Thrift is so excellent a thing—is so much praised by moralists, so much commended by advisers of the people, and is of so much value to the poor who practise it—that it is strange to see it retarded by the caprices of those who take credit and receive it, for promoting the necessary virtues. Insurance societies continue to recommend themselves by praising prudence and forethought which provides for the future. Everybody knows that those who do not live within their income live upon others who trust them. Those who spend all their income forget that if others did as they do, there would be universal indigence. Insurance companies are supposed to provide inducements to thrift, whereas they put wanton obstacles in its way.
He who takes out a policy on his life finds it a condition that if he commits suicide his policy will be forfeited—the assumption of insurance offices being that if a man insures his life he intends to cut his throat. Can this be true? What warrant of experience is there for this expectation? Is not the natural, the instinctive, the universal love of life security sufficient against self-slaughter? If life be threatened, do not the most thoughtless persons make desperate effort to preserve it? Is it necessary for insurance societies to come forward to supplement incentives of nature? Is not the fact that a man is provident-minded enough to think of insuring his life, proof enough that his object is to live?
Answers to a series of questions are demanded from an insurer, which average persons do not possess the knowledge to answer with exactitude; yet failure in any fact or detail renders the policy void, although a person has paid premiums upon it for thirty or forty years.
Elaborate legal statements which few can understand are attached to a policy which intimidates those who see them, from wishing to incur such unfathomable obligation. A few plain words in plain type would be sufficient for the guidance of the insured and the protection of the company. The uncertainty comes from permitting questions of popular interest to be stated by a member of the legal profession. If the terms of eternal salvation had been drawn up by a lawyer, not a single soul would be saveable, and the judgment day would be involved in everlasting litigation.
An office known to me had judges among its directors, from which it was inferred by the insured that the office was straight. The holder of a policy in it, making a will, his solicitor on inquiry found that the office did not admit his birth. They had received premiums for forty years, still reserving this point for possible dispute after the policy-holder was dead, never informing him of it. When the insurance was effected, they saw the holder of it and could judge his age to a year. They saw the certificate of his birth, but gave him no assurance that they admitted it and it had to be presented again.
In another case within my knowledge, the owner of a policy obtained a loan upon it, from a well-known lawyer in the City of London, who gave the office, as is usual, notice of it. When the loan was repaid he again wrote to the office saying he had executed a deed of release of his claim on the policy. That the office was not satisfied with this assurance was never communicated to the policyholder, and when many years later, the lawyer who advanced the loan was dead, and his son who succeeded him was dead, it transpired that the office did not believe the assurances they had received. They admitted having received the letter by the loan maker, but required to see the deeds relating to the advance and release and repayment of the loan; and they gave the policyholder to understand that he had better keep those deeds, as his executors might be required to produce them at his death. It was a miracle they were not destroyed. As the office had been legally notified that the claim on the policy had ceased, it was never imagined that deeds which did not relate to the office could be required by it. Under this intimidation the deeds have now been kept. They are fifty years old. This Scotland Yard practice of treating an insurer as a thief, detracts from the fascination of thrift.
Another instance was that of a policy-holder who applied to the office for a loan, for which 1 per cent, more interest was demanded than his banker asked, and a rise of 1 per cent, in case of delay in paying the interest, and a charge was to be made for the office lawyer investigating the validity of their own policy, upon which the office had received premiums for forty-seven years.
Directors, like the Doge of Venice, should have a lion's mouth open, of which they have the key, when they might hear of things done in their name, not conducive to the extension of thrift.
No wonder thrift goes limping along, from walking in the jagged pathway which leads to some insurance office.
There are, as I know, offices straightforward and courteous, who foster thrift by making it pleasant. Yet, as one who has often advocated thrift, I think it useful to record my astonishment at the official impediments to its popularity, which I have encountered. This is one reason why Thrift, the most self-respecting of all the goddesses that should be swift-footed, goes limping along.
Temperance is restraint in use. Abstinence is entire avoidance, which is the wise policy of those who lack the strength of temperance.
How necessary entire abstinence is to many, I well know. When the drink passion sets in, it leads to an open grave. The drinker sees it, and knows it, and, with open eyes walks into it. He who realises the danger, would, as Charles Lamb said—
For such there is no salvation save entire abstinence. Thousands might have been saved but for the fanaticism of abstinence advocates who opposed in Parliament every legal mitigation of the evil, thinking the spectacle of it would force the legislature into prohibition. In discussions, lectures, articles, I advocated the policy of mitigation, and supported measures in Parliament calculated to that end, encountering thereby the strong dissent of temperance writers who, not intending it, connived at drunkenness as a temperance policy.
