The child took his misgivings out into the garden; he would not by a denial shock his aunt Cocke's faith as his own had been shocked. For many years he remained silent in his inner garden, nor ever was drawn out of it until he found the abstract dogma of the death of God's Son an altar for sacrificing men, whom he reverenced as all God's sons. What he used to preach at Dover and Sandwich cannot now be known. His ignorance of Greek and Latin, the scholastic "humanities," had prevented his becoming a clergyman, and introduced him to humanities of another kind. His mission was then among the poor and ignorant.* * "Old John Berry, the late Col. Hay's servant, told me he knew Paine very well when he was at Dover--had heard him preach there--thought him a staymaker by trade."--W. Weedon, of Glynde, quoted in Notes and Queries (London), December 29, 1866. Sixteen years later he is in Philadelphia, attending the English Church, in which he had been confirmed. There were many deists in that Church, whose laws then as now were sufficiently liberal to include them. In his "Common Sense" (published January 10, 1776) Paine used the reproof of Israel (I. Samuel) for desiring a King. John Adams, a Unitarian and monarchist, asked him if he really believed in the inspiration of the Old Testament. Paine said he did not, and intended at a later period to publish his opinions on the subject. There was nothing inconsistent in Paine's believing that a passage confirmed by his own Light was a divine direction, though contained in a book whose alleged inspiration throughout he did not accept. Such was the Quaker principle. Before that, soon after his arrival in the country, when he found African Slavery supported by the Old Testament, Paine had repudiated the authority of that book; he declares it abolished by "Gospel light," which includes man-stealing among the greatest crimes. When, a year later, on the eve of the Revolution, he writes "Common Sense," he has another word to say about religion, and it is strictly what the human need of the hour demands. Whatever his disbeliefs, he could never sacrifice human welfare to them, any more than he would, suffer dogmas to sacrifice the same. It would have been a grievous sacrifice of the great cause of republican independence, consequently, of religious liberty, had he introduced a theological controversy at the moment when it was of vital importance that the sects should rise above their partition-walls and unite for a great common end. The Quakers, deistical as they were, preserved religiously the separatism once compulsory; and Paine proved himself the truest Friend among them when he was "moved" by the Spirit of Humanity, for him at length the Holy Spirit, to utter (1776) his brave cheer for Catholicity.