The Records Respecting The Death Of Thomas Paine.
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 [pg 196] 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.
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 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.’ ”
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 the Catholic priest. “I was accompanied by F. Kohlman, an intimate friend. We found him at a [pg 197] 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 every 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, when left alone, are heart-rending. “O 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,” then again, “yet if there should be, what would become of me hereafter?” Thus he will continue for some time, when, on a sudden, he will scream as if in terror and agony, and call for me by 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, [pg 198] and his whole appearance that of one whose better days had been 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 see 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 imposter. 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 imposter, 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?’ ”
“Some thousand famous writers come up in this century to be forgotten in the next. But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosened, nor its golden bowl broken, though time chronicles his tens of centuries passed by.... You can trace the path of the Bible across the world, from the day of Pentecost to this day. As a river springs up in the heart of a sandy continent, having its father in the skies; as the stream rolls on, making in that arid waste a belt of verdure wherever it turns its way; creating palm groves and fertile plains, where the smoke of the cottage curls up at eventide, and marble cities send the gleam of their splendor far into die sky—such has been the course of the bible on earth.”—Theodore Parker.
“I must die—abandoned of God and of men.”—Voltaire.