Is it true that moderation is dead? Have teetotalers extinguished it as a rule of daily life? Bishop Hall, in his fine way, said, "Moderation was the silken string running through the pearl chain of all our virtues." Was this a mistake of the illustrious prelate? Is not temperance a wider virtue than total abstinence? Is there no possibility of establishing temperance in betting? Can no limitation be imposed on betting? The public know denunciatory preaching does not arrest it. Innumerable articles are written against it. Letters about it are not lacking in the editor's post-bag. Yet not a mitigation nor remedy is suggested, save that of prohibition, which is as yet impossible.
Betting is a kind of instinct, difficult to eradicate, but possible to regulate. Games of hazard, as card-playing or dice, are naturally seductive in their way. They are useful as diversions and recreation. They exercise the qualities of judgment, calculation, and presence of mind, as well as furnish entertainment. It is only when serious stakes are played for that mischief and ruin begin.
But the seduction of card gambling—once widely irresistible—is now largely limited by the growing custom of playing only for small stakes. Family playing or club playing, professedly for money, is held to be disreputable. Formerly, drinking which proceeded to the verge of intoxication, or went beyond it, was thought "manly." Now, where the effects are seen in the face, or in business, it is counted ruinous to social or professional reputation. Drinking is far more difficult of mitigation than betting, because the temptations to it occur much oftener. The capricious habit of going in search of luck can be restrained by common sense. Temperance in betting would be easier to effect were it not for the intemperate doctrine of total abstainers. By defaming moderation they rob the holy name of temperance of its charm, its strength and its trust. By teaching that "moderation is an inclined plane, polished as marble, and slippery as glass, on which whoever sets his foot, slips down into perdition," they destroy moderation by making it a terror. It brings it into contempt and distrust, and undermines self-confidence and self-respect. Yet it is by moderation that we live. Moderation in eating is an absolute condition of health—as the Indian proverb puts it: "Disease enters by the mouth." A man who disregards moderation in work, or in pleasure, or diet, seldom lives out half his days. He who has no moderation in judgment, in belief, in opinion, in politics, or piety, is futile in counsel, and dangerous in his example. If the disparagement of self-control has not destroyed the capacity and confidence of moderation in the public heart, temperance in betting is surely possible.
Occasionally a minister of religion will ask me what I have to say about betting. I answer, "It is difficult to extinguish it, but possible to mitigate it." I give an instance from my own experience.
Years ago when I was editing the Reasoner, Dr. Shorthouse contributed a series of instructive papers on the physiology of racing horses. Out of courtesy to him I took a ticket in a sweepstake in which he was concerned, but in which I felt no interest. Months after, I saw that the owner of the prize was unknown. My brother, knowing I had a ticket, found it among my papers, and I received £50. I invested the amount, intending to use the interest in some future speculation, if I made any, which was not in my way. To that £50 there is added now more than £50 of accumulated interest, with which I might operate if so inclined. Were I in the crusade against betting I should say, "Form societies for Temperance in Betting, of which the rules shall be—
'"1.—No member may make any bet unless he is able, having regard to his social obligations, to lose the sum he risks, and is willing to lose it, if he fails to win.
'"2.—When he does win anything, he shall invest it, and bet with the interest, and every time he wins, shall add the amount to the original investment, which would give him a larger sum for future recreation in that way."'"
There is a Church of England Temperance Society which has the courage to believe in moderation, and which makes it a rule of honour to keep clear of all excess. Thousands in every walk of life have been saved to society under this sensible encouragement, and where an occasional act of excess would have been counted venial, it is regarded as revolting as an act of indecency.
I have known men in the betting ring who made up their mind that when they acquired a certain sum they would retire, nor step again in the treacherous paths of hazard—and they kept their resolution. But very few are able to do this, having no trained will.
I am against extremes in social conduct, save where reason shows it to be a necessity. If Betting Limited was approved by the public, betting at hazard would become as socially infamous as petty larceny. In the dearth of suggestions for the mitigation of an evil as serious as that of drunkenness, I pray forgiveness for that I have made.
Previous to 1868, I assisted in establishing the Scottish Advertiser conducted by Walter Parlane. It bore the following motto, which I wrote for it:
"Whatever trade Parliament licenses, it recognises—and so long as such trade is a source of public revenue, it is entitled to public protection."
