Paine's prophetic dream

By Steve Farrell
web posted July 7, 2003

Like everything else socialist, today's schools and history books
deny at every turn the religious side of America's Founding
Fathers and the inspiration these great men felt for the cause of
liberty.

Sadly, many of us have come to accept as fact the fallacy that
the Founders and our precious liberties are strictly products of
the European Enlightenment (a secular movement).

Yet at every turn, the real record, the hidden record, tells a
different story—a story of men driven not simply by their
intellects, but by their hearts, not just by political principle, but by
deeply held religious conviction.

Thomas Paine's inspirational dream, perhaps, vision, predicting
the War for Independence and its happy outcome, a dream he
published in June of 1775, under the title, "The Dream
Interpreted," in the Pennsylvania Magazine, is but one example
among many of this untold story of faith in America.

He wrote:

The Dream Interpreted

"Parched with thirst and wearied with a fatiguing journey to
Virginia, I turned out of the road to shelter myself among the
shades; in a little time I had the good fortune to light on a spring,
and the refreshing draught went sweetly down. How little of
luxury
does nature want! This cooling stream administered more relief
than all the wins of Oporto: I drank and was satisfied; my fatigue
abated, my wasted spirits were reinforced, and 'tis no wonder
after such a delicious repast that I sunk insensibly into
slumber…[and dreamed].

"[I]n the dream I am about to relate I was only a spectator, and
had not other business to do than to remember.

"To what scene or country my ideas had conveyed themselves,
or whether they had created a region on purpose to explore, I
know not, but I saw before me one of the most pleasing
landscapes I have ever beheld. I gazed at it, till my mind
partaking of the prospect became incorporated therewith, and
felt all the tranquility of the place. In this state of ideal happiness I
sat down on the side of a mountain, totally forgetful of the world
I had left behind me. the most delicious fruits presented
themselves to my hands, and one of the clearest rivers that ever
watered the earth rolled along at the foot of the mountain, and
invited me to drink. The distant hills were blue with the tincture of
the skies, and seemed as if they were the threshold of the
celestial region. But while I gazed the whole scene began t
change, by an almost insensible gradation. The sun, instead of
administering life and health, consumed everything with an
intolerable heat. The verdure withered. The hills appeared burnt
and black. The fountains dried away; and the atmosphere
became a motionless lake of air, loaded with pestilence and
death. After several days of wretched suffocation, the sky grew
darkened with clouds from every quarter, till one extended storm
excluded the face of heaven. A dismal silence took place, as if
the earth, struck with a general panic, was listening like a criminal
to the sentence of death. The glimmering light with which the sun
feebly penetrated the clouds began to fail, till Egyptian darkness
added to the horror. The beginning of the tempest was
announced by a confusion of distant thunders, till at length a
general discharge of the whole artillery of heaven was poured
down upon the earth. Trembling I shrunk into the side of a cave,
and dreaded the event. The mountain shook, and threatened me
with instant destruction. The rapid lightning at every blaze exhibit
the landscape of a world on fire, while the accumulating torrent,
no in rain, but floods of water, resembled another deluge.

"At length the fury of the storm abated, and nature, fatigued with
fear and watching, sank into rest. But when the morning rose,
and the universal lamp of heaven emerged from the deep, how
was I struck with astonishment! I expected to have seen a world
in ruins, which nothing but a new creation could have restored.
Instead of which, the prospect was lovely and inviting, and had
all the promising appearance of exceeding its former glory. the
air, purged of it poisonous vapours, was fresh and healthy. The
dried fountains were replenished, the waters sweet and
wholesome. The sickly earth, recovered to new life, abounded
with vegetation. The groves were musical with innumerable
songsters, and the long-deserted fields echoed with the joyous
sound of the husband man. All, all was felicity' and what I had
dreaded as an evil, became a
blessing. At this happy reflection I awoke: and have refreshed
myself with draught from the friendly spring, pursued my journey.

"After traveling a few miles I fell in with a companion, and as we
rode through a wood but little frequented by travelers, I began,
for the sake of chatting away the tediousness of the journey, to
relate my dream. I think, replied my friend, that I can interpret it;
That beautiful country which you saw is America. The sickly
state you
beheld her in, has been coming on her for these ten years past.
Her commerce has been drying up by repeated restrictions, till
by one merciless edict the ruin of it is completed. the pestilential
atmosphere represents that ministerial corruption with surrounds
and exercises its dominion over her, and which noting but a
storm can purify. the tempest is the present contest and the event
will be the same. She will rise with new glories from the conflict,
and her fame be established in every corner of the globe; while it
will be remembered to her eternal honour, that she has not
sought the
quarrel, but has been driven into it. He who guides the natural
tempest will regulate the political one, and bring good out of evil.
In our petition to Britain we asked but for peace; but the prayer
was rejected. The cause is now before a higher court, the court
of Providence, before whom the arrogance of kings, the infidelity
of ministers, the general corruption of government, and all the
cobweb artifice of courts, will fall confounded and ashamed."

Thomas Paine, like many of his fellow Founders, was a man of
great intellectual capacity, yes, but he was also a man who saw
the hand of God in raising of a Standard of Liberty in the United
States—and unlike the spineless crew of politicians and
educators who take to the pen and the pulpit today, he wasn't
afraid to reveal this matter of faith in public.
 
We can do likewise. With Independence Day still fresh in our
memories, we can remember and share with others this more
honest and complete picture of America's Founding, a picture
which reveals the hidden truth that faith and reason, not reason
alone, is the stuff of America's Founding and her blessed
Independence. As we do so, a retelling of Thomas Paine's
prophetic dream, might just be a great place to start.

Enter Stage Right senior writer Steve Farrell is the author of
Dark Rose, an inspirational novel reviewers are calling "a
modern classic." Learn more. Contact Steve at
stevenmfarrell@cox.net.

Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com