Part 14

Edward G Wentworth: "Giordano Bruno was one of the world's martyrs who died for a cause. Thomas Paine was one of the world's martyrs who lived for a cause. Each has created an imperishable name."

George Jacob Holyoake: "Paine was the most intrepid and influential Englishman that ever sprang from the ranks of the people."

"The man who was the confidant of Burke, the counsellor of Franklin, and the friend and colleague of Washington, must have had great qualities."

"He belongs to England. His fame is the property of England; and if no other people will show that they value that fame, the people of England will:"--_William Cobbett_.

Rev. J. Lloyd Jones, LL. D.: "Great souls are the key-stones in the arches that unite the races.... German provincialism died when Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe were born. The insignificant island lost its insular character when Shakespeare wrote. The emaciated thirteen colonies became great when Washington, Franklin, Paine, and Jefferson spoke for them."

Mohammed Ali Webb: "All educated Mohammedans know him. The intelligent Moslem places Thomas Paine among the world's admirable men and holds his memory in great reverence."

U. Dhammaloka: "The Buddhist Tract Society of Burmah observed the one hundreth anniversary of the death of Thomas Paine. We had large audiences. I myself [president of this society] spoke to an audience of about five thousand at a town in Upper Burmah."

Kedàrnath Basu (of India): "My countrymen are beginning to admire and revere the noble character of Thomas Paine."

Yoshiro Oyama (Japan): "Thomas Paine was one of the greatest of the great men of the world."

Francois Thane: "The French people would be proud to have his ashes rest in the Pantheon beside the grave of Voltaire."

George Legg Henderson: "The time is not far distant when all the world will recognize in Thomas Paine the martyr, the hero, the man."

Prof. A. L. Rawson, LL. D.: "More men like Paine are wanted, and will appear from time to time, until the whole human race has grown in intelligence, reason and taste."

Judge Arnold Krekel, LL. D.: "Let us carry forward, then, the work in which the man we honor was so largely and so successfully engaged."

Libby C. Macdonald: "The lips of Thomas Paine are still in death, but we can voice his principles through ours."

"I commend the study of the life of Paine to the young men of today."--_Hon. William J. Gaynor._

"Time will come when the problem of school education will be how to make good citizens of our boys and girls, and there are no better books for this purpose than those of Thomas Paine."--_John S. Crosby._

"With the spirit of Thomas Paine in our hearts no despot, foreign or domestic, will ever be able to build his throne beside the grave of our liberty."--_Rev. Thomas B. Gregory._

"Had the world but heeded the wise counsels of Thomas Paine, Europe would not now be drenched in blood."--_W. M. van der Weyde._

Rev. J. Page Hopps: "Paine was a splendid radical prophet, and therefore, though a thoroughly practical man, was only a teacher and leader born too soon."

Rev. Marie J. Howe: "Paine did not belong to the eighteenth century, but was only born in it. He belongs to this."

Clarence Darrow: "Thomas Paine was so far beyond his age that a hundred years has not been long enough for the world to catch up. Sometime he will stand out as the wisest, truest, bravest friend of liberty that America can boast."

Henry Gaylord Wilshire: "Paine was the greatest man this country has produced, and it is only a question of time when we will come to realize it."

"Paine, being a genius, saw a vision of the future and the glories that should be. The herd did not, and we do not, but we shall some day."

Rev. Robert J. Lockhart: "He was a light that shed a splendor whose origin no man could declare. He was greater than the times he lived in."

Horace J. Bridges: "Some men are too great and too far ahead of their times to get justice at contemporary hands. Being too broad and impartial for any single party, they offend all parties, and are rejected and reviled by all. Such in England was the fate of Cromwell and Milton; and such in America has been the fate of Paine."

Herbert N. Casson: "Paine was a man who did not belong to his time, a man who was far larger than the men among whom he lived. He was loaned, as it were, from a larger planet to this small one. And he was given to this country at a time when the country most needed a guide and a wise teacher in the cause of independence and truth."

Rev. Dwight Galloupe, U. S. A.: "I am proud to speak the name of one who, in too many memories, lives only as an outcast and Ishmael among men--Thomas Paine. I cannot forget that when all was dark his eye saw a star of hope, his faith heard the tramping of millions of free people yet unborn. His devotion kept him steadfast until the Stars and Stripes compelled the recognition of the world."

"The man whose eloquent and reasoned appeal, 'Common Sense,' first formulated the demand for Independence, the first coiner of the great thought and expression, 'The United States of America,' the man whom Washington and Jefferson were proud to call their friend, and whose magnificent work for the liberty of their country they acknowledged with unstinted praise."--_The Nation_.

George Washington: "That his 'Common Sense' and many of his 'Crisis' were well timed and had a happy effect on the public mind, none, I believe, who will turn to the epochs at which they were published will deny."

"Must the merits of Common Sense continue to glide down the stream of time unrewarded by his country? His writings certainly have had a powerful effect on the public mind,--ought they not then to meet an adequate return?"

"If you will come to this place and partake with me I shall be exceedingly glad to see you at it. Your presence may remind Congress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your works."

"I am in hopes you will find us returned generally to sentiments worthy of former [Revolutionary] times. In these it will be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living."--_Thomas Jefferson_.

Colonel John Laurens: "You will be received with open arms, and all that affection and respect which our citizens are anxious to testify to the author of 'Common Sense' and the 'Crisis.'"

"I wish you to regard this part of America [the Carolinas] as your particular home--and every thing that I can command in it to be in common between us."

Robert Emmett: "To be associated with Mr. Paine, whose services to America are reflected in the glory of her Republic and the happiness of her people, must be to any one who loves liberty, or regards private virtues and public accomplishments, a source of peculiar pride."

James Monroe: "The citizens of the United States cannot look back upon the times of their own Revolution without recollecting among the names of their most distinguished patriots that of Thomas Paine. The services he rendered to his country in its struggle for freedom have implanted in the hearts of his countrymen a sense of gratitude never to be effaced as long as they deserve the title of a just and generous people."

"The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain our national character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered an important service in our Revolution, but as being on a more extensive scale, the friend of human rights, and a distinguished and able advocate in favor of public liberty."

James Madison (to Washington): "Whether a greater disposition to reward patriotic and distinguished efforts of genius will be found on any succeeding occasion, is not for me to predetermine. Should it finally appear that the merits of the man whose writings have so much contributed to infuse and foster the spirit of independence in the people of America, are unable to inspire them with a just beneficence, the world, it is to be feared, will give us as little credit for our policy as for our gratitude in this particular."

Madison, Jefferson, Edmund Randolph, and others urged the appointment of Paine to a place in Washington's cabinet.

"A little less modesty, a little more preference of himself to humanity, and a good deal more of what ought to be common sense on the part of the people he sought to free, and he would have been President of the United States."--_Calvin Blanchard_.

Marquis de Lafayette: "To me America without her Thomas Paine is unthinkable."

Should you ever visit Mount Vernon you will see among the many interesting relics preserved there a key. It is the Key of the Bastille, the demolition of which, on the 14th of July, 1789, was France's Declaration of Independence. This key passed through the hands of three celebrated men and associates in the mind the world's two greatest revolutions. Its history, briefly stated, is as follows: "Jefferson [then Minister to France] had sailed [for America] in September, and Paine was recognized by Lafayette and other leaders as the representative of the United States. To Paine Lafayette gave for presentation to Washington the key of the destroyed Bastille, ever since visible at Mount Vernon--symbol of the fact that, in Paine's words, 'the principles of America opened the Bastille.'"--_Conway_.

Dr. J. Rudis-Jicinsky: "When, in Germany, I read for the first time Paine's 'Common Sense' I thought that in the land of liberty, the United States, this hero who upheld the cause of the Colonies must be glorified and his works known to every patriotic citizen... To my astonishment I found that in this country the name of this great writer was not even known to all its citizens. Then a flood of light flashed through my brain and by its rays I spelled the word 'Ingratitude.'"

Unknown Writer (written in an old volume of Paine's works in a Philadelphia library): "He has no name. The country for which he labored and suffered knows him not. His ashes rest in a foreign land. A rough grass-grown mound, from which the bones have been purloined [now surmounted by a handsome monument] is all that remains on the continent of America to tell of the hero, the statesman, and the friend of man."

Rev. John Snyder of St. Louis says: "Paine is one of his country's half-forgotten saviors. In the mind of that country his heresy has canceled the years of loving and priceless service he rendered to a new-born nation. The clamor of bigotry has drowned the voice of gratitude."

"His patriotism shows not the slightest stain, and yet children have been taught to abhor his name."--_Ibid._

"The highest monument of injustice on this earth is America's ingratitude to Thomas Paine."--_James P. Bland, B.D._

"It is time the world awakened to his merits."--_Ella Wheeler Wilcox._

"It is time that justice should be done the memory of the man who strove and suffered for his fellowmen."--_William Marion Reedy_.

"The Republic owes so much to him that it is hardly seemly that it should continue doing less than justice to his memory."--_New York World._

Hon. Henry S. Randall: "Concede all the allegations against him and it still leaves him the author of 'Common Sense' and certain other papers, which rung like clarions in the darkest hour of the Revolutionary struggle, inspiring the bleeding and starving and pestilence-stricken as the pen of no other man ever inspired them."

"_Shame rest on the pen which dares not to do him justice._"

"A religion which will incite its followers, with virtual unanimity, to pursue with malignant hatred and to blacken with all the refinements of insatiable malice the memory of a distinguished benefactor of the human race, on the sole ground of his renunciation of certain theological dogmas, is undeniably the embodiment of a spirit hostile to intellectual liberty and human progress."--_James F. Morton, Jr._

"The national ingratitude displayed toward him on account of the fact of his theological heresies has hardly a parallel in history. In vindicating his memory, and calling attention, afresh to his invaluable services, we are not indulging in a blind hero worship, but are establishing a principle. The securing of justice to Paine, against the venomous hatred invoked by his priestly enemies, involves a crushing blow to clerical malice, and the winning of a victory which will have large consequences. In the person of Paine, we are vindicating the principles of religious liberty and confounding its antagonists."--_Ibid._

"The Atheists and Secularists of our time are printing, reading, revering a work ['Age of Reason'] that opposes their opinions. For above its arguments and criticisms they see the faithful heart contending with a mighty Apollyon, girt with all the forces of revolutionary and royal Terrorism. Just this one Englishman, born again in America, confronting George III. and Robespierre on earth and tearing the like of them from the throne of the universe! Were it only for the grandeur of this spectacle in the past Paine would maintain his hold on thoughtful minds. But in America the hold is deeper than that. In this self-forgetting insurrection of the human heart against deified Inhumanity there is an expression of the inarticulate wrath of humanity against continuance of the same wrong... There is still visible, however refined, the sting and claw of the Apollyon against whom Paine hurled his far-reaching dart."--_Dr. Conway._

Judge Thomas Herttell: "No man in modern ages has done more to benefit mankind, or distinguished himself more for the immense moral good he has effected for his species, than Thomas Paine."

Ernestine L. Rose: "He was one of the greatest benefactors of mankind."

Theodore Parker: "His instincts were humane and elevated,' and his life was devoted mainly to the great purposes of humanity."

"We find in Paine united two qualities which were rare in the eighteenth century--political sagacity and humanity."--_Hector Macpherson._

"His career is only reduced to intelligible consistency when we recognize that the impelling force behind his social, political and religious activities was an overmastering passion for humanity."--_Ibid._

Edwin C. Walker:. "Paine was the least insular, the least provincial--the most cosmopolitan--of all whose names have come down to us from the ages gone... His sympathies were broader even than all humanity, for they enclosed other forms of life as well, and were as varied as the needs of all who suffered and aspired."

Ellery Sedgwick: "He hated cruelty in every form. He hated war, he hated slavery, he hated injustice; and his public life was one long battle against every form of oppression."

"His free lance was ever at the service of the poor and oppressed, but never to be bought by favors of the court, or awed by the menaces of kings or the anathemas of priests."--_Hugh Byron Brown._

J. W. Whicker: "The growth of knowledge in the passing years will hallow the name of this author, this patriot, this hero of two continents. His life and his deeds are one sweet story of service for his kind."

John R. Charlesworth: "His weapon was a pen. His mind jeweled with gems of thought, richer by far than silver or gold, he gave of his intellectual treasures without price."

"Long live the man, in early contest found, Who spoke-his heart when dastards trembled round; Who, fired with more than Greek or Roman rage, Flashed truth on tyrants from his manly page." --Dr. Joseph B. Ladd.

Rev. Brooke Hereford: "Thomas Paine was the great defender of human rights and merits the everlasting gratitude of man."

Rev. Dr. David Swing: "He was one of the best and grandest men that ever trod the planet."

Charles Phillips: "Thomas Paine, no matter what may be the difference of opinion as to his principles, must ever remain a proud example of mind, unpatronized and unsupported, eclipsing the factitious beams of rank, and wealth, and pedigree. I never saw him in his captivity, or heard the revilings by which he has since been assailed, without cursing in my heart that ungenerous feeling which, cold to the necessities of genius, is clamorous in the publication of its defects.

"Ye great ones of his nation [England]! ye pretended moralists, so forward now to cast your interested indignation upon the memory of Paine!--where were you in the day of his adversity? Which of you, to assist his infant merit, would diminish even the surplus of your debaucheries? Where the mitred charity, the practical religion? Consistent declaimers, rail on! What though his genius was the gift of Heaven, his heart the altar of friendship! What though wit and eloquence and anecdote flowed freely from his tongue, while Conviction made his voice her messenger! What though thrones trembled, and prejudice fled, and freedom came, at his command! He dared to question the creed which you, believing, contradicted, and to despise the rank which you, boasting of, debased."

William Lee:

"Immortal Paine, thy fame can never die!"

C. Fannie Allyn:

"Because you left a record that has floated down the years, Because your words undying have conquered low-born jeers, Because the ones who listened are victors over fears, As Thomas Paine the Hero we salute you!