I still agree with the sentiment expressed. All I meant was a reasonable protection of the interest which the law had conceded to the trade. The predatory impudence of the monopoly privileges the trade has since extorted against the public interests was in no man's mind then. No one intended that the concession of just protection should be construed into extortion. As respects compensation, the temperate party refused it. I was not of their opinion. I agreed with them that the publicans had no logical claim for compensation, but I would have conceded it as the lesser of two evils, just as it was better to free the West Indian slaves by purchase than to continue their lawful subjection. If to maintain in full force the legalised machinery of drunkenness be only half as dreadful in its consequences as temperance advocates truly represent, it would be cheaper as well as more humane to limit it by graduated compensation.
Predatory Christianity would not be far from the mark. Christianity is of the nature of a penal settlement where independent-minded persons are made to expiate the sin of thinking for themselves. There can be no real goodwill in any one who is not for justice and equality. No cause can command respect, or can claim a hearing from others which is not based on absolute fairness. Many well-meaning Christians never inquire whether the great cause they have at heart fulfils this condition. In the past this omission has been a lasting cause of alienation from their views.
Between 1850 and 1860 there sat in St. Bride's Vestry, London, a group of Christian churchwardens who twice a year sent agents to seize property from my house in Fleet Street, because I refused to pay tithes. Yet there are people who tell us without tiring, of the depravity of the French revolutionists and atheists who laid, or proposed to lay hands upon Church property. Yet these Christian officers, acting under the eye of an opulent rector in the wealthiest capital in the world, seized clocks and bales of paper on the premises of heretics, in the name of the Church! Did not this disqualify the Church as ministers of consolation? The greatest consolation is justice. Is it not spiritual effrontery to despoil a man, then invite him to the communion table? In our day by predatory acts, they confiscate Nonconformist property to maintain Church schools. Can it be that heaven recognised agents engaged in petty larceny? Are they intrusted with the keys of heaven? May the priest be a thief? Can a man expect to be admitted at the Golden Gate with a burglar's passport in his hand? There exist penal laws against all who do not stand on the side of faith, which Nonconformists as well as Churchmen connive at, profit by, and maintain. Is not this destructive of their spiritual pretensions? Can they preach of holiness and truth without a blush? No higher criticism can condemn Christianity, as it is self condemned by resting on predatoriness. No person who does not stand on the Christian side can leave property for promoting his views, as a Christian can for promoting his. No Christian conscience is touched at this disadvantage imposed upon the independent thinker. No sermon is preached against it. No Christian petition is ever set up against it. Neither the Church conscience nor the Nonconformist conscience is stirred by the existence of this injustice. It would cease if they objected to it. But they do not object to it.
There are prelates, priests, clergymen, and Nonconformist ministers personally to be respected, who in human things I trust. But for their spiritual vocation, is it possible to have respect or trust? To tender consolation with one hand while they keep the other in my pocket is an act never absent from my mind. I belong to a Secular party who seek improvement by material means; but were there any body of Christians upon whom that party imposed legal disadvantages in its own interest, and kept them there by silence or connivance, Parliament would hear from me pretty frequently until the insulting privileges were annulled. Any pretension to having principles worthy of acceptance, or regard, or even respect, would be impertinence in us so long as we were unfair to others.
I caused to be brought into Parliament a Bill in which Sir Philip Manfield took the leading interest, entitled:—
Civil and Religious Liberty Extension.
A BILL
To secure the Extension of Civil and Religious Liberty.
(Prepared and brought in by
Mr. Manfield, Sir Henry Boscoe,
Sir Geo. B. Sitwell, Mr. Picton,
Mr. Illingworth, Mr. W. McLaren,
Mr. H. P. Cobb, Mr. Howell,
Mr. Chas. Feiiwick, Mr. Benn,
Mr. Storey, and Mr. Hunter.)
Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 7 November 1893.
PRINTED BY EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE, PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
And to be purchased, either directly or through any Bookseller, from Eyre & Spottiswood, East Harding Street, Fleet Street, B.C., and 32, Abingdon Street, Westminster, 8.W.; or John Menzies & Co., 19, Hanover Street, Edinburgh, and 90, West Nile Street, Glasgow; or Hodges, Ptoois 6 Co., Limited, 104, Grafton Street, Dublin.
[Price 1d.]
[Bill 464.]
Memorandum.
