These explicit statements he repeated again and again in answer to questions, saying once:—

This emphatic explanation was given in reply to a question on what is, to my mind, the only obscure point in his examination. Asked: "Do you draw any distinction between the binding effect upon your conscience of the assertory oath, as it is called, and the promissory oath?" he answered—

There is here, I think, a momentary confusion among the terms "assertory," "promissory," and "testimony"; and the phrase "not binding on my conscience" is also used in a sense probably not intended by the questioner, and not that intended by Bradlaugh in his next answer, above quoted. The "because" is inconsequent. What he meant to convey was simply that he expressly rejected the testimony oath because in giving evidence he was free to affirm; whereas he was compelled to take the oath of allegiance, there being no legal alternative in the opinion of a Committee of the House. He had been forced to submit in the law courts to the invidious formula that the oath was not binding on his conscience, because it had been expressly ruled in law[134] that if a witness simply said "I am an Atheist," the judge was bound to infer that an oath did not "bind" him. But Bradlaugh's answers to the Select Committee, taken together, made it superfluously clear that in the natural sense of the words he held any formula of promise he took to be binding on him, whether with or without an imprecatory tag. And inasmuch as members of the Committee nevertheless thought fit afterwards to allege that he had all along declared the contrary with regard to the oath, we are driven to one of two conclusions. Either (a) these gentlemen hold that a formal public promise is not fully binding on their consciences unless they add "so help me God," or something of the sort, and that an Atheist cannot be more conscientious than they; or (b) they deliberately chose to bear false witness for party purposes. And it finally matters little which conclusion we draw; for the acceptance of the first leaves open the chance of the second being true also.

The Committee, after a variety of votes, finally reported to the effect that Bradlaugh, by simply stating [though in answer to official question] that he had repeatedly affirmed under certain Acts in courts of law, had brought it to the notice of the House that he was a person as to whom judges had satisfied themselves that an oath was "not binding on his conscience"; that, under the circumstances, an oath taken by him would not be an oath "within the true meaning of the statutes"; and that the House therefore could and ought to prevent him from going through the form. They further suggested that he should be allowed to affirm with a view to his right to do so being tested by legal action, pointing to the nearly equal balance of votes in the former committee as a reason for desiring a decisive legal solution.

For this report of course only those members are responsible who voted for its main clauses. Under this reservation it falls to be said that the use made of the mean technicality of an oath being held not "binding on the conscience" of an Atheist was in itself profoundly unconscientious. That formality was, to begin with, expressly intended to prevent the evasion of the oath by religious knaves, and not at all to imply that an Atheist who took the oath could not be believed. What was more, Bradlaugh had only specified the Evidence Amendment Acts in reply to the express challenge of the Clerk of the House of Commons. To turn an accidental ambiguity to the account of an iniquity, to decide that a man was untrustworthy under the pretext of a legal subterfuge, was merely to show that the oath is less than no security for right action, and that under its cover men can far outgo the lengths of injustice that they are likely to venture on in the name of simple law. In the words of Bright, who opposed the conclusion come to as "absolutely untenable," "the course taken was one involving a mean advantage over Mr Bradlaugh." What the proceeding proved against Bradlaugh was simply this: that he had done wrong in ever accepting, even as a technical phrase, the juridical formula that an oath as a whole is not "binding on the conscience" of one to whom an imprecation is an idle barbarism. He ought in the law courts to have repudiated even the technical shadow of an implication that a rationalist's word is worth less than a religionist's oath. Nothing but persistent resistance will ever make tyrannous religion give way to justice; and he, who was habitually accused of gratuitously defying religion, had simply not defied it enough. And the lesson taught to other rationalists by his struggle is this, that oath-taking must in future be stigmatised and warred against as implying not a higher but a lower moral standard than that of rational ethics. Men who must swear to be believed are not to be believed.

§ 5.

