Contents

Thomas Paine

Liberty of Man, Woman and Child

Orthodoxy

Blasphemy

Some Reasons Why

Intellectual Development

Human Rights

Talmagian Theology (Second Lecture)

Talmagian Theology (Third Lecture)

Religious Intolerance

Hereafter

Review of His Reviewers

How the Gods Grow

The Religion of our Day

Heretics And Heresies

The Bible

Voltaire

Myth and Miracle

Ingersoll's Letter, on The Chinese God

Ingersoll's Letter, Is Suicide a Sin?

Ingersoll's Letter, The Right To One's Life

Ingersoll's Lecture on Thomas Paine--Delivered in Central Music Hall,

Chicago, January 29, 1880 (From the Chicago Times, Verbatim Report)

Ladies and Gentlemen:--It so happened that the first speech--the very

first public speech I ever made--took occasion to defend the memory of

Thomas Paine.

I did it because I had read a little something of the history of my

country. I did it because I felt indebted to him for the liberty I

then enjoyed--and whatever religion may be true, ingratitude is the

blackest of crimes. And whether there is any God or not, in every star

that shines, gratitude is a virtue.

The man who will tell the truth about the dead is a good man, and for

one, about this man, I intend to tell just as near the truth as I can.

Most history consists in giving the details of things that never

happened--most biography is usually the lie coming from the mouth of

flattery, or the slander coming from the lips of malice, and whoever

attacks the religion of a country will, in his turn, be attacked.

Whoever attacks a superstition will find that superstition defended by

all the meanness of ingenuity. Whoever attacks a superstition will

find that there is still one weapon left in the arsenal of

Jehovah--slander.

I was reading, yesterday, a poem called the "Light of Asia," and I read

in that how a Boodh seeing a tigress perishing of thirst, with her

mouth upon the dry stone of a stream, with her two cubs sucking at her

dry and empty dugs, this Boodh took pity upon this wild and famishing

beast, and, throwing from himself the Yellowrobe of his order, and

stepping naked before this tigress, said: "Here is meat for you and

your cubs." In one moment the crooked daggers of her claws ran riot in

his flesh, and in another he was devoured. Such, during nearly all the

history of this world, has been the history of every man who has stood

in front of superstition.

Thomas Paine, as has been so eloquently said by the gentleman who

introduced me, was a friend of man, and whoever is a friend of man is

also a friend of God--if there is one. But God has had many friends

who were the enemies of their fellow-men. There is but one test by

which to measure any man who has lived. Did he leave this world better

than he found it? Did he leave in this world more liberty? Did he

leave in this world more goodness, more humanity, than when he was

born? That is the test. And whatever may have been the faults of

Thomas Paine, no American who appreciates liberty, no American who

believes in true democracy and pure republicanism, should ever breathe

one word against his name. Every American, with the divine mantle of

charity, should cover all his faults, and with a never-tiring tongue

should recount his virtues.

He was a common man. He did not belong to the aristocracy. Upon the

head of his father God had never poured the divine petroleum of

authority. He had not the misfortune to belong to the upper classes.

He had the fortune to be born among the poor and to feel against his

great heart the throb of the toiling and suffering masses. Neither was

it his misfortune to have been educated at Oxford. What little sense

he had was not squeezed out at Westminster. He got his education from

books. He got his education from contact with fellow-men, and he

thought, and a man is worth just what nature impresses upon him. A man

standing by the sea, or in a forest, or looking at a flower, or hearing

a poem, or looking in the eyes of the woman he loves, receives all that

he is capable of receiving--and if he is a great man the impression is

great, and he uses it for the purpose of benefiting his fellow-man.

Thomas Paine was not rich, he was poor, and his father before him was

poor, and he was raised a sailmaker, a very lowly profession, and yet

that man became one of the mainstays of liberty in this world. At one

time he was an excise man, like Burns. Burns was once--speak it

softly--a gauger--and yet he wrote poems that will wet the cheek of

humanity with tears as long as the world travels in its orb around the

sun.

Poverty was his brother, necessity his master. He had more brains than

books; more courage than politeness; more strength than polish. He had

no veneration for old mistakes, no admiration for ancient lies. He

loved the truth for truth's sake and for man's sake. He saw oppression

on every hand, injustice everywhere, hypocrisy at the altar, venality

on the bench, tyranny on the throne, and with a splendid courage he

espoused the cause of the weak against the strong, of the enslaved many

against the titled few.

In England he was nothing. He belonged to the lower classes--that is,

the useful people. England depended for her prosperity upon her

mechanics and her thinkers, her sailors and her workers, and they are

the only men in Europe who are not gentlemen. The only obstacles in

the way of progress in Europe were the nobility and the priests, and

they are the only gentlemen.

This, and his native genius, constituted his entire capital, and he

needed no more. He found the colonies clamoring for justice; whining

about their grievances; upon their knees at the foot of the throne,

imploring that mixture of idiocy and insanity, George III., by the

grace of God, for a restoration of their ancient privileges. They were

not endeavoring to become free men, but were trying to soften the heart

of their master. They were perfectly willing to make brick if Pharaoh

would furnish the straw. The colonists wished for, hoped for, and

prayed for reconciliation. They did not dream of independence.

Paine gave to the world his "Common Sense." It was the first argument

for separation; the first assault upon the British form of government;

the first blow for a republic, and it aroused our fathers like a

trumpet's blast. He was the first to perceive the destiny of the new

world. No other pamphlet ever accomplished such wonderful results. It

was filled with arguments, reasons, persuasions, and unanswerable

logic. It opened a new world. It filled the present with hope and the

future with honor. Everywhere the people responded, and in a few months

the Continental Congress declared the colonies free and independent

states. A new nation was born.

It is simple justice to say that Paine did more to cause the

Declaration of Independence than any other man. Neither should it be

forgotten that his attacks upon Great Britain were also attacks upon

monarchy, and while he convinced the people that the colonies ought to

separate from the mother country, he also proved to them that a free

government is the best that can be instituted among men.

In my judgment Thomas Paine was the best political writer that ever

lived. "What he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever

went together." Ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of

power had no effect upon him. He examined into the why and wherefore

of things. He was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. Nothing

short of the bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he

believed to be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes of the

revolution never for a moment did he despair. Year after year his

brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the

weary soldiers read the inspiring words of "Common Sense," filled with

ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the

cause of freedom.

Paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence,

but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. He was

with the army. He shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory.

When the situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he

gave them the "Crisis." It was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire

by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and glory. He shouted to

them "These are the times that try men's souls." The summer soldier

and the sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service

of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks

of man and woman.

To those who wished to put the war off to some future day, with a lofty

and touching spirit of self-sacrifice, he said: "Every generous parent

should say: 'If there must be war, let it be in my day, that my child

may have peace'." To the cry that Americans were rebels, he replied:

"He that rebels against reason is a real rebel; but he that in defense

of reason rebels against tyranny, has a better title to 'Defender of

the Faith' than George III."

Some said it was to the interest of the colonies to be free. Paine

answered this by saying: "To know whether it be the interest of the

continent to be independent, we need ask only this simple, easy

question: 'Is it the interest of man to be a boy all his life?"' He

found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said: "That to

argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine

to the dead." This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every

orthodox church.

There is a world of political wisdom in this: "England lost her liberty

in a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles;" and there

is real discrimination in saying: "The Greeks and Romans were strongly

possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at the

time they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed

their power to enslave the rest of mankind."

In his letter to the British people, in which he tried to convince them

that war was not to their interest, occurs the following passage

brimful of common sense: "War never can be the interest of a trading

nation any more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in business.

But to make war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog

upon a customer at the shop door."