This Bill comprises but a small extension of religious equality. Its object is to enable a man "to do what he likes with his own" for admittedly lawful purposes. It is affirmed by legal decisions that any man may believe what he pleases, speak what he pleases, publish his honest conviction, provided he does it in a temperate and considerate manner; and he may, while living, give money to maintain his views. All this Bill seeks is that he may, at his death, bequeath money for such purpose. This Bill merely proposes to extend a right which Christians of every denomination enjoy, but which hitherto has been denied to those who may conscientiously object to prevailing opinions.
BILL TO
Secure the Extension of Civil and Religions Liberty.
WHEREAS
1 it is expedient to remove the Disabilities under which persons suffer desirous of endowing, creating, and maintaining charitable and other Trusts for religious and ethical inquiry, so as to further extend civil and religious liberty:
2 Nothing contained in this Act shall affect or be deemed to repeal or contravene in any way such parts of the Act 9 George II., cap. 36, relating to Mortmain as remain unrepealed, or any other Act amending or altering such Act; and the provisions of all such Acts now in force shall apply to all Trusts created under this Act.
3 After the passing of this Act, notwithstanding any Act, Rule of Common Law, Rule of Equity, or Rule of Practice of any Court of Justice now in force to the contrary, it shall be lawful for any person to create and endow, or create or endow, any Trust for inquiry into the foundations and tendency of religious and ethical beliefs which from time to time prevail, or for the maintenance and propagation of the results of such inquiry. And the method of application of Bequests made for the purposes aforesaid shall be, on the part of those responsible for their administration, subject to revision at intervals of thirty years.
4 Such Trust, whether created by Deed or Will, or by other instrument, shall be deemed a charitable Trust, and shall be administered and given effect to in all respects in as full and complete a manner as in the case of religious and charitable Trusts now recognised by Law; and the doctrine of Cy-pres shall be applied to it when circumstances shall arise requiring the application of such doctrine.
This Bill was not proceeded with. It required a member like Samuel Morley, of known Christianity and a conscience, to carry it through the House.
A theory has been started that by registering an association, under the Friendly Societies Act, it would legalise its proceedings and virtually repeal all the laws confiscating bequests. No case of this kind has come before the higher courts. To do the Government justice, I know no case in which the Crown has interfered to confiscate a bequest on the ground of heresy in its use. Members of families, legally entitled to the property of a testator, may claim the money and get it. If the family enters no claim the bequest takes effect. In the meantime the state of the law prevents testators leaving property for the maintenance of their opinions, and Christians bring charges against philosophical thinkers for lack of generosity in building halls as Christians do chapels. The Christian reproaches the philosopher for not giving, when he has confiscated the bequest of the philosopher and the power of giving.
Priests often mourn at the disinclination to listen to the tenets they proclaim, and advertise in the newspapers the melancholy fact that only one person in five is found on Sunday in a place of worship, and do not remember how many persons remain away, not so much from dislike of the tenets preached, as from dislike of the injustice which they would have to share if they belonged to any Christian communion.
None of our Sunday Societies or Sunday Leagues seem ever to have thought of the advantages of advocating as I have long done—two Sundays—a Devotional Sunday and a Secular Sunday.
The advocacy of two Sundays would put an end to the fear or pretence that anybody wants to destroy the one we have.
The Policy of a Second Sunday is a necessity.
It would put an end to the belief that the working classes are mad, and not content with working six days want to work on the seventh.
It would preserve the present Sunday as a day of real rest and devotion. The one Sunday we now have is neither one thing nor the other. Its insufficiency for rest prevents it being an honest day of devotion. Proper recreation is out of the question. There is too little time for excursions out of town on the Saturday half-day holiday. Imprisonment in town irritates rather than refreshes—mere rest is not recreation.
Those who would provide recreation in the country find it not worth while for the precarious chance of half-day visitors. On a Secular Sunday recreation would be organised and be more self-respecting than it now can be.
1. It would conduce to the public health. The manufacturing towns of England are mostly pandemoniums of smoke or blast-furnace fumes. The winds of heaven cannot clear them away in one day—less than forty-eight hours of cessation of fire and fume would not render the air breathable.
2. With two Sundays one would be left undisturbed, devoted to repose, to piety, contemplation and improvement of the mind.
3. It would give the preacher intelligent, fresh-minded and fruitful-minded hearers, instead of the listless, wearied, barren-headed auditors, who lower the standard of his own mind by forcing upon him the endeavour to speak to the level of theirs.
