Such was the last will and testament of "Tom Paine, Infidel."

From Greenwich Village by Anna Alice Chapin published in 1925. There is this picture of the boarding house in which Thomas Paine passed in 1809.

The essay on Paine in Greenwich Village ends:

On the 8th of June, 1809, Thomas Paine died.

The New York Advertiser said: "With heart-felt sorrow and poignant regret, we are compelled to announce to the world that Thomas Paine is no more. This distinguished philanthropist, whose life was devoted to the cause of humanity, departed this life yesterday morning; and, if any man's memory deserves a place in the breast of a freeman, it is that of the deceased, for,

"'Take him for all in all,
We ne'er shall look upon his like again.'"

The funeral party consisted of Hicks, Mme. de Bonneville and two negroes, who loyally walked twenty-two miles to New Rochelle to see the last of the man who had always defended and pleaded for the rights of their pitifully misunderstood and ill-treated race.

To the end he was active for public service. His actual last act was to pen a letter to the Federal faction, conveying a warning as to the then unsettled situation in American and French commerce. Just before he had made his will.

It is in itself a composition worth copying and preserving. Paine could not even execute a legal document without putting into it something of the beauty of spirit and distinction of phrase for which he was remarkable. He had not much to leave, since he had given all to his country and his country had forgotten him in making up the balance; but what he had went to Mme. de Bonneville, for her children, that she,—let me quote his own words, "... might bring them well up, give them good and useful learning and instruct them in their duty to God and the practice of morality."

It continues thus:

"I herewith take my final leave of them and the world. I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator God."

Such was the last will and testament of "Tom Paine, Infidel."

Paine's legendary quarrels with religion, or more accurately, religious institutions, are described in Jill Lepore's The Sharpened Quill.