Arrows of Freethought

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G. W. Foote. Arrows of Freethought

Arrows of Freethought

Table of Contents

PREFACE

RELIGION AND PROGRESS

A DEFENCE OF THOMAS PAINE

THE GOSPEL OF FREETHOUGHT

FREETHOUGHT IN CURRENT LITERATURE

DEAN STANLEY'S LATEST

GOD AND THE QUEEN

CARDINAL NEWMAN ON INFIDELITY

SUNDAY TYRANNY

WHO ARE THE BLASPHEMERS?

THE BIRTH OF CHRIST

THE REIGN OF CHRIST

THE PRIMATE ON MODERN INFIDELITY

BAITING A BISHOP

PROFESSOR FLINT ON ATHEISM

A HIDDEN GOD

GENERAL JOSHUA

GOING TO HELL

CHRISTMAS EVE IN HEAVEN

PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON ATHEISM

SALVATIONISM

A PIOUS SHOWMAN

Отрывок из книги

G. W. Foote

Published by Good Press, 2021

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Popularity-hunting, to use the critic's graceless phrase, was Paine's next fault; but as, according to the same authority, he was guilty in this respect only in the same sense as Junius was, the burden of his iniquity cannot be very great.

Addiction to the most degrading of vices, is a charge difficult to confute until we know specifically what vice is meant. Paine has been accused of drunkenness; but by whom? Not by his intimate acquaintances, who would have detected his guilt, but by his enemies who were never in his society, and therefore could know nothing of his habits. Cheetham, who first disseminated this accusation, was a notorious libeller, and was more than once compelled to make a public apology for his lies; but he was a shameless creature, and actually in his "Life" of Paine resuscitated and amplified falsehoods for which he had tendered abject apologies while his victim was alive. Even, however, if Paine had yielded to the seductions of strong drink, he should be judged by the custom of his own age, and not that of ours.

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