Franklin, the firm friend, has been dead these nineteen years, and many more of the old first friends had gone the same way. His mind now reverts to his home in England, and the religion of his father haunts his affections. He asks to be buried in the Quaker burying-ground, and is refused, lest this act of decency should offend the sanctified followers of Fox. It is as well. The old man's will records, that if this be not granted him on account of his father's religion, he was to be buried on his own farm at New Rochelle. On the 8th of June, 1809, he took his final leave of the world. "I have lived," said he, "an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator—God."
Thus the great REVOLUTIONIST passed away. Like all great men, he lived a virtuous, upright life. He had a noble object in view, and labored manfully to accomplish it. But having done his work well, his enemies have added to his fame by trying to undo what time has approved, and by reviling him when nature has applauded.
CONCLUSION.
Thomas Paine is now placed right before the world. He was peculiarly a favored child of nature. The great strokes of his character are these: A spirit to resent an injury which made him sometimes revengeful and vindictive. Yet a friend in his defense could call upon him for his life, and it would be granted. Too proud to be vain, he rose above the common level in personal honor, and demanded that the character of a nation should be without spot. Benevolent beyond his means, he lived like a miser, that he might have wherewith to bestow upon the needy, whether man, woman, child, or country.
Secretive beyond estimate, he lived a perfect spy upon the world, and obtained from friend and foe, from society and government, what they wished to conceal, and stored away facts which he locked up in his own mind to be used if needed, or everlastingly kept. He was too hopeful to estimate the future correctly, and had too much faith in man to judge correctly of his actions. Yet character he scarcely ever misjudged. As for courage, he dared to do any thing that was right. He dared to think like a philosopher, and to act like a man. Intellectually he was a prodigy; and as for genius, under which I combine the constructive, analytic and imaginative faculties the world has never seen his equal. He was, in short, an artist, inventor, scholar, poet, philosopher, enemy and friend. These mental characteristics were so combined and regulated by his will, that nature could never repeat what she produced in Thomas Paine.
I have faithfully followed the lines of nature in this criticism, and have endeavored to produce a work which the student and statesman can study with profit; which the lawyer may consider as an argument; which will arrest the attention of the historian, and present new themes to the mind of the philosopher; one which will open up a new method for the critic, and in all these a work which the scholar will not despise. This I say without vanity. Mine indeed are humble labors; and my work, whatever it is, has not been laborious and artful, but easy and natural.
I have not written this to make proselytes to his religion, but to do a much injured man a good service. Yet, as hero-worship is a part of man's nature, it may not be improbable that one age will extol what a previous one reviled, and a temple be erected to the religion of a man who was once thought to be a devil. This reminds me of a story which long ago I remember of reading in a volume of the Letters of the Turkish Spy; and as I quote from memory I will give only the substance:
Two hundred years ago, somewhere in Spain, in front of a Christian house of worship, stood a statue. This was the black image of a man sitting on an ass. As each pious devotee passed in to worship, or came out therefrom, he spat upon the statue. But a Mussulman embassador coming from the king of Morocco, observing these rites, which he was told had been performed for centuries, asked the king why they treated this image with such insult. He was told it was the image of Mahomet. The follower of Mahomet, being better informed, replied: This can not be, for Mahomet rode always on camels, and it was Jesus Christ who, it is recorded, rode on an ass. This fact was soon confirmed by the priests, and thereupon the people took to kissing and worshiping what they had before insultingly spat upon, and afterward erected a temple where it stood in honor of it.