IN MEMORY OF THOMAS PAINE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2650, 28 December 1904, Page 79

IN MEMORY OF THOMAS PAINE.

In a letter to Thursday's Daily Times a correspondent thus comments on " Civis' s " note on Thomas Paine : — "Civis"' has merely followed in the. footsteps of most ,of Paine's Christian, biographers, and has shown his hostility to Paine and all connected with him by endeavouring to excite " disgust and ' contempt in the rnind3 of his "readers by presenting them with one side of the picture only. It is evident- that ' T '"Civis " has. not read the' - universally-recognised standard " Life of Paine," by Moncuro Daniel Conf way, or, if he has, it has had little effect in removing his bias. Even a dainty littlebiography of Paine by Ellery Sedgwicfc might help him to a better understanding of the- true character and noble aspirations of this great -and heroiep soul. Never haa a man been more maliciously,, persistently/ and falsely maligned than Thomas Paine. His enemies scrupled at nothing that they thought would brand him with eternal infamy. Happily, searching investigations into these matters have elicited the fact that they are, almost without exception, false and malignant slanders deliberately invented and circulated by hi 3 enemies to blacken his character. . That he drank, or was ever drunk, is probably as false a3_ the rest of these slanders. Thomas Paine" was a Deist, a ptire, noble, and high-minded 1 man in every respect. Judged from the modern standpoint, his he-roic efforts for the freedom of mankind, wherein he spared himself neither time nor labour, may seem to us wrong and misguided, but no base motives urged him en, and his unbounded generosity and universal philanthropy were the sole and dominating causes of all hia actions. I would remind_ "Civis" and your readers that it was Paine who wrote the beautiful sentence, "The world is my country, and to do good is my religion." It was Paine who first advocated- the emancipation of slaves in America. It is to Paine that the American nation bo-day owes its existence as a free and independent people. It was Paine who first wrote the words "United States of America"; it was Paine who wrote against the iniquitous practice of duelling : it was Paine who advocated! the laying aside of arms and the settlement of matters by negotiation whenever possible. 'It was his soul-stirring pamphlets " Common Sense " and " The Crisis" that ' caused the great American War of Independence, and the citizens of the United States owe him a vast debt which they can never repay. Such, in brief, are a few aspects of the other side of the picture, ' in the life of this remarkable man, and I leave your readers to judge the case on its merits. It is a wonder " Civis," for the. edification of his readers, did not furnish, them with a sensational and blood-curdling description of the exploded yarn about Paine's "awful" death-bed "recantation," and hold it up as a solemn warning to all " infidels " and Atheists, as he does Shelley. But there is good and bad in all things. Are all Christians good and -virtuous men Is it only Atheists and infidels who tell lies, commit murder, and otherwise violate the moral and social laws of mankind? If "Civis" can point to one Atheist who was not particular as to hia moral actions, I can point to hundreds of prominent and pious Christians who were just as bad. No, Sir, it is a game that two oan play at, and it is nonsense to single out one man and make him represent hia class. Darwin, George Eliot, Gibbon, Goethe, Hume, ,T. S. Mill. Clifford, Mirabeau, Schiller, Strauss, Convte, Spinoza, Bruno, and a host of others I could name, nrere all '• infidels," and I shall be obliged if " Civis " can prove that their lives were in any ways- "worse than those led' by aniinent adherent^ of the Christian faith, juch as the early Popes, for instance. Perhaps " Civis " and others would do well to pear in mind these words of Paine's, written in a letter to a friend: "You believe in ;he Bible from the accident of birth, and) the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each colls the othor nfidel."

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