Moncure Conway and Emerson

After dinner, the two men went for a stroll around
Walden Pond. Conwa found his mentor had reached a fairl
 pragmatic view of religion—a minister, Emerson supposed, was
still moderately useful in the world. Not for saving souls, but “to
 a conscientious man to sit on school committees, to help at
 meetings, to attend the sick and the dead.” As Conway
mused over the fine points of Divinity School curriculum, Emer-
son cleared away the undergrowth of conversation with one
sentence:"An actually existent fly is more important than a possibly
existent angel."
..............................from Collins' The Trouble With Tom

and finally.....

I can well remember,” the critic Augustine Birrell wrote a
century ago, when an asserted intimacy with the Writings of
Thomas Paine marked a man from his fellows and invested him
 in children’s minds with a horrible fascination. The Writings them-
selves were only seen in bookshops of an evil reputation and when
hastily turned over with furtive glances, proved to be printed in
small type and on villainous paper.”