providence.

They have priests of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few. Both
childhood and youth are instructed of them, not more in learning than in
good manners.

"This is that order of the commonwealth which, in my judgment, is not
only the best, but also that which alone of good right may claim and
take upon it the name of a commonwealth or weal-publique," quoth he.
But, in the meantime, I, Thomas More, as I cannot agree and consent to
all things that he said, so must I needs confess and grant that many
things be in the Utopian weal-publique which in our cities I may rather
wish for than hope after.

THOMAS PAINE

The Rights of Man

"The Rights of Man" by Thomas Paine (see RELIGION, Vol. XIII) was
an answer to Burke's attack on the French Revolution. It was
published in two parts in 1790 and 1792, and is an earnest and
courageous exposition of Paine's revolutionary opinions, and from
that day to this has played no small part in moulding public
thought. The extreme candour of his observations on monarchy led to
a prosecution, and he had to fly to France. There he pleaded for
the life of Louis XVI., and was imprisoned for ten months during
the Terror. He left France bitterly disappointed with the failure
of the republic, and passed the rest of his days in America.
"Paine's ignorance," says Sir Leslie Stephen, "was vast, and his
language brutal; but he had the gift of a true demagogue--the power
of wielding a fine, vigorous English."

_I.--Natural and Civil Rights_

Among the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke or
irritate each other, Mr. Burke's pamphlet in the French revolution is an
extraordinary instance. There is scarcely an epithet of abuse in the
English language with which he has not loaded the French nation and the
National Assembly. Considered as an attempt at political argument, his
work is a pathless wilderness of rhapsodies, in which he asserts
whatever he pleases without offering either evidence or reasons for so
doing.

With his usual outrage, he abuses the Declaration of the Rights of Man
published by the National Assembly as the basis of the French
constitution. But does he mean to deny that _man_ has any rights? If he
does, then he must mean that there are no such things as rights
anywhere; for who is there in the world but man? But if Mr. Burke means
to admit that man has rights, the question th