He certainly repeated the ideas of Collins and Toland, and the conceptions that were floating in the air, breathed by Voltaire and Diderot; but he did give them voice. The English deists were dead, and would have continued so but for him. He was essentially a pamphleteer, the master of a very rich, simple style that went directly to the hearts of the people. His best performances were unquestionably political, but all his works were marked by the same peculiarities. His mistake was in supposing that the power that could animate an army could pull down a church. Paine was no saint, but he was no sinner above all that dwelt in Jerusalem. He drank too much; he took too much snuff; he was vulgar; he was a vehement man in a vehement age; he went to dinner in his dressing-gown; and he certainly did not bring his best convictions to bear on his private character; but he did wake up minds that had been dumb or oppressed before. The "Age of Reason" went everywhere, into holes and corners, among back-woodsmen and pioneers, and did more execution among plain moral men than many a book that was more worthy of acceptance. It is a pity that his disciples should be content with repeating his denials, instead of building on the rational foundations which he laid. For instance, they might, while adding to his criticism of the Scriptures, have shown their high moral bearing and their spiritual glow. They might have carried out further his "enthusiasm for humanity," showing that man had more in him than Paine suspected. They might have justified by more scientific reasons his belief in God and in immortality. They might have been truly rationalists as he wanted to be, but could not be at that period. But they were satisfied with saying over and over again what he said as well as he could, but not as well as they can. He was simply a precursor, but he was a precursor of such men as Colenso and Robertson Smith, and a large host of scholars beside. Paine's best exponent in America is perhaps Robert G. Ingersoll. He is a sort of transfigured Paine. He has all Paine's power over the masses, being perhaps the most eloquent man in America; more than Paine's wit; more than Paine's earnestness; more than Paine's love of humanity; more than Paine's scorn of deceit and harshness,--for he extends his abhorrence of cruelty even to dumb beasts. He has great power of sympathy, a tender feeling for misery of all kinds. He is a poet, as is evident from these words: