before
publishing his religious convictions was due to a desire to work out
some positive and practicable system to take the place of that which he
believed was crumbling. The English engineer Hall, who assisted Paine in
making the model of his iron bridge, wrote to his friends in England,
in 1786: "My employer has Common Sense enough to disbelieve most of the
common systematic theories of Divinity, but does not seem to establish
any for himself." But five years later Paine was able to lay the
corner-stone of his temple: "With respect to religion itself, without
regard to names, and as directing itself from the universal family of
mankind to the 'Divine object of all adoration, it is man bringing to
his Maker the fruits of his heart; and though those fruits may differ
from each other like the fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of
every one, is accepted." ("Rights of Man." See my edition of Paine's
Writings, ii., p. 326.) Here we have a reappearance of George Fox
confuting the doctor in America who "denied the light and Spirit of
God to be in every one; and affirmed that it was not in the Indians.
Whereupon I called an Indian to us, and asked him 'whether or not, when
he lied, or did wrong to anyone, there was not something in him that
reproved him for it?' He said, 'There was such a thing in him that did
so reprove him; and he was ashamed when he had done wrong, or spoken
wrong.' So we shamed the doctor before the governor and the people."
(Journal of George Fox, September 1672.)

Paine, who coined the phrase "Religion of Humanity" (The Crisis, vii.,
1778), did but logically defend it in "The Age of Reason," by denying a
special revelation to any particular tribe, or divine authority in
any particular creed of church; and the centenary of this much-abused
publication has been celebrated by a great conservative champion of
Church and State, Mr. Balfour, who, in his "Foundations of Belief,"
affirms that "inspiration" cannot be denied to the great Oriental
teachers, unless grapes may be gathered from thorns.

The centenary of the complete publication of "The Age of Reason,"
(October 25, 1795), was also celebrated at the Church Congress, Norwich,
on October 10, 1895, when Professor Bonney, F.R.S., Canon of Manchester,
read a paper in which he said: "I cannot deny that the increase of
scientific knowledge has deprived parts of the earlier books of the
Bible of the historical value which was generally attributed to th