DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - NEWSPAPERS - The Washington Post, Monday, February 3, 1896, pg. 4 ----¤¤¤---- This file is part of the DCGenWeb Archives Project: http://www.usgwarchives.net/dc/dcfiles.htm ********************************************* http://www.usgwarchives.net/dc/dcfiles.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ********************************************* Contributed to The USGenWeb Archives Project by: Jamie M. Perez (jamiemac@flash.net) --------------------------------------------------- TRIBUTE TO TOM PAINE The Great Infidel’s Birthday Celebrated Yesterday. APOSTLE OF THE FREE-THINKERS Relics of the Famous Patriot, Author, and Free-thinker Displayed on the Stage at Metzerott Hall, Where a Number of His Followers Quoted “The Age of Reason” Against the Bible, and Demanded that the Nation Should Recognize His Services. The birthday of Thomas Paine, soldier, author, and free-thinker, was celebrated in song, eulogy, and exemplification yesterday afternoon at Metzerott Hall by the Secular League of Washington. The stage was elaborately decorated with American flags, “Old Glory” draped a bronze bust of the distinguished advocate of liberty, and a number of relics, once his belongings, were on exhibition. Dr. W. A. Croffut presided, and on the platform were Hon. Samuel P. Putnam, of Boston; Maurice Pechin, C. C. Carter, F. B. Woodbury, Secretary of the National Spiritualists Association, and D. Webster Groh. During the exercises Homer Altemus sang a solo and Goldwin Patten gave a recitation. “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” was sung by the large audience as the opening of the programme. Then Dr. Croffut called attention to the several relics displayed, as almost all the Paine left in this country. There were the silver shoe buckles worn on Paine’s shoes, the latches of which Dr. Croffut said his libelers and detractors were not worthy to unloose. There were his silver bowed spectacles. How much they had enabled Paine to see into the fallacies and hypocrisies of his time, and how deeply into the recondite and abstruse questions that rose before him. Thomas Paine came at a time that he was needed most, before the Herschels were born, before Darwin, Spencer, Huxley had come to wrest from the heart of nature her enormous secrets. Dr. Croffut Criticises the Bible. “I hold in my hand a worn and aged Bible,” continued Dr. Croffut, “given to me by my mother, one of whose last admonitions were to study it, believe it, revere it, and live by it. I told her I would try, but that convictions were the children of evidence, and must take care of themselves. I have studied it, pondered upon it, held it to the light of the modern science, and drawn my conclusions.” Dr. Croffut spoke of the opportunities enjoyed for searching out the truth now which were not available to our forefathers. “In the face of these,” declared he, “the only way a man can honor his parents is by improving their creed, and the way to dishonor them is to stand firm in the attacks they made and refuse to go forward, despite the light flooding in upon us in the nineteenth century.” This sentiment was greeted with tumultuous applause, and Dr. Croffut went on: “Genesis teaches us that death came into the world as a punishment for men’s transgressions; geology teaches us that death came a million years before man existed. Genesis teaches that work was sent to man as a curse; science tells us that it is a blessing and the inevitable condition of a nation’s prosperity and happiness. Genesis says that the earth was made just 5,893 years ago, and it was once proved by Usher to the satisfaction of the church that the creation began on the 22d of September; geology proves that the earth was old a million years ago. Genesis states that man was created out of the earth, and woman out of one of his indispensable bones; science holds that he was originally a lower animal, and was for thousands of years a brute that knew just enough to pick fruit off the trees by day and lie down under them at night; but he has grown wiser and better since he got up on his hind legs.” Representative of the Spiritualists. This speech was received with much laughter, and after referring to the Bible as a book that would probably be the least read of any in a hundred years, Dr. Croffut introduced Mr. Woodbury, who in behalf of the Spiritualists of the union, welcomed Hon. Samuel P. Putnam to this city as a free-thinker, apostle of liberty, and worker in the cause of humanity. After the applause which favored Mr. Woodbury had died away, Mr. Putnam said that he was glad to see inaugurated a campaign for the education of the people. “We are not understood,” said Mr. Putnam. “This day we are not celebrating Thomas Paine, but that for which he stood. Paine was a representative man. He was in advance of his time. When many people fully realized what Paine did they would say he was a Christian. Why,” declared the speaker, “Ingersoll will be called a Christian a hundred years hence. Paine said: ‘I believe in one God, and one only, the world is my country and to do good my religion.’” Mr. Putnam’s Opinion of Paine. After a discussion of Paine’s ability as a true theologian Mr. Putnam said: “We do not accept him as authority, but as an honest, true, noble, and progressive man who had the courage of his convictions and dared to stand before the world and defend his own arguments. (Applause.) Paine made an honest God,” the speaker continued. We cannot believe