On 21st June, a few days after the presentation of the Committee's report to the House, Mr Labouchere moved a resolution to the effect that Bradlaugh be allowed to make affirmation instead of taking the oath—the course the Committee had recommended. He had previously given notice of a general Affirmation Bill, but had postponed the discussion of it, pending the report. He now moved his resolution, after presenting a petition in support of Bradlaugh from some thousands of the people of Northampton, on the heels of a large Tory petition, also from Northampton, praying that Bradlaugh "might not be permitted to take the holy name of God in vain." Mr Labouchere in an extremely able and persuasive speech dwelt on the prime fact that the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866 gave to all persons legally qualified to affirm in courts of law the right to affirm in Parliament, and that by later Acts Bradlaugh was entitled to affirm in courts of law. [The opposition view presumably was that the Act of 1866 could only refer to persons then entitled to affirm; but no argument to that effect appears on the reports consulted by the present writer.] He further warned the enemy that if they carried their hostility to the point of unseating Bradlaugh, he would simply be re-elected—a statement which evoked confident "No's" from members whose faith in Deity was more deep than philosophical; and remarked what was perfectly true—that there were "exceedingly few persons in Northampton of Mr Bradlaugh's views" on religious matters. Sir Hardinge Giffard (now Lord Halsbury) rang the changes on the argument about obtrusion of views; and pietists like Alderman Fowler and Mr Warton expressed afresh their corpulent horror of Atheism. One Irish member, Mr Arthur O'Connor, took occasion to protest—in a debate on a proposal to permit an affirmation—against letting Bradlaugh take the oath; and the Speaker seems to have made no objection. On the other side, Mr Hopwood, whose vote in the first committee had possibly permitted all the trouble, made a powerful speech against the "obtrusion" argument, which, as he justly said, amounted to telling Bradlaugh, "If you had come to the table with a lie on your lips, we would have allowed you to be sworn." But again the great speech in the debate was Bright's. The remark, "There are many members of this House who take the oath and greatly dislike it," was his first home-thrust; and soon, after a temperate and weighty argument, he nobly repeated his declaration of belief in the honour of the Atheist, whose opinions were probably as repugnant to Bright as to any other man in the House. "I pretend," he said—and his voice rose with his theme,—"I pretend to have no conscience and honour superior to the conscience of Mr Bradlaugh. (Ironical cheers from the Opposition.) It is no business of mine to set myself up—perhaps it is no business of yours to set yourselves up—(cheers)—as having conscience and honour superior to that which actuates Mr Bradlaugh." He went on to protest that the course taken by the majority of the committee was "one involving a mean advantage over Mr Bradlaugh." The speech, however, mainly ran to perfectly judicial argument; and it was the obvious determination of the Tories to give no ear to argument that evoked the flashes of feeling which lit it up. Bright having said that the oath was now made a theistic test, where before it had been a Protestant and a Christian test, a "No," came from Mr Spencer Walpole, the Chairman of the Committee. "Why," retorted Bright, "the right hon. gentleman must have forgotten everything in the committee; he cannot have been conscious of his own opinions. Why, surely the object of this motion is to establish the test of theism." There were again "No's" from the party which denies; and Bright, after establishing his point, thrust afresh. "The theistic test," he repeated, "is proposed by the member for Portsmouth—the front bench opposite appears to have abdicated entirely—there is now only an abject, a remarkable submission to gentlemen who sit in the lower part of the House." A plain statement of the obvious fact that Wolff was establishing a precedent for intervention elicited more blatant "No's," and Bright began to warm up to his peroration. He reminded the House that a Positivist or Comtist who had been concerned in the issue of an anti-theistic pamphlet might quite as plausibly be challenged as Mr Bradlaugh; going on to speak of certain Positivists as "some men for whom I have the utmost respect in regard to everything but their opinions on the question of religion, which I deplore, and in connection with which I can only commiserate them. But," he went on, correcting the touch of superciliousness,—

An allusion to the remark of Mr Labouchere that the Northampton constituency in the mass had no sympathy with Bradlaugh's theological opinions evoked another Conservative laugh, and Bright continued:—

Despite the Tory wrath, there was no withdrawal.

This great speech was followed, after the adjournment, by one from Gladstone, less powerful because less fired with moral feeling, but eloquent, cogent, and unanswerable, save for the slip of the statement that Bolingbroke, the Theist, was "without any religious belief at all."[135] Yet the end of the debate—after a series of speeches, including one by Sir Henry Tyler in which he brutally dragged the name of Mrs Besant into his attack on Bradlaugh—was that only 230 voted for Mr Labouchere's motion, and 275 against. This was on 22nd June. What Bright had thought could not be had taken place, though the Nonconformists were not the bulk of the Liberals who enabled the Tories to trample underfoot the first principles of Liberalism. Thirty-six Liberals and thirty-one Home Rulers voted in the majority, and doubtless joined in its exultant cheers.

