Lovett, all these Testified that Paine was a Temperate Man--Washington's Letter to Paine-- Thomas Jefferson's--Adams and Washing-ton on "Common Sense"---James Monroe's Tribute-- Quotations from Paine--Paine's Estate and His Will--The Observer's Second Attack (p. 492): Statements of Elkana Watson, William Carver, Rev. E. F. Hatfield, D.D., James Cheetham, Dr. J. W. Francis, Dr. Manley, Bishop Fenwick--Ingersoll's Second Reply (p. 516): Testimony Garbled by the Editor of the Observer--Mary Roscoeand Mary Hins- dale the Same Person--Her Reputation for Veracity- -Letter from Rev. A. W. Cornell--Grant Thorburn Exposed by James Parton--The Observer's Admission that Paine did not Recant--Affidavit of William B. Barnes. PREFACE. SEVERAL people, having read the sermons of Mr. Talmage in which he reviews some of my lectures, have advised me not to pay the slightest attention to the Brooklyn divine. They think that no new arguments have been brought forward, and they have even gone so far as to say that some of the best of the old ones have been left out. After thinking the matter over, I became satisfied that my friends were mistaken, that they had been car- ried away by the general current of modern thought, and were not in a frame of mind to feel the force of the arguments of Mr. Talmage, or to clearly see the candor that characterizes his utterances. At the first reading, the logic of these sermons does not impress you. The style is of a character calculated VI to throw the searcher after facts and arguments off his guard. The imagination of the preacher is so lurid; he is so free from the ordinary forms of ex- pression; his statements are so much stranger than truth, and his conclusions so utterly independent of his premises, that the reader is too astonished to be convinced. Not until I had read with great care the six discourses delivered for my benefit had I any clear and well-defined idea of the logical force of Mr. Talmage. I had but little conception of his candor, was almost totally ignorant of his power to render the simple complex and the plain obscure by the mutilation of metaphor and the incoherence of inspired declamation. Neither did I know the generous accuracy with which he states the position of an opponent, and the fairness he exhibits in a religious discussion. He has without doubt studied the Bible as closely and critically as he has the works of Buckle and Darwin, and he seems to have paid as much attention to scientific subjects as most theologians. His theory of light and his views upon geology are strikingly original, and his astronomical theories are certainly as profound as practical. If his statements can be relied upon, he has successfully refuted the teachings of VII