PART18.TXT

        "A REAL CHRISTIAN"









        _To Charles Thomson_



        _Monticello, January 9, 1816_









        MY DEAR AND ANCIENT FRIEND, -- An acquaintance of fifty-two



years, for I think ours dates from 1764, calls for an interchange of



notice now and then, that we remain in existence, the monuments of



another age, and examples of a friendship unaffected by the jarring



elements by which we have been surrounded, of revolutions of



government, of party and of opinion.  I am reminded of this duty by



the receipt, through our friend Dr. Patterson, of your synopsis of



the four Evangelists.  I had procured it as soon as I saw it



advertised, and had become familiar with its use; but this copy is



the more valued as it comes from your hand.  This work bears the



stamp of that accuracy which marks everything from you, and will be



useful to those who, not taking things on trust, recur for themselves



to the fountain of pure morals.  I, too, have made a wee-little book



from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is



a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the



book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain



order of time or subject.  A more beautiful or precious morsel of



ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that _I_ am a



_real Christian_, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of



Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call _me_ infidel and



_themselves_ Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw



all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor



saw.  They have compounded from the heathen mysteries a system beyond



the comprehension of man, of which the great reformer of the vicious



ethics and deism of the Jews, were he to return on earth, would not



recognize one feature.  If I had time I would add to my little book



the Greek, Latin and French texts, in columns side by side.  And I



wish I could subjoin a translation of Gosindi's Syntagma of the



doctrines of Epicurus, which, notwithstanding the calumnies of the



Stoics and caricatures of Cicero, is the most rational system



remaining of the philosophy of the ancients, as frugal of vicious



indulgence, and fruitful of virtue as the hyperbolical extravagances



of his rival sects.









        I retain good health, am rather feeble to walk much, but ride



with ease, passing two or three hours a day on horseback, and every



three or four months taking in a carriage a journey of ninety miles



to a distant possession, where I pass a good deal of my time.  My



eyes need the aid of glasses by night, and with small print in the



day also; my hearing is not quite so sensible as it used to be; no



tooth shaking yet, but shivering and shrinking in body from the cold



we now experience, my thermometer having been as low as 12 degrees



this morning.  My greatest oppression is a correspondence



afflictingly laborious, the extent of which I have been long



endeavoring to curtail.  This keeps me at the drudgery of the



writing-table all the prime hours of the day, leaving for the



gratification of my appetite for reading, only what I can steal from



the hours of sleep.  Could I reduce this epistolary corvee within the



limits of my friends and affairs, and give the time redeemed from it



to reading and reflection, to history, ethics, mathematics, my life



would be as happy as the infirmities of age would admit, and I should



look on its consummation with the composure of one _"qui summum nec



me tuit diem nec optat."_









        So much as to myself, and I have given you this string of



egotisms in the hope of drawing a similar one from yourself.  I have



heard from others that you retain your health, a good degree of



activity, and all the vivacity and cheerfulness of your mind, but I



wish to learn it more minutely from yourself.  How has time affected



your health and spirits?  What are your amusements, literary and



social?  Tell me everything about yourself, because all will be



interesting to me who retains for you ever the same constant and



affectionate friendship and respect.















        YOUR PROPHECY AND MINE









        _To John Adams_



        _Monticello, Jan. 11, 1816_









        DEAR SIR -- Of the last five months I have past four at my



other domicil, for such it is in a considerable degree.  No letters



are forwarded to me there, because the cross post to that place is



circuitous and uncertain.  During my absence therefore they are



accumulating here, and awaiting acknolegments.  This has been the



fate of your favor of Nov. 13.









        I agree with you in all it's eulogies on the 18th. century.  It



certainly witnessed the sciences and arts, manners and morals,



advanced to a higher degree than the world had ever before seen.  And



might we not go back to the aera of the Borgias, by which time the



barbarous ages had reduced national morality to it's lowest point of



depravity, and observe that the arts and sciences, rising from that



point, advanced gradually thro' all the 16th. 17th. and 18th.



centuries, softening and correcting the manners and morals of man?  I



think too we may add, to the great honor of science and the arts,



that their natural effect is, by illuminating public opinion, to



erect it into a Censor, before which the most exalted tremble for



their future, as well as present fame.  With some exceptions only,



through the 17th. and 18th. centuries morality occupied an honorable



chapter in the political code of nations.  You must have observed



while in Europe, as I thought I did, that those who administered the



governments of the greater powers at least, had a respect to faith,



and considered the dignity of their government as involved in it's



integrity.  A wound indeed was inflicted on this character of honor



in the 18th. century by the partition of Poland.  But this was the



atrocity of a barbarous government chiefly, in conjunction with a



smaller one still scrambling to become great, while one only of those



already great, and having character to lose, descended to the



baseness of an accomplice in the crime.  France, England, Spain



shared in it only inasmuch as they stood aloof and permitted it's



perpetration.  How then has it happened that these nations, France



especially and England, so great, so dignified, so distinguished by



science and the arts, plunged at once into all the depths of human



enormity, threw off suddenly and openly all the restraints of



morality, all sensation to character, and unblushingly avowed and



acted on the principle that power was right?  Can this sudden



apostacy from national rectitude be accounted for?  The treaty of



Pilnitz seems to have begun it, suggested perhaps by the baneful



precedent of Poland.  Was it from the terror of monarchs, alarmed at



the light returning on them from the West, and kindling a Volcano



under their thrones?  Was it a combination to extinguish that light,



and to bring back, as their best auxiliaries, those enumerated by



you, the Sorbonne, the Inquisition, the Index expurgatorius, and the



knights of Loyola?  Whatever it was, the close of the century saw the



moral world thrown back again to the age of the Borgias, to the point



from which it had departed 300. years before.  France, after crushing



and punishing the conspiracy of Pilnitz, went herself deeper and



deeper into the crimes she had been chastising.  I say France, and



not Bonaparte; for altho' he was the head and mouth, the nation



furnished the hands which executed his enormities.  England, altho'



in opposition, kept full pace with France, not indeed by the manly



force of her own arms, but by oppressing the weak, and bribing the



strong.  At length the whole choir joined and divided the weaker



nations among them.  Your prophecies to Dr. Price proved truer than



mine; and yet fell short of the fact, for instead of a million, the



destruction of 8. or 10. millions of human beings has probably been



the effect of these convulsions.  I did not, in 89. believe they



would have lasted so long, nor have cost so much blood.  But altho'



your prophecy has proved true so far, I hope it does not preclude a



better final result.  That same light from our West seems to have



spread and illuminated the very engines employed to extinguish it.



It has given them a glimmering of their rights and their power.  The



idea of representative government has taken root and growth among



them.  Their masters feel it, and are saving themselves by timely



offers of this modification of their own powers.  Belguim, Prussia,



Poland, Lombardy etc. are now offered a representative organization:



illusive probably at first, but it will grow into power in the end.



Opinion is power, and that opinion will come.  Even France will yet



attain representative government.  You observe it makes the basis of



every constitution which has been demanded or offered: of that



demanded by their Senate; of that offered by Bonaparte; and of that



granted by Louis XVIII.  The idea then is rooted, and will be



established, altho' rivers of blood may yet flow between them and



their object.  The allied armies now couching upon them are first to



be destroyed, and destroyed they will surely be.  A nation united can



never be conquered.  We have seen what the ignorant b...