A number of Liberals, further, were absent without pairs. There were found among the allies of tyranny representatives of nearly all of the sects which had themselves suffered persecution, Catholics, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Jews, as well as members of the Established Church. When, therefore, Mr John Tenniel in Punch caused his weekly contribution to the gaiety of his nation to take the shape of a cartoon joyfully representing Bradlaugh as "kicked out," with a crumpled paper in his hand bearing the legend "Atheism," he was more than usually in touch with the social sentiment of which he is the leading artistic exponent. Our "English love of fair play" was never more neatly illustrated, even by that "primitive pencil."[136]

The action of the Home Rulers is perhaps specially notable. Some of them later pretended that their hostility to Mr Bradlaugh was due to a single vote he gave on the Arms Bill. It will be seen that they opposed him in great force before he had ever had a chance to vote at all, and this on a simple claim that he should be allowed to make affirmation. Mr Justin M'Carthy, in keeping with his general attitude on religious questions, sought from the first to exclude the Atheist from Parliament. The only other plea open to the majority was that Bradlaugh had "forced his Atheism on the House." This was the line taken, for instance, not only by Sir Hardinge Giffard, but by Sir Walter Barttelot, a typical Tory squire and "English gentleman," who just before Bradlaugh's death in 1891 won for himself some credit by a frank tribute to his honesty of character. Were it not for the countenance given by Mr John Morley at the time to a patently unjust account of Bradlaugh's action—an account which Gladstone as well as Bright then explicitly contradicted—one would be disposed to point to the general repetition of the untruth by the Tory press and party as proving how worthless a thing the "honour and conscience" of English gentlemen is in matters of public action. It is a matter of simple fact that Bradlaugh all along anxiously sought to keep his Atheism out of cognisance of the susceptibilities of the House;[137] and it is perfectly certain that had he come forward to take the oath at the outset, he would not only have been afterwards vilified by the Opposition as a blasphemous hypocrite, but would have been challenged all the same by Wolff and the rest. The matter had been openly discussed beforehand. There is thus no conclusion open save that the majority in the vote on the affirmation motion did a gross injustice; and though the really religious men in the House, as Gladstone and Bright, were mostly on the other side, and the religiosity of the aggressors was in many cases a nauseous farce, it must be assumed that religion counted for much[138] in the matter. Parnell in the next stage of the question avowed that he had been on Bradlaugh's side from the first, but had found himself opposed on the point by "the great majority of the Irish members." There would seem to be no doubt that the Catholic priesthood—actively represented by Cardinal Manning—determined the action of Parnell's followers, and later his own. It is perhaps not unprofitable to reflect that most of the "Liberal" wrongdoers have since paid some penalties. Some dozen lost their seats at next election on the Bradlaugh issue. The Home Rulers have felt to the full the power of fanaticism against themselves; and Parnell, who later yielded to the bigotry of his party, lived to know all the bitterness of religious injustice. A minor Scotch Liberal then on the wrong side, Mr Maclagan, has lately been unseated by clerical effort; and doubtless others could testify that they who draw the sword of bigotry tend to perish by it. It would doubtless be giving an undue air of moral regularity to the business to lay any stress on the final political fate of Northcote, who in the Bradlaugh struggle made himself the catspaw of the worst section of his followers. He certainly had his due reward.

§ 6.

Being thus expressly denied the right to affirm by a vote of the whole House, Bradlaugh promptly reverted to his position that if he could not affirm, he was legally bound to take the oath and his seat. A committee had declared by a casting vote that he could not affirm, and left him to swear. The House referred the point of his swearing to a larger committee, which decided by a majority that he could not swear, but recommended that after all he be allowed to affirm. The House stood by the finding of both committees in so far as it was hostile, and overruled that of the second in so far as it was favourable. It remained to fight the whole House on the point of the oath.

