The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1855-03-07

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emay shade the boundary lines of trut
and error SO much that a strong ligh
. may be required for detecting and puri
flying the minglement of the hues. Bu
, the inane rawlings of Paine;s Age G
Reason should deceive no one VIII
has capacity, to tell cross counterfeit
from a good original. If Paine had pos
sessed other learning than the mer
: rudiments of ans English education, If b
had been able ito read thesetripture
in the original languages, he might hav
saved himself from large part of hi
g Age of Reason p and, ii. he had beer
half as much master of logic as he wa
mathematics, he might have saved hi
life from con tempt and his memory frou
! .execration.s How great the contras
between Charles Thomson, the Secreta
ry to the Continental Congress, anc
Paine, the clerk to the Committee OF
Foreign Affasrs Such was tho univer
sal faith in the integrity of Charles
Thomson that Mr.. Clay, in ono of hi;
great speeches, said that during the Rev
olutionary war the people were SO
often deceived with false news thai
they got SO at Hast thai they would
believe nothing unless it had Charles
Thomson's IS name SUBSIDIZED to it,
Not a blemish was ever suspected upon
that sterling honesty He served as
clerk of the Revolutionary Congress nm
till the close sof the struggle. When
Washington was elected President he
wished Thomson to serve as his private
secretary, but he declined all further
public service and turned to private life,
clothed with the universal confidence,
Hove, and reverence of the whole popnla-
tion of the young Republic. He desir-
ed tospend thesevening of his life in lit
erary leisure; ). aud, so universally were
his virtues known. n,.that when the Indi-
ans adopted him into their tribe.the In
tdian snamethey gave him expressed " the
man of truth - tSE ~ a 5
While removing to the country from
Philadelphia to enjoy his retirements he
was passing an auction store at night and
heard an auctioneer crying off a lot OF
old Greek books Thomson stopped in
! and made bid, and they were knocked
off to him. When he opened his pack
age sthes next night he found among the
books an old volume of the Septuagent
version of the Old Testament. He put
1T away on his library shelf with the 9TH
ser books One year from that time he
was in Philadelphia at night and SINH
lar scene occurred. When he opened
this second package he found the other
volume {. .the-SaP Ptaasent Surprised
with the singular fact, he -commeneed
reading the Creek version of the Old
Testament, and was so struck with its
tl,ot
he determined at once to occupy his leis-
ure hours in making Translation OF the
Bible He was spared to accomplish It,
.aad his translatisnlis justly regarded as
one of >und merit. DR.. Horne, in his
great work. entitled !" An Introduction
to a Critical Study of the Bible, speaks
in not only high terms of the goueral
merit of the work, but of Thomson's de-
eided improvements, especially in rem
dering some Of the Greek propositions.
He died sixteen years after the publ
cation of this work, and was universally
beloved His death was as calm and
heroic as his life had been honorable,
faithful, and prais eworthy. sHiss lnteg
rity was unbending, and it was as uni
yersallya known and appreciated as that
=
And what rational mortal, in contem-
plating the lives of these two American
revolutionary writers, would hesitatesln
his choice of these char acters ? indie
peDdentIy of all the eleyating aud en-
nobliug glories of Christian morals,
what merely good man would not say
let my life run toits end like Charles
Thomson's, but save ne from that of
Paiue's :? - #sszs.ss@ saaasa ssE
We have carefully surveyed the whole
ground of infdelity, from the days of the
learned Philo, though all the gradesof
such men as Tindall, Herbert, Hobbies,
Hume, and thesrest of the philosophers,
and we feel free to say that the mind
which rejects Christianity on its-ezi-
denees is bound to be an unbeliaFer IN
every history that hasbeeu writteD.--
There is not an event of American colo
nization, not particle Of the Ameri
can Rezolution, not aphase in the career
of Washington that is more clearly es-
tablished by evidence than the facts of
christianity. We can as clearly prove
tha birth, life, and acts of Jesus Christ
and the career of his Apostles as any
man can prove the career of Hannibal,
of Scipio, Afrioanus, or of Washington.
No one of Tom Paine's disciples who pa
raded the streets of Louisville on Mon
day last, we presume, doubts that Juli
us Caesar was assassinated while he was
Imperator of Rome But the witness
es to the facts on which Christianity
stands were companions Gifts founder
and eye-witnesses of the events of which
they testify There was time when
their testimony had beginning, time
when their books first saw the light, and
then there were persons who could have
exposed their frauds if any had existed.
These witnesses met great deal of op-
position, and the opposing works of their
enemies have come down the stream of
centuries with the works of the Evan
gelists, but these opponents do not at
tempt to deny the facts. Philo, the
jew, does not deny a fact mentioned In
these books, yet he was as bitter an op
poneut of them as Tom Paine himself.
Let us return to the assassination of
Julius Caesar These Turner's believe
that historic fact without hesitation
Yet there is not contemporaneous wit
ness who records the fact. The FIRST re-
lator of the circumstances was not born
until sixty years after the occurrence
julius Caesar was the first man in pure
IL intellectual greatness of his age. lie
had becomest the head of the State and
was backed By its military power. The
leading men among those who are said
to have compassed his death were men
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