"Philanthropist and Patriot, a-down the Yet-to-be! Your thoughts are sweeping deathless as breezes o'er the sea, And hearts of men and women by you are made more free, As Thomas Paine the Future will salute you!"

Alden Freeman: "One hundred years ago today there passed from life into the undying fame of assured immortality a chieftain among the Fathers of our Country, the foremost agitator of the American Revolution--Thomas Paine."

Samuel H. Preston: "He who will live forever in the history of this republic as the author-hero of the Revolution; he who consecrated a long, laborious life in both hemispheres to the sacred cause of humanity; he who, in his sublime patriotism, adopted the world for his country, and who, in his boundless philanthropy, embraced all mankind for his brethren; this man--this great, and grand, and good, and heroic man--has been robbed of honor and reputation, and blackened and hunted by the sleuth-hounds of superstition, as though he had been the embodied curse of earth.

"But, so sure as the affairs of men have an eternal destiny, shall justice be awarded Thomas Paine. The flowers of poesy will be woven in amaranthine wreaths above his last resting-place, and his once-blackened name will whiten with purity through all the wasteless years."

Rev. Frank S. C. Wicks: "Why this ingratitude? In one word, bigotry! Religious bigotry, that serpent that has left its trail of slime all over the pages of human history.

"He was pursued by religious bigotry, and but for religious bigotry the name of Thomas Paine would share with Washington the love and honor of his countrymen."

Rev. Thomas B. Gregory: "Our gratitude has been abundantly shown to Washington, Franklin, Jefferson and others who figured in the great drama, but to our shame it must be said we have been slow in acknowledging our debt to the man who did more than any other to bring about this country's freedom.

"But superstition is slowly dying, ignorance is gradually disappearing, and by and by Thomas Paine will come into his own and take his place along with the greatest in our national pantheon."

Rev. Solomon Southwick, D.D.: "Had Thomas Paine been a Grecian or Roman patriot in olden times, and performed the same services as he did for this country, he would have had the honor of an Apotheosis. The Pantheon would have been opened to him, and we should at this day regard his memory with the same veneration that we do that of Socrates and Cicero. But posterity will do him justice. Time, that destroys envy and establishes truth, will clothe his character in the habiliments that justly belong to it."

"Paine was one of the glories of his age.... He has a powerful vindicator--posterity."--_M. M. Mangasarian_.

Frances Wright D'Arusmont: "Rest in peace, noble patriot; a glorious resurrection awaits thee."

"For nearly a century this noble man--the real founder of our republic--has been buried beneath the cruel stones of obloquy. But slowly the angels of Justice are rolling back these stones from his sepulchre, and the resurrection of Thomas Paine is at hand."--_Six Historic Americans_.

Current Literature: "The present indications are that posterity will preserve the favorable, rather than the unfavorable, picture of Thomas Paine. His influence is steadily growing."

Col. John C. Bundy: "Paine's influence is waxing broader, deeper and more aggressive with each succeeding generation. At the end of a century, more of his theological and political works are sold each year than those of any other theologian or politician America has ever known. All the progress of the century has been in the direction in which he steered."

The Nation (London): "The magnitude, variety, and immediate efficacy of Paine's writings constitute him one of the chief personal forces of the revolutionary age.... He carried into the New England across the water a consuming passion for human justice and liberty, not as platform phrases, but as hard, concrete goods worth fighting and dying for, which set America afire, when she was confusedly pondering an impossible and unnatural reconciliation. From America to France, fresh in the throes of her great upheaval, he passed, not as an incendiary, but as a moderating and constructive influence in her national convention, risking his very life for the cause of clemency in dealing with a traitorous king. From France to England, carrying the same doctrines of liberty in politics and religion, not a cold utilitarian conception of individual rights, but a rich human gospel of a commonwealth sustained by a passion of humanity as deep and real as ever influenced the soul of man.

"He will recover a glorious though tardy fame among those who take the necessary trouble to rectify false estimates and to do honor to one of the most truly honorable men who have striven to serve mankind."

"He died broken with many griefs, to be remembered by a later age as the great Commoner of mankind."--_Library of The World's Best Literature._

Charles Edward Russell: "The soul of Thomas Paine was 'like a star and dwelt apart.' He kept his own self-respect and the integrity of his mind."

"He lived a long, laborious, and useful life. The world is better for his having lived. For the sake of truth he accepted hatred and reproach. He ate the bitter bread of sorrow. His friends were untrue to him because he was true to himself, and true to them. He lost the respect of what is called society, but kept his own. His life is what the world calls a failure, and what history calls success."--_Ingersoll._

Daniel Edwin Wheeler: "History continually reverses her statements at the command of Truth, and the latter is slowly but certainly rehabilitating the name and fame of Paine. The slime of a mythology which has for over a century stained his reputation is disappearing and the prophet pamphleteer is coming into his own."