Every one knows that Mr. Paine was illiterate, that is, he only knew his own language perfectly, and had a smattering of French. Now, have we not bishops, deacons, lecturers, curates, &c. who are acquainted with Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Latin, and several other tongues, living as well as dead; and surely, it would be strange, if, with all this various learning, aided by their laborious researches into the antiquated writings of the primitive Christians, (those credible attesters of _miracles and witchcraft_,) that they should not be able to overturn such a paltry antagonist as Thomas Paine; who, alas! made use of no other weapon but _human reason_; who ridiculed _Faith_ as a mere _chimera_; and maintained, that a strict observance of _moral virtue_ constituted the only worship that was in _reality_ pleasing to the Deity. Physiologists have asserted, I know, that the human brain is only capable of a certain degree of active energy, and that every additional talent we may acquire must be gained at the expence of all the other powers; and that, consequently, he who is familiar with a variety of languages cannot possibly think very profoundly in any, the whole of his intellect being absorbed, and the pure ideal part of it absolutely extinguished, in the complicated matter of grammatical construction, and the endless labour of committing to memory the various characters and innumerable quantity of words necessary for obtaining such knowledge. On the other hand, it is boldly averred, that he who knows his own language perfectly, and no other, may become, as it were, in his very essence, a compound of thought and reflection, capable of drawing, from the luminous stores of his own understanding alone, arguments that shall put to flight all the scholastic quibbling of the mere Christian linguist, causing the gloom engendered by his subtilties to vanish like mist before the sun. The Deists accuse us of disturbing the last moments of the virtuous, and terrifying their imaginations with the prospect of eternal damnation. They say, that when such infatuated persons (whose bodily weakness renders them more than childish) become overwhelmed with the dreadful picture, and give way to the weakness of humanity, that we then infer, they had a proper sense of the enormity of their guilt before they died; and that we then exclaim, in the gloomy pomposity of the fanatic Young, "Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die!" This quotation, when applied to the case in question, the Deists maintain to be unjust, and are for making a new reading, as being rather more applicable, viz. "Men may live wisely, but fools they often die!"