’ADVICE TO THE STATUARY WHO IS TO EXECUTE THE
STATUE OF WASHINGTON.

Take from the mine the coldest, hardest stone;
It needs no fashion—­it is Washington. 
But if you chisel, let the stroke be rude,
And on his heart engrave—­“Ingratitude."’

This is hard hitting.

So far we have only had the Republican Paine, the outlaw Paine; the atheist Paine has not appeared.  He did so in the Age of Reason, first published in 1794-1795.  The object of this book was religious.  Paine was a vehement believer in God and in the Divine government of the world, but he was not, to put it mildly, a Bible Christian.  Nobody now is ever likely to read the Age of Reason for instruction or amusement.  Who now reads even Mr. Greg’s Creed of Christendom, which is in effect, though not in substance, the same kind of book?  Paine was a coarse writer, without refinement of nature, and he used brutal expressions and hurled his vulgar words about in a manner certain to displease.  Still, despite it all, the Age of Reason is a religious book, though a singularly unattractive one.

Paine remained in France advocating all kinds of things, including a descent on England, the abduction of the Royal Family, and a Free Constitution.  Napoleon sought him out, and assured him that he (Napoleon) slept with the Rights of Man under his pillow.  Paine believed him.

In 1802 Paine returned to America, after fifteen years’ absence.

‘Thou stricken friend of man,’ exclaims Mr. Conway in a fine passage, ’who hast appealed from the God of Wrath to the God of Humanity, see in the distance that Maryland coast which early voyagers called Avalon, and sing again your song when first stepping on that shore twenty-seven years ago.’

The rest of Paine’s life was spent in America without distinction or much happiness.  He continued writing to the last, and died bravely on the morning of June 8, 1809.

The Americans did not appreciate Paine’s theology, and in 1819 allowed Cobbett to carry the bones of the author of Common-sense to England, where—­’as rare things will,’ so, at least, Mr. Browning sings—­they vanished.  Nobody knows what has become of them.

As a writer Paine has no merits of a lasting character, but he had a marvellous journalistic knack for inventing names and headings.  He is believed to have concocted the two phrases ’The United States of America’ and ‘The Religion of Humanity.’  Considering how little he had read, his discourses on the theory of government are wonderful, and his views generally were almost invariably liberal, sensible, and humane.  What ruined him was an intolerable self-conceit, which led him to believe that his own productions superseded those of other men.  He knew off by heart, and was fond of repeating, his own Common-sense and the Rights of Man.  He was destitute of the spirit of research, and was wholly without one shred of humility.  He was an oddity, a character, but he never took the first step towards becoming a great man.