OR, THOMAS PAINE THE AUTHOR OF THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS, AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. Joel Moody Non stat diutius nominis umbra. WASHINGTON, D. C.: JOHN GRAY & CO., PUBLISHERS. TES PUBLIC LIBRARY ASTOR, LENOX AND 1899. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by JOHN GRAY & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. ONE hundred years ago to-day, Junius wrote as follows: "The man who fairly and completely answers this argument, shall have my thanks and my applause. Grateful as I am to the good Being whose bounty has imparted to me this reasoning intellect, whatever it is, I hold myself proportionably indebted to him from whose enlightened understanding another ray of knowledge communicates to mine. But neither should I think the most exalted faculties of the human mind a gift worthy of the Divinity, nor any assistance in the improvement of them a subject of gratitude to my fellow-creatures, if I were not satisfied that really to inform the understanding corrects and enlarges the heart." These were the concluding words of his last Letter. So say I now, and I make them the preface to an argument which now sets the great apostle of liberty right before the world. They serve, like a literary hyphen, to connect the two ages-his own with this; and the two lives-the masked with the open one; in both of which ages and lives he did good to mankind, and that mightily. WASHINGTON, D. C., January 21, 1872. |