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Excerpted from Jane Hampton Cook’s devotional book: Stories of Faith & Courage From The Revolutionary War.
As the year 1776 began, choosing anonymity was merely common. It seemed the young man had failed each professor that he’d tried. He had worked unsuccessfully as a house servant, merchant mariner, and corset maker. Now he walked the road of publishing, wondering whether it would lead to success or another dead end.
The timing of his publication was the most powerful of medicines. This anonymous author published the first edition of his fifty-page pamphlet on the same January day in 1776 when he and his fellow Philadelphians learned the news. King George had declared war. This author’s words would prove to be the perfect antidote for this royal infliction.
“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor,” the author wrote in his introduction, justifying his anonymity. He knew his radical views were as unfashionable in England as a French wig. He hoped Americans would welcome his writings, which he considered as sensible as they were accurate.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right,” he continued, noting that opposition to new ideas is often born from custom. “But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” Central to his pamphlet was this statement:
“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” The patriots were hungry for his words. They were thrilled to see their principles in print. The young man wrote with such poignancy and simplicity that his audience begged for more copies of this document. This failed businessman’s first edition was such a success, he found himself sleeping in his printing apron more often than his night shirt. Questions as to his identity quickly emerged. He responded through this note on February 14, 1776.
“Who the author of this production is, is wholly unnecessary to the public, as the object for attention is the itself, not the man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any party, and under no sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and principle,” the writer explained. Some thought he was John Adams; others, Samuel Adams. The author who proclaimed these great thoughts and the others outlined in his pamphlet wisely hid behind anonymity as the war began in 1776. After all, this man was young but not stupid. He was a radical with common sense. And so, Thomas Paine named his publication, Common Sense.
PRAYER: God, give me your clarity today to use my common sense to discern the complex circumstances surrounding me.
“Even as he walks along the road, the fool lacks sense and shows everyone how stupid he is” (ECCLESIASTES 10:3).
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