Rev. O. B. Frothingham: "No private character has been more foully
calumniated in the name of God than that of Thomas Paine."
"No page in history, stained as it is with treachery and falsehood, or
cold-blooded indifference to right or wrong, exhibits a more disgraceful
instance of public ingratitude than that which Thomas Paine experienced
from an age and country which he had so faithfully served."--_Rev.
Solomon Southwick_.
Referring to Paine, the Boston _Herald_ says: "It has, perhaps, never
fallen to the lot of any really great man to be so traduced in his
lifetime, and, after the grave has closed over him, to have his
memory so weighted down with obloquy of unsparing critics." Mrs.
Bradlaugh-Bonner of England, daughter of Charles Bradlaugh, one of
England's noted orators and statesmen, says: "Paine's politics were
politics for the people, and the people were taught to deny him; his
ideal religion was 'the Religion of Humanity,' and humanity would not
even grant him a grave." Col. Ingersoll says: "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 interests 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."
Harriet Law: "There are few to whom the world owes more, and probably
none to whose memory it has been more ungrateful."
Edward D. Mead: "There is no other man in our religious or political
history who has been the victim of such misrepresentation, of such
persistent obloquy, as Thomas Paine."
"As we go back into the Dark Ages we read of the horrible atrocities
perpetrated in the name of religion, and this feeling had not yet passed
away during the time that Thomas Paine lived."--_Admiral George W.
Melville._
Hon. Andrew D. White, LL. D.: "Great, and, indeed, cruel injustice
was done him in his day, and has been continued in large measure ever
since."
Eastern Daily Press (England): "The fires still burn, although a hundred
years have passed."
"For more than a century his name has been as a touchstone revealing
the unappeasable malevolence of men's intolerance."--_Mrs.
Bradlaugh-Bonner._
Kumar Krishna de Varma, L. T. O. (Bombay, India): "The Orthodox have
always slandered the immortal author of the 'Age of Reason' and the
'Rights of Man.'"
Prof. Ernst Haeckel: "Thomas Paine, the immortal author of the
celebrated books, 'Age of Reason,' 'Common Sense,' 'Rights of Man,' and
'Crisis,' belongs to those meritorious Truththinkers who during their
lifetime were not accorded the honor and acknowledgment that they well
merited. The traditional historians of schoolbooks not only neglected
him for many years but deliberately maligned and slandered him."
"Religious bigots have done all in their power to defame his character
and rob him of the laurels with which we crown him to-day."--_Elizabeth
Cady Stanton_.
D. M. Bennett: "Does a man with such a brilliant career, one having made
such a magnificent record, and one to whom the world owes far more
than it can ever pay, deserve to have his name maligned, his memory
blackened, and all his actions and motives belied and misrepresented? Is
it honorable? Is it manly? Is it just?"
Helen H. Gardener: "So long as a man, whether he be layman, bishop,
cardinal or pope, is willing to bear false witness against his neighbor,
whether that neighbor be living or dead, just so long will all the blood
of all the Redeemers of all the nations of the earth be unable to wash
his soul white enough to place it beside that of the patriot hero,
Thomas Paine."
William T. Stead: "Paine and Ingersoll are assailed by the same weapons,
subjected to the same aspersions, and misrepresented in the same
merciless fashion as He [Christ] was assailed and misrepresented by the
orthodox of his time.... If it is right to treat Paine and Ingersoll
in this harsh, carping, uncharitable, malevolent fashion, then it is
equally right to apply it to the founder of the faith."
Elmina Drake Slenker: "And this mild work, the 'Age of Reason,' is the
real cause of all the cruel calumnies that the world has circulated
about the hero, the scholar, the philosopher, the scientist, the
inventor, the humanitarian, Thomas Paine."
Lillian Leland: "Paine... had ideals of intellectual and religious
freedom, and was flung down from the pedestal of honor, broken, cast
off and ostracized for venturing to criticise the received forms of
religion."
"The replies to Thomas Paine," says George W. Foote of London, "were the
work of Christian ruffians. Bishop Watson was the only one who attempted
to answer Paine's arguments. The others only called him names;
apparently on the principle that to charge a Freethinker with
drunkenness and profligacy is the shortest and easiest way of proving
that the Bible is the Word of God."
George E. Macdonald of New York, says: "The strongest defense of the
Bible against the 'Age of Reason' was the allegation that Paine drank
brandy, although the Bible commends liquor drinking and the ministers of
that period were unrestricted in their potations."
"Around New Rochelle, where Thomas Paine lived, and where this myth
about his drunkenness has its geography, there were deacons by the dozen
who were drinking regularly more than Thomas Paine ever drank, without
in the slightest degree affecting their religious reputation. I speak of
these things, which I have investigated, because I feel so strongly the
wrong which has been done to this man."--_Edward D. Mead._
Gilbert Vale: "Could the 'Age of Reason' and 'Rights of Man' have been
replied to as he replied to Burke we should have never heard these
slanders."
William Ware Cotter:
"Let libelers' gall-envenomed tongues
Make bitter every word they speak;
Time will disclose the patriot's wrongs
And blanch with shame the slanderer's cheek."