I live to learn their story
Who've suffered for my sake,
To emulate their glory,
And to follow in their wake:
For the cause that lacks assistance,
For the wrong that needs resistance.
Then, too, how I recall the fight for religious freedom in England—some of it before my time, but some of it under my own eyes, and in which I had the joy of bearing a small part. The Lord George Gordon riots, described by Dickens in Barnaby Rudge, were provoked by religious hostility. When I was a boy, no Jew or Catholic could hold office in England—I think I am correct. This act, passed in the reign of Charles II—I write from memory—was thus in operation for two hundred years; two hundred years of injustice, prejudice, fostering of religious hatred and separations. Yet Benjamin Disraeli made a great premier, and was one of the most brilliant statesmen of Europe, and the Howard family, Cardinal Manning, and Cardinal Newman, all of whom were Roman Catholics, were loved and revered on every hand for their enlightened patriotism and the help they gave to everything that had the welfare of England at heart. It was a glad day for England that saw the removal of the disabilities from such good citizens as these, merely because they chose to exercise their perfect God-given right of freedom of choice in religious belief. And still, even as late as the ascension to the throne of George V, son of King Edward, and grandson of that progressive and liberal-minded Queen, Victoria, there remained in the oath a hateful spirit of narrowness and intolerance against Catholic beliefs. Thirty to forty years previously Charles Bradlaugh was refused his seat in the House of Commons because he desired to "affirm" instead of "taking the oath." He was an "unbeliever," and claimed his right to be such, and yet to take his seat as a representative of the people without being compelled to swear to an oath in which he did not believe. He was fought an every hand, and with physical violence; yet he kept resolutely on with the conflict, until I saw him myself, with joy, take his place before the speaker of the House, victorious. Yet I am not an unbeliever, nor do I accept Bradlaugh's conclusions as to God and the making of the universe. Nor is it necessary. Equally so it is not necessary that I should attempt to force my ideas down his throat and if he refuse to say that he swallows them should seek to keep him from exercising his political rights.
To us, living to-day, it seems impossible that a great civil war was necessary ere the shackles were shaken from the limbs of four millions of slaves; it seems incredible that New Englanders as well as Southerners were engaged in fostering the iniquitous slave trade—the murderous trade in human flesh and blood. Grant everything the South claims to-day as to the difficulty of handling the negro problem, that does not alter the fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." To us it seems incredible that honest and honorable men, clear-sighted, clear-brained religious men who knew the value of words and their meaning, could have so befuddled their intellects, let alone their moral nature, as to dare to read these words and at the same time own slaves. Yet it was so, and not until the heroes whose work led ultimately to the Declaration of Independence for the slave, called the Emancipation Proclamation, set their faces against this great iniquity, was anything done to mitigate its evils.
How well do I recall the endeavors of many Englishmen to induce the Government to interfere with the Turks and prevent further infliction of horrible and murderous atrocities upon the Bulgarians and other subject people, because of religious differences. But "politics stood in the way." And yet I heard the words of Cleveland ring around the world when he bade England: "Hands off," from Venezuela. Again was I thrilled when McKinley justified the prophecy of Joaquin Miller, uttered nearly thirty years previously, in his Cuba Libre, where he declared: