I read Gibbon, the greatest of historians, who marshaled his facts as skillfully as Cæsar did his legions, and I learned that Christianity is only a name for Paganism—for the old religion, shorn of its beauty—that some absurdities had been exchanged for others—that some gods had been killed—a vast multitude of devils created, and that hell had been enlarged.
And then I read the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Let me tell you something about this sublime and slandered man. He came to this country just before the Revolution. He brought a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, at that time the greatest American.
In Philadelphia, Paine was employed to write for the Pennsylvania Magazine. We know that he wrote at least five articles. The first was against slavery, the second against duelling, the third on the treatment of prisoners—showing that the object should be to reform, not to punish and degrade—the fourth on the rights of woman, and the fifth in favor of forming societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals.
From this you see that he suggested the great reforms of our century.
The truth is that he labored all his life for the good of his fellow-men, and did as much to found the Great Republic as any man who ever stood beneath our flag.
He gave his thoughts about religion—about the blessed Scriptures, about the superstitions of his time. He was perfectly sincere and what he said was kind and fair.
The Age of Reason filled with hatred the hearts of those who loved their enemies, and the occupant of every orthodox pulpit became, and still is, a passionate maligner of Thomas Paine.
No one has answered—no one will answer, his argument against the dogma of inspiration—his objections to the Bible.
He did not rise above all the superstitions of his day. While he hated Jehovah, he praised the God of Nature, the creator and preserver of all. In this he was wrong, because, as Watson said in his Reply to Paine, the God of Nature is as heartless, as cruel as the God of the Bible.
But Paine was one of the pioneers—one of the Titans, one of the heroes, who gladly gave his life, his every thought and act, to free and civilize mankind.