Here he spent some peaceful months with only a few visitors; but those were faithful ones.  One was Willett Hicks, the Quaker preacher, always a staunch friend; another was John Wesley Jarvis, the American painter—­the same artist who later made the great man’s death mask.

It was Jarvis who said:  “He devoted his whole life to the attainment of two objects—­rights of man and freedom of conscience.”

And, by the bye, Dr. Conway has declared that “his ‘Rights of Man’ is now the political constitution of England, his ‘Age of Reason’ is the growing constitution of its Church.”

In passing I must once again quote Mr. van der Weyde, who once said to me:  “I often wonder just what share Mary Wollstonecraft had with her ’Rights of Women’—­in the inspiration of Paine’s ‘Rights of Man.’  He and she, you know, were close friends.”

Another friend was Robert Fulton of steamboat fame.  I have truly heard Paine enthusiasts declare that our “infidel” was the authentic inventor of the steamboat!  In any case, he is known to have “palled” with Fulton, and certainly gave him many ideas.

There were, to be sure, annoyances.  He was, in spite of Mme. de Bonneville’s affectionate protection, still an object of persecution.

Two clergymen were especially tireless in their desire to reform this sterling reformer.  I believe their names were Milledollar and Cunningham.  Janvier tells this anecdote: 

“It was during Paine’s last days in the little house in Greenwich that two worthy divines, the Rev. Mr. Milledollar and the Rev. Mr. Cunningham, sought to bring him to a realising sense of the error of his ways.  Their visitation was not a success.  ’Don’t let ’em come here again,’ he said, curtly, to his housekeeper, Mrs. Hedden, when they had departed; and added:  ‘They trouble me.’  In pursuance of this order, when they returned to the attack, Mrs. Hedden denied them admission—­saying with a good deal of piety, and with even more common-sense:  ’If God does not change his mind, I’m sure no man can!’”

Apropos of the two houses occupied by Paine in our city Mr. van der Weyde has pointed out most interestingly the striking and almost miraculous way in which they have just escaped destruction.  Paine’s “Providence” has seemed to stand guard over the places sacred to him, just as it stood guard over his invaluable life.  A dozen times 309 Bleecker Street and 59 Grove Street have almost gone in the relentless constructive demolition of metropolitan growth and progress.  But—­they have not gone yet!

I have said that the Grove Street house stood in an open lot, the centre of a block at that time.  Just after Paine’s death a street was cut through, called Cozine Street.  Names were fleeting affairs in early and fast-growing New York, and the one street from Cozine became Columbia, then Burrows, and last of all Grove, which it remains today.

Here let us make a note of one more indignity which the officially wise and virtuous ones were able to bestow upon their unassumingly wise and virtuous victim.