought, not the thought of Christian theology, but the
thought of Christian humanity. The truth, no one can revere more than the
one who addresses you, and behind no veil, nor shrine, nor altar would
I refuse to enter where truth is to be found, but if it be in the open
daylight, if it be beneath the stars of heaven, if it be veiled in the
wonderful mysteries of nature, if it is revealed in the human heart or
to the human understanding l would also find it there. My teachers
are the wise of every age; those whom I seek to emulate, the great and
good of all time. In the kingdom of the spirit that which is valuable
of the human life, is not the number of material victories attained in
battles, not the conquests of kings and rulers over one another, not the
warfare between contending armies, nor yet the warfare between mind and
mind, but the measure of human truth, the measure of human justice, the
measure of liberty, the measure of that which promises for humanity the
highest and divines gifts.
If you ask me, what is my book of revelation? l will say, the
whole truth that has been revealed to man by the knowledge and love of
the Infinite. If you ask me, what temple I worship in? I will
declare to you that I worship in the temple of the universe, that my altar
and shrine are within the spirit, that the soul of that life, whose manifestation
is but feebly made in the human form, is the true shrine and altar where
I bend. If you ask me, what are my offerings of praise? I will
say, such feeble works as I can do for humanity, such efforts as I can
make to uplift the down-trodden, such truths as are given me to express,
these are my praise. If you ask me what ritual of service I accept?
I say none, except the voice of love where ever it is spoken, the voice
of truth where ever it is found, and that ritual which serves to advance
the condition of humanity, in uplifting mankind to take knowledge of the
Love Divine.
Make your visible shrines wherever you choose, band your knees before
any altar that claims your devotion, serve your God in any way that it
pleases you; but if you serve not humanity your service is in vain; build
your temples as high as the dome of Saint Peter's, make your pillars as
lofty as the courts, but if you love not your fellow beings, and do not,
every day, seek for something that shall uplift them your temples will
crumble away into dust, and naught will be left for your service.
At Ephesus was a temple, consecrated, no historian knows to whom; it
was fired by the zeal of a youth who became famous because of that zeal.
In Egypt there are monuments and tombs, no one can tell for what primal
purpose these were reared, yet the humanity which it was intended should
be served by these monuments have passed on to the higher and diviner estate,
while these crumbling and mouldering ruins--now that the hand of time and
the hand of man have combined, alike, to demolish them-- will pass away
and be forgotten. Al the ancient cities and magnificent temples reared
to the deities whom man worshiped have passed away, but the thought of
truth remains perfect and divine.
In Greece the works of art, the monuments to the deities of mythology,
all reverence and homage paid to mere formal images of devotion have ceased
to exist, but Plato remains, a living thought, and every age builds more
and more monuments of human life to his surpassing power. In Rome
all things have perished, but the sense of the wise and the great
and the good still abide with you.
Your altars will pass away, your christian shrines will crumble to the
dust, and the temples reared
and dedicated by human hands and voices to the worship of God, most
inevitably in the course of time disappear, but whatever thought you have
given faith, whatever deeds of love or hatred, whatever kindness or whatever
cowardice you have manifested: these will remain, and in the temple of
your individual lives, at the shrine and altar of your spirits these will
forever confront you. Men build their eternal habitation; the light
that is within you grows brighter and brighter, or the shadows more and
more obscure the brightness. What becomes of the written tomes and vast
volumes of human thought, or temples reared in human image if the life
within man is neglected and desecrated? I plead for that humanity,
that asking for admittance to the doors of the Temple of Life finds too
often that they are closed because of want and poverty and sin. I
plead for the humanity that being ignorant is not sustained with knowledge;
being weak, is not upheld with strength; being powerless to do the right,
is not adequately assisted; not knowing the way to worship and to praise,
does not know the name of the living power that is above, viz., the Truth
the Wisdom, and the Love Divine.
The crumbling edifices of material dynasties are but physical prototypes
of the crumbling forms of superficial worship, of external praise.
