gion which produced it, and this religion
became afterward an engine for thrusting democracy more deeply into the
constitution of man. It had a work to do, and it did it by inheritance.
It was the democracy of Cromwell, "that accomplished President of
England," which could sympathize with the religion of Fox, which could
see no wrong in the man, and which could protect him from persecution.
On the other hand, it was the religion of Penn, which would insult the
pride of nobles by not uncovering itself, and bowing in the presence of
royalty.

Now, every religion has a birth, growth, culmination, and subsequent
decay. It culminates in the production of some great man, who
represents, and at the same time transcends, the causes which produced
him, and who afterward abandons the religion which gave him birth. It
has then fulfilled its work, and will eventually die. Jesus of Nazareth
was the fulfillment of the Jewish religion; Luther, of the Catholic. The
minor religions obey the same law. Unitarianism culminated in Theodore
Parker; Quakerism, in Thomas Paine. At the culminating point, the
typical child which is born, grows up, and comes out from or tramples
upon the religion which produced him, and is called a "come-outer," a
"protester," an "image-breaker," or an "infidel." But he has been
produced by causes over which he had no control, and is the result for
which they existed. With him the religion declines, and eventually will
expire.

The Quaker religion culminated on the 29th of January, 1737, in the
little town of Thetford, and county of Norfolk, England, in the birth of
Thomas Paine. Here Nature deserted her connection with the meeting, and
took up her abode in the soul of the child. She has concentrated herein
the democracy of centuries, and the special forces of a hundred years.
The great principles of democracy have all been gathered here, and
organized into a power which will move the world.

Nature has also given a hardy physical constitution, without corruption
of blood or bodily disease, and this health of body shall carry him safe
through the three-score and ten, with a fraction of years to spare. Let
us now follow the lines of his life.

A religious antagonism between father and mother, both before and after
his birth, strengthened the child's mind, for we grow strong only
through antagonism. But he inclined to the Quaker principles of the
father, who had him privately named, and did not suffer him to be