[68] Mr Barker's lecture (p. [121]) was a month or two later.
[69] A correspondent to the Oldham Standard enjoined upon his fellow Christians that it was their duty "to root out of our establishments every one advocating his principles, for the safety of those committed to our care, and the honour of our God. Let us do this and 'Iconoclast,' will fall to the ground and never again rise. His object is to live upon the pence of his deluded hearers, and, after a time, when he has become old and infirm, to turn round, and by a recantation of his present teaching worm himself into comfortable bread as a reclaimed infidel."
The North Cheshire Herald, in alluding to some lectures delivered by Mr Bradlaugh at Hyde, in the summer of 1861, said:—
"In justice to 'Iconoclast,' we must say he possesses great oratorical powers, and he has, so far as the ignorant are concerned, a very pleasing way of practising on their gullibility. He is cunning to a degree, but his object may be seen through without the aid of spectacles. It is evident that he means money; for when it is known that he received £5 for using such blasphemous language as would not be uttered by the very lowest of the 'fallen' class, the fact is indisputable.... We sincerely hope that God will change his heart, and that when he is about quitting this sublunary world, he will not be heard exclaiming, as other infidels have done, 'What shall I do to be saved?'"
[70] In National Reformer of that date.
[71] In National Reformer, June 1861.
[72] C. Bradlaugh in National Reformer.
[73] Towards the end of November 1862 death claimed him who had been to my father "friend, tutor, brother." When the exile was buried, Mr Bradlaugh wrote that "the proscribed of all the Nationalities of Europe mustered round his coffin to do him honour. Italy, Germany, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and France were numerously represented; and long ranks of the best and bravest of banished men trod in sadness in the rear of the funeral hearse." By the open grave at Kilburn, "amongst the hundreds of intellectual looking men here might be seen most noticeable the bearded figure of that most omniscient of political writers, Alexander Herzen; here the stalwart frame of the escaped Bakunin; here the saddened features of an old Englishman [Thomas Allsop] who had borne part with him in his political struggles, and who had loved the dead man with the fullest friendliness of his most honest nature." At the grave side spoke M. Talandier; my father spoke, also Mr G. J. Holyoake, M. Gustave Jourdain, and then M. Felix Pyat, whose fiery sentences were followed by the dull and mournful echo of the earth falling upon the coffin lid.
[74] This was in December 1874.
[75] Contrast the delicate words of personal description written by a Christian in the Clerkenwell News: "The manner and appearance of the minister and the Atheist were as much at variance as the Gospel of the one is with the 'reasoning' of the other. The one with a kind, affectionate air—a calm self-reliance, resulting from faith in a beneficent God and loving Redeemer—was a fit defender of love and mercy. On the other hand, the Atheist's looks stamped him as a low demagogue. He was throughout restless; now displaying his ring, after admiring it himself; now turning with an idiotic grin towards his followers, who certainly resembled Falstaff's recruits in appearance; and throughout conducting himself as a boastful, ill-bred man. His personal appearance did not aid him, for it partook of that animal which is said much to resemble some men. His voice, like the whine of a dog, was rendered more unpleasant by a spluttering lisp, occasioned by his inability to bring his lower jaw forward enough to meet his protruding upper lip."