It is an interesting fact that the same great advocate who gave all his powers to the defence of Paine for publishing the “Rights of Man,” was equally earnest in the prosecution of Williams for the publication of the same author’s “Age of Reason.” But the explanation is easy. In the former work the author criticised, in what Erskine regarded as a legitimate way, the character and methods of the English Government; in the latter he assailed what the advocate regarded as the very foundations of all government and all justice. The difference between the two is pointed out in the following speech with a skill that will give the reader a good example of the orator’s method. GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY: The charge of blasphemy, which is put upon the record against the publisher of this publication, is not an accusation of the servants of the crown, but comes before you sanctioned by the oaths of a grand jury of the country. It stood for trial upon a former day; but it happening, as it frequently does, without any imputation upon the gentlemen named in the panel, that a sufficient number did not appear to constitute a full special jury, I thought it my duty to withdraw the cause from trial, till I could have the opportunity of addressing myself to you who were originally appointed to try it. I pursued this course from no jealousy of the common juries appointed by the laws for the ordinary service of the court, since my whole life has been one continued experience of their virtues; but because I thought it of great importance that those who were to decide upon a cause so very momentous to the public, should have the highest possible qualifications for the decision; that they should not only be men capable from their educations of forming an enlightened judgment, but that their situations should be such as to bring them within the full view of their country, to which, in character and in estimation, they were in their own turns to be responsible.