THOMAS JEFFERSON Library Edition CONTAINING HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY, NOTES ON VIRGINIA, PARLIA- NOW COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED IN THEIR ENTIRETY FOR THE FIRST TIME INCLUDING ALL OF THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS, DEPOSITED IN THE DEPARTMENT JOINT COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS JEFFERSON'S RELIGION. “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." -Motto on Jefferson's Seal To attempt to pry into the heart of any man and analyze his religious convictions was the last thing Thomas Jefferson would have done. “Religion is a subject on which I have been most scrupulously reserved,” he wrote in a letter to Richard Rush; “I have considered that it is a matter between a man and his Maker in which no other, and far less the public, had a right to intermeddle.” For this reason the writer was somewhat reluctant to enter into the arcana of Jefferson's religious beliefs. But the memory and influence of Jefferson are so precious an heritage to the American people that any effort to defend them from slander and misinterpretation is its own justification. Over-zealous partisans of religious conceptions have made bitter attacks upon Jefferson, both while he was alive and since his death. He has been called an atheist and infidel, and the fiercest denunciations of his life and character, based upon this thought, have been hurled against him. While not altogether undisturbed by these attacks he felt, as he has himself VOL XVII-A 210.01 ! expressed it, that “the patriot, like the Christian, must learn that to bear revilings and persecutions is a part of his duty.” “I know I might have filled the courts of the United States with actions for these slanders,” he adds, “and have ruined, perhaps, many persons who are not innocent. But this would be no equivalent to the loss of character. I leave them to the reproof of their own consciences. If these do not condemn them, there will yet come a day when the false witness will meet a Judge who has not slept over his slander." Both Jefferson and his defamers of his day have long gone to meet that sleepless Judge. The attacks upon him did not cease when his mighty mind rested from its work and his noble soul left its tenement of clay. But “though being dead, he yet speaketh,” and his words, treasured in the pantheon of humanity's most splendid utterances, do tell to-day of his abiding faith and his reverent obedience to the Divine Will. I purpose to let his own words speak for him, and himself to express what, he being silent, no other man would have right to affirm or deny. Far from being an infidel or an atheist Thomas Jefferson was a deeply reverent and religious spirit, a firm believer in God and in the supreme justice of His overruling providence. Jefferson's religion was that of an earnest, serious character, the result of many hours of profound study and meditation. Its very nature forbade its display, much more, its constant protestation. He did not feel that it was necessary for him to “wear his heart upon his sleeve,” nor did he ask any other man to do so. But he was not a dogmatist. . His religion was a rational faith and not a theological creed. He believed firmly in the existence of God, and he believed just as firmly that every human being had the right to believe as he chose, or to disbelieve if he chose. This faith he gave evidence of on many occasions and in many documents, both of public and private nature. In an address which he prepared for the Virginia House of Burgesses to be presented to Lord Dunmore, in 1775, he uses this language: “We commit our injuries to the evenhanded justice of that Being, Who doth no wrong, earnestly beseeching Him to illuminate the councils, and prosper the endeavors of those to whom America has confided her hopes.” In his first inaugural address he said, “May that infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe, lead our councils to what is best and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.” In an address of Congress to General Washington, prepared by Jefferson, are these words, “We join you in commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, beseeching Him to dispose the hearts and minds of its citizens to improve the opportunity afforded them of becoming a happy and respectable nation. And for you we address to Him our earnest prayers, that a life so |