Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.), October 3, 1909
Testimony of the Camera Brought Before a Christian Evidence Society and It Could Not Be Contradicted.
By James B. Elliott, Secretary Paine Societies
From time immemorial it has ever been the aim of Christian believers to misrepresent, slander and abuse the world’s brightest and best, if the latter, by sign, word or deed, contributed aught to weaken and impair the senseless and futile superstition in which those Christians believed. No man, who was born, lived and worked and died within the last two centuries, has been more slandered and misrepresented than has Thomas Paine. The Christians slandered him living, and now that he is dead they slander his memory.
For the past one hundred years the defenders of Thomas Paine have been kept busy answering Christian aspersions upon his personal character and denying the numerous falsehoods concerning his works that have been thrown broadcast in the religious papers and magazines. There is one particular incident in point, to which attention is here invited. It is concerned with the house known as No. 59 Grove St., New York City, built and now standing upon the precise spot upon which once stood a small frame cottage in which Thomas Paine breathed his last, June 8, 1809. It was in this very house that John Wesley Jarvis, who was Paine’s personal friend and biographer, took the death mask which is now in the Historical Society of New York City, and will be given in these columns later.
This description of the house is as necessary as the accompanying illustration in order to give ocular demonstration of a genuine Christian lie which passed current as genuine truth in certain religious periodicals about a quarter of a century ago and repeated more or less since that time by preachers who would not take the trouble to investigate and did not know the facts. This lie still finds advocates among certain rural preachers and believers among their simple-minded congregations. Advertising himself as an “Infidel Annihilator,” some years ago, one Rev. Charles Clausen, D. D., of New York, and professor in some divinity school, re-echoed this miserable, outgrown fable, namely: That upon the site of the house where Tom Paine, the noted Infidel, died in New York City, where “I” preach the gospel (thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor) of Jesus Christ, there is erected a large publishing house which prints one million bibles that are circulated among the population of the world, and to counteract the pernicious influence of Tom Paine’s work on infidelity and immorality, and whose bones were stolen from their grave to make buttons for the trousers of his disciples in England, and whose grave is still unmarked on the farm where he was buried; his memory has passed into deserved oblivion.
One result of the publication of such a violent fiction was that I, in a quiet way, managed to draw Mr. Clausen into an argument before his own bible class. The expose took place before the so-called “Christian Evidence Society of Philadelphia.” Before undertaking this task, I went to New York City, and with some difficulty located the house formerly known as 59 Grove St., now Bleecker St., engaged a photographer and secured a photograph of the house now occupying the site. Mr. William van der Weyde took the photograph and made the plates, for which I am under obligation to him. The accompanying illustration, as shown here, may look like a bible publishing house to the imaginative Christian preacher, but certainly not to an unprejudiced mind.
That eventful Sunday when the expose was made, is one never to be forgotten. Mr. J. C. Hannon was also present. I had selected him as my support and Rev. Clausen selected another preacher. Clausen brought in a manuscript weighing at least five pounds in preparation to refute a lecture which had not yet been delivered. We had a crowded house. Mr. Hannon afterwards wrote: “It was pitiful to see the look on Clausen’s face when Elliott flashed out the picture which had been enlarged to 16×20, and asked him if this was the house referred to by him on a previous occasion. And as he could not deny it in the presence of the same people, he admitted his mistake publicly.”
It is fitting that in this, the centennial year of Paine, some reference be made to this subject. Future generations will thus be kept informed. Later, I will give a full account of the Paine dinner at Thetford, England, where Paine was born, presided over by the Mayor of that city. After that I will review J. W. Jarvis’ work in defense of Paine.