On 23rd June, after the "prayers," which remain one of the institutions of the House, Bradlaugh walked to the table amid some cries of "Order," and spoke to the Clerk. The Speaker then formally intimated to him the decision of the House, and called upon him to withdraw. Amid roars of "Withdraw" from the furious mob of Tory members, Bradlaugh contrived to let the Speaker understand that he claimed to be heard. He had to withdraw while the question was discussed, and when Mr Labouchere sought to move that he be heard, the Speaker had to rise to secure order. On grounds not easily inferred, the House, suddenly changing its temper, with very little dissent agreed to let Bradlaugh be heard at the "Bar," which was at once drawn across the bottom of the House, and at which he proceeded to speak, as represented in the admirable portrait done after his death by Mr Walter Sickert. This, his first speech at the Bar of the House,[139] I have heard described as perfect by some Liberals who thought less highly of the three others it was his lot to make from the same place. It is perhaps the most vividly impressive, but only, I think, because it was the first. Certainly it is the most memorable address of challenge ever made to the House, though it has all the straightforward, terse simplicity of Bradlaugh's general speaking, which was never rehearsed. It was measured and controlled throughout. The mean insult of a "Hear, hear" when he asked, "Do you tell me I am unfit to sit amongst you?" did not discompose him. "The more reason, then," he went on, "that this House should show the generosity which judges show to a criminal, and allow every word he has to say to be heard." Even in rebuking the most dastardly attack made upon him in the House he was gravely dignified.

He went on to deal with the common objection to his action:—

The most searching thrusts were delivered with entire amenity.

And no less measured was the warning that the struggle would not end with his exclusion:—

The peroration was as austere as the rest of the speech:—

Then ensued a fresh debate. Northcote at some length expressed himself to the effect that there was nothing to be said. Gladstone at similar length agreed. The Speaker asked whether Bradlaugh should be called in, and after some confused discussion Mr Labouchere was allowed to move that yesterday's resolution be rescinded. Mr Gorst moved the adjournment of the debate; but on an appeal from Gladstone, Mr Labouchere withdrew his motion. The Speaker then recalled Bradlaugh to the table, and informed him that the House had nothing to say beyond calling upon him once more to withdraw. Bradlaugh replied: "I beg respectfully to insist upon my right as a duly elected member for Northampton. I ask you to have the oath administered to me, in order that I may take my seat, and I respectfully refuse to withdraw." The helpless Speaker "thought it right to point out to the hon. gentleman" what he had pointed out before. Again Bradlaugh replied: "With respect, I do refuse to obey the orders of the House, which are against the law;" and the Speaker had to appeal to the House "to give authority to the Chair to compel execution of its orders." Gladstone remained silent, despite calls for him, and Northcote in his flabbiest manner proceeded to move, "though I am not quite sure what the terms of the motion should be, that Mr Speaker do take the necessary steps for requiring and enforcing the withdrawal of the hon. member for Northampton." The Speaker confusedly explained, to the perplexity of the House, that according to "former precedents" the motion should simply be "that the hon. member do now withdraw"—precisely what he had already declared to be the resolution and order of the House. The motion being challenged, there voted for it 326, and only 38 against, the Government having chosen to give effect to the vote of the majority of the day before. The scene now became still more exciting. On the Speaker's again calling on Bradlaugh to withdraw, he answered: "With submission to you, sir, the order of the House is against the law, and I respectfully refuse to obey it." The Speaker then called on the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove him, and that officer, coming up, touched him on the shoulder and requested him to withdraw. He said, "I shall submit to the Sergeant-at-Arms removing me below the bar, but I shall immediately return to the table," and he did so, saying on his way back towards the table, "I claim my right as a member of the House." Again led back to the bar by the officer, he again walked up the floor of the now tempestuous House, saying "in a voice rising high above the din" (says a contemporary report), "I claim my right as a member of this House. I admit the right of the House to imprison me, but I admit no right on the part of the House to exclude me, and I refuse to be excluded." Again led to the bar by the Sergeant-at-Arms, he awaited the action of the House.

