Some men, looking only at the faults and tyrannies of government, have said: "Anarchy is better." Others, looking at the misfortunes, the poverty, the crimes, of men, have, in a kind of pitying despair, reached the conclusion that the best of all is death. These are the opinions of those who have dwelt in gloom—of the self-imprisoned.
By comparing long periods of time, we see that, on the whole, the race is advancing; that the world is growing steadily, and surely, better; that each generation enjoys more and suffers less than its predecessor. We find that our institutions have the faults of individuals. Nations must be composed of men and women; and as they have their faults, nations cannot be perfect. The institution of marriage is a failure to the extent, and only to the extent, that the human race is a failure. Undoubtedly it is the best and the most important institution that has been established by the civilized world. If there is unhappiness in that relation, if there is tyranny upon one side and misery upon the other, it is not the fault of marriage. Take homes from the world and only wild beasts are left.
We cannot cure the evils of our day and time by a return to savagery. It is not necessary to become ignorant to increase our happiness. The highway of civilization leads to the light. The time will come when the human race will be truly enlightened, when labor will receive its due reward, when the last institution begotten of ignorance and savagery will disappear. The time will come when the whole world will say that the love of man for woman, of woman for man, of mother for child, is the highest, the noblest, the purest, of which the heart is capable.
Love, human love, love of men and women, love of mothers fathers, and babes, is the perpetual and beneficent force. Not the love of phantoms, the love that builds cathedrals and dungeons, that trembles and prays, that kneels and curses; but the real love, the love that felled the forests, navigated the seas, subdued the earth, explored continents, built countless homes, and founded nations—the love that kindled the creative flame and wrought the miracles of art, that gave us all there is of music, from the cradle-song that gives to infancy its smiling sleep to the great symphony that bears the soul away with wings of fire—the real love, mother of every virtue and of every joy.—North American Review, September, 1890.
THOMAS PAINE.
A MAGAZINE ARTICLE.
"A great man's memory may outlive his life half a year,
But, by'r lady, he must build churches then."
EIGHTY-THREE years ago Thomas Paine ceased to defend himself. The moment he became dumb all his enemies found a tongue. He was attacked on every hand. The Tories of England had been waiting for their revenge. The believers in kings, in hereditary government, the nobility of every land, execrated his memory. Their greatest enemy was dead. The believers in human slavery, and all who clamored for the rights of the States as against the sovereignty of a Nation, joined in the chorus of denunciation. In addition to this, the believers in the inspiration of the Scriptures, the occupants of orthodox pulpits, the professors in Christian colleges, and the religious historians, were his sworn and implacable foes.