4. A second Sunday would give the people real rest when nobody would frown upon them, nor preach against them, nor pray against them.
5. It would be cheaper to millowners to stop their works two clear days than run them on short days; and there need not be fears of claims of further reduction of forty-eight hours a week on the part of workpeople, who would have a real sense of freedom from unending toil with two days' rest and peace. Manufacturing towns would no longer be, as now, penal settlements of industry. Holiness would no longer be felt to be wearisomeness.
But for Moses, the changes here sought would have existed long ago. One day's rest in the week was enough for Jews who were doing nothing when one Sunday was prescribed to them. Had Moses foreseen the manufacturing system, instead of saying "six days," he would have said, "Five days shalt thou labour."
If he deserves well of mankind who makes two blades of wheat grow where only one grew before; he deserves better who causes two Sundays to exist where only one existed before—for corn merely feeds the body, whereas reasonable leisure feeds the mind.
It is worth while recording the curious, not to say ignominious, ways from which justice to new thought has emerged. In the 5 and 6 Victoriæ, cap. 38, 1842, the trial of eighteen offences were removed from the jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions and transferred to the Assize Court. Persons accused were often subject to magisterial intolerance, ignorance and offensiveness.
Among the transferred offences were forgery, bigamy, abductions of women. "Blasphemy and offences against religion," often of doubtful and delicate interpretation, were two of the subjects taken out of magisterial hands and placed under the decision of better-informed and more responsible judges. "Blasphemy" was the general title under which atheism, heresy, and other troubles of the questioning intellect were designated. "Composing, printing or publishing blasphemous libels," were included in the list of subjects to be dealt with in higher courts. Thus better chances of justice were secured to thinkers and disseminators of forbidden ideas. This new charter of thought, which conceded legal fairness to propagandism, was not the subject of a special statute, but was interpolated in a list, which read like an auctioneer's catalogue, eluded Parliamentary prejudice, which might have been fatal, had it been formally submitted to its notice.
In the same manner the Affirmation Act, which changed the status of the disbeliever in theology from that of an outlaw to that of a citizen, crept into the Statute Book through a criminal avenue. A Bill to admit atheists, agnostics, or other conscientious objectors to the ecclesiastic oath, to make a responsible affirmation instead, was twice or thrice thrown out of the windows of Parliament. Sir John Trelawny used to say Mr. Gathorne Hardy (afterwards Lord Cranbrook) would rise up, as I have seen him, with a face as furiously red as one of his own blast furnaces at Lowmoor, and move its rejection. It was passed at last by the friendly device of G. W. Hastings, M.P., the founder of the Social Science Association, in a Bill innocently purporting to better "promote the discovery of truth" by enabling persons charged with adultery to give evidence on their own behalf.
Then and there a clause was introduced which had no relation to the extension of the right to give evidence, but upon the exemption of an entirely different class of persons from the obligation of making oath. Adulterers appear always to be Christians, since no case is recorded in which any party in an adultery action professed any scruple at taking the oath. Yet the Bill set forth that "any person in a civil or criminal proceeding who shall object to make an oath," shall make a declaration instead. When the Bill became an Act secular affirmation became legalised. Thus by a clause treading upon the heels of adultery, the witness having heretical and unecclesiastical convictions was enabled to be honest without peril.
In 1842, as I witnessed at the Gloucester Assizes, no barrister would defend any one accused of dissent from Christianity, but apologised for him and proclaimed his contrition for his sin of thinking for himself. Slave thought of the mind, chained to custom, could be defended, but not Free Thought, which is independent of everything save the truth. By the Act of 1869* atheists ceased to be outlaws, and were henceforth enabled to give evidence in their own defence. Wide-awake and vigilant as a rule, bigotry was asleep that day. Thus by circuitous and furtive paths the right of free thought has made its way to the front of the State.
The extraordinary legal licence of disordered and offensive imputation has been limited since 1842. In those days, officers of the law, who always professed high regard for morality and truth, had no sense of either, when they were drawing up theological indictments. In the affair at Cheltenham I delivered a lecture on Home Colonies (a proposal similar to the Garden Cities of to-day), to which nobody objects now. As I always held that discussion was the right of the audience, as self-defensive against the errors of lecturer or preacher, an auditor, availing himself of this concession, arose in the meeting and asked: "Since I had spoken of duty to man, why I had said nothing of duty to God"? My proper answer was, that having announced one subject, the audience would have a right to complain that I had trepanned them into hearing another, which they would not hear willingly. Such a reply would have been received with outcries, and the Christian auditor would have said, "I dare not answer the question—that I held opinions I was afraid to disclose." All the while the questioner knew that an honest answer might have penal consequences, which he intended to invoke. Christians in those days lacked winning ways. I gave a defiant answer, which caused my imprisonment. There was no imputation in my reply, which merely produced merriment.
