Prisoner for Blasphemy | Page 7

to my literary ventures, and those who ever turn over a file
of the Secularist or the Liberal will see with what activity he wielded
his trenchant pen. When he became my paid sub-editor, our relations
remained unchanged. We worked as loyal colleagues for a cause we
both loved, and treated as a mere accident the fact of my being his
principal. The same feeling animates us still, nor do I think it can ever

suffer alteration.
The new year's number, dated January 1, 1882, referred to Mr.
Wheeler's accession, and to that of Dr. Edward Aveling, who then
became a member of the regular staff. It also referred to the policy of
the Freethinker, and to another subject of the gravest interest--namely,
the threats of prosecution which had appeared in several Christian
journals. As "pieces of justification," to use a French phrase, I quote
these two passages:
"Our ill-wishers (what journal has none?) have been of two kinds. In
the first place, the Christians, disgusted with our "blasphemy,"
predicted a speedy failure. The wish was father to the thought. These
latter-day prophets were just as false as their predecessors. Now that
they witness our indisputable success, they shake their heads, look at us
askance, mutter something like curses, and pray the Lord to turn us
from our evil ways. One or two bigots, more than ordinarily foolish,
have threatened to suppress us with the strong arm of the law. We defy
them to do their worst. We have no wish to play the martyr, but we
should not object to take a part in dragging the monster of persecution
into the light of day, even at the cost of some bites and scratches. As
the Freethinker was intended to be a fighting organ, the savage hostility
of the enemy is its best praise. We mean to incur their hatred more and
more. The war with superstition should be ruthless. We ask no quarter
and we shall give none.
"Secondly, we have had to encounter the dislike of mealy-mouthed
Freethinkers, who want omelettes without breaking of eggs and
revolutions without shedding of blood. They object to ridiculing people
who say that twice two are five. They even resent a dogmatic statement
that twice two are four. Perhaps they think four and a half a very fair
compromise. Now this is recreancy to truth, and therefore to progress.
No great cause was ever won by the half-hearted. Let us be faithful to
our convictions, and shun paltering in a double sense. Truth, as Renan
says, can dispense with politeness; and while we shall never stoop to
personal slander or innuendo, we shall assail error without tenderness
or mercy. And if, as we believe, ridicule is the most potent weapon

against superstition, we shall not scruple to use it."
These extracts from my old manifestoes may possess little other value,
but they at least show this, that the peculiar policy of the Freethinker
was not adopted in a moment of levity, but was from the first
deliberately pursued; and that while I held on the even tenor of my way,
I was fully conscious of its dangers.
Early in January there fell into my hands a copy of a circular to
Members of Parliament by Henry Varley, the Notting Hill revivalist.
This person was a notorious trader in scandal, and he still pursues that
avocation. Many of his discourses are "delivered to men only," an
advertisement which is sure to attract a large audience; and one of them,
which he has published, is just on a level with the quack publications
that are thrust into young men's hands in the street. Henry Varley had
already issued one private circular about Mr. Bradlaugh, full of the
most brazen falsehoods and the grossest defamation; and containing, as
it did, garbled extracts from Mr. Bradlaugh's writings, and
artfully-manipulated quotations from books he had never written or
published, it undoubtedly did him a serious injury. The new circular
was worthy of the author of the first. It was addressed "To the Members
of the House of Commons," and was "for private circulation only." The
indignant butcher, for that is his trade, wished "to submit to their notice
the horrible blasphemies that are appended, and quoted from a new
weekly publication issued from the office where Mr. Bradlaugh's
weekly journal, the National Reformer, is published. The paper is
entitled the Freethinker, and is edited by G. W. Foote, one of Mr.
Bradlaugh's prominent supporters, and one of his right hand men at the
Hall of Science." The Commons of England were also requested to
notice that "Dr. Aveling, who for some years has been one of Mr.
Bradlaugh's chief helpers, is another contributor to this disgraceful
product of Atheism." In conclusion, they were called upon to "devise
means to