that thou believest not as he believes, and there is no earthly power can determine between you.

With respect to what are called denominations of religion, if every one is left to judge of its own religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is wrong; but if they are to judge of each other's religion, there is no such thing as a religion that is right; and therefore all the world is right, or all the world is wrong. But with respect to religion itself, without regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal family of mankind to the Divine object of all adoration, it is man bringing to his Maker the fruits of his heart; and though those fruits may differ from each other like the fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of every one is accepted.

A Bishop of Durham, or a Bishop of Winchester, or the archbishop who heads the dukes, will not refuse a tythe-sheaf of wheat because it is not a cock of hay, nor a cock of hay because it is not a sheaf of wheat; nor a pig, because it is neither one nor the other; but these same persons, under the figure of an established church, will not permit their Maker to receive the varied tythes of man's devotion.

[From Rights of Man, being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution, 1791. Writings, vol. ii, pp. 325–326.]

A PROFESSION OF FAITH

It has been my intention, for several years past, to publish my thoughts upon religion; I am well aware of the difficulties that attend the subject, and from that consideration, had reserved it to a more advanced period of life. I intended it to be the last offering I should make to my fellow-citizens of all nations, and that at a time when the purity of the motive that induced me to it could not admit of a question, even by those who might disapprove the work.

The circumstance that has now taken place in France, of the total abolition of the whole national order of priesthood, and of everything appertaining to compulsive systems of religion, and compulsive articles of faith, has not only precipitated my inten

tion, but rendered a work of this kind exceedingly necessary, lest in the general wreck of superstition, of false systems of government, and false theology, we lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of the theology that is true.

As several of my colleagues, and others of my fellow-citizens of France, have given me the example of making their voluntary and individual profession of faith, I also will make mine; and I do this with all that sincerity and frankness with which the mind of man communicates with itself.

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe [in] the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this?

Soon after I had published the pamphlet Common Sense, in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited, by pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priest-craft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more.

[The Age of Reason, 1794–1795, chapter i, "The Author's Profession of Faith." Writings, vol. iv, pp. 21-23.]

THOMAS JEFFERSON

[Thomas Jefferson was born, of a good family, at Shadwell, Albemarle Co., Va., April 13, 1743. He received an excellent education at William and Mary College, saw much of the best society, studied law under Chancellor Wythe, began its practice, and achieved at once a considerable success. At the age of twenty-six he entered the House of Burgesses, and served off and on with much distinction until the breaking out of the Revolution. He then entered Congress, where he became the chief drafter of state papers, the most important of these being the Declaration of Independence. After this he returned to Virginian politics, labored successfully to modify the state laws in a democratic direction, and served as governor for two years, during which period his administration was much harassed by the British. In 1783 he reentered Congress and took part in important legislation. The next year he went to France as minister plenipotentiary, succeeding Franklin in 1785. His career as a diplomat was distinctly successful, but was cut short by his acceptance of the post of Secretary of State in Washington's first cabinet. Under the new government he was subsequently made Vice-President in 1797 and President from 1801 to 1809. His two presidential administrations were not marked by much executive strength, but the first secured to the country the vast territory of Louisiana. He was succeeded by his disciple Madison, and during his retirement at Monticello maintained his grip upon politics by his large correspondence. From 1817 to his death, on July 4, 1826, he was mainly interested in founding the University of Virginia. Throughout his old age he was looked up to as the chief political theorist and most typical republican of the country, but this public homage entailed a hospitality that left him poor. The best editions of his writings are the so-called Congressional, in nine volumes, and that of P. L. Ford, not yet complete.]

IF Jefferson be judged by any single piece of work, except perhaps the Declaration of Independence, or by the general qualities of his style, he cannot in any fairness be termed a great writer. His Notes on Virginia, his only book, may be justly said to be interesting and valuable, but cannot rank high as literature. His state papers, with the exception made above, and his official reports are excellent of their kind, but their kind is not sufficiently literary to warrant any one in holding them up as models. Even his count

less letters, while fascinating to the student of his character, are rather barren of charm when read without some ulterior purpose. In short, while Jefferson was plainly the most widely cultured of our early statesmen and was thus in a real sense a man of letters, he would be little read to-day if his fame depended either upon his authorship of a masterpiece in the shape of a book or upon his possession of a powerful or charming style.

We see at once that in at least two important respects Jefferson is inferior to Franklin as a writer. Franklin possessed a style and has given us a classic. Nor is it at all clear that, judged from the point of view of mere readableness, Jefferson rises above or equals some of his contemporaries, such as Fisher Ames, or Alexander Hamilton, or his rival as a drafter of state papers, John Dickinson. Yet he was surely in one important respect a greater writer than any of these men, not even Franklin excepted. His was the most influential pen of his times upon his contemporaries, and it is to his writings that posterity turns with most interest whenever the purposes, the hopes, the fears of the great Revolutionary epoch become matters of study. If Franklin's writings reveal a personality, Jefferson's reveal, if the exaggeration may be pardoned, the aspirations and ideals of an age.

They reveal also the personality of Jefferson himself, but so subtle was that great man that we can never feel that we understand him fully. We may learn to understand, however, with fair thoroughness the theory of government that he had worked out for himself from French and English sources; we may see how every letter he wrote carried his democratic doctrines further afield; we may feel him getting a firm grasp not merely upon his contemporaries but upon generations yet to be ; finally, we can observe yawning across his later writings the political chasm into which the young republic was one day to fall. But books that enable us to do all this are certainly great in their way, and so is the hand that penned their contents. Jefferson is not a Burke, yet it is as true to say that he must be read by any one who would comprehend the origin and development of American political thought, as it is to say that Burke must be read by any similar student of British political thought.

But has not Jefferson given us a masterpiece? In a book, no;