His action had been taken with a forethought. He was determined to force the House to further steps, and to make its path a cul de sac. The Speaker again appealed to the House for orders, and Northcote, making an effort to get up a state of vigorous purpose in himself, conscious the while that the moral right was all on the other side, once more took action. He somewhat disappointed the followers who had led him by remarking: "I am quite sure that none of us are disposed to make any personal complaint of the conduct of the hon. member. We know that he is in a position which calls for our consideration, and that we must make all proper allowance for the course which he may think it right to take." Complaining that the duty ought to have been taken up by the leader of the House, Northcote proceeded to move that Bradlaugh, having defied the House, be taken into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. Gladstone once more explained that he thought those who had got the House into the trouble should get it out, and wordily went on to indicate that he thought the Opposition were taking a consistent course. But again a discussion arose. Mr Labouchere began by remarking on the position of a citizen sent to prison for doing what some high legal authorities thought he had a perfect right to do. Mr Courtney suggested that the arrest be formally carried through to permit of the legality of the House's course being tested on a writ of habeas corpus. The appearance of a shorthand writer at the bar taking notes led to a question of order; and the Speaker explained that he was there by authority, reporting the proceedings, "not the debate, which would clearly be out of order." A friendly motion for the adjournment of the debate was made, discussed, and withdrawn. Another was made by Mr Finigan, a friendly Irish member, and seconded by Mr Biggar; but only five voted for it and 342 against. Mr Parnell then made the very creditable speech in which he avowed his dissent from the majority of the Home Rulers; and some of these in turn expressed their dissent from him. At length Northcote's motion was carried by 274 votes to 7. The result was received "without any manifestation of feeling," and members laughed when the Speaker announced the resumption of "the private business." Already the majority had begun to feel that its triumph was a fiasco. In an hour the Sergeant-at-Arms, called upon by the Speaker to report, announced to the House that "in pursuance of their order and Mr Speaker's warrant, I have taken Mr Bradlaugh, the member for Northampton, into custody."

He was in the "Clock Tower"—in a room, that is, on the second story of that part of the House—whither he had gone with the slight requisite show of formal resistance, passing first a short time in the Sergeant's private room. There he was visited by Parnell, Mr O'Kelly, Mr O'Connor Power, Mr Finigan, and Dr Commins, all of whom expressed their cordial sympathy. The imprisonment was a farcical form. A constant stream of friends visited him; and he went about the business of fighting his battle in the country as he would do in his own rooms. On the very evening of his arrest a Committee was formed to secure his liberation, and an appeal drawn up in its name by Mrs Besant. This was distributed by thousands next day; and a fresh petition for signature was likewise framed and sent out broadcast at once. But the democracy did not wait for petitions. The moment the news of the House's action reached the public, a cry of indignation arose, loud enough to alarm Beaconsfield,[141] on whose urgent advice (so it was said at the time) Northcote on the next day moved for Bradlaugh's unconditional release, which was hurriedly agreed to. The stultification of the majority was now complete; and the course taken by Northcote thus far may stand as a fair sample of modern Conservative statesmanship—the policy of irrational resistance, on no better principle than that of partisan habit, ending in ignominious collapse. Still the cry of protest swelled in volume. In less than a week two hundred meetings were held throughout the country to pass resolutions in Bradlaugh's favour; Radical and Liberal clubs and societies of all kinds sent their messages of protest and appeal; and Liberal members who had voted on the Tory side were sharply called to account. Even before matters had come to a crisis, abundant proof was given that a large and earnest minority were dead against the policy of intolerance. In May Mr Labouchere had given notice of a Bill to permit affirmation by any member in place of the oath of allegiance; and by 6th July there had been presented 462 petitions in favour of that measure, with 40,434 signatures, largely obtained through the organisation of the National Secular Society. The effect of these and other displays of popular feeling began to be seen in the House. Liberal members who had voted on the Tory side out of fear of the bigots in their constituencies began to hesitate. On 28th June leave was given to Mr Labouchere to introduce his Affirmation Bill, which was read a first time. The Government, however, took the view that Bradlaugh's rights ought to be legally determined in respect of the state of the law at the time of his election; and instead of supporting or giving facilities for Mr Labouchere's Bill, they proposed the compromise of moving that the excluded member be allowed to affirm pending the legal settlement of his position. This was accepted; and, on 1st July, Mr Gladstone moved as a standing order that members-elect be allowed, subject to any liability by statute, to affirm at their choice.

