Thomas Paine (1737-1809), the most famous pamphleteer of the American Revolution lived quite an adventurous and peripatetic life. His adventures and wanderings have continued even beyond death. Going to England after the revolution he was prosecuted for sedition and fled to France. In France he was imprisoned for aligning himself with the wrong revolutionary faction. While in France he wrote a venomous attack on the United States entitled “Letter to Washington.” When he had made a sufficient number of enemies in the States, he returned in 1802. After being shunned by anyone of influence, he returned to his farm in New Rochelle, NY, where he died in1809.
Following his death, he was buried on his farm. He wanted to be buried in the local Quaker cemetery, but the pugnacious old atheist was refused. He said at the time that if he was not buried in a churchyard “They will dig up my bones before they are half rotten.” He was right.
William Corbett, an English radical, upon discovery that “Paine lies in a little hole under the weeds of an obscure farm in America,” dug him up in 1819 and took him across the Atlantic. Corbett died a debtor in 1835, having never reburied the corpse of Paine. The corpse went to Corbett’s friend, Benjamin Tilly who also died a debtor, in 1860, without ever reburying Paine’s remains. Tilly died at the home of a Mrs. Ginn of London who gave the remains to a rag-and-bone man for disposal. It was thought that was the end of Paine.
But it turns out that Tilly had been selling parts of Thomas Paine in order to service his creditors. Reverend Robert Ainslee purchased the skull and right hand. Upon his death, Ainslee left them to his son, from whom they were stolen. Tilly also sold a lock of hair and a two inch cube of brain to a Mr. Guinn, who sold them to a book seller, who sold them to a minister, who sold them, in 1900 to Mr. Moncure DeConway (try saying that name five times fast) – the very first President of the Thomas Paine Natural Historical Association (you can’t get more naturally historical than possessing a two inch cube of brain). These are the only remains of Thomas Paine known.
Eqyptians carefully mummified the remains of the deceased so their bodies would be in good condition for the afterlife. In The Iliad Achilles tries to mutiliate the corpse of Hector to prevent a glorious afterlife. In Alan LeMay’s western The Searchers (made into a great movie by John Ford and John Wayne) Ethan Edwards shoots the eyes out of Comanche corpses so they’ll be doomed to wander the afterlife blindly. What does all this say about the afterlife of Thomas Paine?
The Bible says that, wherever his bones are, his spirit returned to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12.7). The Bible says that Tom Paine’s bones, and mine, provide only a temporary dwelling, the way a tent is impermanent (II Corinthians 5.2ff), and tells us that regardless of what happens to these flimsy, temporary casings, at the resurrection we will be embodied permanently and indestructibly (I Corinthians 15.39-48). That permanent, indestructible body will be welcomed into eternal bliss, or cast away for eternal punishment, based upon our relationship to God (Matthew 25.31-44).
What makes all the difference for Tom Paine’s afterlife is not whether his skull is lost, but whether his soul is. This makes all the difference for you and me as well.
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