Being tastefully got-up, well printed, profusely illustrated, and extensively denounced by the organs of Toryism and piety, this Christmas Number had a very large sale. Yet, strange as it may sound to some bigoted ears, Mr. Ramsey and I were after all several pounds out of pocket by it, the expenses being altogether out of proportion to the price, and our object being less material gain than the wide dissemination of our views. With the knowledge of this pecuniary loss in our minds, it may be imagined how grimly we smiled when the counsel sternly alluded to our "nefarious profits."
I shall have occasion to deal with the contents of this Christmas Number when I explain our second Indictment; which, I repeat, as there is general misunderstanding on the subject, was tried before the first, and resulted in Judge North's atrocious and almost unparalleled sentence.
During the interval between the publication of this "budget of blasphemy" and the date of our summons to answer a criminal charge founded on it, I had several interviews with Mr. E. Truelove, a gentleman well known to all advanced people in London as a veteran champion of the freedom as the press. At the age of seventy, after a long life sans peur et sans reproche, this fine old reformer was dragged by the paid Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice (or the Vice Society as Cobbett always called it) into a criminal court to answer a charge of obscenity. The objectionable matter was contained in an extremely mild, not to say mawkish, essay on the population question by Robert Dale Owen, a man of literary eminence in the United States, and once an ambassador of the great Republic. Like ourselves, Mr. Truelove was tried twice before a verdict of guilty could be obtained. His sentence was four months' imprisonment like a common felon. Mr. Truelove was indisposed to reveal the secrets of his prison-house out of a tender regard for my feelings, but seeing that I preferred to know the worst, he told me all about the felon's cell, the plank bed, the oakum picking, the wretched diet, and the horribly monotonous life. My chief feeling on hearing this sad tale was one of indignation at the thought that a man of honest convictions and blameless life should be subjected to such privations and indignities. It did not weaken my resolution; it only deepened my hatred of the system which sanctioned such iniquities.
From America, however, came a piece of bitter-sweet news. Mr. D. M. Bennett, editor of the New York Truthseeker, had just died. His end was hastened by the heart-disease he contracted while undergoing imprisonment for an "offence" similar to that of Mr. Truelove. Yet almost at the moment of Mr. Bennett's death, another jury had found another publisher of the very same work Not Guilty. I learned from the New York papers that the acquittal was partly due to the impartiality of the judge, partly to the progress the public mind had made on the population question, and partly to the fact that the accused publisher conducted his own defence. Here was a gleam of hope. I also might meet with an impartial judge, I also might find a jury reflecting an enlightened public opinion, and I also was resolved to defend myself. Alas! I did not know that I was to meet with the most bigoted judge on the bench, and to plead to a jury exactly calculated to effect his vindictive purpose.
On Thursday, December 7, 1882, we published our second Christmas Number of the Freethinker. I will deal with its contents presently, when I have narrated how it led to our second prosecution. Let it here suffice to say that it was undoubtedly a very "warm" publication, and well calculated to arouse the slumbering Blasphemy Laws. Some Freethinkers even were astonished at its audacity. A few belonging to an old-fashioned school, and a few more who were assiduously courting "respectability," resented our action; although, as the vast majority of our party were of an opposite opinion, they refrained from expressing their reprobation too loudly. In reply to their murmurs I wrote an article in my paper on "Superstitious Freethinkers." It appeared in the number for December 31, and thus appropriately closed a year of combat. A few passages are, perhaps, worth insertion here.
"It has been said of Robert Burns that, although his head and
heart rejected Calvinism, he never quite got it out of his blood.
There is much truth in this metaphor. Burns was, in religious
matters, one of a very large class. Many men rid their intellects
of a superstition, without being able to resist its power over
their feelings. Even so profound a sceptic as Renan has admitted
that his life is guided by a faith he no longer possesses. And
we are all familiar with instances of the same thing..."
