art he studies upon, and partly
writes, while in prison, and publishes it a few months after his
release.

This work was planned years before it appeared, and its completion was
deferred till near the close of his life, that the purity of his motives
might not be impeached. It was written at that time, too, before he had
intended it, because he expected soon to be put to death, and lest, in
"the general shipwreck of superstition, of false systems of government,
and false theology, the people lose sight of morality, of humanity, and
of the theology that is true." It was written to combat superstition,
fanaticism, and atheism on the one hand, and to defend religion,
morality, and deism on the other. It is the good and religious work of
a good and religious man. The work it was designed to accomplish is not
yet done, but it is well begun. As the world grows wiser it will be
valued the more highly, and the more it is read the better will people
become.

Had Mr. Paine died at this time, his life's work would have been
fulfilled, and the tranquillity of his life would not have been
disturbed by the curses of the whole order of the priesthood. But there
are fourteen years of life before him yet, in which he is maligned,
vilified, slandered, and publicly and privately insulted.

I will briefly sum them up. Seven of these years he spends in France. He
writes his essays "On the English System of Finance," "Agrarian
Justice," and the "Letter to General Washington;" also, one "To the
People and Armies of France." It seems he became attached to Napoleon,
for the project of the gun-boat invasion of England is started, and
should it succeed, Mr. Paine is to give England a more liberal
government. In 1802, he came to America, and the folly of gun-boats also
enters into Jefferson's administration. These seven years of life in
America are years of trouble and grief. Jefferson, the great Democratic
partisan, secures his services to write for his party; but he had never
been a partisan, he had stood on higher ground, he had labored for all
mankind, and the work, which ill became him, served only to aggravate
his own life. We can see a mental change coming over the old man; the
reason is yet strong, but the temper is irritable; he grows peevish and
broods over his wrongs. "I ought not to have an enemy in America," he
said. But the generation of people he now lived among, near the close
of his life, were not yet born "in the times that tr