By R.W. Morrell
Thomas Paine has never been forgiven by some people for having not just written The Age of Reason, but for doing so in a very readable style, this, if anything, was considered the book’s greatest danger. Although today many eminent Christians, the recently retired bishop of Durham being a good example, express opinions regarding the bible similar, if not going beyond, those of Paine, few, if any, express their very real debt to him for instituting a debate which was ultimately to give them the freedom to express their opinions, though in saying this no one should forget the very real debt we owe to the many publishers who risked all to keep Paine’s works in print and so in circulation. Without the courage of these people it is to be doubted whether a 19th century bishop of Exeter would have been able, or willing, to assert that evolution was ‘in no sense whatever antagonistic to the teachings of religion’.
That an 18th century critique of the bible is still able to infuriate contemporary Christians is testament to its lasting value, yet this response to Paine rarely takes the form of an attempt to reply to his ideas, rather it takes the form of attacks on him as an individual. I was reminded of this when I was recently sent a copy of an article from an evangelical periodical. It was anonymously sent and the name of the journal from which the article had been photocopied, but it was dated for 1994. The article retailed the usual lies so beloved of by Christian critics of Paine, namely that he had benefited financially from his works, was hated and, of course, was a drunkard. Naturally no sources were given in support, though I suspect some of the so-called ‘facts’ were taken from a biography of Paine by an American academic who dredged up any report he could of Paine drinking, most of these reports being highly questionable. Only the source of one claim was identified by the anonymous author of the article, a claim that Paine had converted to Christianity just before his death. This claim was taken from a book entitled The Impossibility of Agnosticism (Inter-Varsity Fellowship, Nd.), written by a Rev. Dr. Leith Samuel.
It so happens that some years ago I chanced across Samuel’s book and attacked his claim in a letter to the publisher. In this I accused him of repeating a lie, to which Samuel responded by writing to me, my letter having been passed to him, in which he said he had no desire to repeat a lie and admitted he had not checked on the background of the claim. He promised to do so, after I gave him particulars, and contacted me again. He never did.
According to the article, or Samuel, Paine, along with Voltaire (who was not mentioned in the article) was a most ardent pursuer of pleasure. It almost goes without saying that neither the writer of the article nor Samuel saw fit to identify the source, or sources, for this claim. This was followed by a claim that Paine had disowned his opinions as expressed in The Age of Reason and accepted Christ. Samuel says the information came from a tale told by an itinerant evangelical preacher, one Stephen Grellet. However, this is nothing more than a variation of a tale concocted by a Mary Roscoe, or, in other versions, a Mary Hinsdale. Thus it appears at first that there were two witnesses to Paine’s supposed conversion, a fact which much influenced Samuel. But there were not two witnesses, or claimants, for Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale were one and the same person, Hinsdale being Roscoe’s married name.
She had been employed as a servant by a wealthy Quaker merchant, Willett Hicks, a close friend of Paine, who had supported him in his last months. She claimed to have been instructed by him to deliver something to Paine and stated that when she arrived at his home she heard him calling out with intense feeling, “Lord Jesus have mercy upon me”. Hinsdale also said she had been asked by Paine him as to what she thought of The Age of Reason, to which she had replied that she had burned the book. Paine is then said to have wished he had done likewise.
This tale in its various forms circulated among, and was actively promoted by, 19th century Christian preachers, and, so it seems, their 20th century successors. However, they, like Samuel, took care not to refer to William Cobbett’s investigation of the origin of the tale and his subsequent exposure of it as being fraudulent (Samuel claimed to know nothing of Cobbett’s investigation). In 1818 Cobbett, who had been converted from being a bitter critic of Paine to that of ardent admirer, even if he did not accept fully the theological criticism of The Age of Reason, was visiting New York and while there was approached by a Quaker named Charles Collins, who had heard that Cobbett was planning to write a life of Paine. Collins sought to convince him that Paine had renounced the views as set out in The Age of Reason, a fact, he thought, which should be included in Cobbett’s book. Cobbett, though, suspected ‘friend Charley’, as he called him, of being ‘a most consummate hypocrite, who had a sodden face, a simper and “manoeuvred his features, precisely like the most perfidious wretch” and demanded from him the source of his claim. With much reluctance this was eventually given, Collin’s informant being none other than Mary Hinsdale, who, it transpired, was then actually living in New York.
Posing as a Quaker, as Hinsdale claimed she belonged to that sect, Cobbett went to visit her. Employing all his skills he eventually managed to extract from her the truth, even though she is said by him to have ‘shuffled, evaded, equivocated, warded off’ while effecting not to understand the content matter of a paper he had been given by Collins on which he had written down Hinsdale’s claims concerning Paine. Hinsdale told Cobbett that she had never given Collins the authority to say anything about Paine in her name. ‘Oh no Friend,’ she said, ‘I tell thee, that I have no recollection of any person or anything that I saw at Thomas Paine’s house’.
It was later revealed that Hinsdale had made a number of claims concerning the supposed conversions of others. One concerned a woman identified as Mary Lockwood. This tale is being exposed as a lie by the family. It would seem that Hinsdale was an opium addict and needed money to buy the drug; she had found a profitable market amongst evangelical Christians for tales of Paine’s conversion. Willett Hicks, when the claim was put before him, publicly branded Hinsdale’s claims concerning Paine as “pious fraud and fabrication”, noting that she had never been sent by him to Paine’s house, nor had she spoken to him. Hicks also added that he had been offered many bribes to produce a statement saying Paine had renounced his religious opinions before he died. Paine’s physician, DrJ.R.Manley, himself a Christian who had himself tried frequently to get Paine to renounce his religious opinions and was anything but friendly towards him, testified he had not, despite his pressure, changed his views. Having asked him whether he wished to believe `that Jesus Christ is the Son of God’, Paine had thought for a few minutes and then replied, ‘I have no wish to believe on that subject’
It is difficult to understand what the writer of the article, Samuel and others of that ilk gain from repeating lies about Paine, for even had he renounced his opinions, the case advanced in The Age of Reason would still stand. Perhaps it is a case of grasping at straws. Whatever be the case, those who do this sort of thing only discredit the cause they claim to serve.