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case, as I found you at a tavern in a most miserable situation. You appeared as if you had not been shaved for a fortnight, and as to a shirt, it could not be said that you had one on—it was only the remains of one-and this likewise appeared not to have been off your back for a fortnight, and was nearly the color of tanned leather; and you had the most disagreeable smell possible-just like that of our poor beggars in England. Do you remember the pains I took to clean you? that I got a tub of warm water and soap, and washed you from head to foot, and this I had to do three times before I could get you clean? You say also that you found your own liquors during the time you boarded with me; but you should have said, 'I found only a small part of the liquor I drank during my stay with you; this part I purchased of John Fellows, which was a demijohn of brandy, containing four gallons, and this did not serve me three weeks.' This can be proved; and I mean not to say anything I can not prove, for I hold truth as a precious jewel. It is a well-known fact that you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my expense, during the different times that you have boarded with me, the demijohn alone mentioned 'excepted, and the last fourteen weeks you were sick. Is not this a supply of liquor for dinner and supper?"

This very remarkable letter, which confirms the statements made by others in regard to Paine's dissolute habits, closes with the following words, which I wish might be read and pondered over by every one who believes in the doctrines Paine labored so zealously to disseminate among men: "Now, sir, I think I have drawn a complete portrait of your character; yet, to enter upon every minutia, would be to give a history of your life, and to develop the fallacious mask of hypocrisy and deception under which you have acted in your political, as well as moral, capacity of life."

Additional Facts Concerning the Great Infidel.

Mr. Jay dismissed him from public service, under the charge that "he had violated his official oath, and was destitute of general integrity, and marked for general falsehood."

When he wrote the Age of Reason, he says: "I had neither Bible nor Testament to refer to, though I was writing against both." Only think of his audacious wicked

ness!

"That he bitterly regretted the writing and the publishing of the Age of Reason, we have incontestable proof. During his last illness he asked a pious young woman, Mary Roscoe, a Quakeress, who frequently visited him, if she had ever read any of his writings, and being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding, 'From such a one as you I expect a true answer.' She told him, when very young she had read his Age of Reason, but the more she read of it the more dark and distressed she felt, and she threw it into the fire. 'I wish all had done as you,' he replied, 'for if the devil ever had an agency in any work, he has had it in writing that book.'" (Journal of Stephen Grellet, 1809.)

In addition to the above, I quote the following from the great American philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, to whom Paine submitted his manuscript of the Age of Reason, who said:

"I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification from the enemies it may raise you, and perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?" (Allibone's Dictionary of Authors, p. 1484.)

Of his personal character and degradation, mark the following:

Says his biographer, James Cheetham, page 314: "In his private dealings he was unjust, never thinking of paying for what he had contracted. To those who had been kind to him he was more than ungrateful, for to ingratitude he added mean and detestable fraud. He was guilty of the worst species of seduction-the alienating of a wife and children from a husband and a father. Filthy and drunken, he was a compound of all the vices."

Ingersoll says he died in the "full exercise of his faculties, calmly, fearlessly, and unshaken in the belief he always held." How false this is let the following bear witness:

"Dr. Manley, who was with him during his last hours, in a letter to Cheetham, in 1809, writes: 'He could not be left alone night or day. He not only required to have some person with him, but he must see that he or she was there, and if, as it would sometimes happen, he was left alone, he would scream and halloo until some person came to him. There was something remarkable in his conduct about this period (which comprises about two weeks immediately preceding his death); he would call out during his paroxysms of distress, without intermission, "O Lord, help me! God, help me! Jesus Christ, help me! O Lord, help me!" etc., repeating the same expressions without the least variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. It was this conduct which induced me to think that he had abandoned his former opinions, and I was more inclined to that belief when I understood from his nurse (who is a very serious, and, I believe, pious woman), that he would occasionally inquire, when he saw her engaged with a book, what she was reading, and being answered, and at the same time asked whether she should read aloud, he assented, and would appear to give particular attention.' The doctor asked him if he believed that Jesus Christ is the son of God? After a pause of some minutes, he replied, 'I have no wish to believe on that subject.' 'For my own part,' says the doctor, 'I believe that had not Thomas Paine been such a distinguished infidel, he would have left less equivocal evidences of a change of opinion.""

