he one hand, and how to irritate him against his opponent
on the other. Nor was Mr. Ince above using his influence with the Master
of the Rolls to obtain an unfair advantage, knowing that whatever he said
would be believed against any contradiction of mine: thus he tried to
obtain costs against me on the ground that the public helped me, whereas
his client received no subscriptions in aid of his suit; yet as a matter
of fact subscriptions had been collected for his client, and the Bishop
of Lincoln, and many of the principal clergy and churchmen of the diocese
had contributed liberally towards the persecution of the Atheist.

Mr. Ince and Mr. Bardswell argued that my Atheism and Malthusianism made
me an unfit guardian for my child; Mr. Ince declared that Mabel, educated
by me, would "be helpless for good in this world", and "hopeless for good
hereafter"; outcast in this life and damned in the next; Mr. Bardswell
implored the Judge to consider that my custody of her "would be
detrimental to the future prospects of the child in society, to say
nothing of her eternal prospects". I could have laughed, had not the
matter been so terribly serious, at the mixture of Mrs. Grundy,
marriage-establishment, and hell, presented as an argument for robbing a
mother of her child. Once only did judge and counsel fall out; Mr.
Bardswell had carelessly forgotten that Sir George Jessel was a Jew, and
lifting eyes to heaven said:

"Your lordship, I think, will scarcely credit it, but Mrs. Besant says in
a later affidavit that she took away the Testament from the child,
because it contained coarse passages unfit for a child to read."

To his horror, Sir George Jessel considered there were "some passages
which a child had better not read in the New Testament", and went on:

"It is not true to say there are no passages that are unfit for a child's
reading, because I think there are a great many.

"Mr. BARDSWELL: I do not know of any passages that could fairly be called
coarse.

"Sir G. JESSEL: I cannot quite assent to that."

With the exception of this little outburst of religious feeling against
the book written by apostate Jews, Jewish judge and Christian counsel
were united in their hatred of the Atheist. My argument fell on deaf
ears; I distinctly admitted that I was an Atheist, that I had withdrawn
the child from religious instruction at school, that I was the author of
the "Gospel of Atheism", "The Fruits of Christianity", "The Fre