The Writings of Paine fairly glitter with simple, compact, logical

statements that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudicial.

He had the happiest possible way of putting the case, in asking

questions in such a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his

premises so clearly that the deduction could not be avoided.

Day and night he labored for America. Month after month, year after

year, he gave himself to the great cause, until there was "a government

of the people and for the people," and until the banner of the stars

floated over a continent redeemed and consecrated to the happiness of

mankind.

At the close of the Revolution no one stood higher in America than

Thomas Paine. The best, the wisest, the most patriotic were his

friends and admirers; and had he been thinking only of his own good he

might have rested from his toils and spent the remainder of his life in

comfort and in ease. He could have been what the world is pleased to

call "respectable." He would have died surrounded by clergymen,

warriors, and statesmen, and at his death there would have been an

imposing funeral, miles of carriages, civic societies, salvos of

artillery, a Nation in mourning, and, above all, a splendid monument

covered with lies. He choose rather to benefit mankind. At that time

the seeds sown by the great infidels were beginning to bear fruit in

France. The eighteenth century was crowning its gray hairs with the

wreath of progress.

On every hand science was bearing testimony against the church.

Voltaire had filled Europe with light. D'Holbach was giving to the

elite of Paris the principles contained in his "System of Nature." The

encyclopaedists had attacked superstition with information for the

masses. The foundation of things began to be examined. A few had the

courage to keep their shoes on and let the bush burn. Miracles began

to get scarce. Everywhere the people began to inquire. America had

set an example to the world. The word liberty was in the mouths of

men, and they began to wipe the dust from their superstitious knees.

The dawn of a new day had appeared. Thomas Paine went to France.

Into the new movement he threw all his energies. His fame had gone

before him, and he was welcomed as a friend of the human race and as a

champion of free government.

He had never relinquished his intention of pointing out to his

countrymen the defects, absurdities, and abuse of the English

government. For this purpose; he composed and published his greatest

political work. "The Rights of Man." This work should be read by every

man and woman. It is concise, accurate, rational, convincing, and

unanswerable. It shows great thought, an intimate knowledge of the

various forms of government, deep insight into the very springs of

human action, and a courage that compels respect and admiration. The

most difficult political problems are solved in a few sentences. The

venerable arguments in favor of wrong are refuted with a

question--answered with a word. For forcible illustration, apt

comparison, accuracy and clearness of statement, and absolute

thoroughness, it has never been excelled.

The fears of the administration were aroused, and Paine was prosecuted

for libel, and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the

entire work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized

man. It is a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an

honor not only to Thomas Paine, but to nature itself. It could have

been written only by the man who had the generosity, the exalted

patriotism, the goodness to say: "The world is my country, and to do

good my religion."

There is in all the utterances of the world no grander, no sublimer

sentiment. There is no creed that can be compared with it for a

moment. It should be wrought in gold, adorned with jewels, and

impressed upon every human heart: "The world is my country, and to do

good my religion."

In 1792, Paine was elected by the department of Calais as their

representative in the National Assembly. So great was his popularity

in France, that he was selected about the same time by the people of no

less than four departments.

Upon taking his place in the assembly, he was appointed as one of a

committee to draft a constitution for France. Had the French people

taken the advice of Thomas Paine, there would have been no "reign of

terror." The streets of Paris would not have been filled with blood in

that reign of terror. There were killed in the City of Paris not less,

I think, than seventeen thousand people--and on one night, in the

massacre of St. Bartholomew, there were killed, by assassination, over

sixty thousand souls--men, women, and children. The revolution would

have been the grandest success of the world. The truth is that Paine

was too conservative to suit the leaders of the French revolution.

They, to a great extent, were carried away by hatred and a desire to

destroy. They had suffered so long, they had borne so much, that it was

impossible for them to be moderate in the hour of victory.

Besides all this, the French people had been so robbed by the

government, so degraded by the church, that they were not fit material

with which to construct a republic. Many of the leaders longed to

establish a beneficent and just government, but the people asked for

revenge. Paine was filled with a real love for mankind. His

philanthropy was boundless. He wished to destroy monarchy--not the

monarch. He voted for the destruction of tyranny, and against the

death of the tyrant. He wished to establish a government on a new

basis--one that would forget the past; one that would give privileges

to none, and protection to all.

In the assembly, where all were demanding the execution of the

king,--where to differ with the majority was to be suspected, and where

to be suspected was almost certain death--Thomas Paine had the courage,

the goodness, and the justice to vote against death. To vote against

the execution of the king was a vote against his own life. This was

the sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested,

imprisoned, and doomed to death. There is not a theologian who has

ever maligned Thomas Paine that has the courage to do this thing. When

Louis Capet was on trial for his life before the French convention,

Thomas Paine had the courage to speak and vote against the sentence of

death. In his speech I find the following splendid sentiments:

"My contempt and hatred for monarchical governments are sufficiently

well known, and my compassion for the unfortunate, friends or enemies,

is equally profound.

I have voted to put Louis Capet upon trial, because it was necessary to

prove to the world the perfidy, the corruption, and the horror of the

monarchical system.

To follow the trade of a king destroys all morality, just as the trade

of a jailer deadens all sensibility.

Make a man a king today and tomorrow he will be a brigand.

Had Louis Capet been a farmer, he might have been held in esteem by his

neighbors, and his wickedness results from his position rather than

from his nature.

Let the French nation purge its territory of kings without soiling

itself with their impure blood.

Let the United States be the asylum of Louis Capet, where, in spite of

the overshadowing miseries and crimes of a royal life, he will learn by

the continual contemplation of the general prosperity that the true

system of government is not that of kings, but of the people.

I am an enemy of kings, but I can not forget that they belong to the

human race.

It is always delightful to pursue that course where policy and humanity

are united.

As France has been the first of all the nations of Europe to destroy

royalty, let it be the first to abolish the penalty of death.

As a true republican, I consider kings as more the objects of contempt

than of vengeance."

Search the records of the world and you will find but few sublimer acts

than that of Thomas Paine voting against the king's death. He, the

hater of despotism, the abhorer of monarchy, the champion of the rights

of man, the republican, accepting death to save the life of a deposed

tyrant--of a throneless king! This was the last grand act of his

political life--the sublime conclusion of his political career.

All his life he had been the disinterested friend of man. He had

labored not for money, not for fame, but for the general good. He had

aspired to no office. He had no recognition of his services, but had

ever been content to labor as a common soldier in the army of progress,

confining his efforts to no country, looking upon the world as his

field of action. Filled with a genuine love for the right, he found

himself imprisoned by the very people he had striven to save.

Had his enemies succeeded in bringing him to the block, he would have

escaped the calumnies and the hatred of the Christian world. And let me

tell you how neat they came getting him to the block. He was in prison,

there was a door to his cell--it had two doors, a door that opened in

and an iron door that opened out. It was a dark passage, and whenever

they concluded to cut a man's head off the next day, an agent went

along and made a chalk mark upon the door where the poor prisoner was

bound. Mr. Barlow, the American minister, happened to be with him and

the outer door was shut, that is, open against the wall, and the inner

door was shut, and when the man came along whose business it was to

mark the door for death, he marked this door where Thomas Paine was,

but he marked the door that was against the wall, so when it was shut

the mark was inside, and the messenger of death passed by on the next

day. If that had happened in favor of some Methodist preacher, they

would have clearly seen, not simply the hand of God, but both hands.

In this country, at least, he would have ranked with the proudest

names. On the anniversary of the Declaration, his name would have been

upon the lips of all orators, and his memory in the hearts of all the

people.

