dissenting minister who, conceiving himself ill
treated by the British Government, came to Philadelphia in 1774 and
threw himself heart and soul into the colonial cause. His pamphlet,
_Common Sense_, issued in 1776, began with the famous words: "These are
the times that try men's souls." This was followed by the _Crisis_, a
series of political essays advocating independence and the
establishment of a republic, published in periodical form, though at
irregular intervals. Paine's rough and vigorous advocacy was of great
service to the American patriots. His writings were popular and his
arguments were of a kind easily understood by plain people, addressing
themselves to the common sense, the prejudices and passions of
unlettered readers. He afterward went to France and took an active
part in the popular movement there, crossing swords with Burke in his
_Rights of Man_, 1791-92, written in defense of the French Revolution.
He {378} was one of the two foreigners who sat in the Convention; but
falling under suspicion during the days of the terror, he was committed
to the prison of the Luxembourg and only released upon the fall of
Robespierre July 27, 1794. While in prison he wrote a portion of his
best known work, the _Age of Reason_. This appeared in two parts in
1794 and 1795, the manuscript of the first part having been intrusted
to Joel Barlow, the American poet, who happened to be in Paris when
Paine was sent to prison.

The _Age of Reason_ damaged Paine's reputation in America, where the
name of "Tom Paine" became a stench in the nostrils of the godly and a
synonym for atheism and blasphemy. His book was denounced from a
hundred pulpits, and copies of it were carefully locked away from the
sight of "the young," whose religious beliefs it might undermine. It
was, in effect, a crude and popular statement of the Deistic argument
against Christianity. What the cutting logic and persiflage--the
_sourire hideux_--of Voltaire had done in France, Paine, with coarser
materials, essayed to do for the English-speaking populations. Deism
was in the air of the time; Franklin, Jefferson, Ethan Alien, Joel
Barlow, and other prominent Americans were openly or unavowedly
deistic. Free thought, somehow, went along with democratic opinions,
and was a part of the liberal movement of the age. Paine was a man
without reverence, imagination, or religious feeling. He was no
scholar, and he was {379} not troubled by any percepti