It will not do to say that what we have seen of persecution has been but the abuse of Christianity. It is in itself a condemnation of Christianity to be obliged to repudiate the conduct of all Christian churches. It will not do to say that Christians have not been wise enough to see, nor good enough to image, the divine gentleness of Christ. The Christian churches have been presided over by pastors who have possessed both penetration and purity in the highest degree—who were able to see what there was to be seen, and devout enough to render it in their lives. Try the question even in our day. If Christ be the symbol of love and gentleness to all who believe in his name, how is it that in every part of the world the Freethinker should fear to fall into the hands of the Christian? How is it that he must set a watch upon his words in every town and hamlet in our own land, lest the free expression of his deepest convictions should cost him his position, his employment, and his character? Branded, outcast, and friendless, the Christian's door is the last at which he would knock—the Christian's fireside is the last at which he would find a welcome—and the Christian pastor, who in knowledge, duty, and example, most nearly resembles the Christ whom he preaches, is the last man whose path the Freethinker would wish to cross, or into whose ear he would venture to pour the tale of his expatriations.
In one passage in my defence I represent persecution, as Lord Brougham and others have done, as a power which spreads opinion. I believed so then, but believe it no longer. I have lived to watch the effects of persecution, and have seen it put down the truth so often, as no longer to doubt its bad efficacy. The ignorant, the timid, the opulent, and the conventional (and these make up the mass of mankind), are all deterred by danger or opprobrium, The resolute and the reckless, the only parties who persist, labour under accumulated disadvantages. Condemned to spend then time in self-defence, development of doctrine—the legitimate and only source of permanent influence—is nearly impossible to them: and it is well for them if they escape acquiring an antagonistic spirit, which disfigures their advocacy and misrepresents their character. Their only proselytes are those who come to them out of spite or out of sympathy, and who of course miss the intellectual ground of conviction, and can be of little real service until they have been re-educated.
If, as I admit, persecution will put down opinion, what objection's there to its employment when it puts down error? I answer, 'Beware of its use, because it may put down the truth also.' Persecution is not an ordeal. Free discussion is the only test capable of distinguishing and establishing the truth. The proper condemnation of persecution is, that it is an illegitimate opposition which is sure to be discountenanced as men become manly and refined. The armies of a civilised people observe, even in the deadly strife of battle, some rules of honourable warfare, and do not descend to the arts of treachery or tactics of savages. We may surely hope that in the battle for religious truth, a sense of honour will prevent the dominant party from taking against its opponents the undue advantage of persecution. Montaigne relates that when Polyperchon advised Alexander to take advantage of the night for attacking Darius, 'By no means,' answered the noble general; 'It is not for such a man as I am to steal such an advantage; I had rather repent me of my fortune than be ashamed of my victory,' It is not too much to expect that Christianity will always be less refined than War.
Persecution, always a disaster, was not however with us a defeat. We were not put down by persecution; we continued the Oracle a hundred and four weeks, then the Movement, sixty-eight weeks, and the Reasoner will soon have completed ten volumes. Besides having written in our publications, we have, in almost all the principal cities and towns in the kingdom, spoken, since the trial at Gloucester, with the utmost explicitness. The imprisonment has at least been of this service—and this is all—it has enabled me to speak accredited by the sincerity which otherwise could not have been so satisfactorily manifest to the multitude. To have spent, without shrinking, some portion of life in prison in defence of public liberty, gives the same authority among the people as having graduated at a university does among scholars.* The fact is a sad illustration of the brutal manner in which the people are condemned to win the enlargement of their liberties. In cases where clergymen have menaced me with renewed imprisonment, I have always answered—'I consider myself as having taken out a license to speak freely. The government made a charge to me of six months' imprisonment for that privilege, and I paid the price. If you have renewed demands upon me, let me know them, and I will endeavour to meet them; but do not interrupt me.'
* When the Prizes were awarded me for writing the Literary
Lectures of the Manchester Unity, an attempt was made to
cancel the award on the ground of my having been imprisoned,
but it was immediately quashed. When the legislation of the
Order was before the House of Lords, the Bishop of Oxford
(in Committee) made an objection to the Lectures on account
of the Authorship, but the Unity refused to withdraw them,
and they are in use to this day. The objections of this
nature made in some instances by the Press have been
inoperative where the people have been concerned.
In the present structure of English political society, to preserve the ability to be imprisoned is necessary to usefulness. When the associations of home have twined themselves around the feelings—after long industry and patient frugality have surrounded a man with some comforts unknown to his youth—few have the temper which will part from them and walk into a gaol at the call of duty. I should think this state the death of progress. When, some time ago, insuring my life in the Equity Law Insurance Office, I asked, before I took out my policy, whether it would be forfeited if my death was occasioned by imprisonment or transportation. The Directors naturally asked whether I was liable to those casualties. I said, not particularly liable I hoped; but to be able to be imprisoned, if it seemed a duty, I valued as a great privilege, and I would not barter my right to be imprisoned. I am afraid they smiled at my eccentricity, but they assured me that that accident would not involve the forfeiture of my policy—which I then took out.