Thomas Paine had not finished his career. He had spent his life thus

far in destroying the power of kings, and now turned his attention to

the priests. He knew that every abuse had been embalmed in

scripture--that every outrage was in partnership with some holy text.

He knew that the throne skulked behind the altar, and both behind a

pretended revelation of God. By this time he had found that it was of

little use to free the body and leave the mind in chains. He had

explored the foundations of despotism, and had found them infinitely

rotten. He had dug under the throne, and it occurred to him that he

would take a look behind the altar. The result of this investigation

was given to the world in the "Age of Reason." From the moment of its

publication he became infamous. He was calumniated beyond measure.

To slander him was to secure the thanks of the church. All his

services were instantly forgotten, disparaged, or denied. He was

shunned as though he had been a pestilence. Most of his old friends

forsook him. He was regarded as a moral plague, and at the bare

mention of his name the bloody hands of the church were raised in

horror. He was denounced as the most despicable of men.

Not content with following him to his grave, they pursued him after

death with redoubled fury, and recounted with infinite gusto and

satisfaction the supposed horrors of his death-bed: gloried in the fact

that he was forlorn and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what

they supposed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely death.

It is wonderful that all his services are thus forgotten. It is

amazing that one kind word did not fall from some pulpit; that some one

did not accord to him, at least--honesty. Strange that in the general

denunciation some one did not remember his labor for liberty, his

devotion to principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men. He

had, by brave and splendid effort, associated his name with the cause

of progress. He had made it impossible to write the history of

political freedom with his name left out. He was one of the creators

of light, one of the heralds of the dawn. He hated tyranny in the name

of kings, and in the name of God, with every drop of his noble blood.

He believed in liberty and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human

equality. Under these divine banners he fought the battle of his life.

In both worlds he offered his blood for the good of man. In the

wilderness of America, in the French assembly, in the sombre cell

waiting for death, he was the same unflinching, unwavering friend of

his race; the same undaunted champion of universal freedom. And for

this he has been hated; for this the church has violated even his grave.

This is enough to make one believe that nothing is more natural than

for men to devour their benefactors. The people in all ages have

crucified and glorified. Whoever lifts his voice against abuses,

whoever arraigns the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the

king to show his commission, or question the authority of the priest,

will be denounced as the enemy of man and God. In all ages reason has

been regarded as the enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so

pleasing to the Deity as a total denial of the authority of your own

mind. Self-reliance has been thought deadly sin; and the idea of living

and dying without the aid and consolation of superstition has always

horrified the church. By some unaccountable infatuation, belief has

been and still is considered of immense importance. All religions have

been based upon the idea that God will forever reward the true

believer, and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. Belief is

regarded as the one essential thing. To practice justice, to love

mercy, is not enough; you must believe in some incomprehensible creed.

You must say: "Once one is three, and three times one is one." The man

who practiced every virtue, but failed to believe, was execrated.

Nothing so outrages the feelings of the church as a moral unbeliever,

nothing so horrible as a charitable atheist.

When Paine was born the world was religious, the pulpit was the real

throne, and the churches were making every effort to crush out of the

brain the idea that it had the right to think. He again made up his

mind to sacrifice himself. He commenced with the assertion "That any

system of religion that had anything in it that shocks the mind of a

child can not be a true system." What a beautiful, what a tender

sentiment! No wonder the church began to hate him. He believed in one

God, and no more. After his life he hoped for happiness. He believed

that true religion consisted in doing justice, loving mercy; in

endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy, and in offering to God

the fruit of the heart. He denied the inspiration of the scriptures.

This was his crime.

He contended that it is a contradiction in terms to call anything a

revelation that comes to us at secondhand, either verbally or in

writing. He asserted that revelation is necessarily limited to the

first communication, and that after that it is only an account of

something which another person says was a revelation to him. We have

only his word for it, as it was never made to us. This argument never

had been, and probably never will be answered. He denied the divine

origin of Christ and showed conclusively that the pretended prophecies

of the Old Testament lead no reference to Him whatever. And yet he

believed that Christ was a virtuous and amiable man; that the morality

he taught and practiced was of the most benevolent and elevated

character, and that it had not been exceeded by any. Upon this point

he entertained the same sentiments now held by the Unitarians, and in

fact by all the most enlightened Christians.

In his time the church believed and taught that every word in the Bible

was absolutely true. Since his day it has been proven false in its

cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology and geology,

false in its history, so far as the Old Testament is concerned, false

in almost everything. There are but few, if any, scientific men, who

apprehend that the Bible is literally true. Who on earth at this day

would pretend to settle any scientific question by a text from the

Bible? The old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. The

church itself will before long be driven to occupy the position of

Thomas Paine. The best minds of the orthodox world, today, are

endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal Deity. All other

questions occupy a minor place. You are no longer asked to swallow the

Bible whole, whale, Jonah and all; you are simply required to believe

in God and pay your pew-rent.

There is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will

seriously contend that Sampson's strength was in his hair, or that the

necromancers of Egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood

into serpents. These follies have passed away, and the only reason

that the religious world can now have for disliking Paine, is that they

have been forced to adopt so many of his opinions.

Paine thought the barbarities of the Old Testament inconsistent with

what he deemed the real character of God. He believed the murder,

massacre, and indiscriminate slaughter had never been commanded by the

Deity. He regarded much of the Bible as childish, unimportant and

foolish. The scientific world entertains the same opinion. Paine

attacked the Bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had

attacked the pretensions of the kings. He used the same weapons. All

the pomp in the world could not make him cower. His reason knew no

"Holy of Holies," except the abode of truth. The sciences were then in

their infancy. The attention of the really learned had not been

directed to an impartial examination of our pretended revelation. It

was accepted by most as a matter of course.

The church was all-powerful, and no one else, unless thoroughly imbued

with the spirit of self-sacrifice, thought for a moment of disputing

the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. The infamous doctrine that

salvation depends upon belief, upon a mere intellectual conviction, was

then believed and preached. To doubt was to secure the damnation of

your soul. This absurd and devilish doctrine shocked the common sense

of Thomas Paine, and he denounced it with the fervor of honest

indignation. This doctrine, although infinitely ridiculous, has been

nearly universal, and has been as hurtful as senseless. For the

overthrow of this infamous tenet, Paine exerted all his strength. He

left few arguments to be used by those who should come after him, and

he used none that have been refuted.

The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind can not possibly conceive

of an argument against liberty of thought. Neither can they show why

anyone should be punished, either in this world or another, for acting

honestly in accordance with reason; and yet a doctrine with every

possible argument against it has been, and still is, believed and

defended by the entire orthodox world. Can it be possible that we have

been endowed with reason simply that our souls may be caught in its

toils and snares, that we may be led by its false and delusive glare

out of the narrow path that leads to joy into the broad way of

everlasting death? Is it possible that we have been given reason

simply that we may through faith ignore its deductions and avoid its

conclusions? Ought the sailor to throw away his compass and depend

entirely upon the fog? If reason is not to be depended upon in matters

of religion, that is to say, in respect to our duties to the Deity, why

should it be relied upon in matters respecting the rights of our

fellows? Why should we throw away the law given to Moses by God

Himself, and have the audacity to make some of our own? How dare we

drown the thunders of Sinai by calling the ayes and naes in a petty

legislature? If reason can determine what is merciful, what is just,

the duties of man to man, what more do we want either in time or

eternity?

Down, forever down, with any religion that requires upon its ignorant

altar its sacrifice of the goddess Reason; that compels her to abdicate

forever the shining throne of the soul, strips from her form the

imperial purple, snatches from her hand the sceptre of thought and

makes her the bond-woman of senseless faith.

