To the Editor of the New York Observer: You ought to have honesty enough to admit that you did, in your paper of July 19th, offer to prove that the absurd story that Thomas Paine died in terror and agony on account of the religious opinions he had expressed, was true. You ought to have fairness enough to admit that you called upon me to deposit one thousand dollars with an honest man, that you might, by proving that Thomas Paine did die in terror, obtain the money. You ought to have honor enough to admit that you challenged me and that you commenced the controversy concerning Thomas Paine. You ought to have goodness enough to admit that you were mistaken in the charges you made. You ought to have manhood enough to do what you falsely asserted that Thomas Paine did:--you ought to recant. You ought to admit publicly that you slandered the dead; that you falsified history; that you defamed the defenceless; that you deliber- 517 ately denied what you had published in your own paper. There is an old saying to the effect that open confession is good for the soul. To you is presented a splendid opportunity of testing the truth of this saying. Nothing has astonished me more than your lack of common honesty exhibited in this controversy. In your last, you quote from Dr. J. W. Francis. Why did you leave out that portion in which Dr. Francis says _that Cheetham with settled malignity wrote the life of Paine?_ Why did you leave out that part in which Dr. Francis says that Cheetham in the same way _slandered Alexander Hamilton and De Witt Clinton?_ Is it your business to suppress the truth? Why did you not publish the entire letter of Bishop Fenwick? Was it because it proved beyond all cavil that Thomas Paine did not recant? Was it because in the light of that letter Mary Roscoe, Mary Hinsdale and Grant Thorburn appeared un- worthy of belief? Dr. J. W. Francis says in the same article from which you quoted, "_Paine clung to his Infidelity until the last moment of his life!'_ Why did you not publish that? It was the first line im- mediately above what you did quote. You must have seen it. Why did you suppress it? A lawyer, doing a thing of this character, is denominated a 518 shyster. I do not know the appropriate word to designate a theologian guilty of such an act.