[173] At the trial (1797) the judge placed every obstacle in the way of the defence.  The publisher was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.

This was not the end of Paine prosecutions.  In 1811 a Third Part of the Age of Reason appeared, and Eaton the publisher was condemned to eighteen months’ imprisonment and to stand in the pillory once a month.  The judge, Lord Ellenborough, said in his charge, that “to deny the truths of the book which is the foundation of our faith has never been permitted.”  The poet Shelley addressed to Lord Ellenborough a scathing letter.  “Do you think to convert Mr. Eaton to your religion by embittering his existence?  You might force him by torture to profess your tenets, but he could not believe them except you should make them credible, which perhaps exceeds your power.  Do you think to please the God you worship by this exhibition of your zeal?  If so, the demon to whom some nations offer human hecatombs is less barbarous than the deity of civilized society!” In 1819 Richard Carlisle was prosecuted for publishing the Age of Reason and sentenced to a large fine and three years’ imprisonment.  Unable to pay the fine he was kept in prison for three years.  His wife and sister, who carried on the business

[174] and continued to sell the book, were fined and imprisoned soon afterwards and a whole host of shop assistants.

If his publishers suffered in England, the author himself suffered in America where bigotry did all it could to make the last years of his life bitter.

The age of enlightenment began in Germany in the middle of the eighteenth century.  In most of the German States, thought was considerably less free than in England.  Under Frederick the Great’s father, the philosopher Wolff was banished from Prussia for according to the moral teachings of the Chinese sage Confucius a praise which, it was thought, ought to be reserved for Christianity.  He returned after the accession of Frederick, under whose tolerant rule Prussia was an asylum for those writers who suffered for their opinions in neighbouring States.  Frederick, indeed, held the view which was held by so many English rationalists of the time, and is still held widely enough, that freethought is not desirable for the multitude, because they are incapable of understanding philosophy.  Germany felt the influence of the English Deists, of the French freethinkers, and of Spinoza; but in the German rationalistic propaganda of this period there is nothing very original or interesting.

[175] The names of Edelmann and Bahrdt may be mentioned.  The works of Edelmann, who attacked the inspiration of the Bible, were burned in various cities, and he was forced to seek Frederick’s protection at Berlin.  Bahrdt was more aggressive than any other writer of the time.  Originally a preacher, it was by slow degrees that he moved away from the orthodox faith.  His translation of the New Testament cut short his ecclesiastical career.  His last years were spent as an inn-keeper.  His writings, for instance his popular Letters on the Bible, must have had a considerable effect, if we may judge by the hatred which he excited among theologians.