If a man should tell you he had the most beautiful painting in the

world, and after taking you where it was should insist upon having your

eyes shut, you would likely suspect either that he had no painting or

that it was some pitiful daub. Should he tell you that he was a most

excellent performer on the violin, and yet refused to play unless your

ears were stopped, you would think, to say the least of it, that he had

an odd way of convincing you of his musical ability. But would this

conduct be any more wonderful than that of a religionist who asks that

before examining his creed you will have the kindness to throw away

your reason? The first gentleman says: "Keep your eyes shut; my

picture will bear everything but being seen. Keep your ears stopped;

my music objects to nothing but being heard." The last says: "Away

with your reason; my religion dreads nothing but being understood."

So far as I am concerned, I most cheerfully admit that most Christians

are honest and most ministers sincere. We do not attack them; we

attack their creed. We accord to them the same rights that we ask for

ourselves. We believe that their doctrines are hurtful, and I am going

to do what I can against them. We believe that the frightful text, "He

that believes shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be

damned," has covered the earth with blood. You might as well say that

all that have red hair shall be damned. It has filled the heart with

arrogance, cruelty, and murder. It has caused the religious wars;

bound hundreds of thousands to the stake; founded inquisitions; filled

dungeons; invented instruments of torture; taught the mother to hate

her child; imprisoned the mind; filled the world with ignorance;

persecuted the lovers of wisdom; built the monasteries and convents;

made happiness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance a

blasphemy. It has poisoned the springs of learning; misdirected the

energies of the world; filled all countries with want; housed the

people in hovels; fed them with famine; and but for the efforts of a

few brave infidels, it would have taken the world back to the midnight

of barbarism, and left the heavens without a star.

The maligners of Paine say that he had no right to attack this

doctrine, because he was unacquainted with the dead languages, and, for

this reason, it was a piece of pure impudence to investigate the

scriptures.

Is it necessary to understand Hebrew in order to know that cruelty is

not a virtue, that murder is inconsistent with infinite goodness, and

that eternal punishment can be inflicted upon man only by an eternal

fiend? Is it really essential to conjugate the Greek verbs before you

can make up your mind as to the probability of dead people getting out

of their graves? Must one be versed in Latin before he is entitled to

express his opinion as to the genuiness of a pretended revelation from

God? Common sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. Logic is not

confirmed to, nor has it been buried with, the dead languages. Paine

attacked the Bible as it is translated. If the translation is wrong,

let its defenders correct it.

The Christianity of Paine's day is not the Christianity of our time.

There has been a great improvement since then. It is better now

because there is less of it. One hundred and fifty years ago the

foremost preachers of our time--that gentleman who preaches in this

magnificent hall--would have perished at the stake. Lord, Lord, how

John Calvin would have liked to have roasted this man, and the perfume

of his burning flesh would have filled heaven with joy. A Universalist

would have been torn to pieces in England, Scotland, and America.

Unitarians would have found themselves in the stocks, pelted by the

rabble with dead cats, after which their ears would have been cut off,

their tongues bored, and their foreheads branded. Less than one

hundred and fifty years ago the following law was in force in Maryland:

"Be it enacted by the right honorable, the lord proprietor, by and with

the advice and consent of his lordship's governor, and the upper and

lower houses of the assembly, and the authority of the same: That if

any person shall hereafter, within this province, willingly,

maliciously, and advisedly, by writing or speaking, blaspheme or curse

God, or deny our Savior, Jesus Christ, to be the son of God, or shall

deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, or the

God-head of any of the three persons, or the unity of the God-head, or

shall utter any profane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or the

persons thereof and shall therefore be convicted by verdict, shall, for

the first offense, be bored through the tongue, and fined L20, to be

levied on his body. As for the second offense, the offender shall be

stigmatized by burning in the forehead the letter B, and fined L40.

And that for the third offense, the offender shall suffer death without

the benefit of clergy."

The strange thing about this law is, that it has never been repealed,

and was in force in the District of Columbia up to 1875. Laws like

this were in force in most of the colonies and in all countries where

the church had power.

In the Old Testament the death penalty was attached hundreds of

offenses. It has been the same in all Christian countries. Today, in

civilized governments, the death penalty is attached only to murder and

treason; and in some it has been entirely abolished. What a commentary

upon the divine systems of the World!

In the days of Thomas Paine the church was ignorant, bloody, and

relentless. In Scotland the "kirk" was at the summit of its power. It

was a full sister of the Spanish Inquisition. It waged war upon human

nature. It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the

despiser of liberty. It taught parents to murder their children rather

than to allow them to propagate error. If the mother held opinions of

which the infamous "kirk" disapproved, her children were taken from her

arms, her babe from her very bosom, and she was not allowed to see

them, or write them a word. It would not allow ship-wrecked sailors to

be rescued from drowning on Sunday.

Oh, you have no idea what a muss it kicks up in heaven to have anybody

swim on Sunday. It fills all the wheeling worlds with sadness to see a

boy in a boat, and the attention of the recording secretary is called

to it. In a voice of thunder they say, "Upset him!" It sought to

annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling it with religious

cruelty and gloom, and to change mankind into a vast horde of pious,

heartless fiends. One of the most famous Scotch divines said: "The

kirk holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy." And

this same Scotch kirk denounced, beyond measure, the man who had the

moral grandeur to say, "The world is my country, and to do good my

religion." And this same kirk abhorred the man who said, "Any system

of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a true system."

At that time nothing so delighted the church as the beauties of endless

torment, and listening to the weak wailing of damned infants struggling

in the slimy coils and poison folds of the worm that never dies.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century a boy by the name of

Thomas Aikenhead was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for having denied

the inspiration of the scriptures, and for having, on several

occasions, when cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm.

Notwithstanding the poor boy recanted and begged for mercy, he was

found guilty and hanged. His body was thrown in a hole at the foot of

the scaffold and covered with stones, and though his mother came with

her face covered with tears, begging for the corpse, she was denied and

driven away in the name of charity. That is religion, and in the

velvet of their politeness there lurks the claws of the tiger. Just

give them the power and see how quick I would leave this part of the

country. They know I am going to be burned forever; they know I am

going to hell, but that don't satisfy them. They want to give me a

little foretaste here.

Prosecutions and executions like these were common in every Christian

country, and all of them based upon the belief that an intellectual

conviction is a crime. No wonder the church hated and traduced the

author of the "Age of Reason." England was filled with Puritan gloom

and Episcopal ceremony. The ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant

poets were taken as sober facts. Milton had clothed Christianity in the

soiled and faded finery of the gods--had added to the story of Christ

the fables of mythology. He gave to the Protestant church the most

outrageously material ideas of the Deity. He turned all the angels

into soldiers--made heaven a battle-field, put Christ in uniform, and

described God as a militia-general. His works were considered by the

Protestants nearly as sacred as the Bible itself, and the imagination

of the people was thoroughly polluted by the horrible imagery, the

sublime absurdity of the blind Milton.

Heaven and hell were realities--the judgment-day was expected--books of

accounts would be opened. Every man would hear the charges against him

read. God was supposed to sit upon a golden throne, surrounded by the

tallest angels, with harps in their hands and crowns on their heads.

The goats would be thrust into eternal fire on the left, while the

orthodox sheep, on the right, were to gambol on sunny slopes forever

and ever. So all the priests were willing to save the sheep for half

the wool.

The nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequently extremely

religious, so far as belief was concerned. In Europe liberty was lying

chained up in the inquisition, her white bosom stained with blood. In

the new world the Puritans had been hanging and burning in the name of

God, and selling white Quaker children into slavery in the name of

Christ, who said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me."

Under such conditions progress was impossible. Some one had to lead

the way. The church is and always has been, incapable of a forward

movement. Religion always looks back. The church has already reduced

Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand-organ, and Ireland to exile.

