A foot-note explains the point in the last two lines: “In A——n’s Journal, the writer observes, he presumes he shall be treated in the future world as well as other gentlemen of equal merit are treated: A sentiment in which all his countrymen will join.” (The Triumph of Infidelity: A Poem. [Anonymous], 1788, pp. 23 et seq. The copy referred to is dedicated by the author “To Mons. de Voltaire.”)
[163] The Age of Reason: Part I, appeared in America in 1794. Cf. The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, edited by Moncure Daniel Conway, New York, 1901, p. vii; also advertisements of its offer for sale, Massachusetts Spy (Worcester), Nov. 19, 1794. The Connecticut Courant (Hartford), Jan. 19, and Feb. 9, 1795, contains examples of pained newspaper comment. Walcott Papers, vol. viii, 7.
[164] At least fifteen thousand copies of the second part of the book arrived in America in the spring of 1796, despatched from Paris by Paine, consigned to his Philadelphia friend, Mr. Franklin Bache, Republican printer, editor, and ardent servant of radicalism generally. It was clearly Paine’s purpose to influence as many minds in America as possible. Cf. Conway, The Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. iv, p. 15; Paine’s letter to Col. Fellows, in New York, explaining the forwarding of the books. This effort to obtain a general circulation of the Age of Reason did not escape the attention of men who were disturbed over the prevailing evidences of irreligion. In a fast day sermon, delivered in April, 1799, the Reverend Daniel Dana, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, called attention to the matter in the following fashion: “ … let me mention a fact which ought to excite universal alarm and horror. The well-known and detestable pamphlet of Thomas Paine, written with a professed design to revile the Christian religion, and to diffuse the poison of infidelity, was composed in France, was there printed in English, and an edition containing many thousand of copies, conveyed at a single time into our country, in order to be sold at a cheap rate, or given away, as might best ensure its circulation. What baneful success has attended this vile and insidious effort, you need not be told. That infidelity has had, for several years past, a rapid increase among us, seems a truth generally acknowledged.” (Two Sermons, delivered April 25, 1799: the day recommended by the President of the United States for National Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer. By Daniel Dana, A. M., pastor of a church in Newburyport, 1799, p. 45). Cf. also ibid., p. 20.
[165] The Age of Reason was written from the standpoint of a man who believed that the disassociation of religion from political institutions, and the elimination from it of fiction and fable, would bring in the true religion of humanity. The following excerpt sets out the author’s approach and aim: “Soon after I had published the pamphlet, ‘Common Sense’, in America I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited by pains and penalties every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priestcraft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God and no more.” (The Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. ii, pp. 22 et seq.) Paine’s exposition of the tenets of natural religion was far from scholarly, and as soon as the public became aware of the eccentric and uneven character of the book, the storm of criticism speedily blew itself out. The recoil of Paine’s ugly attack upon Washington, in the same year in which the Age of Reason was extensively circulated in this country, materially helped to discredit the book.