Yet my indictment said I "was a wicked, malicious, evil-disposed person," and that I "wickedly did compose, speak and utter, pronounce and publish with a loud voice, of and concerning the Holy Scriptures, to the high displeasure of Almighty God, and against the peace of our Lady the Queen." Every sentence was an outrage, and nearly every word untrue. I was not wicked, nor malicious, nor evil-disposed. I did not compose the speech—it was purely spontaneous. I never had a loud voice. I never referred to the Holy Scriptures, and I only disturbed the peace of our Lady the Queen by a ripple of laughter.
I carried no arms. I was known as belonging to the "Moral Force Party" in politics, and was entirely unprepared to attack any person, let alone one Omnipotent with "force of arms." The imputations in the indictment were not only untrue, but contained more blasphemy than was in the mind of any one to utter. I called the Judge's attention to the atrocity of the language of the indictment He did not say there was anything objectionable in it, which showed that the morality of the Bench was not higher at that time than the morality of the magistrates. In the Cheltenham Chronicle, known in the town as the Rev. Francis Close's (afterwards Dean of Chichester) paper, I was described as a "miscreant" for the answer I had given to my auditor. Mr. Justice Erskine had no word of reproof for the infamous term applied to me.
As I have elsewhere said, I spoke in my defence upwards of nine hours. The length was owing to the declaration of one of the magistrates (Mr. Bransby Cooper) that the Court would not hear me defend myself. Why I defended myself at all, was from a very different reason.
No barrister in those days would defend any one charged with dissenting from the Christian religion. The counsel always apologised to the jury for the opinions of his client, which admitted his guilt. This was done at that very assizes at which I was tried. A Mr. Thompson, a barrister in Court, who we mistook for a son of General Perronet Thompson, also at the Bar, was engaged to defend George Adams, charged with an act of heresy. The false Thompson expressed contrition for Adams, without knowing or inquiring whether it was true that he felt it. Neither counsel nor magistrate nor judge seemed to think it necessary that what they said should be true.
Thus my justification of the seeming presumption of defending myself was the fact that no counsel would defend us without compromising us. I had no taste for martyrdom. I did not want martyrdom; I did not like martyrdom. Martyrdom is not a thing to be sought, but a thing to be submitted to when it comes.
This narrative shows that, in one respect, legal taste and truth have improved in my time.
Many religious thinkers, ecclesiastical and Nonconformist, whose friendship I value, will expect from me in these autobiographic papers some account of the origin of opinions in which they have been interested. Sermons, speeches, pamphlets, even books have been devoted to criticism of my heresies. It is due to those who have taken so much trouble about me that I should explain, not what the opinions were—that would be irrelevant here—but how I came by them. That may be worth recounting, and to some serious people perhaps worth remembering.
Confessions are not in my way. They imply that something it was prudent to conceal has to be "owned up." Of that kind I have no story to tell. An apologia is still less to my taste. I make no apology for my opinions. I do not find that persons who dissent from me, ever so strenuously, think of apologising to me for doing so. They do right in standing by their convictions without asking my leave. I hope they will take it in good part if I stand by mine without asking theirs.
My mother did not go to the Established Church, to which her father belonged. She had natural piety of heart, and thought she found more personal religion among the Nonconformists than in the Church. She attended Carr's Lane Chapel, where the Rev. John Angell James preached—who had a great reputation in Birmingham for eloquence and for his evangelical writings. He was notorious in his day for denouncing players and ambitious preachers seeking to excel in the arts of this world; which caused the town people to say that he was dramatic against the drama and eloquent against eloquence. His name, "Angell" James, begat a belief that it was descriptive of himself, and that his doctrines were necessarily angelic. It seems absurd, but I shared this belief, and should not have been surprised to hear that he had some elementary development of wings out of sight At the same time, Mr. James gave me the impression of severity in piety, and my feeling towards him was one of awe, dreading a near approach.