Some one, not connected with the church, had to attack the monster that

was eating out the heart of the world. Some one had to sacrifice

himself for the good of all. The people were in the most abject

slavery; their manhood had been taken from them by pomp, by pageantry,

and power.

Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The church never doubts--never

inquires. To doubt is heresy--to inquire is to admit that you do not

know--the church does neither.

More than a century ago Catholicism, wrapped in robes red with the

innocent blood of millions, holding in her frantic clutch crowns and

scepters, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, tramping

beneath her feet the liberties of nations, in the proud movement of

almost universal dominion, felt within her heartless breast the deadly

dagger of Voltaire. From that blow the church can never recover.

Livid with hatred she launched her eternal anathema at the great

destroyer, and ignorant Protestants have echoed the curse of Rome.

In our country the church was all-powerful, and, although divided into

many sects, would instantly unite to repel a common foe. Paine did for

Protestantism what Voltaire did for Catholicism. Paine struck the

first blow.

The "Age of Reason" did more to undermine the power of the Protestant

church than all other books then known. It furnished an immense amount

of food for thought. It was written for the average mind, and is a

straightforward, honest investigation of the Bible, and of the

Christian System.

Paine did not falter from the first page to the last. He gives you his

candid thought, and candid thoughts are always valuable.

The "Age of Reason" has liberalized us all. It put arguments in the

mouths of the people; it put the church on the defensive, it enabled

somebody in every village to corner the parson; it made the world wiser

and the church better; it took power from the pulpit and divided it

among the pews. Just in proportion that the human race has advanced,

the church has lost its power. There is no exception to this rule. No

nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of

its founders. No nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the

church without losing its power, its honor, and existence.

Every church pretends to have found the exact truth. This is the end

of progress. Why pursue that which you have? Why investigate when you

know. Every creed is a rock in running water; humanity sweeps by it.

Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant

past bullying the enlightened present.

The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. Science

is too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. They demand

completeness. A sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to

them. They demand the complete circle--the entire structure.

In music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured

periods. In religion they insist upon immediate answers to the

questions of creation and destiny. The alpha and omega of all things

must be in the alphabet of their superstition. A religion that can not

answer every question, and guess every conundrum, is in their

estimation, worse than worthless. They desire a kind of theological

dictionary--a religious ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at

all crossings and turns. They mistake impudence for authority,

solemnity for wisdom, and pathos for inspiration. The beginning and the

end are what they demand. The grand flight of the eagle is nothing to

them. They want the nest in which he was hatched, and especially the

dry limb upon which he roosts. Anything that can be learned is hardly

worth knowing. The present is considered of no value in itself.

Happiness must not be expected this side of the clouds, and can only be

attained by self-denial and faith; not self-denial for the good of

others, but for the salvation of your own sweet self.

Paine denied the authority of Bibles and creeds; this was his crime,

and for this the world shut the door in his face and emptied its slops

upon him from the windows.

I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever wrote one line,

one word in favor of tyranny--in favor of immorality; one line, one

word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interest

of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity, or liberty,

and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell.

His memory had been execrated as though he had murdered some Uriah for

his wife; driven some Hagar into the desert to starve with his child

upon her bosom; defiled his own daughters; ripped open with the sword

the sweet bodies of loving and innocent women; advised one brother to

assassinate another; kept a harem with seven hundred wives and three

hundred concubines, or had persecuted Christians even unto strange

cities.

The church has pursued Paine to deter others. The church used

painting, music, and architecture simply to degrade mankind. But there

are men that nothing can awe. There have been at all times brave

spirits that dared even the gods. Some proud head has always been

above the waves. Old Diogenes, with his mantle upon him, stiff and

trembling with age, caught a small animal bred upon people, went into

the Pantheon, the temple of the gods, and took the animal upon his

thumb nail, and, pressing it with the other, "he sacrificed Diogenes to

all the gods." Just as good as anything! In every age some Diogenes

has sacrificed to all the gods. True genius never cowers, and there is

always some Samson feeling for the pillars of authority.

Cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants, temples frescoed and

grained and carved, and gilded with gold, altars and tapers, and

paintings of virgin and babe, censer and chalice, chasuble, paten and

alb, organs, and anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest,

maniple, anice and stole, crosses and crosiers, tiaras, and crowns,

mitres and missals and masses, rosaries, relics and robes, martyrs and

saints, and windows stained as with the blood of Christ, never, never

for one moment awed the brave, proud spirit of the infidel. He knew

that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with liberty, that

priceless jewel of the soul. In looking at the cathedral he remembered

the dungeon. The music of the organ was not loud enough to drown the

clank of fetters. He could not forget that the taper had lighted the

fagot. He knew that the cross adorned the hilt of the sword, and so

where others worshiped, he wept and scorned. He knew that across the

open Bible lay the sword of war, and so where others worshiped he

looked with scorn and wept. And so it has been through all the ages

gone.

The doubter, the investigator, the infidel, have been the saviors of

liberty. The truth is beginning to be realized, and the truly

intellectual are honoring the brave thinker of the past. But the

church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any infidel

should be wicked enough to attempt to destroy her power. I will tell

the church why I hate it.

You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty;

you have burned us at the stake, roasted us before slow fires, torn our

flesh with irons; you have covered us with chains, treated us as

outcasts; you have filled the world With fear; you have taken our wives

and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have

denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; you have branded

us with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us

burial. In the name of your religion you have robbed us of every

right; and after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be

inflicted in this world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with

clasped hands implored your God to finish the holy work in hell.

Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines; that we despise your

creeds; that we feel proud to know that we are beyond your power; that

we are free in spite of you; that we can express our honest thought,

and that the whole world is gradually rising into the blessed light?

Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that infidelity has

ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of

conscience, and for the happiness of all? Can you wonder that we are

proud to know that we have always been disciples of reason and soldiers

of freedom; that we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and have

kept our hands unstained with human blood?

I deny that religion is the end or object of this life. When it is so

considered it becomes destructive of happiness. The real end of life

is, happiness. It becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible

coils from the heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the

bleeding, quivering hearts of men. It devours their substance, builds

palaces for God (who dwells not in temples made with hands), and allows

His children to die in huts and hovels. It fills the earth with

mourning, heaven with hatred, the present with fear, and all the future

with fear and despair. Virtue is a subordination of the passion of the

intellect. It is to act in accordance with your highest convictions.

It does not consist in believing, but in doing. This is the sublime

truth that the infidels in all ages have uttered. They have handed the

torch from one to the other through all the years that have fled. Upon

the altar of reason they have kept the sacred fire, and through the

long midnight of faith they fed the divine flame. Infidelity is

liberty; all superstition is slavery. In every creed man is the slave

of God, woman is the slave of man, and the sweet children are the

slaves of all. We do not want creeds; we want some knowledge. We want

happiness. And yet we are told by the church that we have accomplished

nothing; that we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without

building again.

Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is

it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science?

Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect. Is it nothing to

grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons,

the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are

chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the

song of a bird, the murmur of a stream, to see the dull eyes open and

grow slowly bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused

hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice? Is it

nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of

day--to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth,

and hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men

wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched

and furrowed cheeks? Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an

insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with

stars, the grand word liberty? Is it a small thing to quench the

thirst of hell with the holy tears of piety, break all the chains, put

out the fires of civil war, stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the

bloody hands of the church from the white throat of progress? Is it a

small thing to make men truly free, to destroy the dogmas of ignorance,

prejudice, and power, the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive

from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear?

