y is the best policy." The Government did not think so,
and they paid the penalty, for one of the causes that led to their
defeat at the polls was the disgust felt at their vacillation and
cowardice in regard to the rights of constituencies. Not untruly did I
write, in May, 1882, that Charles Bradlaugh was a man "who by the
infliction of a great wrong had become the incarnation of a great
principle"; for the agitation in the country grew and grew, until,
returned again to Parliament at the General Election, he took the oath
and his seat, brought in and carried an Oaths Bill, not only giving
Members of Parliament the right to affirm, but making Freethinkers
competent as jurymen, and relieving witnesses from the insult hitherto
put upon those who objected to swearing; he thus ended an
unprecedented struggle by a complete victory, weaving his name for
ever into the constitutional history of his country.

In the House of Lords, Lord Redesdale brought in a Bill disqualifying
Atheists from sitting in Parliament, but in face of the feeling
aroused in the country, the Lords, with many pathetic expressions of
regret, declined to pass it. But, meanwhile, Sir Henry Tyler in the
Commons was calling out for prosecutions for blasphemy to be brought
against Mr. Bradlaugh and his friends, while he carried on his crusade
against Mr. Bradlaugh's daughters, Dr. Aveling, and myself, as science
teachers. I summed up the position in the spring of 1882 in the
following somewhat strong language: "This short-lived 'Parliamentary
Declaration Bill' is but one of the many clouds which presage a storm
of prosecution. The reiterated attempts in the House of Commons to
force the Government into prosecuting heretics for blasphemy; the
petty and vicious attacks on the science classes at the Hall; the
odious and wicked efforts of Mr. Newdegate to drive Mr. Bradlaugh into
the Bankruptcy Court; all these are but signs that the heterogeneous
army of pious and bigoted Christians are gathering together their
forces for a furious attack on those who have silenced them in
argument, but whom they hope to conquer by main force, by sheer
brutality. Let them come. Free-thinkers were never so strong, never so
united, never so well organised as they are to-day. Strong in the
goodness of our cause, in our faith in the ultimate triumph of Truth,
in our willingness to give up all save fidelity to the sacred cause of
liberty of human thought and human speech, we await g