Was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that the Legislature of Pennsylvania presented Thomas Paine with L500 sterling? Did the State of New York feel indebted to a drunken beast, and confer upon Thomas Paine an estate of several hundred acres? Did the Congress of the United States thank him for his services because he had lived a drunken and beastly life? Was he elected a member of the French convention because he was a drunken beast? Was it the act of a drunken beast to put his own life in jeopardy by voting against the death of the King? Was it because he was a drunken beast that he opposed the "Reign of Terror "--that he endeavored to stop the shedding of blood, and did all in his power to protect even his own enemies? Do the following extracts sound like the words of a drunken beast: "I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy. "My own mind is my own church. "It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. "Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a true system. "The work of God is the creation which we behold. "The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system. "It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action--it begets a calamitous necessity of going on. "To read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing, and benevolent in the heart of man. "The man does not exist who can say I have persecuted him, or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil. "Of all the tyrants that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. "The belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. "My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good, and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be happy hereafter. "The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every man and his Maker, and in which no third party has any right to interfere. The practical part consists in our doing good to each other. "No man ought to make a living by religion. One person can not act religion for another--every person must act for himself. "One good school-master is of more use than a hundred priests. Let us propagate morality, unfettered by superstition. "God is the power, or first cause; nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon. "I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life. "The key of happiness is not in the keeping of any sect, nor ought the road to it to be obstructed by any. "My religion, and the whole of it, is the fear and love of the Deity, and universal philanthropy. "I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of health and a happy mind. I take care of both, by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. "He lives immured within the Bastille of a word."