em who were leaders were not converted, and
those who were converted were not leaders. The real leaders of the
Freethought party, those who were long in its service, and were
entrusted with power and responsibility, were never converted. And the
cases on Mr. Whitmore's list are old. They have an ancient and fish-like
smell. Dr. Hitchens will perhaps be good enough to tell us the name
of any man of real distinction in the Freethought party who has been
"converted" during the last twenty years. We defy him to do so. If he
goes back far enough he will find a few men who were not trusted in our
party, and a few weaklings who could not fight an uphill battle, who
went over to the enemy. Real leaders of our party fought, suffered,
and starved, but they never deserted the flag. Christianity could not
convert a Bradlaugh or a Holyoake; it could only bribe or allure a
Sexton or a Gordon, or others of the "illustrious obscure" in Mr.
Whitmore's fraudulent catalogue. In short, the "conversions" to
Christianity so trumpeted are mostly dubious, generally insignificant,
and all ancient. If the prophecy which Dr. Hitchens preached from is to
be accomplished, it will have to quicken its rate of fulfilment during
the past twenty years. We convert tremendously more Christians than you
do Freethinkers; the balance is terribly to your disadvantage; you can
only make out a promising account by setting down your infinitesimal
gains and making no entry of your tremendous losses.

The only recent case that Dr. Hitchens refers to is that of "a National
Secular lecturer, of whom the sceptics were greatly proud." Dr. Hitchens
evidently takes this gentleman at his own estimate. That _he_ thinks
the sceptics were greatly proud of him is intelligible; it is quite in
keeping with his shallow, vulgar, And egotistical nature. But the truth
is "the sceptics," in any general sense, were _not_ proud of him. He
was a very young man, with a great deal to learn, who had a very brief
career as a Secularist in East London. In a thoughtless moment a
local Secular Society gave him office, and that fact is his entire
stock-in-trade as a "converted Freethinker." He was never one of the
National Secular Society's appointed lecturers; he was neither "author,
editor, or debater"; and he was utterly unknown to the party in general.
Dr. Hitchens has, in fact, discovered a mare's nest. We are in a
position to speak with some authority, and we defy him to name any
Freeth