Some years after, I held a discussion of several nights with the Rev. W. J. Winks, of Leicester, who wrote to Mr. James to make inquiries concerning me. In 1881, some thirty-five years after the discussion, Mr. Winks' son showed me a letter which Mr. James wrote in reply saying: "Holyoake was a boy in my Sunday School five years. He then went, through the persuasion of a companion, to Mr. Cheadle's for a short time, then to the Unitarian school (I believe entered a debating society), and became an unbeliever. He is a good son and kind to his mother, who is a member of one of our Baptist churches."
The Rev. Mr. Cheadle, of whom Mr. James speaks, was a Baptist minister. It is true I went to his church—my sister Matilda became a member of it—but I never joined it The ceremony of baptism there was by immersion. It seemed poetical to me when I read the account of baptism in the Jordan; but I could not make up my mind to be baptised in a tank. The reason, however, that I gave at the time was the stronger and the true one—that I did not feel good enough to make a solemn public profession of faith. Mr. James was misinformed; I never belonged to a debating society.
It was very good of him to write of me so, when he must have been very much pained at the opinions he believed me then to hold. A man may speak generously privately, but he means it when he says the same thing publicly; and Mr. James did this. He wrote to a similar effect in the British Banner at the time when the Rev. Brewin Grant was painting portraits of me in pandemonium colours.
A small Sunday School Magazine came into my hands when I was quite a youth. It was edited by the Rev. W. J. Winks. As communications were invited from readers, I sent some evangelical verses to him. The first time of my seeing my initials in print was in Mr. Winks's magazine.
After a time, partly because the place of worship was nearer home, my mother joined a little church in Thorpe Street, and later one in Inge Street. They were melancholy little meeting-houses, and, as I always accompanied my mother, I had time to acquire that impression of them. A love of art was in some measure natural to me, and I thought that the Temple of God should be bright, beautiful and costly. As I was taught to believe that He was always present there, it seemed to me that He should not be invited (and all our prayers did invite Him) into a mean-looking place. It was seeing how earnestly my mother prayed at home for the welfare of her family, how beautiful and patient was her trust in heaven, and how trouble and misery increased in the household notwithstanding, that unconsciously turned my heart to methods of secular deliverance. She had lost children. I remember the consternation with which she told us one Sunday night that her pastor, the Rev. Mr. James, had stated in his sermon his fearsome belief that there were "children in hell not a span long." That Mr. James believed it seemed to us the same as its being in the Bible. Another time he preached about the "sin against the Holy Ghost, which could never be forgiven, either in this world or the world to come." My mother's distress at the thought made a great impression upon me. A silent terror of Christianity crept into my mind. That one so pure and devout as my mother, who was incapable of committing sin knowingly, should be liable to commit this, and none of us know what it was, nor how or when consequences so awful were incurred, seemed to me very dreadful.
The first death at home of which I was conscious, occurred at a time when Church rates and Easter dues were enforced and augmented by a summons. None of us were old enough to take the money to the public office, and a little sister being ill, my mother, with reluctance, had to go. A small crowd of householders being there on the same errand, she was away some hours. When she returned, my sister was dead; and the thought that the money extorted by the Church might have succoured, if not saved the poor child, made the distress greater. My mother, always resigned, made no religious complaint, but I remember that, in our blind, helpless way, the Church became to us a thing of ill-omen. It was not disbelief, it was dislike, that was taking possession of our minds.
A man in my father's employ, who was superintendent of a Congregational Chapel School at Harborne, a village some three or four miles from Birmingham, asked me to assist as monitor in one of his classes. I was so young that John Collins, who preached at times in the chapel, took me by the hand, and I walked by his side. The distance was too far for my little feet, and in winter the snow found its way through my shoes. Collins afterwards became known as a Chartist advocate, and was imprisoned in Warwick Gaol with William Lovett, on the ground of political speeches. They jointly wrote the most intelligent scheme of Chartist advocacy made in their day. Elsewhere I have recounted incarcerations which befel many of my friends, proving that, within the memory of living men, the path of political and other pilgrims lay by the castles of giants who seized them by the way.