[166] A partial list of the books and pamphlets, separate discourses not included, which were published in this country immediately following the appearance of the Age of Reason will serve to emphasize the depth of the impression which Paine’s book made: (1) Priestley, Joseph, An Answer to Mr. Paine’s Age of Reason; being a Continuation of Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France, on the Subject of Religion; and of the Letters of a Philosophical Unbeliever. Second Edition. Northumberlandtown, America, 1794; (2) Williams, Thomas, The Age of Infidelity: an Answer to Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason. By a Layman (pseud.). Third Edition, Worcester, Mass., 1794; (3) Stilwell, Samuel, A Guide to Reason, or an Examination of Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, and Investigation of the True and Fabulous Theology, New York, 1794; (4) Winchester, Elhanan, Ten Letters Addressed to Mr. Paine, in Answer to His Pamphlet, entitled The Age of Reason, Second Edition, New York, 1795; (5) Ogden, Uzal, Antidote to Deism. The Deist Unmasked; or an Ample Refutation of all the Objections of Thomas Paine, Against the Christian Religion; as Contained in a Pamphlet, intitled (sic), The Age of Reason, etc., Two volumes, Newark, 1795; (6) Broaddus, Andrew, The Age of Reason and Revelation; or Animadversions on Mr. Thomas Paine’s late piece, intitled “The Age of Reason”, etc. … Richmond, 1795; (7) Muir, James, An Examination of the Principles Contained in the Age of Reason. In Ten Discourses, Baltimore, 1795; (8) Belknap, Jeremy, Dissertations on the Character, Death & Resurrection of Jesus Christ … with remarks on some sentiments advanced in a book intitled “The Age of Reason,” Boston, 1795; (9) Humphreys, Daniel, The Bible Needs no Apology; or Watson’s System of Religion Refuted; and the Advocate Proved an Unreliable One, by the Bible Itself: of which a short view is given, and which itself gives a short answer to Paine: in Four Letters, on Watson’s Apology for the Bible, and Paine’s Age of Reason, Part the Second, Portsmouth, 1796; (10) Tytler, James, Paine’s Second Part of the Age of Reason Answered, Salem, 1796; (11) Fowler, James, The Truth of the Bible Fairly Put to the Test, by Confronting the Evidences of Its Own Facts, Alexandria, 1797; (12) Levy, David, A Defence of the Old Testament, in a Series of Letters, addressed to Thomas Paine, Author of a Book entitled, The Age of Reason, Part Second, etc. … New York, 1797; (13) Williams, Thomas, Christianity Vindicated in the admirable speech of the Hon. Theo. Erskine, in the Trial of J. Williams, for Publishing Paine’s Age of Reason, Philadelphia, 1797; (14) Snyder, G., The Age of Reason Unreasonable; or the Folly of Rejecting Revealed Religion, Philadelphia, 1798; (15) Nelson, D., An Investigation of that False, Fabulous and Blasphemous Misrepresentation of Truth, set forth by Thomas Paine, in his two volumes, entitled The Age of Reason, etc. (This volume appears to have been published pseudonymously. Advertised in Lancaster, Pa., Intelligencer and Advertiser, October, 1800); (16) Boudinot, Elias, The Age of Revelation, Or, The Age of Reason shewn to be an Age of Infidelity, Philadelphia, 1801.
[167] Cf. Morse, The Federalist Party in Massachusetts, Appendix I, pp. 217 et seq., for a detailed and fairly satisfactory statement of the character and extent of the discussion which Paine’s book precipitated in New England.
[168] Channing, Memoirs, vol. i, pp. 60, 61. On the latter page it is asserted that in order to counteract such fatal principles as those expressed in the Age of Reason, the patrons and governors of Harvard College had Watson’s Apology for the Bible published and furnished to the students at the expense of the corporation. This was in 1796. Beecher’s Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, pp. 30, 35, 52, touches upon the situation at Yale. Cf. Dwight, Theology: Explained and Defended, vol. i, pp. xxv, xxvi. The extensive prevalence of infidelity among Yale students is commented upon and the statement made that a considerable proportion of the class which President Dwight first taught (1795–96) “had assumed the names of principal English and French Infidels; and were more familiarly known by them than by their own.” (Ibid.) Cf. Dorchester, Christianity in the United States, p. 319.
[169] The impression lingered on after the stir caused by the appearance of the Age of Reason. In 1803 Paine was in southern New England. His presence was disturbing, as the following comment of William Bentley will show: “Reports are circulated that Thomas Paine intends to visit New England. The name is enough. Every person has ideas of him. Some respect his genius and dread the man. Some reverence his political, while they hate his religious, opinions. Some love the man, but not his private manners. Indeed he has done nothing which has not extremes in it. He never appears but we love and hate him. He is as great a paradox as ever appeared in human nature.” (Diary, vol. iii. p. 37. Cf. ibid., vol. ii. pp. 102, 107, 145.)
[170] Hazen, Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution, pp. 141 et seq.
[171] Ibid., p. 143.