in a cruel God or an unjust God, one who would command the murder of innocent women and children. We protest, as Paine protested, against such a God. Paine believed as earnestly in divine revelation as any Christian, said Mr. Putnam, but it was a different kind of revelation. The affirmation of orthodoxy was that God’s revelation was special and miraculous, not universal and permanent; that God only revealed himself in a few jets of light along the pathway of blundering mortals, and that there had not been one of these jets for several centuries. Paine believed that the revelation must be universal, permanent, and that it would reach every heart.” Mr. Putnam then took up a consideration of the first five books of the Bible and the declaration of the orthodox theologians that Moses wrote them. He said one evidence of the absurdity of this was the fact that they told of the death and burial of the patriarch himself, and also referred to the Kings of Israel, when there were no Kings of Israel until five hundred years after the death of Moses. As for the New Testament, Mr. Putnam said there was no true knowledge as to who had written it. Christian scholars had shown that there were no books written about Christ until thirty-seven years after his death. It was a significant thing that the Bible was in the hands of the priests for one thousand years, and it was radically changed. There were 230,000 errors in it, as computed by Christian scholars themselves. Criticisms of the Clergy. “Clergymen don’t tell their people the truth about the Bible,” declared the speaker. He spoke of numberless contradictions in the Bible, and what he termed absurd stories in it, about Jonah and the whale, for instance. Some clergymen believed that story. Perhaps Talmage did, he said. Sam Jones had said that if the conditions between Jonah and the whale had been reversed he would have been more ready to believe it. Christ, according to one authority, said we must believe to be saved. When a young man came to him and asked what he must do to be saved, He replied, “Go and sell all you have and give it to the poor.” “How many clergymen,” asked Mr. Putnam, “would give all they had to the poor? Did you ever hear of a clergyman accepting a call with a less salary attached to it than the one he is receiving? Whenever there is an extra $5,000 in it the call is chockfull of the voice of the Holy Ghost.” “’Take no thought for the morrow,’ Christ says in His sermon on the mount.” What would become of the nation if we took no thought for the morrow? Mr. Putnam asked. How about the sparrows, the fall of even one of whom was noted? Fifty million birds perish every year. Where was God when the flood at Johnstown swept from the face of the earth scores of human lives? Only the wooden image of the Virgin Mary was saved intact. “There is no such thing as Divine providence,” declared Mr. Putnam. “We must take care of ourselves. Nature in her angry moods will as relentlessly crush you if you stand in her way as she does the trees and flowers. “I want a gospel for to-day,” said the speaker, “and what the poor man wants in this battle of life is justice not charity. We must have a free country or be under the dominion of the church.” Resolutions of Respect to Paine. At the conclusion of the address Mr. Groh read resolutions, which were adopted unanimously, to the effect that while the nation pays such tribute to intolerance as for theological reasons to deny the immortal Thomas Paine the full measure of honor rightfully due him, retributive justice will equally overshadow her glory; that with the grand principles he advocated the memory of Thomas Paine should ever be cherished by all enlightened lovers of justice, truth, and liberty, growing still brighter with the increasing progress, morality, and intelligence of the human race. There will be a mass meeting under the auspices of the league next Sunday afternoon at 3 o’clock to protest against “Puritanical” Sunday laws in the District. JUSTICE FOR TOM PAINE. The Celebration Was a Tardy Recognition of His Patriotic Services. Editor Post: Some of the best men that ever lived have not been thoroughly understood and properly appreciated until long after they had passed away. Jesus Christ was executed for blasphemy, Bruno was burned for declaring a plurality of worlds, Columbus died in chains, and most genuine reformers have been more or less persecuted while living, though worshiped by succeeding generations. The more radical their proposed reform, the longer until it was universally accepted – the longer until this persecution was transformed to worship. An honored friend of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, to whom Pennsylvania and New York voted thousands of dollars in recognition of his great services in freeing America, has long been denied the honor justly due him. He declared: “The world is my country, and to do good, is my religion.” Having freed men physically from kingly tyranny, he strove to free them mentally from superstition. The man was Thomas Paine. On the first page of his “Age of Reason,” he says: “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe that religious duties consist in loving mercy, doing justice, and trying to make your fellow creatures happy.” And he acted consistently therewith during his whole lifetime. The celebration of his birthday anniversary at Metzerott Hall Sunday afternoon was a tardy recognition of his services. Yours, for justice to the dead as well as the living. D. WEBSTER GROH.