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Judging from the character of Paine whilst in this world, we should be inclined to think him more likely to lie than speak the truth. And what if this invisible, irresistible and irresponsible Spirit should move the hand to plunge a dagger into a neighbors bosom!! What, if in the darkness of midnight, such a hand should be moved to apply a burning torch to some defenceless mansion!! Let this doctrine be set up in your Courts of Justice and become an established principle of Jurisprudence and what next? All laws against wrong doers would be virtually abrogated, and civil society merged in one grand Pandemonium.
Can it be supposed that the great Creator of all things,—the supreme ruler of the Universe, whose dominion is infinite,—who has spread out the Heavens as a curtain, and hung the stars upon nothing,—who has filled immensity with those shining orbs of whose magnitude and glory we can have no conception,—that being in whose view the universe is but an atom and every atom a universe—whose hand gilds the rainbow, and paints the lily,—whose works everywhere display perfect order, regularity, integrity and beauty, he who is Omnipotent, and Omnicient, the same yesterday, to day, and forever, stoops to play the pitiful tricks, of tipping tables, thumping sounds, or scrawling marks for the amusement of the silly or the vicious. The idea is too absurd to be entertained a single moment.
To those who little paid little attention to history, the present appears to be an extraordinary age. They see progress inscribed upon everything. Nothing but the newest of the new gains favour with them. Just because improvements are going on in mechanical op-
