you not
to open a discreditable chapter of English history that ought
to have been closed for ever; I ask you to give us a verdict
of Not Guilty, to send us back to our homes and to stamp your
brand of disapprobation on this prosecution, which is degrading
religion by associating it with all that is penal, obstructive,
and loathsome; I ask you to let us go away from here free men,
and so make it impossible that there ever should again be a
prosecution for blasphemy; I ask you to have your names inscribed
in history as the last jury that decided for ever that great
and grand principle of liberty which is broader than all the
skies; a principle so high that no temple could be lofty enough
for its worship; that grand principle which should rule over
all--the principle of the equal right and the equal liberty
of all men. That is the principle I ask you to assert by your
verdict of Not Guilty. Gentlemen, I ask you to close this
discreditable chapter of persecution once and for ever, and
associate your names on the page of history with liberty,
progress, and everything that is dignified, noble and dear
to the consciences and hearts of men."

When I sat down there was a burst of applause, which the court officials
were unable to suppress. Mr. Ramsey followed with another written
speech, well composed and very much to the point. I noticed some of
his auditors outside the jury-box choking down their emotion as he
touchingly referred to his sleepless nights in Newgate through thinking
of wife and child. His Lordship, I observed only smiled bitterly.

Judge North's summing up was a fraudulent performance. He told the jury
that the consent of the Attorney-General had to be obtained for our
prosecution, as well as that of the Public Prosecutor, which was a
downright falsehood, unless it was a piece of sheer ignorance. He
pretended to read the whole chapter on Offences against Religion in
Sir James Stephen's "Digest of the Criminal Law," while in reality he
deliberately omitted the very paragraph which damned his contention and
supported mine. He also produced a new statement of the Law of Blasphemy
to suit the occasion. On the previous Thursday he told the jury that any
denial of the existence of Deity or of Providence was blasphemy. But in
the meantime the public press had condemned this interpretation of
the law as dangerous to high-