The Crisis Analysis
“These are times that try men’s souls.” The times of which Thomas Paine speaks in his persuasive series of pamphlets, “The Crisis,” also tried men’s minds. In the era of the American colonies’ rebellion against the British Empire, Paine attempted to rally support from colonists who had not taken a stand on the issue of independence to the cause of revolution through his skill in persuasive writing. Thomas Paine appeals to the religion, hearts, and fears of colonists in his instrument of propaganda, The Crisis. In his pamphlet, Paine attempts to send into the minds of the reader the belief “that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction…who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war by every decent method which wisdom could invent.” Here Paine portrays God as sympathetic to the American cause for independence. He implies that God Almighty is on the colonies’ side.