Man needs no vast temples that cost millions of money in which to praise
God; he needs that the orphan shall be fed and clothed, he needs
that humanity shall be taught, he needs vast multitudes that throng the
earth shall be properly sheltered, and he needs more than this, that the
spirit of Truth and Love shall enter their hearts rather than the name
of religion. Man requires no external service wherewith to syllable
the name of God. If he has words to speak, let them be words of comfort,
wisdom, intelligence, and order; man does not need any written ritual wherewith
to declare his intention or praise; the silence of his spirit proclaims
it by the deeds of his hands, the thoughts of his mind, and the words of
his voice.
The power of Truth is a palpable presence in the world; it demolishes
altars, temples, and shrines when they they no longer serve humanity, and
into the human heart is incorporated, upon their downfall, the light of
that which is divine and perfect.
Today the world fulfills the prophecy of a century ago, and human society
is rapidly following that culmination which makes the true spirit of religion
the life that is within man. I can tell you what will be the religion
of the future by telling you the hopes of humanity; I can declare to you
what will be the worship of a hundred years hence, by declaring to you
what are the highest aspirations and prophecies of life. Poets have
dreamed and sung it, philosophers have stated it, and the inspired of every
age have given to the world the voice of that ultimate and divine religion
that mankind is to follow. It is a religion fashioned of no creed
nor dogma, limiting no man's conscience to the fetters of a single bond
of faith, but binding it only by the law of that perfect truth, that like
a clear and shining crystal sheds its way through every shadow, and reveals
the substance of which it is made. The religion of the future
will require no priests for its oracles, but will be the chosen voice of
humanity appointed to tell the truth; will require no cloisters, for man
have learned to overcome temptation, not to fly from it; will require no
institutions of theology, for the word of knowledge will be spoken in all
schools, and all human life will be the graduating class; will require
no church officials, for the guide of man's worship will be his own intuitions
and the voice that is within him; will require no temples, for all the
temples that are then built upon the earth will be for the benefit of the
people. Vast and wonderful they will be, where human praise and human
song shall rise, where deeds of love and beneficence shall be the offerings,
where those who are afflicted shall be comforted, where those who
are weak shall be strengthened, where those who are feeble and infirm shall
be upheld and sheltered, where all shall come and render homage, and tributes
of rejoicing and thanksgiving, filling the
world with their songs of praise. Human governments will not require
each to call upon the name of God when they go forth to Christian (?) warfare,
for the name of Christ will not then be the synonym for all that which
has been wrong and murderous, there will be but the law of Love, there
will be no warfare, the human mind will scorn to resort to force when thought
is in the world, and human integrity will be the pledge and bond between
nations and nations. There will be no demarcation then of national
lines--that which is "mine," and that which is "thine"--will be the free
air of heaven, the bright sunshine, the broad green earth, the mountains
and valleys. Political economy will be international, the laws that
govern nations will be laws mutual protection, and mutual peace, war will
be unknown because selfishness and striving will not be uppermost, and
the code of nations will be the code of liberty, justice, honor and peace.
I know what the religion of the future win be, I see it written upon the
bright horizon that still is shadowed to the mortal vision. You are
in the beginning of a great conflict, -the clouds that threaten your social
political and religious horizon have not risen in a day, they are born
of the great seething tempest of past ages of ignorance, they are the pent
up fires of past periods of human degradation, they are handed down to
you from the great storied cloud treasures of the past, and this mighty
torrent is bursting upon you now, but Truth will be your guide, Liberty
and Justice will be your shield, you will in turn remember that the highest
and best office you can render to humanity is that office which comes of
enlightenment, and knowledge of the truth, and the one law of divine. love
where-with to guide the justice of the world.
Do not think that mere physical force can ever bring right into the
world; one wrong does not make another, although the Nemesis of past
history has revealed that all nations must suffer in proportion to their
wrong doing, but do not consider yourself the Nemesis appointed. In the
way of divine law, in that which in perfect in its own realm, the moral
forces of the world will gain their equilibrium and their power, and you
are called upon only to fulfill the highest duty of every day and hour,
the announcement of the highest truth that you possess, the acknowledgment
of the highest tribute that you can offer.
It has been said that the one who addresses you was infidel. Infidel
to what? To humanity? To God? No. To humanity? Not knowingly.
