As to the sincerity of the author, there is not the slightest doubt. He is willing to give all that he has for the good of his fellow-men. He is a soldier in what he believes to be a sacred cause, and he has the courage of his convictions. He is endeavoring to organize society in accordance with the most radical utterances that have been attributed to Jesus Christ. The philosophy of Palestine is not adapted to an industrial and commercial age. Christianity was born when the nation that produced it was dying. It was a requiem—a declaration that life was a failure, that the world was about to end, and that the hopes of mankind should be lifted to another sphere. Tolstoï stands with his back to the sunrise and looks mournfully upon the shadow. He has uttered many tender, noble, and inspiring words. There are many passages in his works that must have been written when his eyes were filled with tears. He has fixed his gaze so intently on the miseries and agonies of life that he has been driven to the conclusion that nothing could be better than the effacement of the human race.
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."