And amid the din, escape being impossible, and also undesirable,
Thomas Paine wrote the first part of "The Age of Reason."
The second part was written in the Luxembourg prison, under the shadow of the guillotine. But life is only a sentence of death, with an indefinite reprieve. Prison, to Paine, was not all gloom.
The jailer, Benoit, was good-natured and cherished his unwilling guests as his children. When they left for freedom or for death, he kissed them, and gave each a little ring in which was engraved the single word, "Mizpah." But finally Benoit, himself, was led away, and there was none to kiss his cheek, nor to give him a ring and cry cheerily, "Good luck, Citizen Comrade! Until we meet again!"
* * * * *
A great deal has been said by the admirers of Thomas Paine about the abuse and injustice heaped upon his name, and the prevarications concerning his life, by press and pulpit and those who profess a life of love, meekness and humility. But we should remember that all this vilification was really the tribute that mediocrity pays genius. To escape censure, one only has to move with the mob, think with the mob, do nothing that the mob does not do—then you are safe. The saviors of the world have usually been crucified between thieves, despised, forsaken, spit upon, rejected of men. In their lives they seldom had a place where they could safely lay their weary heads, and dying their bodies were either hidden in another man's tomb or else subjected to the indignities which the living man failed to survive: torn limb from limb, eyeless, headless, armless, burned and the ashes scattered or sunk in the sea.
And the peculiar thing is that most of this frightful inhumanity was the work of so-called good men, the pillars of society, the respectable element, what we are pleased to call "our first citizens," instigated by the Church that happened to be in power. Socrates poisoned; Aristides ostracized; Aristotle fleeing for his life; Jesus crucified; Paul beheaded; Peter crucified head downward; Savonarola martyred; Spinoza hunted, tracked and cursed, and an order issued that no man should speak to him nor supply him food or shelter; Bruno burned; Galileo imprisoned; Huss, Wyclif, Latimer and Tyndale used for kindling—all this in the name of religion, institutional religion, the one thing that has caused more misery, heartaches, bloodshed, war, than all other causes combined. Leo Tolstoy says, "Love, truth, compassion, service, sympathy, tenderness, exist in the hearts of men, and are the essence of religion, but try to encompass these things in an institution and you get a church—and the Church stands for and has always stood for coercion, intolerance, injustice and cruelty."
No man ever lifted up his voice or pen in a criticism against love, truth, compassion, service, sympathy and tenderness. And if he had, do you think that love, truth, compassion, service, sympathy, tenderness, would feel it necessary to go after him with stocks, chains, thumbscrews and torches?
You can not imagine it.
Then what is it goes after men who criticize the prevailing religion and shows where it can be improved upon? Why, it is hate, malice, vengeance, jealousy, injustice, intolerance, cruelty, fear.
The reason the Church does not visit upon its critics today the same cruelties that it did three hundred years ago is simply because it has not the power. Incorporate a beautiful sentiment and hire a man to preach and defend it, and then buy property and build costly buildings in which to preach your beautiful sentiment, and if the gentleman who preaches your beautiful sentiment is criticized he will fight and suppress his critics if he can. And the reason he fights his critics is not because he believes the beautiful sentiment will suffer, but because he fears losing his position, which carries with it ease, honors and food, and a parsonage and a church, tax-free.