some little
difficulty, recovered the custody of her daughter. It was decided against
Percy Bysshe Shelley that an Atheist father could not be the guardian of
his own children. If this law be appealed to, and anyone dares to enforce
it, we shall contest it step by step; and while we are out of England, we
know that in case of any attempt to retake the child by force we may
safely leave our new advocate to the protection of the stout arms of our
friends, who will see that no injustice of this kind is done her. So far
as the law courts are concerned, we have the most complete confidence in
Mr. George Henry Lewis, and we shall fight the case to House of Lords if
need be.

CHARLES BRADLAUGH."

The attempt to take the child from me by force indeed failed, but later
the theft was successfully carried out by due process of law. It is
always a blunder from a tactical point of view for a Christian to use
methods of illegal violence in persecuting an Atheist in this Christian
land; legal violence is a far safer weapon, for courage can checkmate the
first, while it is helpless before the second. All Christians who adopt
the sound old principle that "no faith need be kept with the heretic"
should remember that they can always guard themselves against unpleasant
consequences by breaking faith under cover of the laws against heresy,
which still remain on our Statute Book _ad majorem Dei gloriam_.

In September, 1875, Mr. Bradlaugh again sailed for America, leaving
plenty of work to be done by his colleagues before he returned. The
Executive of the National Secular Society had determined to issue a
"Secular Song Book", and the task of selection and of editing was
confided to me. The little book was duly issued, and ran through two
editions; then, feeling that it was marred by many sins both of
commission and omission, I set my face against the publication of a third
edition, hoping that a compilation more worthy of Free Thought might be
made. I am half inclined to take the matter up again, and set to work at
a fresh collection.

The delivery and publication of a course of six lectures on the early
part of the French Revolution was another portion of that autumn's work;
they involved a large amount of labor, as I had determined to tell the
story from the people's point of view, and was therefore compelled to
read a large amount of the current literature of the time, as well as the
great standard histories of Louis Blanc, Michelet,