"The rankest ingratitude the American people have ever exhibited has been that of the systematic attempt to blot the name of Paine from the memory of succeeding generations, and to allow no historical mention in the annals of the nation which he greatly and gloriously helped to found. But with the destruction of every error truth rises clear and bright. The time will come when his picture will be as familiar to school children as those of his great contemporaries, Washington, Jefferson and Franklin."--. _J. B. Wilson._ Pretended reviewers of Paine, including the authors of many encyclopedic articles on Paine, writers who, for the most part, never read the "Age of Reason," characterize it as crude and superficial, declare its arguments to be weak and fallacious and its author to have had little or no influence in changing the religious opinions of his time. It is a sufficient answer to these critics to cite the fact that from thirty to forty elaborate replies from Christian writers followed it in rapid succession, each writer tacitly admitting that it needed answering and that all preceding efforts to answer it had been failures. Paine's orthodox critics also affect to believe that his "Age of Reason" is no longer read, that it is an "out of print" book for which there is no demand. The fact is ever since the first London and Paris editions were published in 1794 there has been a constant and widespread demand for it. Millions of copies have been printed and sold during this time, and today the demand for it is greater than ever before. Dr. John W. Francis (referring to "Age of Reason"): "No work had the demand for readers comparable to that of Paine." One bookseller of New York says that his sales of the "Age of Reason" now average more than five thousand copies a year. He is but one of many New York booksellers who sell Paine's book, while New York is but one of many cities where it has an extensive sale. A Chicago bookseller says that the "Age of Reason" is his best seller, that he sells thousands of them every year. William Heaford (1913): "Two large editions of forty thousand copies each will be issued of this invaluable edition of Paine's great text book of Biblical exegesis [by Watts & Co., London]." "There were sold in Burma [mostly to Buddhists] over ten thousand copies of the 'Age of Reason' last year."--_U. Dhamaloka, President Buddhist Tract Society._ Arthur B. Moss: "During the past fifty years hundreds of thousands of copies of the 'Age of Reason' have been circulated in England and America alone.... The steady circulation of this work has done more than that of any other book to undermine the faith of Christians in all parts of the world." H. Percy Ward (formerly an English clergyman): "Thomas Paine's 'Age of Reason' gave the first shock to my faith." Wilson MacDonald: "I read the 'Age of Reason' when a boy, and I said, Paine is the hero for me."