What a Catholic Bishop Says of Paine's Closing Hours. The Roman Catholic Bishop Fenwick says:

"A short time before Paine died I was sent for by him." He was prompted to do this by a poor Catholic woman who went to see him in his sickness, and who told him if anybody could do him any good, it was a Catholic priest. I was accompanied by F. Kohlmann, an intimate friend. We found him at a house in Greenwich (now Greenwich Street, New York), where he lodged. A decent-looking elderly woman came to the door, and inquired whether we were the Catholic priests; "for,' said she, 'Mr. Paine has been so much annoyed of late by other denominations calling upon him, that he has left express orders to admit no one but the clergymen of the Catholic Church.' Upon informing her who we were, she opened the door and showed us into the parlor. * * 'Gentlemen,' said the lady, 'I really wish you may succeed with Mr. Paine, for he is laboring under great distress of mind ever since he was told by his physicians that he can not possibly live, and must die shortly. He is truly to be pitied. His cries

*

are heart-rending.

when left alone Lord, help me!" he will exclaim during his paroxysms of distress; "God, help me!" "Jesus Christ, help me!"-repeating these expressions in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. Sometimes he will say, "O God! what have I done to suffer so much?" Then shortly after, "But there is no God; " and then again, "Yet if there should be, what would become of me hereafter ?" Thus he will continue for some time, when, on a sud. den, he will scream as if in terror and agony, and call for me by my name. On one occasion I inquired what he wanted. "Stay with me," he replied, "for God's sake! for I can not bear to be left alone." I told him I could not always be in the room. "Then," said he, "send even a child to stay with me, for it is a hell to be alone." I never saw,' she continued, a more unhappy, a more forsaken man. It seems he can not reconcile himself to die.'

"Such was the conversation of the woman, who was a Protestant, and who seemed very desirous that we should afford him some relief in a state bordering on complete despair. Having remained some time in the parlor, we at length heard a noise in the adjoining room. We proposed to enter, which was assented to by the woman, who opened the door for us. A more wretched being in appearance I never beheld. He was lying in a bed sufficiently decent in itself, but at present besmeared with filth; his look was that of a man greatly tortured in mind, his eyes haggard, his countenance forbidding, and his whole appearance that of one whose better days had been but one continued scene of debauch. His only nourishment was milk punch, in which he indulged to the full extent of his weak state. He had partaken very recently of it, as the sides and corners of his mouth exhibited very unequivocal traces of it, as well as of blood which had also followed in the track and left its mark on the pillow. Upon their making known the object of their visit, Paine interrupted the speaker by saying, 'That's enough, sir, that's enough. I sce what you would be about. I wish to hear no more from you, sir; my mind is made up on that subject. I look upon the whole of the Christian scheme to be a tissue of lies, and Jesus Christ to be nothing more than a cunning knave and impostor. Away with you, and your God, too! leave the room instantly! All that you have uttered are lies, filthy lies, and if I had a little more time I would prove it, as I did about your impostor, Jesus Christ.' Among the last utterances that fell upon the ears of the attendants of this dying infidel, and which have been recorded in history, were the words, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"

“ALL human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths contained in the holy Scriptures."-Sir John Herschel.

"YOUNG man, my advice to you is, that you cultivate an acquaintance with and a firm belief in the holy Scriptures -this is your certain interest."-Benjamin Franklin.

"AND, finally, I may state, as the conclusion of the whole matter, that the Bible contains within itself all that, under God, is required to account for and dispose of all forms of infidelity, and to turn to the best and highest uses all that man can learn of nature."-Chancellor Dawson.

"The Bible as a book has a self-perpetuating and multiplying power. Infidels have written books; where are they? Where is Porphyry, Julian? Fragments of them there are; but we are indebted even for this to Christian criticism. Where is Hume, Voltaire, Bolingbroke? It requires the world's reprieve to bring a copy out of the prison of their darkness. Where is the Bible? Wherever there is light."-Bishop Thomson.

"THE first thought that strikes the scientific reader is the evidence of divinity, not merely in the first verse of the record and the successive fiats, but in the whole order of creation. There is so much that the most recent readings of science have for the first time explained, that the idea of man as the author becomes utterly incomprehensible. By proving the record true, science pronounces it divine; for who could have correctly narrated the secrets of eternity but God Himself."-Professor Dana.

"WITH thoughts thus expanded and touching the infinite-with the the soul aglow with sublimity-with aspirations exalted—let us turn to the language of the Bible, and learn whether it exalts the sensations and sentiments