Just as
we remember Benjamin Franklin in part for his many wise sayings, the words of
Thomas Paine, considered the Father of the Revolution, have also become timeless. Looking ahead toward a new decade, we would
do well to look back on December 23rd, 1776, which marks the 243rd
anniversary of the first in Mr. Paine’s series of published pamphlets entitled
The American Crisis or simply The Crisis.
In our
current political climate, it seems a good time to revisit this insightful
essay of Mr. Paine’s that is at times convicting, sharp, and humbling. In
reading Mr. Paine’s essay, I cannot help but feel its relevance for the
present..
Ponder
a few of these highlights from The Crisis:
"These are the times that try men's
souls." (Talk about an opening line! I feel this often. Don't you?)
"What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too
lightly." (I wonder if this isn't more true now than it was 243 years ago.)
"All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest." (Ouch! He must have learned insults from Shakespeare.)
"I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretense as he." (I appreciate Mr. Paine's confidence in the Divine.)
"Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. ... Yet panic, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. ... They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. (Such eye-opening truth! Panic does achieve those things, and is one way in which "every secret thing will be revealed".)
"Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it." (Let the thwarting of evil ever be our nation’s
unifying cause.)
"My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?" (An argument that still stands.)
"Howe's first object is, partly by threats and partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their arms and receive mercy. The ministry recommended the same plan to Gage, and this is what the Tories call making their peace, "a peace which passeth all understanding" indeed! A peace which would be the immediate forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye men of Pennsylvania, do reason upon these things! Were the back counties to give up their arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are all armed: this perhaps is what some Tories would not be sorry for. Were the home counties to deliver up their arms, they would be exposed to the resentment of the back counties who would then have it in their power to chastise their defection at pleasure. And were any one state to give up its arms, that state must be garrisoned by all Howe's army of Britons and Hessians to preserve it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is the principal link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that state that breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to barbarous destruction, and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes." (And thus,
the groundwork for our 2nd Amendment rights was laid. What
has changed? For we must still hold fast to those rights for which men laid down their lives.)
***
In conclusion, I think it circumspect to look back upon these documents written during our country's birth pangs. We have experienced many growing pains in the 243 years since, and continue to feel the agonies of a nation struggling to survive as it was formed. As we close out the year and prepare to step into a new decade, let us not forget the things we've learned, the wisdom that prevailed so long ago.
Merry Christmas, and may you be filled with God's peace as you walk with Him.
Naomi Musch
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