It does seem as though the most zealous Christians must at times

entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For

eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. For more than a

thousand years the church had, to a great extent, the control of the

civilized world, and what has been the result? Are the Christian

nations patterns of charity and forbearance? On the contrary, their

principal business is to destroy each other. More than five millions

of Christians are trained and educated and drilled to murder their

fellow-Christians. Every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred

in carrying on war against other Christians, or defending itself from

Christian assault. The world is covered with forts to protect

Christians from Christians, and every sea is covered with iron monsters

ready to blow Christian brains into eternal froth. Millions upon

millions are annually expended in the effort to construct still more

deadly and terrible engines of death. Industry is crippled, honest

toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of

Christian murder. There must be some other way to reform this world.

We have tried creed and dogma, and fable, and they have failed--and

they have failed in all the nations dead.

Nothing but education--scientific education--can benefit mankind. We

must find out the laws of nature and conform to them. We need free

bodies and free minds, free labor and free thought, chainless hands and

fetterless brains. Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will

give us truth. We need men with moral courage to speak and write their

real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very

death. We need have no fear of being too radical. The future will

verify all grand and brave predictions. Paine was splendidly in

advance of his time, but he was orthodox compared to the infidels of

today.

Science, the great iconoclast, has been very busy since 1809, and by

the highway of progress are the broken images of the past. On every

hand the people advance. The vicar of God has been pushed from the

throne of the Caesars, and upon the roofs of the Eternal city falls

once more the shadow of the eagle. All has been accomplished by the

heroic few. The men of science have explored heaven and earth, and

with infinite patience have furnished the facts. The brave thinkers

have aided them. The gloomy caverns of superstition have been

transformed into temples of thought, and the demons of the past are the

angels of today.

Science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it

explored the starry depths of heaven. Science wrested from the gods

their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark freighted with thought

and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea. Science took a tear

from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created a

giant that turns with tireless arm the countless wheels of toil.

Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual heroes, one of the men to whom

we are indebted. His name is associated forever with the great

republic. He lived a long, laborious, and useful life. The world is

better for his having lived. For the sake of truth he accepted hatred

and reproach for his portion. He ate the bitter bread of neglect and

sorrow. His friends were untrue to him because he was true to himself

and true to them. He lost the respect of what is called society, but

kept his own. His life is what the world calls failure, and what

history calls success.

If to love your fellow-men more than self is goodness, Thomas Paine was

good. If to be in advance of your time, to be a pioneer in the

direction of right, is greatness, Thomas Paine was great. If to avow

your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of death is

heroic, Thomas Paine was a hero.

At the age of 73, death touched his tired heart. He died in the land

his genius defended, under the flag he gave to the skies. Slander can

not touch him now; hatred can not reach him more. He sleeps in the

sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars. A few more

years, a few more brave men, a few more rays of light, and mankind will

venerate the memory of him who said:

"Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a

true system. The world is my country, and to do good my religion."

The next question is: Did Thomas Paine recant? Mr. Paine had

prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe around him during his

last moments. He believed that they would put a lie in the mouth of

death. When the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two

clergymen, Messrs. Milledollar and Cunningham, called to annoy the

dying man. Mr. Cunningham had the politeness to say: "You have now a

full view of death; you can not live long; whoever does not believe in

the Lord Jesus Christ, will assuredly be damned." Mr. Paine replied:

"Let me have none of your popish stuff. Get away with you. Good

morning." On another occasion a Methodist minister obtruded himself.

Mr. Willet Hicks was present. The minister declared to Mr. Paine that

"unless he repented of his unbelief he would be damned." Paine,

although at the door of death, rose in his bed and indignantly

requested the clergyman to leave the room. On another occasion, two

brothers by the name of Pigott sought to convert him. He was

displeased, and requested their departure. Afterward, Thomas Nixon and

Capt. Daniel Pelton visited him for the express purpose of ascertaining

whether he had, in any manner, changed his religious opinions. They

were assured, by the dying man that he still held the principles he had

expressed in his writings.

Afterward, these gentlemen, hearing that William Cobbet was about to

write a life of Paine, sent him the following note: I must tell you

now that it is of great importance to find out whether Paine recanted.

If he recanted, then the Bible is true--you can rest assured that a

spring of water gushed out of a dead dry bone. If Paine recanted,

there is not the slightest doubt about that donkey making that speech

to Mr. Baalam--not the slightest--and if Paine did not recant, then the

whole thing is a mistake. I want to show that Thomas Paine died as he

has lived, a friend of man and without superstition, and if you will

stay here I will do it.

"New York, April 21, 1818.--Sir: Having been informed that you have a

design to write a history of the life and writings of Thomas Paine, if

you have been furnished with materials in respect to his religious

opinions, or rather of his recantation of his former opinions before

his death, all you have heard of his recanting is false. Being aware

that such reports would be raised after his death by fanatics who

infested his house at the time it was expected he would die, we, the

subscribers, intimate acquaintances of Thomas Paine since the year

1776, went to his house. He was sitting up in a chair, and apparently

in full vigor and use of all his mental faculties. We interrogated him

upon his religious opinions, and if he had changed his mind, or

repented of anything he had said or wrote on that subject. He

answered, "Not at all," and appeared rather offended at our supposition

that any change should take place in his mind. We took down in writing

the questions put to him and his answers thereto, before a number of

persons then in his room, among whom were his doctor, Mrs. Bonneville,

etc. This paper is mislaid and can not be found at present, but the

above is the substance, which can be attested by many living

witnesses.--Thomas Nixon, Daniel Pelton"

Mr. Jarvis, the artist, saw Mr. Paine one or two days before his death.

To Mr. Jarvis he expressed his belief in his written opinions upon the

subject of religion. B.F. Haskin, an attorney of the City of New York,

also visited him, and inquired as to his religious opinions. Paine was

then upon the threshold of death, but he did not tremble, he was not a

coward. He expressed his firm and unshaken belief in the religious

ideas he had given to the world.

Dr. Manly was with him when he spoke his last words. Dr. Manly asked

the dying man, and Dr. Manly was a Christian, if he did not wish to

believe that Jesus was the Son of God, and the dying philosopher

answered: "I have no wish to believe on that subject." Amasa

Woodsworth sat up with Thomas Paine the night before his death. In

1839 Gilbert Vale, hearing that Woodsworth was living in or near

Boston, visited him for the purpose of getting his statement, and the

statement was published in The Beacon of June 5, 1830, and here it is:

"We have just returned from Boston. One object of our visit to that

city was to see Mr. Amasa Woodsworth, an engineer, now retired in a

handsome cottage and garden at East Cambridge, Boston. This gentleman

owned the house occupied by Paine at his death, while he lived next

door. As an act of kindness, Mr. Woodsworth visited Mr. Paine every

day for six weeks before his death. He frequently sat up with him and

did so on the last two nights of his life. He was always there with

Dr. Manly, the physician, and assisted in removing Mr. Paine while his

bed was prepared. He was present when Dr. Manly asked Mr. Paine if he

wished to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He said that

lying on his back he used some action and with much emphasis replied:

'I have no wish to believe on that subject.' He lived some time after

this, but was not known to speak, for he died tranquilly. He accounts

for the insinuating style of Dr. Manly's letter by stating that that

gentleman, just after its publication, joined a church. He informs us

that he has openly proved the doctor for the falsity contained in the

spirit of that letter, boldly declaring before Dr. Manly, who is still

living, that nothing which he saw justified the insinuations. Mr.

Woodsworth assures us that he neither heard nor saw anything to justify

the belief of any mental change in the opinions of Mr. Paine previous

to his death; but that being very ill and in pain, chiefly arising from

the skin being removed in some parts by long lying, he was generally

too uneasy to enjoy conversation on abstract subjects. This, then, is

the best evidence that can be procured on this subject, and we publish

it while the contravening parties are yet alive, and with the authority

of Mr. Woodsworth.--Gilbert Vale"

A few weeks ago I received the following letter, which confirms the

statement of Mr. Vale:

"Near Stockton, Cal., Greenwood Cottage, July 9. 1877.--Col. Ingersoll:

In 1812 I talked with a gentleman in Boston. I have forgotten his

name; but he was then an engineer of the Charleston navy yard. I am

thus particular so that you can find his name on the books. He told me

that he nursed Thomas Paine in his last illness and closed his eyes

when dead. I asked him if he recanted and called upon God to save him.

He replied: No; he died as he had taught. He had a sore upon his

side, and when we turned him it was very painful, and he would cry out,

'O God!' or something like that. 'But,' said the narrator, 'that was

nothing, for he believed in a God.' I told him that I had often heard

it asserted from the pulpit that Mr. Paine had recanted in his last

moment. The gentleman said that it was not true, and he appeared to be

an intelligent, truthful man. With respect, I remain, etc., Philip

Graves, M.D."

The next witness is Willet Hicks, a Quaker preacher. He says that

during the last illness of Mr. Paine he visited him almost daily, and

that Paine died firmly convinced of the truth of the religious opinions

that he had given to his fellow-men. It was to this same Willet Hicks

that Paine applied for permission to be buried in the cemetery of the

Quakers. Permission was refused. This refusal settles the question of

recantation. If he had recanted, of course there would have been no

objection to his body being buried by the side of the best hypocrites

in the earth. If Paine recanted, why should he denied "a little earth

for charity?" Had he recanted, it would have been regarded as a vast

and splendid triumph for the gospel. It would, with much noise and

pomp and ostentation, have been heralded about the world.

Here is another letter:

"Peoria, Ill., Oct. 8, 1877.--Robert G. Ingersoll--Esteemed Friend: My

parents were Friends (Quakers). My father died when I was very young.

The elderly and middle-aged Friends visited at my mother's house. We

lived in the City of New York. Among the number I distinctly remember

Elias Hicks, Willet Hicks, and a Mr. -- Day, who was a bookseller in

Pearl St. There were many others whose names I do not now remember.

The subject of the recantation of Thomas Paine of his views about the

Bible in his last illness, or any other time, was discussed by them in

my presence at different times. I learned from them that some of them

had attended upon Thomas Paine in his last sickness, and ministered to

his wants up to the time of his death. And upon the question of

whether he did recant there was but one expression. They all said that

he did not recant in any manner. I often heard them say they wished he

had recanted. In fact, according to them, the nearer he approached

death the more positive he appeared to be in his convictions. These

conversations were from 1820 to 1822. I was at that time from ten to

twelve years old, but these conversations impressed themselves upon me

because many thoughtless people then blamed the society of Friends for

their kindness to that "arch-infidel," Thomas Paine. Truly yours, A.C.

Hankenson"

A few days ago I received the following:

"Albany, N.Y., Sept. 27, 1877.--Dear Sir: It is over twenty years ago

that, professionally, I made the acquaintance of John Hogeboom, a

justice of the peace of the County Rensselaer, New York. He was then

over seventy years of age, and had the reputation of being a man of

candor and integrity. He was a great admirer of Paine. He told me he

was personally acquainted with him, and used to see him frequently

during the last years of his life in the City of New York, where

Hogeboom then resided. I asked him if there was any truth in the

charge that Paine was in the habit of getting drunk. He said that

it was utterly false; that he never heard of such a thing during the

lifetime of Mr. Paine, and did not believe anyone else did. I asked

him about the recantation of his religious opinions on his deathbed,

and the revolting deathbed scenes that the world heard so much about.

He said there was no truth in them; that he had received his

information from persons who attended Paine in his last illness, and

that he passed peacefully, as we may say, in the sunshine of a great

soul. Yours truly, W.J. Hilton"

The witnesses by whom I substantiate the fact that Thomas Paine did not

recant, and that he died holding the religious opinions he had

published are:

1. Thomas Nixon, Capt. Daniel Pelton, B.F. Haskin. These gentlemen

visited him during his last illness for the purpose of ascertaining

whether he had, in any respect, changed his views upon religion. He

told them that he had not.

2. James Cheetham. This man was the most malicious enemy Mr. Paine

had, and yet he admits that "Thomas Paine died placidly, and almost

without a struggle."--Life of Thomas Paine, by James Cheetham.

3. The ministers, Milledollar and Cunningham. These gentleman told

Mr. Paine that if he died without believing in the Lord Jesus Christ,

he would be damned, and Paine replied: "Let me have none of your

popish stuff. Good morning."--Sherwin's Life of Paine, page 220.

4. Mrs. Hedden. She told these same preachers, when they attempted to

obtrude themselves upon Mr. Paine again, that the attempt to convert

Mr. Paine was useless; "that if God did not change his mind, no human

power could."

5. Andrew A. Dean. This man lived upon Paine's farm, at New Rochelle,

and corresponded with him upon religious subjects.--Paine's Theological

Works, page 308.

6. Mr. Jarvis, the artist with whom Paine lived. He gives an account

of an old lady coming to Paine, and telling him that God Almighty had

sent her to tell him that unless he repented and believed in the

blessed savior he would be damned. Paine replied that God would not

send such a foolish old woman with such an impertinent message.--Clio

Rickman's Life of Paine.

7. William Carver, with whom Paine boarded. Mr. Carver said again and

again that Paine did not recant. He knew him well, and had every

opportunity of knowing.--Life of Paine, by Vale.

8. Dr. Manly, who attended him in his last sickness, and to whom Paine

spoke his last words. Dr. Manly asked him if he did not wish to

believe in Jesus Christ. and he replied: "I have no wish to believe on

that subject."

9. Willet Hicks and Elias Hicks, who were with him frequently during

his last sickness, and both of whom tried to persuade him to recant.

According to their testimony Mr. Paine died as he lived--a believer in

God and a friend to man. Willet Hicks was offered money to say

something false against Paine. He was even offered money to remain

silent, and allow others to slander the dead. Mr. Hicks, speaking of

Thomas Paine, said: "He was a good man. Thomas Paine was an honest

man."

10. Amasa Woodsworth, who was with him every day for some six weeks

immediately preceding his death, and sat up with him the last two

nights of his life. This man declares that Paine did not recant, and

that he died tranquilly. The evidence of Mr. Woodsworth is conclusive.

11. Thomas Paine himself. The will of Mr. Paine, written by himself,

commences as follows: "The last will and testament of me, the

subscriber, Thomas Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator, God, and

in no other being, for I know of no other, nor believe in any other,"

and closes with these words: "I have lived an honest and useful life

to mankind. My time has been spent in doing good, and I die in perfect

composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God."

12. If Thomas Paine recanted, why do you pursue him? If he recanted

he died in your belief. For what reason, then, do you denounce his

death as cowardly? If upon his death-bed he renounced the opinions he

had published, the business of defaming him should be done by infidels,

not by Christians. I ask Christians if it is honest to throw away the

testimony of his friends, the evidence of fair and honorable men, and

take the putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies? When Thomas

Paine was dying he was infested by fanatics, by the snaky spies of

bigotry. In the shadows of death were the unclean birds of prey

waiting to tear, with beak and claw, the corpse of him who wrote the

"Rights of Man," and there lurking and crouching in the darkness, were

the jackals and hyenas of superstition, ready to violate his grave.

These birds of prey--these unclean beasts--are the witnesses produced

and relied upon to malign the memory of Thomas Paine. One by one the

instruments of torture have been wrenched from the cruel clutch of the

church, until within the armory of orthodoxy there remains but one

weapon--Slander.

