Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1876-03-29
WHOLE NO. 1855.
TOM PAINE.

Among the Centennial events there is
one that should not be forgotten, yet will
not gladly be remembered, because 1t is
associated with a name which is general
ly distasteful as any in our history. In
the winter of hundred years ago was
published the famous pamphlet, Common
Sense, which crystallized into fixed pur-
pose the wishes and hopes for independ-
ence which filled colonial mind. The
author was Thomas Paine--a very con-
spicuous in his time, but generally known
to US as Tom Paine, the infldel. One lit
tie boy whom the Easy Chair we'll knew
heard his name nrsL upon a raw wintry
day in New England town, when his
attention was attracted by the firing Of
guns, and he asked what they were for
The reply was in substance that some dis
reputable people were celebrating Tom
Pane's birthday. The tone implied that
he was dreadful reprobate. But surely
Tom Paine had done some good service.
He wrote Common Sense, and publised it
in the dark hour of the Revolution. 1t
was wholly unselfsh service, for he
took out no copyright; and even in those
days, among colonial population of three
millions only, poor and in the midst Of
exhausting war, there were hundred
thousand copies Of the pamphlet sold.--
Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson,
hailed him as a public benefactor. But
among later Americans his name was al
ways mentioned with horror and disdain.
1t is agreed that no single cause was more
effective in producing the Declaration OF
Independence than his Common Sense
Yet sixteen years ago, when a portrait OF
Paine was offered to the city Of Philadel-
phia, to be hung in the hall where the
Declaration was adopted and signed, 1t
was declined. A likeness Of Tom Paine,
the infde, must not hang among the
august shades Of the fathers. Yet the
religious views Of "Tom Paine" were es-
sentially those of "Tom Jefferson" whose
name will be saluted as among the most
ilustrisus of this illustrious year.
The feeling about Paine in the begin
nng of the century was largely political.
When Jefferson was President, he invited
Paine to come to this country from
France, where he had narrowly escaped
the guillotine, and he arrived in October,
1902. His friends gave him public din
ners. His opponents said that Tom Paine
and Tom Jefferson ought to dangle from
the same gallows. For even in that gold
en- age of the republic, to which so many
signing imaginations revert from the cor.
ruption of this age Of brass and iron upon
which we have fallen, there was some
warmth of party feeling and expression.-
When Paine came to New York he stop
ped at the old City Hotel, on Broadway,
just north of Trinity Church. And the
inqusitive little Laurie Todd, or Grant
Thorburn, heard one day that the great
sinner was standing at the door Of the
hotel, and he ran out with some friends
to see him. But Mr.. Paine had gone to
his room. The Scotchman was not to be
foiled, and he asked servant who was
sweeping the hall if Mr.. Paine was at
home. Hearing that he was, Thorburn
pushed on, and was shown into large
room where the table was set for break
fast. One gentleman was writing, aneth-
er reading the newspaper, and at the farth-
er end Of the room stood a long, lank,
coarse-lo looking figure warming his hind
quarters before the fire. The intruder
asked for Mr.. Paine. The figure by the
fire replied that his name was Paine
Thorburn put out his hand, which Paine
took, and the little Scotchman said that
he had called from mere curiosity. Mr..
Paine replied that he was very glad to
satisfy it. Upon which Thorburn made
bow 'like goose ducking his head under
water" walked out, and shut the the door,
while all the gentlemen in the room burst
into laugh, which he heard all the way
to the door. He did not care he had seen
the great man. But he had to pay for the
pleasure. The great city was small
town then, and the story Of the interview
grew as it was repeated. Thorburn was
clerk of the Scotch Presbyterian church,
in Cedar Street, and If he had hobnobbed
with Voltaire-as Voltaire was then gen.
orally esteened-or had sworn eternal
friendship with David Hume, he could not
have struck his brethren with greater hor-
ror The Kirk Session took alarm. A
special meeting was called, and Grant
Thorburn was suspended from psalm
singing for three months because he had
shaken hands with Thomas Paine.
Doubtless Paine has been very harshly
treated. His honesty can not be doubted.
His political views were those Of the men
of his time whom we most reverence, and
his religious opinions did not differ from
those of many men whom we most higa-
ly honor. He was not an inadel in the
ordinary sense, for his Age Of Reason was
written to oppose atheism. His misfor-
tune was that he had no tact, and the
very vgor and simplicity of mind and
style which made sbmmOn- Sense and The
Rights of Nan such efficient political
pamphlets, made his religious treatise, the
Age Of Reason, fatal to his reputation.-.
In the first he trenchantly expressed
great and powerful public opiuion. In
the last he came into collision with 1t,
and it crushed him. EDITORS EASY CHAIR,