This was of course the signal for a fresh storm. On Mr Gladstone's preliminary motion that the Orders of the Day be postponed, Mr Gorst pronounced the motion disorderly, and opposed the proposal in advance as being to the effect that "the House should break the law, in order to smuggle Mr Bradlaugh into the House." Gladstone, in moving his order, was studiously moderate, giving as a reason for the Government's not introducing a Bill the impossibility of having the question calmly discussed in the then state of feeling, while urging the necessity of preserving the dignity and decency of the House as a reason for doing something. He went on to defend Bradlaugh fully and forcibly against the charge of having "obtruded his Atheism" on the House, and wound up with a calm contention that it was the duty of the House to further the claim of any member to take his seat under a given law, leaving it to be settled in the law courts whether his claim was valid. Northcote opposed, arguing that there was no fear of a repetition of the scene of last week, since the Speaker could give instructions that Mr Bradlaugh be not allowed to enter the precincts. To accept the motion "would be to some extent humiliating to the House."[142] No question of justice or righteousness was raised by the Tory leader. One of his followers, Lord Henry Scott, advanced the pious proposition that "the mere affirmation of a person who did not believe in a Supreme Being could not be regarded as a binding engagement upon him." Another ignoramus named Smyth explained that the "test of Theism" "pervaded the whole body of the Constitution, of which, like the soul of man, it was the animating principle." "Let Atheists be admitted within its walls, and there would be Atheistical legislation.... Such teaching it was that led to the outbreak of the French Revolution." Thus were old lies made to support new. An Irish Catholic named Corbet spoke of "Mr Bradlaugh's Byzantine doctrines of morality," either forgetting that Byzantium was the typical Christian State for a thousand years, or desiring to asperse the Christian Church which had all along been the great rival of his own. Mr A. M. Sullivan, another Catholic, made a rabid speech, supporting the cause of religion with the plea, "Where was the class that was oppressed now? It was nothing but an individual." He went on to avow that he sought to keep Mr Bradlaugh out of Parliament on the score that his Malthusianism, "taken in conjunction with his Atheistic opinions, struck fatally at the foundation of civil society." The Church of the confessional is naturally zealous for the sacredness of the family; and the Church of the Inquisition for the "foundations of civil society." Men who regard the hamstringing of cattle as at most a pity are naturally warm on the subject of rational control of human procreation. On the other hand, Parnell "wished, as an Irish Protestant, with the utmost diffidence, to say a few words in explanation of the vote he would give to-night." Already he seemed shaken by the resistance of his followers; and he was at pains to say "he regarded the religious tenets of Mr Bradlaugh and his doctrines with reference to over-population as abominable"—a deliverance which reads dramatically in connection with the close of his own career, when an only less insensate and irrational ethic than his own gave the sanction for similar vilification of himself. There was finally a ring of anxious bravado in his avowal that "it was personally an odious task for him to take the course he should on this occasion"—(this after he had voluntarily gone to shake hands with Bradlaugh after the arrest)—"but if he had to walk through the lobby alone, he should deem himself a coward if he did not act up to his conviction."

Less self-regarding, and much more helpful, was the speech of Mr Richard, the most impressive in the debate. Mr Richard was one of the extremely few Christians who keep one set of gospel passages so constantly in view as never to be led into imitating the rest. He never echoed their words of execration. His very rebukes to his fellow-Christians for their pious scurrility were gentle; and he must have caused some searchings of heart when he observed that "no man who watched what went on, on the first day of the present Parliament, when hon. members were squeezing round the table, and scrambling for the New Testaments amid laughter—('No, no,' and Ministerial cheers)—no man could have watched that scene, and believed that the act had any of the solemnity of a religious act about it." When the otherwise pious Wolff followed, the altered balance of feeling was shown by impatient interruption of his remarks. An exceptionally offensive Catholic, named M'Coan, was called to order by the Speaker for the remark that "a more offensive representative of Atheism never was seen" than Bradlaugh. Finally, after General Burnaby had mentioned that "the Chief Rabbi, although refusing to interfere with political questions, felt very deeply on this subject," the vote was taken, and by 303 votes to 249 Gladstone's motion was carried.

