There is a dispute with regard to Paine's death. Some writers say he recanted and became a Christian, while others affirm that he died as he lived--an avowed Deist. In his last will and testament he says: "I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my creator, God." On the other hand some authors say that he was grossly intemperate and licentious, and that he discarded Christianity, not so much from conviction as from a base desire to lead a bad life. "In 1802, he (Paine) returned to America and resided a part of the time on a farm at New Rochelle, presented to him by the State of New York for his Revolutionary service. Paine became very intemperate, and fell low in the social scale, not only on account of his beastly habits, but because of his blasphemous tirade against Christianity." _Lossing in "Our Countrymen."_ Of Paine's last hours Rev. O. B. Frothingham speaks as follows: "The truth is, that Paine, though not rich, was in comfortable circumstances. He had considerable property, which is specified in his will. His sick bed was surrounded by friends who ministered to his wants, witnessed the firmness and calmness of his last hours, and attested the sincerity and sufficiency of his convictions. Not even the impertinent intrusiveness of the clergy disturbed the entire serenity of his death." The commonly received opinion, and most likely the correct one, with regard to Paine is this which we excerpt from _Appleton's Cyclopaedia of Biography_: "His attacks upon religion had exceedingly narrowed his circle of acquaintance; and his habitual intemperance tended to the injury of his health and the ultimate production of a complication of disorders, to which he fell a victim in 1809. The Quakers refused to admit his remains among their dead, and he was buried on his own farm. Cobbett boasted of having disinterred him in 1817, and of having brought his body to England; many, however, assert that Cobbett did not take that trouble, but brought over from America the remains of a criminal who had been executed."[39]