The wash of the wave of the great deistic controversy on the other side of the Atlantic was not without its effect upon the religious thought of New England. The direct evidence of this is, however, much more elusive than one might at first suppose.[159] That the reading public was acquainted with the writings of the great English deists, Herbert, Chubb, Shaftesbury, Tindal, Wollaston, Toland, Hume, is clear from references to their works which appear with considerable frequency in the private and public records of the day; but invariably these references are made in a more or less casual manner, and, for the most part, in connection with sweeping generalizations made by the clergy respecting the prevailing scepticism of the age. Apart from such allusions and the appearance of titles in the lists of booksellers who were advertising their stocks in the newspapers, it would be difficult to cite specific evidence, Thomas Paine’s _Age of Reason_ alone excepted, to the effect that the impact of English deism upon the thought of New England was anything like direct. The amount of independent literary expression which the doctrines of deism obtained in New England was practically negligible.[160] The quality was even less noteworthy. Ethan Allen’s _Reason the Only Oracle of Man_,[161] published in 1784, was perhaps the only production of native orig into which anything like general attention was accorded; and the evident inability of this work to root itself deeply in the thought of the people, despite the prestige due to the author’s Revolutionary record, was demonstrated the moment Paine’s more serious work began to circulate in this country. The crudeness of Allen’s style, coupled with the ferocity of his onslaught on the advocates and absurdly credulous devotees of supernaturalism, as Allen regarded the orthodox party of his day, went far toward determining the attitude of contempt and high-minded scorn with which his work was generally treated, when leaders of conservative thought deigned to notice it at all.[162]