His philanthrophy was bounded only by the limits of the world in which he lived Jew and Mohammedan, Christian and Infidel, Caucasian and Mongolian, the despised negro and the rude Indian, all to him were brothers.
His charity was of the broadest kind. He was ever ready to share his last dollar or his last comfort with the poor and distressed, and this regardless as to whether they were friends or foes. When his Republican friend, Bonneville, was crushed and impoverished by Napoleon, Paine gave to his family an asylum in America, and willed to them a part of his estate. When a brutal English officer assaulted him in Paris—and to strike a deputy the penalty was death—he saved him from the guillotine, and finding him penniless, from his own purse paid his passage home to England.
His patriotism was never questioned. Many have won the name of patriot whose services to their country have been inspired by mere selfish motives; but with him, fame, wealth, comfort, all were sacrificed for his country's welfare. Throughout that eight year's struggle, his life, his time, his talents, all were at her service. And, whether serving as aid-de-camp to General Greene in that terrible campaign of '76; filling with ability the important post of Secretary to the Committee on Foreign Affairs; with Laurens at the French court negotiating loans for his government; or cheering the despondent and nerving them up to deeds of valor,—he was at all times, and in every situation, the same modest, magnanimous, unflinching patriot.
In his disinterestedness he stands alone. At the beginning of the Revolutionary struggle he was a poor author, lacking at times even the bare necessities of life. But he had the opportunity of becoming rich. The enormous sale of "Common Sense" would of itself have secured for him a handsome competence. But what did he do? did he secure for himself the profits to which he was justly entitled? No! he presented to each of the thirteen colonies the copyright, and came out indebted to his printer for the original edition. When his country languished for want of funds to pay her soldiers in the field he started a subscription that brought her more than a million, heading it with five hundred dollars, and limited his gift to this because he had no more to give. When his "Rights of Man" was ready for the press he refused one thousand pounds for the copyright and then gave it to the world.
Moral courage was another prominent element in this great man's character. His espousal of the cause of American Independence—a cause which no other man had up to that time dared to espouse—shows a lofty heroism; his attack upon monarchy, in the very capital of a monarchical government, knowing, as he must have known, that every effort would be made to crush him, was a grand exhibition of moral bravery, while his publication of the "Age of Reason" was, in many respects, a more courageous act than either. But it was in His heroic defense of Louis XVI that his moral courage shone with all the lustre of the sun. Search all the annals of the past and say if on the historian's page is found one act, one single act, surpassing in moral sublimity that of Thomas Paine accepting a prison and, if need be, death, to save a fallen foe!
In the expression of his religious opinions no man has been more frank or explicit, while no man's religious opinions have been more grossly misrepresented. What was his belief?
"I believe in one God and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
"I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
"The world is my country, to do good my religion."
This was his creed; and with a firm belief in the truth and justice of this creed he lived and died.