Question. How were you pleased with the Paine meeting here, and its results?
Answer. I was gratified to see so many people willing at last to do justice to a great and a maligned man. Of course I do not claim that Paine was perfect. All I claim is that he was a patriot and a political philosopher; that he was a revolutionist and an agitator; that he was infinitely full of suggestive thought, and that he did more than any man to convince the people of American not only that they ought to separate from Great Britain, but that they ought to found a representative government. He has been despised simply because he did not believe the Bible. I wish to do what I can to rescue his name from theological defamation. I think the day has come when Thomas Paine will be remembered with Washington, Franklin and Jefferson, and that the American people will wonder that their fathers could have been guilty of such base ingratitude.
—Chicago Times, February 8, 1880.
REPLY TO CHICAGO CRITICS.
Question. Have you read the replies of the clergy to your recent lecture in this city on "What Must we do to be Saved?" and if so what do you think of them?
Answer. I think they dodge the point. The real point is this: If salvation by faith is the real doctrine of Christianity, I asked on Sunday before last, and I still ask, why didn't Matthew tell it? I still insist that Mark should have remembered it, and I shall always believe that Luke ought, at least, to have noticed it. I was endeavoring to show that modern Christianity has for its basis an interpolation. I think I showed it. The only gospel on the orthodox side is that of John, and that was certainly not written, or did not appear in its present form, until long after the others were written.
I know very well that the Catholic Church claimed during the Dark Ages, and still claims, that references had been made to the gospels by persons living in the first, second, and third centuries; but I believe such manuscripts were manufactured by the Catholic Church. For many years in Europe there was not one person in twenty thousand who could read and write. During that time the church had in its keeping the literature of our world. They interpolated as they pleased. They created. They destroyed. In other words, they did whatever in their opinion was necessary to substantiate the faith.
The gentlemen who saw fit to reply did not answer the question, and I again call upon the clergy to explain to the people why, if salvation depends upon belief on the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew didn't mention it. Some one has said that Christ didn't make known this doctrine of salvation by belief or faith until after his resurrection. Certainly none of the gospels were written until after his resurrection; and if he made that doctrine known after his resurrection, and before his ascension, it should have been in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in John.
The replies of the clergy show that they have not investigated the subject; that they are not well acquainted with the New Testament. In other words, they have not read it except with the regulation theological bias.
There is one thing I wish to correct here. In an editorial in the Tribune it was stated that I had admitted that Christ was beyond and above Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, and others. I did not say so. Another point was made against me, and those who made it seemed to think it was a good one. In my lecture I asked why it was that the disciples of Christ wrote in Greek, whereas, if fact, they understood only Hebrew. It is now claimed that Greek was the language of Jerusalem at that time; that Hebrew had fallen into disuse; that no one understood it except the literati and the highly educated. If I fell into an error upon this point it was because I relied upon the New Testament. I find in the twenty-first chapter of the Acts an account of Paul having been mobbed in the city of Jerusalem; that he was protected by a chief captain and some soldiers; that, while upon the stairs of the castle to which he was being taken for protection, he obtained leave from the captain to speak unto the people. In the fortieth verse of that chapter I find the following: