y, but was not much elated by
it, especially after a certain adventure on his way to Lincoln's Inn. He
felt his coat clutched and beheld at his feet a woman bathed in tears.
She led him into the small book-shop of Thomas Williams, not yet called
up for judgment, and there he beheld his victim stitching tracts in a
wretched little room, where there were three children, two suffering
with Smallpox. He saw that it would be ruin and even a sort of murder to
take away to prison the husband, who was not a freethinker, and lamented
his publication of the book, and a meeting of the Society which had
retained him was summoned. There was a full meeting, the Bishop of
London (Porteus) in the chair. Erskine reminded them that Williams was
yet to be brought up for sentence, described the scene he had witnessed,
and Williams' penitence, and, as the book was now suppressed, asked
permission to move for a nominal sentence. Mercy, he urged, was a part
of the Christianity they were defending. Not one of the Society took his
side,--not even "philanthropic" Wilberforce--and Erskine threw up his
brief. This action of Erskine led the Judge to give Williams only a year
in prison instead of the three he said had been intended.

While Williams was in prison the orthodox colporteurs were circulating
Erskine's speech on Christianity, but also an anonymous sermon "On the
Existence and Attributes of the Deity," all of which was from Paine's
"Age of Reason," except a brief "Address to the Deity" appended.
This picturesque anomaly was repeated in the circulation of Paine's
"Discourse to the Theophilanthropists" (their and the author's names
removed) under the title of "Atheism Refuted." Both of these pamphlets
are now before me, and beside them a London tract of one page just sent
for my spiritual benefit. This is headed "A Word of Caution." It begins
by mentioning the "pernicious doctrines of Paine," the first being "that
there is No GOD" (sic,) then proceeds to adduce evidences of divine
existence taken from Paine's works. It should be added that this one
dingy page is the only "survival" of the ancient Paine effigy in the
tract form which I have been able to find in recent years, and to this
no Society or Publisher's name is attached.

The imprisonment of Williams was the beginning of a thirty years' war
for religious liberty in England, in the course of which occurred many
notable events, such as Eaton receiving homage in his pillory at Choring