"Reverting to avowed Freethinkers, it is evident that some of
them who have lost belief in God are afraid to speak too loud
lest he should overhear them. 'How old are you, Monsieur
Fontenelle?' asked a pretty young French lady. 'Hush, not so
loud, dear Madame!' replied the witty nonagenarian, pointing
upwards. What Fontenelle did as a piece of graceful wit, some
Freethinkers do without any wit at all. They object to laughing
at the gods, whether Christian, Brahmanic or Mohammedan; and
perhaps they would extend the same friendly consideration to
Mumbo Jumbo. Strange that people should be so tender about
ghosts! Especially when they don't even believe them to be
real ghosts. To the Atheist all gods are fancies, mere
delusions (not illusions), like the philosopher's stone,
witchcraft, astrology, holy water and miracles. I am as much
entitled to ridicule the gods of Christianity as any other
Freethinker is entitled to ridicule the miracles at Lourdes;
and when 'taste' is dragged into the question, I simply reply
that there is as much ill taste in the one case as in the other.
All that this 'taste' can mean is that no devout delusion should
be ridiculed, which is itself one of the greatest pieces of
absurdity ever perpetrated. It would shield every form of
'spiritual' lunacy in the world.
"These squeamish Freethinkers don't object to ridicule in
politics, literature or social life. They rather approve Punch and the other comic journals, even when these satirise living
persons who feel the sting. Why, then, do they object to ridicule
in religion? Simply because they still feel that there is
something sacred about it. Now I insist that on the Atheist's
principles there can be no such sacredness, and I decline to
recognise it. I take the full consequences and claim the full
liberty of my belief.
"Christians may, of course, urge that their feelings on such
a subject as religion are sacred, and a few superstitious
Freethinkers may concede this monstrous position. I do not.
The feelings of a Christian about Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
are no more sacred than my feelings on any other subject.
I have no quarrel with persons, and I recognise how many are
hurt by satire. But the world is not to be regulated by their
feelings, and much as I respect them, I have a greater respect
for truth. Every mental weapon is valid against mental error.
And as ridicule has been found the most potent weapon of religious
enfranchisement, we are bound to use it against the wretched
superstitions which cumber the path of progress. Intellectually,
it is as absurd to give quarter as it is absurd to expect it.
"My answer to the Freethinkers who would coquet with Christianity,
and gain a fictitious respectability by courting compliments
from Christian teachers, is that they are playing with fire.
Let them ponder the lessons of history, and remember Clifford's
bitter word about the evil superstition which destroyed one
civilisation and nearly succeeded in destroying another.
Fortunately, however, the logic of things is against them.
Broad currents of thought go on their way without being deflected
by backwashes, or eddies or spurts into blind passages.
Freethought will sweep on with its main volume, and dash against
every impediment with all its effective force."
Well, I exercised "the full liberty of my belief," and I had to take its "full consequences." Yet, looking back over my year's torture in a Christian gaol, my conscience approves that dangerous policy, and I do not experience a single regret.
In the same number of the Freethinker I referred at some length to Tyler's prosecution, which was dragging along its slow course in a way that must have been very provoking to Mr. Bradlaugh's enemies. By dexterous manoeuvring and skilful pleading, that litigious man, as the Tories call him, had managed to get two counts struck out of our Indictment. The result of this to Mr. Ramsey and myself was nil, but it brought great relief to Mr. Bradlaugh, and made his acquittal almost a matter of certainty.
Meanwhile our Christmas Number was selling rapidly. In a few weeks it had reached a far larger circulation than had been enjoyed by any Freethought publication before. Naturally the bigots were enraged, both by its character and its success. Many religious journals, and especially the Rock, clamored for legal protection against such "blasphemy." Irate Christians called at our shop in Stonecutter Street, purchased copies of the obnoxious paper, and, flourishing them in the faces of Mr. Ramsey and Mr. Kemp, declared that we should "hear more of this;" to which pious salutation they usually replied by offering their minatory visitors "a dozen or perhaps a quire at trade price." Similar busybodies called at Mr. Cattell's shop in Fleet Street, and plied him with cajoleries when menaces were futile. One of them, indeed, attempted bribery. He offered Mr. Cattell half a sovereign to remove our Christmas Number from his window. What a wonderful bigot! That detestable fraternity has nearly always persecuted heresy at other people's expense, but this man was willing to tax himself for that laudable object. Surely he is phenomenal enough to deserve a memorial in Westminster Abbey, or at least an effigy at Madame Tussaud's.
Presently our shop was visited by another class of men—plain-clothes detectives. They came in couples, and it was easy to understand their business. We were, therefore, not surprised when, on January 29, 1883, we were severally served with the following summons:—