Bradlaugh was now free to make affirmation, and did so next day. Almost immediately on taking his seat he had occasion to vote, and immediately thereafter he was served with a writ to recover a penalty of £500 for illegal voting. The writ had apparently been prepared beforehand. The suitor was one Henry Lewis Clarke, the tool of Mr Newdegate, M.P.,—the latter, a man of the most restricted understanding, notorious as an old opponent of the admission of Jews to Parliament and a rabid assailant of Catholicism, but now eager to combine with Jews and Catholics against the Atheist. A few days afterwards a similar writ was served at the instance of one Cecil Barbour, of Nightingale Lane, Clapham; and yet a third was given notice of; but the work was left to Mr Newdegate's employee.[143] A new stage in the struggle had now been reached.

§ 7.

For nine months—that is, while Parliament sat in the period July-March 1880-81[144]—Bradlaugh now sat in the House, doing his work with intense and continuous application, though all the while there hung over him the shadow of a ruinous litigation. He had taken the risk. On 8th July the Government were asked by Mr Norwood, a hostile Liberal, whether they would instruct the law officers of the Crown to undertake his defence in any suit brought against him; but the answer was, of course, in the negative; and Bradlaugh rose to explain that he had had no communication with either Mr Norwood or the Government on the subject. A fortnight later a Bill was zealously forced through both the Houses to indemnify Lord Byron, who had sat and voted without being sworn, against any action for penalties. Bradlaugh had the experience of helping to safeguard the peer from the prosecution laid against himself.

His Parliamentary activity was many-sided, including as it did the charge of the interests of endless correspondents in all parts of the world who had grievances to redress and claims to put. But above all he devoted himself to the interests of Ireland and of India, the one still suffering from an imperfect realisation of her needs by English Liberals; the other from the general neglect of Liberals and Tories alike. The gratitude of the people of India has been freely given for his service; that of the majority of the Irish members was naturally not prompt. They had wronged him, and so could hardly forgive.

Such a frenzy of malevolence, further, as had been aroused among bigots of all Churches by Bradlaugh's entrance into the House, was slow to decline. Whether outside the House or inside, he was furiously aspersed. A Bill to exclude Atheists was early introduced by Sir J. Eardley Wilmot,[145] and petitions in support of this were largely signed, though wholesale subscription by the children of Sunday Schools was in many cases found to be necessary to fill the sheets. But petitions for his exclusion were a small part of the storm of malice that assailed him. It would fill a volume to recite or even cite the hundreds of denunciations—often vile and grossly libellous, and nearly all implying a religious motive—which were poured forth against him week by week. Clergymen naturally formed the bulk of the assailants; and of these the State Church furnished the largest contingent, all grades of the hierarchy being represented; but the President of the Wesleyan Conference, on behalf of the Conference Committee, presented a hostile petition to Parliament; and the secretary to the same Conference issued a circular calling upon the various Wesleyan bodies to join in the general movement against the Atheist. Protestants vied with Catholics in the foulness of their abuse, the ferocity of their enmity.

On the other hand, it must be put on record that in every church, in varying numbers, there seem to have been lovers of freedom as well as persecutors. Some of the most forcible and earnest letters sent to the newspapers on Bradlaugh's behalf were written by clergymen of the Church of England; and many Nonconformist clergymen spoke out on his side ably and warmly. At a Church Conference, more than one priest of the Establishment defended him bravely and well. Even from within the pale of the Church of Rome there came voices of protest against the intolerance of the majority. On 27th June 1880 the "Home Government Association" of Glasgow sent to Bradlaugh a resolution of the majority of its members to the effect "that this meeting of Irish Roman Catholics ... most emphatically condemns the spirit of domination and intolerance arrayed against you, and views with astonishment and indignation the cowardly acquiescence, and in a few instances active support, on the part of a large majority of the Irish Home Rule members to the policy of oppression exercised against you." Bradlaugh was peculiarly quick to appreciate such messages of sympathy and fairness from religious opponents. The words of Bright on his behalf in the House brought tears to his eyes; and he never forgot to be grateful for them. In his own journal, immediately after his entrance to the House on tentative affirmation, he printed the following appeal:—

But no good-feeling on his part or on that of the tolerant religious minority could stay the torrent of libel and vituperation; and a paragraph penned a month later shows how the majority bore themselves:—