nkard. That is another falsehood. He
drank liquor in his day, as did the preachers. It was no unusual thing
for a preacher going home to stop in a tavern and take a drink of hot
rum with a deacon, and it was no unusual thing for the deacon to help
the preacher home. You have no idea how they loved the sacrament in
those days. They had communion pretty much all the time.

Thorburn says that in 1802 Paine was an "old remnant of mortality,
drunk, bloated, and half asleep." Can anyone believe this to be a true
account of the personal appearance of Mr. Paine in 1802? He had just
returned from France. He had been welcomed home by Thomas Jefferson,
who had said that he was entitled to the hospitality of every American.
In 1802 Mr. Paine was honored with a public dinner in the City of New
York. He was called upon and treated with kindness and respect by such
men as De Witt Clinton. In 1806 Mr. Paine wrote a letter to Andrew A.
Dean upon the subject of religion. Read that letter and then say that
the writer of it was an old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and
half asleep. Search the files of Christian papers, from the first
issue to the last, and you will find nothing superior to this letter.
In 1803 Mr. Paine wrote a letter of considerable length, and of great
force to his friend Samuel Adams. Such letters are not written by
drunken beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by drunkards. It
was about the same time that he wrote his "Remarks on Robert Hall's
Sermons." These "Remarks" were not written by a drunken beast, but by
a clear-headed and thoughtful man.

In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of England and a treatise
on gun-boats, full of valuable maritime information; in 1805 a treatise
on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention. In short, he was an
industrious and thoughtful man. He sympathized with the poor and
oppressed of all lands. He looked upon monarchy as a species of
physical slavery. He had the goodness to attack that form of
government. He regarded the religion of his day as a kind of mental
slavery. He had the courage to give his reasons for his opinion. His
reasons filled the churches with hatred. Instead of answering his
arguments they attacked him. Men who were not fit to blacken his shoes
blackened his character. There is too much religious cant in the
statement of Mr. Thorburn. He exhibits too much anxiety to tell what
Grant Thorburn said to Thomas Paine.