of Providence_
it were possible for us to escape a crisis so full
of terror and despair, posterity will not believe
the history of the present times."--Let. 1.

Mr. Paine wrote the Age of Reason as an argument against atheism on the
one hand and fanaticism on the other. This he says himself.

* * * * *

I will now give the language of Mr. Paine on religion, infidelity,
atheism, fanaticism, and morality, and then subscribe the language of
Junius.

{163}In his discourse to the Theophilanthropists of Paris, Mr. Paine says:
"Religion has two principal enemies--_fanaticism and infidelity_, or
that which is called _atheism_. The first requires to be combatted by
reason or morality, the other by natural philosophy." In opposing
atheism he makes intelligent force the God of the universe. This is his
language: "_God is the power_, or first cause, _nature is the law_, and
_matter is the subject acted upon_." That is, there is a duality in the
universe--_force_ and _matter_; and the action of _force_ on matter
produces the _laws of nature_, or, every phenomenon is produced by the
motion of matter. He founds his argument against atheism on the _motion_
of matter, and elaborates it in his clear and forcible style, and then
says: "Where will infidelity--where will atheism find cause for this
astonishing velocity of motion, never ceasing, never varying, and which
is the preservation of the earth in its orbit? It is not by reasoning
from an acorn to an oak, or from any change in the state of matter on
the surface of the earth, that this can be accounted for. _Its cause is
not to be found in matter, nor in any thing we call nature._ The atheist
who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge
themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the
sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of
absurdities by not reasoning to the end, the other loses himself in the
obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonors the Creator by
treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a
half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other is a visionary to
whom we must be charitable."

I wish the reader to compare with the last sentence above the following
extracts from Junius, to be found in Letters 44 and 35: "The opinions of
these men are too absurd to be easily renounced. Liberal minds are open
to