upon their families; wherefore, the assertion, if true, turns to her
reproach.... This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted
lovers of civil and religious liberty from _every part_ of Europe. Hither
have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the
cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same
tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their
descendants still."

In the latter part of 1776 Washington wrote, "If every nerve is not
strained to recruit the new army with all possible expedition, I think the
game is pretty nearly up." In those gloomy days, sharing the privations of
the army, Thomas Paine wrote the first number of an irregularly issued
periodical, known as the _Crisis_, beginning:--

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his
country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man
and woman."

Some have said that the pen of Thomas Paine was worth more to the cause of
liberty than twenty thousand men. In the darkest hours he inspired the
colonists with hope and enthusiasm. Whenever the times seemed to demand
another number of the _Crisis_, it was forthcoming. Sixteen of these
appeared during the progress of the struggle for liberty. He had an almost
Shakespearean intuition of what would appeal to the exigencies of each
case. After the Americans had triumphed, he went abroad to aid the French,
saying, "Where Liberty is not, there is my home." He died in America in
1809. He is unfortunately more remembered for his skeptical _Age of Reason_
than for his splendid services to the cause of liberty.