The special wrath with which Paine is still visited, above all other deists put together, or even atheists is a tradition from a so-called Christianity which his work compelled to capitulate. That system is now nearly extinct, and the vendetta it bequeathed should now end. The capitulation began immediately with the publication of the Bishop of Llandaff's "Apology for the Bible," a title that did not fail to attract notice when it appeared (1796). There were more than thirty replies to Paine, but they are mainly taken out of the Bishop's "Apology," to which they add nothing. It is said in religious encyclopedias that Paine was "answered" by one and another writer, but in a strict sense Paine was never answered, unless by the successive surrenders referred to. As Bishop Watson's "Apology" is adopted by most authorities as the sufficient "answer," it may be here accepted as a representative of the rest. Whether Paine's points dealt with by the Bishop are answerable or not, the following facts will prove how uncritical is the prevalent opinion that they were really answered. Dr. Watson concedes generally to Paine the discovery of some "real difficulties" in the Old Testament, and the exposure, in the Christian grove, of "a few unsightly shrubs, which good men had wisely concealed from public view" (p. 44).* It is not Paine that here calls some "sacred" things unsightly, and charges the clergy with concealing them--it is the Bishop. Among the particular and direct concessions made by the Bishop are the following: * Corey's edition. Philadelphia, 1796. 1. That Moses may not have written every part of the Pentateuch. Some passages were probably written by later hands, transcribers or editors (pp. 9-11, 15). [If human reason and scholarship are admitted to detach any portions, by what authority can they be denied the right to bring all parts of the Pentateuch, or even the whole Bible, under their human judgment?] 2. The law in Deuteronomy giving parents the right, under certain circumstances, to have their children stoned to death, is excused only as a "humane restriction of a power improper to be lodged with any parent" (p. 13). [Granting the Bishop's untrue assertion, that the same "improper" power was arbitrary among the Romans, Gauls, and Persians, why should it not have been abolished in Israel? And if Dr. Watson possessed the right to call any law established in the Bible "improper," how can Paine be denounced for subjecting other things in the book to moral condemnation? The moral sentiment is not an episcopal prerogative.] 3. The Bishop agrees that it is "the opinion of many learned men and good Christians" that the Bible, though authoritative in religion, is fallible in other respects, "relating the ordinary history of the times" (p. 23). [What but human reason, in the absence of papal authority, is to draw the line between the historical and religious elements in the Bible?]