Ever did I find Charles Bradlaugh thus tolerant of
difference of opinion, generously eager to approve what to him seemed
right even in a policy he disapproved.

The indignation grew and grew; the police were silently boycotted, but
the people were so persistent and so tactful that no excuse for
violence was given, until the strain on the police force began to
tell, and the Tory Government felt that London was being hopelessly
alienated; so at last Sir Charles Warren fell, and a wiser hand was
put at the helm.

CHAPTER XIV.

THROUGH STORM TO PEACE.

Out of all this turmoil and stress rose a Brotherhood that had in it
the promise of a fairer day. Mr. Stead and I had become close
friends--he Christian, I Atheist, burning with one common love for
man, one common hatred against oppression. And so in _Our Corner_ for
February, 1888, I wrote:--"Lately there has been dawning on the minds
of men far apart in questions of theology, the idea of founding a new
Brotherhood, in which service of Man should take the place erstwhile
given to service of God--a brotherhood in which work should be worship
and love should be baptism, in which none should be regarded as alien
who was willing to work for human good. One day as I was walking
towards Millbank Gaol with the Rev. S.D. Headlam, on the way to
liberate a prisoner, I said to him: 'Mr. Headlam, we ought to have a
new Church, which should include all who have the common ground of
faith in and love for man.' And a little later I found that my friend
Mr. W.T. Stead, editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette,_ had long been
brooding over a similar thought, and wondering whether men 'might not
be persuaded to be as earnest about making this world happy as they
are over saving their souls.' The teaching of social duty, the
upholding of social righteousness, the building up of a true
commonwealth--such would be among the aims of the Church of the
future. Is the hope too fair for realisation? Is the winning of such
beatific vision yet once more the dream of the enthusiast? But surely
the one fact that persons so deeply differing in theological creeds as
those who have been toiling for the last three months to aid and
relieve the oppressed, can work in absolute harmony side by side for
the one end--surely this proves that there is a bond which is stronger
than our antagonisms, a unity which is deeper than the speculative
theories which divide."

How unconsciously I was marching towards