Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest — John Shaqi
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - LatestIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Against the witnesses that I have produced there can be brought just
two--Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. The first is referred to in the
memoir of Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant in his house.
Grellet tells what happened between this girl and Paine. According to
this account, Paine asked her if she had ever read any of his writings,
and on being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired
what she thought of them, adding that from such an one as she he
expected a correct answer.
Let us examine this falsehood. Why would Paine expect a correct answer
about his writings from one who read very little of them? Does not such
a statement devour itself? This young lady further said that the "Age
of Reason" was put in her hands, and that the more she read in it, the
more dark and distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into the
fire. Whereupon Mr. Paine remarked: "I wish all had done as you did,
for if the devil ever had any agency in any work, he had in my writing
that book."
The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a servant in the family of Willet
Hicks. The church is always proving something by a nurse. She, like
Mary Roscoe, was sent to carry some delicacy to Mr. Paine. To this
young lady Paine, according to his account, said precisely the same
that he did to Mary Roscoe, and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.
My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale are one and the
same person, or the same story has been, by mistake, put in the mouths
of both. It is not possible that the identical conversation should
have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe and between him and Mary
Hinsdale. Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet Hicks, and he pronounced her
story a pious fraud and fabrication.
Another thing about this witness. A woman by the name of Mary
Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker, died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother about
that time and told him that his sister had recanted, and wanted her to
say so at her funeral. This turned out to be a lie.
It has been claimed that Mary Hinsdale made her statement to Charles
Collins. Long after the alleged occurrence Gilbert Vale, one of the
biographers of Paine, had a conversation with Collins concerning Mary
Hinsdale. Vale asked him what he thought of her. He replied that some
of the Friends believed that she used opiates, and that they did not
give credit to her statements. He also said that he believed what the
Friends said, but thought that when a young Roman she might have told
the truth.
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