s grand sentiment is smoked with the darkness of the
dark ages. The Father of Spirits made us with the power of choice--gave us
the liberty to choose--and we all may have, in the future, just such a
state as we will. The Father loved all; the Son died for all; and the
Spirit says to all, COME!

The great struggle that is now going on between Christianity and unbelief
is accomplishing two good things: First, it is making it hard for
professors of religion to hold their errors, or cover up hypocrisy; and
second, it is making it hard for infidels and skeptics to hold on to their
flimsy objections to the Christian religion. Let the struggle go on!

THE RECORDS RESPECTING THE DEATH OF THOMAS PAINE.

That he bitterly regretted the writing and the publishing of the _Age of
Reason_ we have incontestable proof. During his last illness he asked a
pious young woman, Mary Roscoe, a Quakeress, who frequently visited him,
if she had ever read any of his writings, and being told that she had read
very little of them he inquired what she thought of them, adding, "From
such a one as you I expect a true answer." She told him, when very young
she had read his _Age of Reason_, but the more she read of it the more
dark and distressed she felt, and she threw it into the fire. "I wish all
had done as you," he replied, "for if the devil ever had an agency in any
work, he has had it in writing that book."--_Journal of Stephen Grellet,
1809._

Dr. Manley, who was with him during his last hours, in a letter to
Cheetham, in 1809, writes: "He could not be left alone night or day. He
not only required to have some person with him, but he must see that he or
she was there, and if, as it would sometimes happen, he was left alone, he
would scream and halloo until some person came to him. There was something
remarkable in his conduct about this period, which comprises about two
weeks immediately preceding his death. He would call out during his
paroxysms of distress, without intermission, 'O Lord, help me! God, help
me! Jesus Christ, help me! O Lord, help me!' etc., repeating the same
expressions without the least variation, in a tone of voice that would
alarm the house. It was this conduct which induced me to think that he
abandoned his former opinions, and I was more inclined to that belief when
I understood from his nurse, who is a very serious, and I believe pious
woman, that he would occasionally inquire, when he saw her engaged with a