Yet, since the reader has come with me thus far, I am going to
take advantage of his courteous attention for just another moment of
digression. Here is my promise: that it shall take up a small, small
space.
Small insects sting dangerously; and on occasion, a very trivial and
ill-considered word or phrase will cling closer and longer than a
serious or thoughtful judgment. When Theodore Roosevelt called Thomas
Paine "a filthy little Atheist" (or was the adjective "dirty"? I
really forget!) he was very young,--only twenty-eight,--and doubtless
had accepted his viewpoint of the great reformer-patriot from that
"hearsay upon hearsay" against which Paine himself has so urgently
warned us. Of course Mr. Roosevelt, who is both intellectual and
broad-minded, knows better than that today. But it is astonishing how
that ridiculous and unsuitable epithet--(a "trinity of lies" as one
historian has styled it)--has stuck to a memory which I am sure is
sacred to any angels who may be in heaven!
"Atheist" is a word which could be applied to few men less suitably
than to Paine.
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