money
in its attempt to put down the _Freethinker_. Sir Thomas Nelson
is keeping the pot boiling. He employs Sir Hardinge Giffard
and a tail of juniors in Court, and half the detectives of
London outside. These surreptitious gentleman, who ought to
be engaged in detecting crime, are busily occupied in purchasing
the _Freethinker_, waylaying newsvendors' messengers, intimidating
shopkeepers, and serving notices on the defendants. What money,
unscrupulously obtained and unscrupulously expended, can do is
being done. But there is one thing it cannot do. It cannot
damp our courage or alienate the sympathy of our friends.

"There is evidently a widespread conspiracy against us. We
have to stand on trial at the Old Bailey in company with rogues,
thieves, burglars, murderers, and other products of Christian
civilisation. The company is not very agreeable, but then Jesus
himself was crucified between two thieves. No doubt the Jews
thought him the worst of the three, just as pious Christians
will think us worse than the vilest criminal at the Old Bailey;
but posterity has reversed the judgment on him, and it will as
certainly reverse the judgment on us.

"If a jury should give a verdict against us, which we trust
it will not, the prosecutors will probably strike again at
some other Freethought publication. The appetite for persecution
grows by what it feeds on, and demands sacrifice after sacrifice
until it is checked by the aroused spirit of humanity. After
a sleep of twenty-five years the great beast has roused itself,
and it may do considerable damage before it is driven back into
its lair. We may witness a repetition of the scenes of fifty
and sixty years ago, when scores of brave men and women faced
fine and imprisonment for Freethought, tired out the very malice
of their persecutors; and made the Blasphemy Laws a dead letter
for a whole generation. May our victory be as great as theirs,
even if our sufferings be less.

"But will they be less? Who knows? They may even be greater.
Christian charity has grown so cold-blooded in its vindictiveness
since the 'pioneer days' that blasphemers are treated like
beasts rather than men. There is a certain callous refinement
in the punishment awarded to heretics to-day. Richard Carlil