The "right of meeting" has given me three important occasions of measuring swords with the Government during the last few years, and each time defeat has attended the Government. The first, the Hyde Park meeting, where I acted in accord with Mr. Beales, to whom as chief, let the honor go of this conflict. The second was on the 31st July, 1871, under the following circumstances. A meeting had been held by Mr. G. Odger and some of his friends in Hyde Park, on Sunday the 30th of July, to protest against the grant to Prince Arthur; this meeting was adjourned until the following evening. Late on the Sunday afternoon, the adjourned meeting was forbidden by the Government. Early on Monday morning Mr. Odger applied to me to give the friends the benefit of my legal knowledge and personal influence. I consented, and the Government persevering, I took my share of the responsibility of the gathering, and signed with Mr. Odger a new notice convening the meeting. The Home Office not only served us also with a written prohibition, but threatened and prepared to use force. I immediately gave Mr. Bruce notice that the force would be illegal, and that it would be resisted. At the last moment, and in fact only some half hour before the meeting commenced, the Government abandoned its prohibition, and an enormous meeting of a most orderly character was held in absolute defiance of the authorities.
The more recent case was in December, 1872, when finding that Mr. Odger, Mr. Bailey, and others, had been prosecuted under some monstrous and ridiculous regulations invented by Mr. Ayrton, I, on my own responsibility, determined to throw down the gauntlet to the Government. I did this most successfully, and soon after the opening of Parliament the obnoxious regulations were annulled.
It is at present too early to speak of the Republican movement in England, which I have sought, and not entirely without success, to organize on a thoroughly legal basis. It is a fair matter for observation that my lectures on "The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick," have been delivered to crowded audiences assembled in some of the finest halls in England and Scotland, notably the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, the Town Hall, Birmingham, the Town Hall, Northampton, and the City Hall, Glasgow. It is, as far as I am aware, the first time any English citizen has, without tumult or disorder and in buildings belonging to various Municipalities, directly challenged the hereditary right of the reigning family.
In penning the foregoing sketch I had purposely to omit many facts connected with branches of Italian, Irish, and French politics. I have also entirely omitted my own struggles for existence. The political parts are left out because there are secrets which are not my own alone, and which may not bear full telling for many years to come. The second, because I hope that another year or two of hard work may enable me to free myself from the debt load which for some time has hung heavily round me.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE DEVIL
To have written under this head in the reign of James Rex, of pious memory, would have, probably, procured for me, without even the perusal of my pamphlet, the reputation of Dr. Faustus, and a too intimate acquaintance with some of the pleasant plans of torturing to death practiced by the clever witch-finders of that day. I profess, however, no knowledge of the black art, and am entirely unskilled in diablerie, and feel quite convinced that the few words I shall say about his Satanic Majesty will not be cause of any unholy compacts in which bodies or souls are signed away in ink suspiciously red.
In many countries, dealing with the Devil has been a perilous experiment. In 1790, an unfortunate named Andre Dubuisson was confined in the Bastile, charged with raising the Devil. To prevent even the slightest apprehension on the part of my reader that I have any desire or intent toward placing him unpleasantly near a black-visaged, sulphureous-constitutioned individual, horned like an old goat, with satyr-like legs, a tail of unpleasant length, and a disposition to buy a body from any unfortunate wight ready to dispose of it, I have only to assert my intention of treating the subject entirely from a biblical point of view. Doubtless I ought to do this; the Christian Devil is a bible institution. I say, \ advisedly, the Christian Devil, because other religions have boasted their Devil, and it is well to prevent confusion. But I frankly admit that none of these religions have the honor of a Devil so devilish as our own. Indeed our Devil ought to be the best: it costs the most. No other religion besides our own can boast the array of Popes, Bishops, Conferences, Rectors, Incumbents, and paid preachers of various titles. And all these to preach against the Devil!
It is necessary, before entering upon my subject, that I should confess my little ability to do it justice. I am unable to say, certainly, whether I am writing about a singular Devil or a plurality of Devils. In one text "Devils" are mentioned,* recognizing a plurality; in another, "the Devil,"** as if there was but one. We may, however, fairly assume that either there is one Devil, more than one, or less than one; and, having thus cleared our path from mere numerical difficulties, we will proceed to give the Devil his due. Satan appears either to have been a child of God, or, at any rate, a most intimate acquaintance of the family; for we find that on "a day when the children of God came to present themselves before the Lord, that Satan came also among them;"*** and no surprise or disapprobation is manifested at his presence. The conversation narrated in the Book of Job as occurring between God and the Devil has, for us, a value proportioned to the rarity of the scene, and to the high character of the personages concerned.
* Leviticus xvii, 7.
** Luke iv, 2.
*** Job i, 6