make them is dead. He cannot answer you. I can. He cannot compel you to produce your testi- mony, or admit by your silence that you have cruelly slandered the defenceless dead. I can and I will. You say that his death was cowardly. In what respect? Was it cowardly in him to hold the Thirty-Nine Articles in contempt? Was it cowardly not to call on your Lord? Was it cowardly not to be afraid? You say that his death was beastly. Again I ask, in what respect? Was it beastly to submit to the inevitable with tranquillity? Was it beastly to look with composure upon the approach of death? Was it beastly to die without a com- plaint, without a murmur--to pass from life without a fear? Did Thomas Paine Recant? Mr. Paine had prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe around him during his last mo- ments. He believed that they would put a lie in the mouth of Death. When the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two clergymen, Messrs. Milledollar and Cunningham, called to annoy the dying man. Mr. Cunningham had the politeness to say, "You have now a full view of death you cannot live long, and whosoever does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ 456 will asuredly be damned." Mr. Paine replied, "Let me have none of your popish stuff. Get away with you. Good morning." On another occasion a Methodist minister ob- truded himself when Willet Hicks was present. This minister declared to Mr. Paine "that unless he repented of his unbelief he would be damned." Paine, although at the door of death, rose in his bed and indignantly requested the clergyman to leave his room. On another occasion, two brothers by the name of Pigott, sought to convert him. He was displeased and requested their departure. After- ward Thomas Nixon and Captain Daniel Pelton visited him for the express purpose of ascertaining whether he had, in any manner, changed his relig- ious opinions. They were assured by the dying man that he still held the principles he had expressed in his writings. Afterward, these gentlemen hearing that William Cobbett was about to write a life of Paine, sent him the following note: New York, April 24, 1818. "Sir: We have been informed that you have a de- sign to write a history of the life and writings of Thomas Paine. If you have been furnished with materials in respect to his religious opinions, or 457