No one who reads thus far will, I hope, consider me as a candidate for either imprisonment or transportation. I have too keen an insight into their misery for that. But he who pretends to take the side of the people ought to see his way all through, and not incur a danger he has not weighed, and not suffer any to ascribe to him a virtue he does not mean to maintain.
If any, from what I have just expressed, or from the transactions of this narrative, shall conclude that I am disposed to regard law-breaking lightly, they will mistake me. Respect for the law is an intelligent virtue—a sign of fitness for freedom so important that none but an enemy would obscure the duty or weaken the sentiment. If accused, in the matter which led to my Trial, of breaking the law, I might plead that there was no law to break, and therefore I could not break one. What is called the common law relating to blasphemy is a mere caprice, an opinion interpreted by ignorance or sectarian prejudice, and enforced at the call of bigotry—malevolent to the humble while neutral towards the rich. Against this tyranny one is obliged to rebel. It is disastrous that we should have to set up the standard of resistance even in a case of this kind, and the chief justification is that a democratic government is denied us. Had the people a voice in making the laws, the breaking of any law would require grave justification. Men have two lives—a private and a public one. Conscience is the guide of all that relates to private duty, but law is the conscience of society, and it is best when private conscience can be subordinate to the public conscience. Private conscience may be the child of selfishness, fanaticism, or vanity, as well as of the greatest purity and intelligence. A man, therefore, should be careful how he places so uncertain a thing above the law. If private conscience be more just and intelligent than the public conscience, a democratic form of government affords peaceful facilities whereby it can come into the ascendant. But where these modes are denied, no alternative remains but that of rebellion or unconditional and indefinite submission. Resistance to the law, however, or to what is tacitly accepted by the majority as law, is, under any form of government, so pernicious an example, is so liable to be abused, so liable to unfit the people who learn the lesson, for submission to legitimate authority, that these cases demand the strictest surveillance before they receive the sanction of a friend of the people. In all instances in which conscience is the ground of resistance, the wrong done to conscience ought to be clear, deep, and momentous, and the necessity which obliges the claims of private conscience to be put above the laws ought to be made so evident that the sentiment of freedom shall not deteriorate that of legitimate and honourable allegiance. If the political moral of this narrative be therefore drawn with discrimination, we may do little harm even if mistaken in the belief that the prevalence of our views of life may be a public good; and if this belief prove to be right in the main, we do what reformers are said often to forget—we make a past to which the future may refer for authority and instruction.
Then not 'in vain!' Even obscurest weeds
Nourish the roots of fruitfulest fair trees
So from our Fortune loathed Hope proceeds
The experience that may base high victories.*
* W. J. Union.
What 'our views' are this is not the place to state; as to some it would seem that under the pretext of a plea for Free Utterance, sentiments were obtruded upon the reader he was not forewarned to expect. I therefore limit myself to saying (and that only for the sake of others who will decline to concede free utterance until they know what has to be uttered) that whoever sees in Atheism simply the development of a negation, sees but half the truth. Even in this respect (supposing existing theological systems to be erroneous) Atheism has the merit of clearing the way for Pure Moralism—which is the other half, or positive ground of Atheism. The latest writers on the Philosophy of Religion resolve religion into Dependance; by which its modern theory at length coincides with its ancient practice. We venture to think that this is not salutary teaching. Life should be self-reliant. It seems to us that the light of Nature and the experience of man are anterior to the dogmas of Priests, and are the sources whence guidance and duty independently spring. The Priest breaks in upon the integrity of life, and diverts its course. He says he makes an addition to our knowledge—we do not find it so. He professes to show us the hidden mysteries of the future—we fail to see them. He simply encumbers us, and we pray him to stand aside. The responsibility of our course is our own and not his, and we have a right to be left free. Rejecting his advices, he proclaims that we reject truth, honour, justice, love. This is his error or the retaliation of his disappointment. We appeal to the candid and the impartial to judge between us. We respect Theology as the science of man's destiny, and regret that it bears no fruits for us: but this is not our fault; and we therefore attempt to solve the problem of life for ourselves. Our progress already counts some distinct steps. We have recast the practice of controversy: we forbid to ourselves to suspect evil motives, or to impute insincerity to others; the doubtful act we propose to judge by evidence alone, and to put the best construction on the dubious word. Thus we annihilate Antagonism, the eldest foe of Progress, by imposing laws on impulse. Our search in every system is directed after moral truth; and, less exacting than the Christian, we accept it, whether given by Inspiration, confirmed by Miracle, attested by Prophecy, or not. Probity of word and act may be securely based on the intelligence and refinement of mankind—and this we labour to enforce. To restrict human expectation to that which is ascertainable by reason, must have the effect of concentrating attention on humanity, and intensifying interest in human exertions. In Solidarity we find the encouragement to public endeavour, and we sum up private duty in Honour, which is respecting the Truth; in Morality, which is acting the Truth; and in Love, which is serving the Truth.