his reason that the Church in question possesses
'the notes' of a true Church. This was the aspect of the question
which engaged Bradlaugh's attention. He was critical, legal. He
took objections, insisted on discrepancies, cross-examined as to
credibility, and came to the conclusion that the case for the
supernatural was not made out. And this he did not after the
first-class fashion in the study or in octavo volumes, but in the
street. His audiences were not Mr. Mudie's subscribers, but men and
women earning weekly wages. The coarseness of his language, the
offensiveness of his imagery, have been greatly exaggerated. It is now
a good many years since I heard him lecture in a northern town on the
Bible to an audience almost wholly composed of artisans. He was bitter
and aggressive, but the treatment he was then experiencing accounted
for this. As an avowed atheist he received no quarter, and he might
fairly say with Wilfred Osbaldistone, 'It's hard I should get raps
over the costard, and only pay you back in make-believes.'

It was not what Bradlaugh said, but the people he said it to, that
drew down upon him the censure of the magistrate, and (unkindest cut
of all) the condemnation of the House of Commons.

Of all the evils from which the lovers of religion do well to pray
that their faith may be delivered, the worst is that it should ever
come to be discussed across the floor of the House of Commons. The
self-elected champions of the Christian faith who then ride into the
lists are of a kind well calculated to make Piety hide her head for
very shame. Rowdy noblemen, intemperate country gentlemen, sterile
lawyers, cynical but wealthy sceptics who maintain religion as another
fence round their property, hereditary Nonconformists whose God is
respectability and whose goal a baronetcy, contrive, with a score or
two of bigots thrown in, to make a carnival of folly, a veritable
devil's dance of blasphemy. The debates on Bradlaugh's oath-taking
extended over four years, and will make melancholy reading for
posterity. Two figures, and two figures only, stand out in solitary
grandeur, those of a Quaker and an Anglican--Bright and Gladstone.

The conclusion which an attentive reading of Mr. Bradlaugh's biography
forces upon me is that in all probability he was the last freethinker
who will be exposed, for many a long day (it would be more than
usually rash to write 'ever'), to pains and penalties for uttering his
unbelief. I