"The work of Paine was done so well
The Church is now the Infidel."
"He triumphed--Bibles are revised,
Creeds change, and faiths decay,
The facts his bitter foes despised
Their children prize today."
--C. Fannie Aliyn.
Rev. William Channing Gannett, D.D.: "What wonder Thomas Paine wrote his
strong rank sarcasm! People should remember why he wrote it."
Moncure D. Conway, LL.D.: "It ['Age of Reason'] represents, as no
elaborate treatise could, the agony and bloody sweat of a heart breaking
in the presence of crucified Humanity. What dear heads, what noble
hearts had that man seen laid low; what shrieks had he heard in the
desolate homes of the Condorcets, the Brissots; what Canaanite and
Midianite massacres had be seen before the altar of Brotherhood, erected
by himself! And all because every human being had been taught from his
cradle that there is something more sacred than humanity, and to which
man should be sacrificed. Of all those massacred thinkers not one voice
remains: they have gone silent: over their reeking guillotine sits
the gloating Apollyon of Inhumanity. But here is one man, a prisoner,
preparing for his long silence. He alone can speak for those slain
between the throne and the altar. In these outbursts of laughter and
tears, these outcries that think not of literary style, these appeals
from surrounding chaos to the starry realm of order, from the tribune of
vengeance to the sun shining for all, this passionate horror of cruelty
in the powerful which will brave a heartless heaven or hell with its
immortal indignation,--in all these the unfettered mind may hear the
wail of enthralled Europe, sinking back choked with its blood, under the
chain it tried to break. So long as a link remains of the same chain,
binding reason or heart, Paine's 'Age of Reason' will live. It is not a
mere book--it is a man's heart."
Edgar W. Howe: "The storm that arose over this book was never before
equaled: it will never be equaled again."
Dr. Bond (A surgeon belonging to General O'Hara's staff): "Mr. Paine
while hourly expecting to die, read to me parts of his 'Age of Reason';
and every night when I left him, to be separately locked up, and
expected not to see him alive in the morning, he always expressed his
firm belief in the principles of that book, and begged I would tell the
world such were his dying opinions."
"The doctrines and sentiments which it contains may justly be regarded
as the expressions of a dying man."--_D. M. Bennett._
"When it [first part] appeared he was a prisoner; his life in Couthon's
hands. He had personally nothing to gain by its publication--neither
wife, child, nor relative to reap benefit by its sale. It was published
as purely for the good of mankind as any work ever written."--_Dr.
Conway_.
"While in prison he composed the second part, and as he expected
every day to be guillotined it was penned in the very presence of
death."--_George W. Foote._
"Paine deserves whatever credit is due to absolute devotion to a creed
believed by himself to be demonstrably true and beneficial. He showed
undeniable courage, and is free from any suspicion of mercenary
motives."--_Sir Leslie Stephen._
Thomas Nixon and Captain Daniel Pelton: "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, intimate acquaintances of Thomas Paine, since the year
1776, went to his house--he was sitting up in a chair, and apparently in
the full vigor and use of all his mental faculties. We interrogated him
on his religious opinions, and if he had changed his mind or repented
of anything he had said or written on that subject. He answered, 'Not at
all.'"
Hon. Francis O. Smith, M. C.: "I have just parted with Hon. Richard
M. Johnson, now a member of the House of Representatives [afterwards
Vice-President of the United States], who told me that he visited
Thomas Paine within the fortnight next preceding Paine's death; that he
conversed with Paine and expressed a hope that he might recover; that
Paine replied that he should shortly die, that he should never go out
of his room again, and requested him to say to Mr. Jefferson that he had
not changed his religious opinions in the slightest degree."
Walter Morton (with Paine when he died): "In his religious opinions he
continued to the last as steadfast and tenacious as any sectarian to the
definition of his own creed."
Dr. Philip Graves: "He [Amasa Woodsworth] told me that he nursed Thomas
Paine in his last illness and closed his eyes when he was dead. I asked
him if he recanted and called upon God to save him. He replied, 'No. He
died as he had taught.'"
John Randel, Jr. (orthodox Christian): "The very worthy mechanic, Amasa
Woodsworth, who saw Paine daily, told me there was no truth in such
report."
Gilbert Vale, who interviewed Mr. Woodsworth, says: "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.... 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."
The English writer, William Cobbett, a believer in Christianity, who
lived for a time in this country, and who made a thorough investigation
of the Paine calumnies, says: "Among other things said against this
famous man is that he recanted before he died; and that in his last
illness he discovered horrible fears of death.... It is a pure,
unadulterated falsehood."
Cobbett, in 1819, announced his intention of publishing a biography of
Paine. Soon after a pious fanatic of New York, named Collins, attempted
to persuade him that Paine had recanted and begged him to state the
fact in his book. He had induced a disreputable woman, Mary Hinsdale, an
opium fiend, notorious for her lying propensities, to promise that she
would tell Cobbett that she had visited Paine during his illness and
that he had confessed to her his disbelief in the "Age of Reason" and
expressed regret for having published it. Cobbett saw at once that the
whole thing was a fraud. Collins, he says, "had a sodden face, a simper,
and maneuvered his features precisely like the most perfidious wretch
that I have known." However, he called on the woman. But her courage had
forsaken her. Concerning the result of his visit he says: "She shuffled;
she evaded; she equivocated; she warded off; she affected not to
understand me." It was afterward proven that she had not conversed
with Paine; that she had never seen him. But it did not need Cobbett's
publication of the lie to secure its acceptance by the church. The
occupant of nearly every orthodox pulpit was only too willing to publish
it. This was the origin of the recantation calumny.
"Had Thomas Paine recanted, every citizen of New York would have heard
of it within twenty-four hours. The news of it would have spread to the
remotest confines of America and Europe as rapidly as the human agencies
of that time could have transmitted it. It took ten years for this
startling revelation to reach the ears of his sickbed attendants."--The
Fathers of Our Republic.
Rev. Willet Hicks: "I was with him every day during the latter part of
his sickness. He died as easy as any one I ever saw die, and I have seen
many die."
"Paine died quietly and at peace."--_Ellery Sedgwick._
"He died placidly and almost without a struggle."--_Gilbert Vale._
"He spent the night in tranquility, and expired in the
morning."--_Madame Bonneville._
Noble L. Prentiss: "Paine's death-bed terrors were used in the pulpit
for a long time. It is probable that they never existed. It is living
not dying, that troubles most of us. When the inevitable hour comes;
when the lights are being put out, the shutters closed, the end is
peace."
Concerning Paine's recanting Colonel Ingersoll says: "He died surrounded
by those who hated and despised him,--who endeavored to wring from the
lips of death a recantation. But, dying as he was, his soul stood erect
to the last moment. Nothing like a recantation could be wrung from the
brave lips of Thomas Paine."
Col. John Fellows: "It [the recantation story] was considered by the
friends of Mr. Paine generally to be too contemptible to controvert."
"Thomas Paine did not recant. But the church is recanting. On her
death-bed tenet after tenet of the absurd and cruel creed which Paine
opposed is being renounced by her. Time will witness the renunciation of
her last dogma and her death. Then will the vindication of Thomas Paine
and the 'Age of Reason' be complete."--_The Fathers of Our Republic_.