record to insult or upbraid you. You have better
proofs of your descent, my lord, than the register
of a marriage," etc.--Let. 12.

In their appeals to posterity they were both equal and frequent. Mr.
Paine says, in closing his first Crisis: "By perseverance and fortitude
we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission
the sad choice of a variety of evils, a ravaged country, a depopulated
city, habitations without safety, and slavery without hope; our homes
turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians and a _future race_
to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture
and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who
believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented." Junius also says in
strains as pathetic and patriotic: "We owe it to _posterity_ not to
suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed. But if it were
possible for us to be insensible of these sacred claims, there is yet an
obligation binding on ourselves, from which nothing can acquit us, a
personal interest which we can not surrender. To alienate even our own
rights would be a crime as much more enormous than suicide as a life of
civil security and freedom is superior to a bare existence; and if life
be the bounty of Heaven, we scornfully reject the noblest part of the
gift, if we consent to surrender that certain rule of living, without
which the condition of human nature is not only miserable, but
contemptible."--Let. 20.

* * * * *

In the study of the human heart, and in a knowledge of the secret
workings of the mind they were both masters. And, had it not been that
they overapplied the nobler virtues in the common people, they would
never have gone wrong in their conclusions. They failed not in the
knowledge, but in the application of the thing. They thought it existed
where it did not. But this is the law, which they laid down as follows:

_Paine._

"It is the faculty of the human mind to become
what it contemplates, and to act in unison with
its objects."--R. M., part i.

_Junius._

"By persuading others we convince ourselves. The
passions are engaged, and create a maternal
affection in the mind which forces us to love the
cause for which we suffer." ... "When once a man
is determined to believe, the