work for him.
Martin was then quite an old man; and there was an old Presbyterian
preacher used to come there, by the name of Crawford, and he sat down
by the fire and he got to talking one night, among other things about
Thomas Paine--what a wretched, infamous dog he was; and while he was in
the midst of this conversation the old soldier rose from the fireplace,
and he walked over to the preacher, and he said to him "Did you ever
see Thomas Paine?" "No." "Well," he says, "I have; I saw him at
Valley Forge. I heard read at the head of every regiment and company
the letters of Thomas Paine. I heard them read the 'Crisis,' and I saw
Thomas Paine writing on the head of a drum, sitting at the bivouac
fire, those simple words that inspired every patriot's bosom, and I
want to tell you Mr. Preacher, that Thomas Paine did more for liberty
than any priest that ever lived in this world."

"And yet they say he was afraid to die! Afraid of what? Is there any
God in heaven that hates a patriot? If there is Thomas Paine ought to
be afraid to die. Is there any God that would damn a man for helping
to free three millions of people? If Thomas Paine was in hell tonight,
and could get God's attention long enough to point him to the old
banner of the stars floating over America, God would have to let him
out. What would he be afraid of? Had he ever burned anybody? No.
Had he ever put anybody in the inquisition? No. Ever put the
thumb-screw on anybody? No. Ever put anybody in prison so that some
poor wife and mother would come and hold her little babe up at the
grated window that the man bound to the floor might get one glimpse of
his blue-eyed babe? Did he ever do that?"

"Did he ever light a fagot? Did he ever tear human flesh? Why, what
had he to be afraid of? He had helped to make the world free. He had
helped create the only republic then on the earth. What was he afraid
of? Was God a tory? It won't do."

One would think from the persistence with which the orthodox have
charged for the last seventy years that Thomas Paine recanted, that
there must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges.
Even with my ideas of the average honor of the believers in
superstition, the average truthfulness of the disciples of fear, I did
not believe that all those infamies rested solely upon poorly-attested
falsehoods. I had charity enough to suppose that something had been
said or done by Thomas Paine capable of be