Paine is at times too harsh and militant. But in no case does he attack any person's character. Nor is there anything in his language, wherever objectionable, which I have heard censured when uttered on the side of orthodoxy. It is easily forgotten that Luther desired the execution of a rationalist, and that Calvin did burn a Socinian. The furious language of Protestants against Rome, and of Presbyterians against the English Church, is considered even heroic, like the invective ascribed to Christ, "Generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell!" Although vehement language grates on the ear of an age that understands the real forces of evolution, the historic sense remembers that moral revolutions have been made with words hard as cannon-balls. It was only when soft phrases about the evil of slavery, which "would pass away in God's good time," made way for the abolitionist denunciation of the Constitution as "an agreement with hell," that the fortress began to fall. In other words, reforms are wrought by those who are in earnest.* It is difficult in our time to place one's self in the situation of a heretic of Paine's time. Darwin, who is buried in Westminster, remembered the imprisonment of some educated men for opinions far less heretical than his own. George III. egoistic insanity appears (1892) to have been inherited by an imperial descendant, and should Germans be presently punished for their religion, as Paine's early followers were in England, we shall again hear those words that are the "half-battles" preceding victories. * "In writing upon this, as upon every other subject, I speak a language plain and intelligible. I deal not in hints and intimations. I have several reasons for this: first, that I may be clearly understood; secondly, that it may be seen I am in earnest; and thirdly, because it is an affront to truth to treat falsehood with complaisance."--Paine's reply to Bishop Watson.