He was deserted, ostracized, shunned, maligned and cursed. But he maintained his integrity. He stood by the convictions of his mind, and never for one moment did he hesitate or waver. He died almost alone. The moment he died the pious commenced manufacturing horrors for his death-bed. They had his chamber filled with devils rattling chains, and these ancient falsehoods are certified to by the clergy even of the present day. The truth is that Thomas Paine died as he had lived. Some ministers were impolite enough to visit him against his will. Several of them he ordered from his room. A couple of Catholic priests, in all the meekness of arrogance, called that they might enjoy the agonies of the dying friend of man. Thomas Paine, rising in his bed, the few moments of expiring life fanned into flame by the breath of indignation, had the goodness to curse them both. His physician, who seems to have been a meddling fool, just as the cold hand of Death was touching the patriot's heart, whispered in the dulled ear of the dying man: "Do you believe, or do you wish to believe, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?" And the reply was: "I have no wish to believe on that subject." These were the last remembered words of Thomas Paine. He died as serenely as ever mortal passed away. He died in the full possession of his mind, and on the brink and edge of death proclaimed the doctrines of his life. Every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty, every lover of the great Republic, should feel under obligation to Thomas Paine for the splendid services rendered by him in the darkest days of the American Revolution. In the midnight of Valley Forge, "The Crisis" was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair. We should remember that Thomas Paine was the first man to write these words: "The United States of America." The Rev. Mr. Hamilton seems to take a kind of joy in imagining what infidels will suffer when they come to die, and he writes as though he would like to be present. For my part I hope that all the sons and daughters of men will die in peace; that they will pass away as easily as twilight fades to night. Of course when I said that "Christianity did not bring tidings of great joy, but a message of eternal grief," I meant orthodox Christianity; and when I said that "Christianity fills the future with fire and flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, in which most of the children of men were to be imprisoned forever," I was giving what I understood to be the Evangelical belief on that subject. If the churches have given up the doctrine of eternal punishment, then for one I am delighted, and I shall feel that what little I have done toward that end has not been done in vain.