Louis fell under the guillotine, and Mr. Paine's deprecation of that act brought down upon him the hatred of the whole Robespierrean party. The reign of terror now commenced in France; every public man who breathed a sigh for Louis was denounced a traitor to the nation, and as such was put to death. Every man who complained of the despotism and violence of the party in power, was hurried to a prison, or before the Revolutionary Tribunal and to immediate execution. Mr. Paine, although a Member of the Convention, was first excluded on the ground of being a foreigner, and then thrown into prison because he had been born in England! His place of confinement was the Luxembourg; the time, about eleven months, during which he was seized with a most violent fever, that rendered him insensible to all that was passing, and to which circumstance he attributes his escape from the guillotine. About this period Mr. Paine wrote his first and second part of Age of Reason. The first part was written before he went to the Luxembourg, as in his passage thither he deposited the manuscript with Joel Barlow. The second part he wrote during his confinement, and at a moment when he could not calculate on the preservation of his life for twenty-four hours: a circumstance which forms the best proof of his sincerity, and his conviction of the fallacy and imposture of all established religions: Throughout this work he has also trod the path of nature, and has laid down some of the best arguments to shew the existence of an Omnipotent Being, that ever were penned. Those who are in the habit of running down every thing that does not tally with their antiquated opinions, or the prejudices in which they have been educated, have decried Mr. Paine as an Atheist! Of all the men who ever wrote, Mr. Paine was the most remote from Atheism, and has advanced stronger arguments against the belief of no God, than any who have gone before him, or have lived since. If there be any chance of the failure of Mr. Paine's theological writings as a standard work, it will be on the ground of their being more superstitious than otherwise. However, their beauties, I doubt not, will at all times be a sufficient apology for a few trifling defects. Mr. Paine has been taxed with inconsistency in his theological opinions, because in his "Common Sense," and other political writings, he has had recourse to Bible phrases and arguments to illustrate some of his positions. But this can be no proof of hypocrisy, because his "Common Sense" and his other political writings were intended as a vehicle for political principles only, and they were addressed to the most superstitious people in the world. If Mr. Paine had published any of his Deistical opinions in "Common Sense" or "The Crisis," he would have defeated the very purpose for which he wrote. The Bible is a most convenient book to afford precedents; and any man might support any opinion or any assertion by quotations from it, Mr.