In the Carr's Lane Sunday School I was considered an attentive, devout-minded boy. All the hymns we sang I knew by heart, as well as most parts of the Bible. The only classic of a semi-secular nature my mother had in her house was Milton's "Paradise Lost"; we had besides a few works of ponderous Nonconformist divines, of which Boston's "Fourfold State" was one, to which I added Baxter's "Saints' Everlasting Rest." I devoured whatever came in my way that was religious. Being thought by this time capable of teaching the little that was deemed necessary in an Evangelical Sunday school, I came to act as a small teacher at the Inge Street Chapel. These people were known as Pædo-Baptists—what that meant not a single worshipper knew. The point of doctrine which they did understand was that children should not be baptised when their small souls were in the jelly-fish state and knew nothing. When their little minds had grown and had some backbone of sense in them, and some understanding of religious things, the congregation thought that sprinkling them into spiritual fellowship might do them good.
Though my mother admitted that adult baptism was more reasonable, she never listened to the doctrine of baptism by immersion. She disliked innovation in piety. She had great tenacity in quiet belief, and thought public immersion a demonstration—very bad bathing of its kind—and might give you a cold.
Few young believers showed more religious zeal than I did in those days. On Sunday morning there was a prayer on rising, and one before leaving home. At half-past seven the teachers were invited to meet at chapel to pray for a blessing on the work of the day. When school commenced at nine o'clock the superintendent opened it with prayer, and closed it at eleven with another prayer. Then came the morning service of the chapel, at which I was present with my class. That included three prayers. At two o'clock school began again, opening and ending with prayers by the superintendent, or by some teacher who was asked "to engage" in it, in his stead. At the close of the school, another prayer-meeting of teachers was held, for a blessing on the work done that day. At half-past six evening service took place, which included three more prayers. Afterwards, devout members of the congregation held a prayer-meeting on behalf of the work of the church. At all these meetings I was present, so that, together with graces before and after meals three times a day, and evening prayers at time of rest, heaven heard from me pretty frequently on Sundays. Many times since I have wondered at the great patience of God towards my unconscious presumption in calling attention so often to my insignificant proceedings. Atonement ought to include the sin of prayers.
Nor was this all. At chapels in Birmingham (1834), when anniversary sermons had been preached on Sunday by some ministers of mark, there would commonly be a public meeting on Monday at which they would speak, and to which I would go. On Tuesday evening I went to the Cherry Street Chapel, where the best Wesleyan preachers in the town were to be heard. On Wednesday I often attended the Carr's Lane sermon. Thursday would find me at the Bradford Street chapel, where there usually sat before me a beautiful youth, whose sensuous grace of motion gave me as much pleasure as the sermon. I remember it because it was there I first became conscious of the charm of human strength and proportion. I had the Greek love of beauty in boys—not in the Greek sense, of which I knew nothing.
On Friday I generally went to the public prayer-meeting in Cherry Street, because Wesleyans were bolder and more original in their prayers than other Christians. In frequenting Wesleyan chapels I could not help noticing that their great preachers were also men of great build, of good width in the lower part of the face. Afterwards I found that their societies elsewhere were mostly composed of persons of sensuous make. Their preachers having strong voices, and drawing inspiration mainly from feeling, they had boldness of speech; and those who had imagination had a picturesque expression. Independents and Baptists often tried to solve doubts, which showed that their convictions were tempered by thought to some extent; but the Wesleyan knew nothing of thought—he put doubt away. He did not recognise that the Questioning Spirit came from the Angel of Truth. To the Wesleyans, inquiry is but the fair-seeming disguise of the devil, and to entertain it is of the nature of sin. These preachers, therefore, knowing nothing of the other side, were under none of the restrictions imposed by intelligence, and they denounced the sceptics with a force which seemed holy from its fervour, and with a ferocity which only ignorance could inspire. So long as I knew less than they, their influence over me continued. Yet it was not vigorous denunciation which first allured me to them, though it long detained me among them—it was the information I had received, that they believed in universal salvation, which had fascination for me. There was something generous in that idea beyond anything taught me, and my heart cleaved to the people who thought it true. This doctrine came to me with the force of a new idea, always enchanting to the young. Had I been reared among Roman Catholics, I should have worshipped at the church of All Souls instead of the church of One Soul. Any Church whose name seemed least to exclude my neighbours would have most attracted me.
All the fertility of attendance at chapels recounted did not, as the reader will suppose, produce any weariness in me, or make me tired of Christianity. The incessant Bible reading, hymns, prayer, and evangelical sermons of Carr's Lane, Thorpe Street, and Inge Street did tire me. There was no human instruction in their spiritual monotony. My mind aches now when I think of those days. When I took courage to visit various chapels, the variety of thought gave me ideas. The deacons of the Inge Street Chapel bade me beware that "the rolling stone gathered no moss."* Yet I did gather moss.