Infoforia

… but a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves; that rational men not being able to swallow their impious heresies, in order to force them down their throats, raise the hue and cry of infidelity, while they themselves are the obstacles to the advancement of the real doctrines of Jesus, and do in fact constitute the real Anti-Christ.

Thomas Jefferson approached religion with common sense and reason. His writings will come as a disappointment to the religionists of today. Here’s an excerpt from a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, dated April 23rd, 1803. He writes of Jesus and the Gospels:

The Disadvantages under which his doctrines appear are remarkable.

1. Like Socrates and Epicteus, he wrote nothing himself
2. But he had not, like them, a Xenephon or Arrian to write for him. On the contrary, all the learned of his country, entrenched in its powers and riches, were opposed to him, lest his labors should undermine their advantages; and the committing to writing his life & doctrines fell on the most unlettered & ignorant men; who wrote, to, from memory, and not till long after the transactions have past.According to the ordinary fate of those who attempt to enlighten and reform mankind, he fell victim to the jealosy and combination of the altar and the throne, at about 33. years of age, his reason having not yet attained the maximum of its energy, nor the course of his preaching, which was but of 3. years at most, presented occasions for developing a complete system of morals.
3. Hence the doctrines which he really delivered were defective as a whole, and fragments only of what he did deliver have come to us mutilated, misstated, and often unintelligible.
4. They have been still more disfigured by the corruptions of schismatising followers, who have found an interest in sophisticating and perverting the simple doctrines he taught by engrafting on them the mysticisms of a Grecian sophist, frittering them into subtleties, and obscuring them with jargon, until they have caused good men to reject the whole in disgust, and to view Jesus himself as an imposter.

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith

Monticello, August 6, 1816

I have received, dear Madam, your very friendly letter of July 21st, and assure you that I feel with deep sensibility its kind expressions towards myself, and the more as from a person than whom no others could be more in sympathy with my own affections. I often call to mind the occasions of knowing your worth, which the societies of Washington furnished; and none more than those derived from your much valued visit to Monticello. I recognize the same motives of goodness in the solicitude you express on the rumor supposed to proceed form a letter of mine to Charles Thomson, on the subject of the Christian religion. It is true that, in writing to the translator of the Bible and Testament, that the subject was mentioned; but equally so that no adherence to any particular mode of Christianity was there expressed, nor any change of opinions suggested. A change from what? the priests indeed have heretofore thought proper to ascribe to me religious or rather anti-religous sentiments, of their own fabric, but such as soothed their resentments against the act of Virginia for establishing religious freedom. They wished him to be thought atheist, deist, or devil, who could advocate freedom from their religious dictations. But I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to him, and not to the priests. I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another’s creed. I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives, and by this test, dear Madam, I have been satisfied yours must be an excellent one, to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read. By the same test the world must judge me. But this does not satisfy the priesthood. They must have a positive, a declared assent to all their interested absurdities. My opinion is that there never would have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there. These, therefore, they brand with such nick-names as their enmity chooses gratuitously to impute. I have left the world, in silence, to judge of causes from their effects; and I am consoled in this course, my dear friend, when I perceive the candor with which I am judged by your justice and discernment; and that, notwithstanding the slanders of the saints, my fellow citizens hve thought me worthy of their trusts. The imputations of irreligion having spent their force; they think an imputation of change might now be turned to account as a holster for their duperies. I shall leave them, as heretofore, to grope on in the dark.

Our family at Monticello is all in good heath; Ellen speaking of you with affection, and Mrs. Randolph always regretting the accident which so far deprived her of the happiness of your former visit. She still cherishes the hope of some future renewal of that kindness; in which we all join her, as in the assurances of affectionate attachment and respect.

Plaque on the East Branch of the Lexington Library, next to the Follen Church.
Below are two excerpts from “‘History of the Stone Building’, read by A. Bradford Smith, Dec. 12, 1893″, in Proceedings of the Lexington Historical Society, Volume II, 1890-1899

In the winter of 1846-’47 a course of lyceum lectures was given in this hall by some of the ablest speakers of their time. Among them were Charles Sumner, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Josiah Quincy Jr., and John C. Park. Sumner’s subject was “The true Grandeur of Nations”, an oration delivered in Boston on the 4th of July 1844. The grand sentiments of this address (though disapproved by the rich men of Boston) were fully approved and endorsed by John A. Andrew, John Quincy Adams, and by Richard Cobden, the great apostle of peace, and Rogers, the English poet. Wendell Phillips’ subject was, “The Lost Arts”. The committee were afraid to let him select his own subject, for fear it would be on anti-slavery. Afterwards he delivered the same lecture in Lexington for the same reason. Theodore Parker’s subject was “The Landing of the Pilgrims”. Josiah Quincy’s was “Lafayette”, he being on the staff of Gov. Eustis in 1842, when Lafayette visited this country. John C. Parks, “The Military of Massachusetts”.

One of the fist lectures by Gen. Banks was in this hall. In 1847 Parker Pillsbury, the noted abolitionist, gave a lecture here on the slavery question, and one gentleman said, “They wanted a free soil party.” Pillsbury replied, “There is not an inch of free soil in this country.” The old gentleman said “We wish it to be.”. Pillsbury replied, “Call it the wish party.”

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After the decease of the widow of Mr. Abner Stone, the town became entitled, under Article 3 of her will, to a gift of one half acre of land in Lexington, as a site for a public reading room and library, the same to be selected by her daughter, Miss Ellen A. Stone. In lieue of a literal compliance with said portion of her mother’s will, she offered the town, for a sum of two thousand dollars, a deed of conveyance of this large mansion house owned by her, with a suitable lot of land adjoining, for library, reading room, and other purposes. The town accepted the generous offer, and their gratitude to Miss E. A. Stone for furnishing a home for an institution so beneficial to her native village, so dear to her mother and herself. It was voted by the town to call the building the “Stone Building.”. The town generously voted an appropriation to repair the building and make it suitable for the purposes designated; and now, as the result, we have a beautiful place where all ages, nationalities, and sects in our village may gain knowledge and wisdom, not alone from books and magazines, but also from the varied classes for instruction, which shall meet here.