* Paine forgot the curious inconsistency in this constitution of 1776, between the opening Declaration of Rights in securing religious freedom and equality to all who "acknowledge the being of a God," and the oath provided for all legislators, requiring belief in future rewards and punishments, and in the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. This deistical oath, however, was probably considered a victory of latitudiarianism, for the members of the convention had taken a rigid trinitarian oath on admission to their seats. In 1779 the Assembly got rid of the provost (Smith), and this was done by the act of November which took away the charter of the University.* It was while this agitation was going on, and the Philadelphia "Tories" saw the heads of their chieftains falling beneath Paine's pen, that his own official head had been thrown to them by his own act. The sullen spite of the "Tories" did not fail to manifest itself. In conjunction with Deane's defeated friends, they managed to give Paine many a personal humiliation. This was, indeed, easy enough, since Paine, though willing to fight for his cause, was a non-resistant in his own behalf. It may have been about this time that an incident occurred which was remembered with gusto by the aged John Joseph Henry after the "Age of Reason" had added horns and cloven feet to his early hero. Mr. Mease, Clothier-General, gave a dinner party, and a company of his guests, on their way home, excited by wine, met Paine. One of them remarking, "There comes 'Common Sense'"; Matthew Slough said, "Damn him, I shall common-sense him," and thereupon tripped Paine into the gutter.** But patriotic America was with Paine, and missed his pen; for no _Crisis_ had appeared for nearly a year. Consequently on November 2, 1779, the Pennsylvania Assembly elected him its Clerk. * See "A Memoir of the Rev. William Smith, D.D.," by Charles J. Stille, Philadelphia, 1869. Provost Stille, in this useful historical pamphlet, states all that can be said in favor of Dr. Smith, but does not refer to his controversy with Paine. ** This incident is related in the interest of religion in Mr. Henry's "Account of Arnold's Campaign against Quebec." The book repeats the old charge of drunkenness against Paine, but the untrustworthiness of the writer's memory is shown in his saying that his father grieved when Paine's true character appeared, evidently meaning his "infidelity." His father died in 1786, when no suspicion either of Paine's habits or orthodoxy had been heard. {1780}