Against the witnesses that I have produced there can be brought just

two--Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. The first is referred to in the

memoir of Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant in his house.

Grellet tells what happened between this girl and Paine. According to

this account, Paine asked her if she had ever read any of his writings,

and on being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired

what she thought of them, adding that from such an one as she he

expected a correct answer.

Let us examine this falsehood. Why would Paine expect a correct answer

about his writings from one who read very little of them? Does not such

a statement devour itself? This young lady further said that the "Age

of Reason" was put in her hands, and that the more she read in it, the

more dark and distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into the

fire. Whereupon Mr. Paine remarked: "I wish all had done as you did,

for if the devil ever had any agency in any work, he had in my writing

that book."

The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a servant in the family of Willet

Hicks. The church is always proving something by a nurse. She, like

Mary Roscoe, was sent to carry some delicacy to Mr. Paine. To this

young lady Paine, according to his account, said precisely the same

that he did to Mary Roscoe, and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.

My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale are one and the

same person, or the same story has been, by mistake, put in the mouths

of both. It is not possible that the identical conversation should

have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe and between him and Mary

Hinsdale. Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet Hicks, and he pronounced her

story a pious fraud and fabrication.

Another thing about this witness. A woman by the name of Mary

Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker, died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother about

that time and told him that his sister had recanted, and wanted her to

say so at her funeral. This turned out to be a lie.

It has been claimed that Mary Hinsdale made her statement to Charles

Collins. Long after the alleged occurrence Gilbert Vale, one of the

biographers of Paine, had a conversation with Collins concerning Mary

Hinsdale. Vale asked him what he thought of her. He replied that some

of the Friends believed that she used opiates, and that they did not

give credit to her statements. He also said that he believed what the

Friends said, but thought that when a young Roman she might have told

the truth.

In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York. He began collecting material

for a life of Thomas Paine. In this way he became acquainted with Mary

Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett gave a full account of what

happened in a letter addressed to The Norwich Mercury in 1819. From

this account it seems that Charles Collins told Cobbett that Paine had

recanted. Cobbett called for the testimony, and told Mr. Collins that

he must give time, place, and circumstances. He finally brought a

statement that he stated had been made by Mary Hinsdale. Armed with

this document, Cobbett, in October of that year, called upon the said

Mary Hinsdale, at No. 10 Anthony Street, New York, and showed her the

statement. Upon being questioned by Mr. Cobbett she said that it was

so long ago that she could not speak positively to any part of the

matter; that she would not say that any part of the paper was true;

that she had never seen the paper, and that she had never given Charles

Collins authority to say anything about the matter in her name. And so

in the month of October, in the year of grace 1818, in the mist of fog

and forgetfulness, disappeared forever one Mary Hinsdale, the last and

only witness against the intellectual honesty of Thomas Paine.

A letter was written to the editor of The New York World by the Rev.

A.W. Cornell, in which he says:

"Sir: I see by your paper that Bob Ingersoll discredits Mary Hinsdale's

story of the scenes which occurred at the death bed of Thomas Paine.

No one who knew that good old lady would for one moment doubt her

veracity, or question her testimony. Both she and her husband were

Quaker preachers, and well known and respected inhabitants of New York

City.

"Ingersoll is right in his conjecture that Mary Roscoe and Mary

Hinsdale were the same person. Her maiden name was Roscoe and she

married Henry Hinsdale. My mother was a Roscoe, a niece of Mary

Roscoe, and lived with her for some time.--Rev. A.W. Cornell,

Harpersville, N.Y."

The editor of the New York Observer took up the challenge that I had

thrown down. I offered $1000 in gold to any minister who would prove,

or to any person who would prove that Thomas Paine recanted in his last

hours. The New York Observer accepted the wager, and then told a

falsehood about it. But I kept after the gentlemen until I forced

them, in their paper, published on the 1st of November, 1877; to print

these words:

"We have never stated in any form, nor have we ever supposed, that

Paine actually renounced his infidelity. The accounts agree in stating

that he died a blaspheming infidel."

This, I hope, for all coming time will refute the slanders of the

churches yet to be.

The next charge they make is that Thomas Paine died in destitution and

want. That, of course, would show that he was wrong. They boast that

the founder of their religion had not whereon to lay his head, but when

they found a man who stood for the rights of man, when they say that he

did, that is an evidence that this doctrine was a lie. Won't do! Did

Thomas Paine die in destitution and want? The charge has been made

over and over again that Thomas Paine died in want and destitution;

that he was an abandoned pauper--an outcast, without friends and

without money. This charge is just as false as the rest. Upon his

return to this country, in 1802, he was worth $30,000, according to his

own statement, made at that time in the following letter, and addressed

to Clio Rickman:

"My dear friend, Mr. Monroe, who is appointed minister extraordinary to

France, takes charge of this, to be delivered to Mr. Este, banker, in

Paris, to be forwarded to you.

"I arrived in Baltimore, 30th of October, and you can have no idea of

the agitation which my arrival occasioned. From New Hampshire to

Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles), every newspaper was filled with

applause or abuse.

"My property in this country has been taken care of by my friends, and

is now worth six thousand pounds sterling, which, put in the funds,

will bring about L400 sterling a year.

"Remember me in affection and friendship to your wife and family, and

in the circle of your friends.--Thomas Paine"

A man in those days worth $30,000 was not a pauper. That amount would

bring an income of at least $2,000. Two thousand dollars then would be

fully equal to $5,000 now. On the 12th of July, 1809, the year in

which he died, Mr. Paine made his will. From this instrument we learn

that he was the owner of a valuable farm within twenty miles of New

York. He was also owner of thirty shares in the New York Phoenix

Insurance Company, worth upward of $1,500. Besides this, some personal

property and ready money. By his will he gave to Walter Morton and

Thomas Addis Emmet, a brother of Robert Emmet, $200 each, and $100 to

the widow of Elihu Palmer. Is it possible that this will was made by a

pauper, by a destitute outcast, by a man who suffered for the ordinary

necessities of life?

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that he was poor, and that he

died a beggar, does that tend to show that the Bible is an inspired

book, and that Calvin did not burn Servetus? Do you really regard

poverty as a crime? If Paine had died a millionaire, would Christians

have accepted his religious opinions? If Paine had drank nothing but

cold water, would Christians have repudiated the five cardinal points

of Calvinism? Does an argument depend for its force upon the pecuniary

condition of the person making it? As a matter of fact, most

reformers--most men and women of genius--have been acquainted with

poverty. Beneath a covering of rags have been found some of the

tenderest and bravest hearts. Owing to the attitude of the churches

for the last fifteen hundred years, truth telling has not been a very

lucrative business. As a rule, hypocrisy has worn the robes, and

honesty the rags. That day is passing away. You can not now answer a

man by pointing at the holes in his coat. Thomas Paine attacked the

church when it was powerful; when it had what is called honors to

bestow; when it was the keeper of the public conscience; when it was

strong and cruel. The church waited till he was dead, and then attacked

his reputation and his clothes. Once upon a time a donkey kicked a

lion. The lion was dead. You just don't know how happy I am tonight

that justice so long delayed at last is going to be done, and to see so

many splendid looking people come here out of deference to the memory

of Thomas Paine. I am glad to be here.

The next thing is: Did Thomas Paine live the life of a drunken beast,

and did he die a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death? Well, we will

see. Upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous

charges. The Christians have, I suppose, produced the best evidence in

their possession, and that evidence I will now proceed to examine.

Their first witness is Grant Thorburn. He made three charges against

Thomas Paine:

1. That his wife obtained a divorce from him in England for cruelty

and neglect.