The only infidelity was to error, as understood by the one who addresses
you. For that I thank heaven. It one can be unfaithful to error, unfaithful
to bigotry, unfaithful to bandage, unfaithful to tyranny of all kinds,
then one is true to the conscience and voice that is within. God
and that Conscience alone can be the judge. Let no one declare that materialism
was the form of infidelity which was ever in the mind of the speaker.
So far from being a materialist, the whole world was and is animated by
the one divine and perfect law of the Supreme Being; so far from being
a materialist, every human life was held sacred as a portion from that
Divine Giver, and now from the spirit world which is the sacred reality
of all existence, the voice that addresses you is here tonight to declare
that spirit is life, that intelligence is the source of all law, and that
the Infinite is more and more manifest unto the life that turns toward
it, and that human affairs would fade, fail and sink into utter chaos,
as would the universe but for this light that is within man, this immortal
soul that forces its way through all forms and material things unto the
light of that true and divine religion. That is materialism which forces
God to dwell in any time, or shape, or place; that is materialism that
builds external shrines and declares that God is only there; that is materialism
that frames inhuman words an especial form for belief and declares all
lost, that do not accept those words. It is materialism that
predicts; the salvation of humanity upon any, material life in the
universe rather than upon the spiritual state; it is materialism that has
handed down to you through all these ages of time the horrible judgments
of material kings and rulers; it is materialism that builds up in your
midst today an external shrine that you must worship instead of the altar
of the spirit, and science and the materialist of so-called philosophy,
demolishes with one hand this structure he offers you nothing that shall
take the place of the spirit of religion, and while the material
worshiper Offers you this external form of religion, he gives you nothing
that shall suffice for that divine comprehension of the spirit. I
am infidel to all materialism; pope, or priest, or church, or external
creed that can limit my God any of these, I excommunicate from my
church. I am infidel to all materialism of science that worships
matter as God and sees no divine intelligence behind the stars that move
in their orbits and the laws that govern the material universe. Yes! and
being infidel to these I believe in all that has ever been given to man
of Divine truth in any form, in words and works of prophets, seers, and
sages. I believe in the Christ man, and not the Christ creed; in
the word of God, and not in the of man. And forevermore while man
walks this earth, this small speak that glimmers in space like the faintest
meteor, the one who addresses you will still seek for that light and life
that is highest and best and endeavor to reveal the Word of God in such
ministrations as shall guide all mankind toward the truth, as shall make
all nations one, as shall call upon the whole human family to come and
worship at the temple of the living God which is the soul of man.
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DUTY
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[ Impromptu poem, the subject suggested by one of the
audience. ]
The line of duty is the line of right,
Wherever it may lead, what e'er degree
Of human power or selfish might,
May lie between you and this potency.
No selfish thought can ever come between
You and its golden archway, pure and fair;
No false allurement of Ambition's sheen
Can keep you from its golden glory rare.
No policy, no power of tempter's art,
To say "this is the beat this hour and day,
Tomorrow I will follow right and truth impart,
But for the present policy must stay."
Duty lies fair, and bright, and clear, and strong,
No veiled allurement of time and sense
Can keep your spirit from its wondrous song,
Nor keep you from its hallowed recompense.
As often it may lie through paths of pain,
And through the way by martyr's feet once trod,
But so 'tie duty, though you walk alone, you gain
Your strength and power ever more from God.
Conscience, appalled by human things below,
And often soared by Mammon's dreaded power,
May not permit the highest truth to know;
But in some wondrous way the perfect flower
Of duty blossoms at your feet,
And you each day its voice will meet.
Duty is Truth--follow its guiding light;
Duty is love for all humanity;
Duty is whatsoever in the sight
of the soul is right, what each act must be.
And duty is the simplest thing you do,
As well as in the pathway proud and high,
To do the work each day that lies in view,
To take the step each day that is most nigh.
Then duty will hasten you to that door
That opens wide, reveal the glory ever more
Of the one archway, rising pure and fair.
The line of duty is God's will--compare
Its strength with meaner things of earth,
And duty is the line of heavenly worth.
BENEDICTION.
May that surpassing life and the light of all truth and the knowledge
of all love
be yours, abiding forever in the love of God. Amen.
