"It is for him bitterly to lament that, stung by allusions in the article from All the Year Round, which he erroneously attributed to the pen of Mr Bradlaugh, he allowed his better judgment to give way, and wrote of that gentleman in language which he cannot at all justify, and which he now entirely retracts.

"To Mrs Bradlaugh he respectfully tenders such an apology as becomes a gentleman to offer to a lady he has so greatly wronged. He trusts that the exquisite pain she must have suffered from a harsh allusion will be somewhat mitigated by the public avowal of its absolute injustice. As a wife united to her husband in holy wedlock by the solemn forms of the Church, as a mother of a young family, to whom she sets the proper example of an English lady, she is entitled to reparation from one whose only excuse is that he wrote of her in ignorance and haste, while writing of her husband under irritation and excitement.

"The writer of the libel has only to add that he has addressed to Mr Bradlaugh a private letter bearing his proper signature, and avowing, while he laments, the authorship of the offending article; and he begs to offer his thanks to Mr Bradlaugh for the generous forbearance which declines to exact the publication of the writer's name, from considerations which will be patent to most of the readers of this journal."

These apologies were accepted in a few generous words by Mr Bradlaugh:—

"On my own behalf, and that of my wife, I am content with these apologies. To have accepted less would have shown my disregard of her honour and my own. To have required more would have been to punish with too great severity those whose own frank avowals show that they acted rather with precipitancy than with 'malice prepense.'

"(Signed) Charles Bradlaugh."

If I could believe that Mr M'Sorley had frankly—to repeat Mr Bradlaugh's word—repented in fact, as well as in appearance, I should pass this libel now with but slight allusion, and have considered myself bound by my father's promise not to make the writer's name public.[30] In the immediate locality it was impossible that the authorship of such an astounding concoction should long remain secret, and for long afterwards Mr M'Sorley's name was bandied about with small jests amongst the irreverent youngsters of the neighbourhood. The apology was made under considerable pressure: members of the congregation threatened to leave the Church, a lawsuit loomed in the distance, and a horsewhipping in the near future.[31] "This fellow," said Mr Bradlaugh,[32] speaking thirteen years later, and still withholding the name, "I compelled to retract every word he had uttered, and to pay £100, which, after deducting costs, was divided amongst various charitable institutions. The reverend libeller wrote me an abject letter begging me not to ruin his prospects in the Church by publishing his name. I consented, and he has since repaid my mercy by losing no opportunity of being offensive. He is a prominent contributor to the Rock, and a fierce ultra-Protestant."

So much for the bitter lament and frank avowal of an ordained minister of the Church of England!

It is an open question which was the worse of the two—the Rev. John Graham Packer or the Rev. Hugh M'Sorley. I am inclined to think that the latter carried off the palm, although his malignancy recoiled upon himself, whilst Mr Packer's took such terrible effect. In any case a perusal of Mr M'Sorley's "Appendix" will convince the reader, if indeed any need convincing, that Mr Packer was not—as has lately been the fashion to assume—the only clergyman who has striven to injure my father's character.