_"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and
authority of reason, is like administering
medicine to the dead."--Thomas Paine._
Peoria, October 8, 1877.
To the Editor of the N Y. Observer:
Sir: Last June in San Francisco, I offered a
thousand dollars in gold--not as a wager, but as a
gift--to any one who would substantiate the absurd
story that Thomas Paine died in agony and fear,
frightened by the clanking chains of devils. I also
offered the same amount to any minister who would
prove that Voltaire did not pass away as serenely as
the coming of the dawn. Afterward I was informed
that you had accepted the offer, and had called upon
me to deposit the money. Acting upon this inform-
ation, I sent you the following letter:
Peoria, Ill., August 31st, 1877.
To the Editor of the New York Observer:
I have been informed that you accepted, in your
paper, an offer made by me to any clergyman in
San Francisco. That offer was, that I would pay
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one thousand dollars in gold to any minister in that
city who would prove that Thomas Paine died in
terror because of religious opinions he had ex-
pressed, or that Voltaire did not pass away serenely
as the coming of the dawn.
For many years religious journals and ministers
have been circulating certain pretended accounts of
the frightful agonies endured by Paine and Voltaire
when dying; that these great men at the moment of
death were terrified because they had given their
honest opinions upon the subject of religion to their
fellow-men. The imagination of the religious world
has been taxed to the utmost in inventing absurd
and infamous accounts of the last moments of these
intellectual giants. Every Sunday school paper,
thousands of idiotic tracts, and countless stupidities
called sermons, have been filled with these calumnies.
Paine and Voltaire both believed in God--both
hoped for immortality--both believed in special
providence. But both denied the inspiration of the
Scriptures--both denied the divinity of Jesus Christ.
While theologians most cheerfully admit that most
murderers die without fear, they deny the possibility
of any man who has expressed his disbelief in the
inspiration of the Bible dying except in an agony of
terror. These stories are used in revivals and in
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Sunday schools, and have long been considered of
great value.
I am anxious that these slanders shall cease. I
am desirous of seeing justice done, even at this late
day, to the dead.
For the purpose of ascertaining the evidence upon
which these death-bed accounts really rest, I make
to you the following proposition:--
First.--As to Thomas Paine: I will deposit with
the First National Bank of Peoria, Illinois, one thou-
sand dollars in gold, upon the following conditions:
This money shall be subject to your order when
you shall, in the manner hereinafter provided, sub-
stantiate that Thomas Paine admitted the Bible to be
an inspired book, or that he recanted his Infidel
opinions--or that he died regretting that he had dis-
believed the Bible--or that he died calling upon
Jesus Christ in any religious sense whatever.
In order that a tribunal may be created to try this
question, you may select one man, I will select
another, and the two thus chosen shall select a third,
and any two of the three may decide the matter.
As there will be certain costs and expenditures on
both sides, such costs and expenditures shall be paid
by the defeated party.