178. If you are permitted to take that oath, do you intend the Committee to understand and believe that it will be binding upon your conscience as an oath?—Yes.
179. In taking such oath, do you consider yourself as appealing to some Supreme Being as a witness that you are speaking the truth?—I submit that having said that I regard the oath as binding upon my conscience, this Committee has neither the right nor the duty to further interrogate my conscience.
180. Sir Richard Cross: You know of course that in taking the oath in the form prescribed by the Statute, and according to the custom of taking oaths, you will have to kiss the Testament: do you attach the smallest weight to the kissing of that book?—I attach the weight attached by the law to the whole of the formula.
181. Do you attach the smallest weight to the kissing of the book; do you think that the kissing of that book adds in the slightest degree to the weight upon your conscience of the words which you have already spoken without kissing the book?—The law has said that the whole of that is to be complete; I have not the right, therefore, to form an opinion, or to formulate an opinion as to how much of that I would leave out had I any choice in the matter.
182. Then do you attach any further importance to the word “swear” in the oath itself, and to the fact of the kissing of the book than if the word “swear” were written “affirm,” and no kissing of the book were required?—I have already said that I attach to the complete affirmation the most complete binding effect on my conscience. If I were allowed a preference, I would and still prefer the affirmation. The law says that the oath is the form, and I shall regard that form as in all its respects binding upon my conscience.
183. Do you look upon the kissing of that particular book as adding any more sanction than the kissing of any other book?—I decline to do that which the law has not done; the law has not split up the formula into parts, and expressed an opinion upon each part separately, and I deny the right of the Committee to ask me to do that which the law has not done.
184. I will ask you one other question; do not answer it unless you like?—I will not.
185. Do you think that the fact of the kissing of that book has any relation to an appeal to a Supreme Being, that you will, before Him, perform the oath which you have taken?—The law has not required me, in any case, to express an opinion as to that by itself. As to the whole Oath I have expressed an opinion.
186. As regards the kissing of that book, would you look upon that, so far as your conscience is concerned, as an idle form?—The law has not required me to look upon it by itself, and I dispute the right of the Committee to divide the Oath into parts, and to take one part by itself without the other. I have already answered that the whole of the Oath when taken by me, and if taken by me, will be binding upon my conscience.
187. But still you consider that a certain part of that Oath, which the Statute imposes upon you the necessity to take, is an idle, and empty, and meaningless form?—I have never said so at any time.