e opinion of
the lawyers, and telling them that he should leave the question to the
House. His practical suggestion was that on his statement being made, a
motion should be proposed for a select committee. The committee was duly
appointed, and it reported by a majority of one, against a minority that
contained names so weighty as Sir Henry James, Herschell, Whitbread, and
Bright, that the claim to affirm was not a good claim. So opened a series
of incidents that went on as long as the parliament, clouded the radiance
of the party triumph, threw the new government at once into a minority,
dimmed the ascendency of the great minister, and what was more, showed
human nature at its worst. The incidents themselves are in detail not
worth recalling here, but they are a striking episode in the history of
toleration, as well as a landmark in Mr. Gladstone's journey from the day
five-and-forty years before when, in (M5) reference to Molesworth as
candidate for Leeds, he had told his friends at Newark that men who had no
belief in divine revelation were not the men to govern this nation whether
they be whigs or radicals.(4)

His claim to affirm having been rejected, Bradlaugh next desired to swear.
The ministerial whip reported that the feeling against him in the House
was uncontrollable. The Speaker held a council in his library with Mr.
Gladstone, the law officers, the whip, and two or three other persons of
authority and sense. He told them that if Bradlaugh had in the first
instance come to take the oath, he should have allowed no intervention,
but that the case was altered by the claimant's open declaration that an
oath was not binding on his conscience. A hostile motion was expected when
Bradlaugh came to the table to be sworn, and the Speaker suggested that it
should be met by the previous question, to be moved by Mr. Gladstone. Then
the whip broke in with the assurance that the usual supporters of the
government could not be relied upon. The Speaker went upstairs to dress,
and on his return found that they had agreed on moving another select
committee. He told them that he thought this a weak course, but if the
previous question would be defeated, perhaps a committee could not be
helped. Bradlaugh came to the table, and the hostile motion was made. Mr.
Gladstone proposed his committee, and carried it by a good majority
against the motion that Bradlaugh, being without religious belief, could
not take an oath. The debate was