my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God
Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction,
or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly
and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by
every decent method which wisdom could invent.--"The
Crisis."

I want you to note carefully the title of this chapter. And then I
want you to note still more carefully the quotation with which it
opens. It was the man known far and wide as "the infidel,"--the man
who was denounced by church-goers, and persecuted for his unorthodox
doctrines,--who wrote with such high and happy confidence of a fair, a
just and a merciful God Almighty.

Before me lies a letter from W.M. van der Weyde, the president of the
Thomas Paine National Historical Association. One paragraph meets my
eyes at this moment:

"Paine was, without doubt, the very biggest figure that ever
lived in 'Greenwich Village.' I think, on investigation, you
will realise the truth of this statement."

I have realised it. And that is why I conceive no book on Greenwich
complete without a chapter devoted to him who came to be known as "the
great Commoner of Mankind." He spoke of himself as a "citizen of the
world," and there are many quarters of the globe that can claim a
share in his memory, so we will claim it, too!

It is true that Thomas Paine lived but a short time in Greenwich, and
that the long play of his full and colourful career was enacted before
he came to spend his last days in the Village. But he is none the less
an essential part of Greenwich; his illustrious memory is so signal a
source of pride to the neighbourhood, his personality seems still so
vividly present, that his life and acts must have a place there, too.
The street that was named "Reason" because of him, suggests the
persecutions abroad and at home which followed the writing of that
extraordinary and daring book "The Age of Reason." The name of Mme. de
Bonneville, who chose for him the little frame house on the site which
is now about at 59 Grove Street, recalls his dramatic life chapter in
Paris, where he first met the De Bonnevilles. So, you see, one cannot
write of Thomas Paine in Greenwich, without writing of Thomas Paine in
the great world--working, fighting, pleading, suffering, lighting a
million fires of courage and of inspiration, living so hard and fast
and strenuously, that to read over his experien