unnecessary, and take only that which is essential. That is the
course you ask us to take in drawing us upon theological ground;
you require us to distinguish between superfluities and
necessaries, and you tell us that Christianity is one of the
superfluities, one of the excrescences, and has nothing to do with
the vital substance, the name of the Deity, which is
indispensable. I say that the adoption of such a proposition as
that, which is in reality at the very root of your contention, is
disparaging in the very highest degree to the Christian
faith....(5)

(M6) Even viewed as a theistic test, he contended, this oath embraced no
acknowledgment of Providence, of divine government, of responsibility, or
retribution; it involved nothing but a bare and abstract admission, a form
void of all practical meaning and concern.

The House, however, speedily showed how inaccessible were most of its
members to reason and argument of this kind or any kind. On June 21, Mr.
Gladstone thus described the proceedings to the Queen. "With the renewal
of the discussion," he wrote, "the temper of the House does not improve,
both excitement and suspicion appearing to prevail in different quarters."
A motion made by Mr. Bradlaugh's colleague that he should be permitted to
affirm, was met by a motion that he should not be allowed either to affirm
or to swear.

_To the Queen._

Many warm speeches were made by the opposition in the name of
religion; to those Mr. Bright has warmly replied in the name of
religious liberty. The contention on the other side really is that
as to a certain ill-defined fragment of truth the House is still,
under the Oaths Act, the guardian of religion. The primary
question, whether the House has jurisdiction under the statute, is
almost hopelessly mixed with the question whether an atheist, who
has declared himself an atheist, ought to sit in parliament. Mr.
Gladstone's own view is that the House has no jurisdiction for the
purpose of excluding any one willing to qualify when he has been
duly elected; but he is very uncertain how the House will vote or
what will be the end of the business, if the House undertakes the
business of exclusion.

_June 22._--The House of Commons has been occupied from the
commencement of the evening until a late hour with the adjourned
debate on the case of Mr. Bradlaugh. The