Much more troublous than any scurrilities or injustices from without was the shock which now came upon him from Mrs Besant's definite avowal of her conversion to the so-called "Theosophy" of Madame Blavatsky. No persistence of personal regard could countervail the complete sense of intellectual sundering from the friend and colleague of so many years which this involved for him; and the change was the more felt by him for that his physique was now fast giving way. But he held on his course with unchanging fortitude, adding fresh Freethought work to the ever-growing bulk of his work for India, and adding to his earnings as he could by articles for the reviews which were now open to him. An article on "Humanity's Gain from Unbelief," contributed in the spring to the North American Review, elicited an invitation to debate the point with the Rev. Mr Marsden Gibson, M.A., a Newcastle clergyman. This was accepted, and the debate took place at Newcastle in September, before densely packed audiences, on two successive nights. It was conducted with good feeling on both sides, the nearest approach to personalities being in respect of Mr Gibson's using the argument that Bradlaugh "stood alone," since "at least eleven apostles of the Secularist party" had left it within twenty years, Mrs Besant's being the only name given. Bradlaugh drily replied that he doubted whether the assertion was material to the question, but that if it were he could remind Mr Gibson "that eleven apostles deserted his founder in the sorest hour of his need." One bystander, not a Secularist, summed up the debate as a matter of Bradlaugh launching cannon-balls while his opponent spun cobwebs, a criticism partly justified by the rev. gentleman's defining "unbelief" as a state of mental indecision, whereas Bradlaugh, of course, used the term to signify the critical and challenging spirit. But the open-minded reader can judge for himself on the published verbatim report. It elicited a number of sermons, some decent and courteous, others otherwise.
If Bradlaugh could have spent his autumns on Loch Long (where at last he had secured for the dwellers and health-seekers an almost complete stoppage of the pollution of the waters by the discharge of Clyde dredgings and other horrors) instead of in the usual round of lecturing, he might still have been among us. But he could never have the rest needed to build up his strength after the session's long drain on it; his vascular system was fast running down, and in October 1889 he was at length prostrated by a dangerous illness, a manifestation of the Bright's disease which was soon afterwards to destroy him. A surprising and touching proof of the change in public feeling towards him was given in the offering up of prayers in many churches for his recovery—a display of goodwill not undone by shoals of religious tracts, or even by the already started legend that he was "altering his opinions." One clergyman, the Rev. F. E. Millson of Halifax, generously gave a lecture specially to make a collection to help the sick man financially, which realised £10; and Mr M'Ewan, M.P., with characteristic munificence, sent him a cheque for £200 to enable him to take a health voyage to Bombay, as advised by the doctors. After weeks of extreme danger, he began slowly to regain ground. The great frame was not to be overthrown by one attack. But the seizure had been a terrible one: he had looked as close on death, he told us, as a man could look and live; and it was with heavy hearts that those who loved him saw him set sail in cold November for India. Before going, he penned a few notes, calmly contradicting the absurd story of his change of opinions, and other legends. "It would be ill-becoming to boast," he wrote, "but I may say that my convictions and teachings have not been with me subjects of doubt or uncertainty." One of the legends, circulated by the British Weekly, was to the effect that "on one occasion he said that he had almost been persuaded by a sermon of the Rev. Arthur Mursell." On this he remarked that the story was pure fiction; that though he had had friendly services from him, he had only heard Mr Mursell preach once in his life; and that all he remembered of it was the concluding intimation: "My subject next Sunday will be 'Beware of the Dog.'" The reverend editor of the British Weekly had thought fit to add to his tale the judgment: "He (Mr Bradlaugh) has the earthliest of minds, is without a touch of poetry, imagination, or yearning"—a Christian characterisation which the patient treated with the charity it so eminently lacked.
There was a pathetic fitness in the advice which sent the sorely shaken man to India to recover, if it might be, health wherewith to work. It was just after delivering a lecture on India that he felt the first grasp of his illness. What strength he had had, he had indeed freely spent for India. In 1888 he had handled more Indian matters than in any previous year; and in particular had made (27th August) an important speech (reprinted under the title: "The Story of a Famine Insurance Fund and what was done with it") by way of protest, in the discussion on the Indian Budget, against the mismanagement of Indian affairs. Early in the session he had obtained a first place for his notice of motion on Indian grievances, but the Government took away the time; and he now made his criticism none the less forcible. None of his preserved speeches will better show the peculiar energy of his grasp of Indian questions, and of his pressure on the Indian Government; few indeed will better show one of the great characteristics of his speaking—the intense and constant pressure of his argument, the continuance of the highest stress of thought and feeling without a moment's lapse into incoherence or verbiage. It was in particular a crushing indictment of the action of Lord Lytton—the most destructive ever brought against him, Anglo-Indians say; and the ultimate effect of it was that the misapplied famine insurance fund was at length restored to its proper and solemnly pledged purpose.
It was a very different pulse and note that marked the short and grave address delivered by the stricken orator to the Indian Congress of December 1889. On board the Ballarat, jotting down a voyager's "log" for the friendly readers of his journal, he declared on the third day: "My health is coming back very fast; my hopes are rising even more rapidly;" but a man does not come back in a week or two to health from the door of death; the recovery slackened; and when he reached Bombay on the 23rd he was still far from convalescence. His reception would have electrified him into strength again if enthusiasm could. In the Congress Building, for the occasion of his coming, there were added to the 2000 delegates 3000 spectators, and the whole multitude rose to their feet in mass to cheer him as he appeared on the platform. Hundreds of addresses for presentation had been sent to him from all parts of India, some of them in rich cases, or accompanied by beautiful gifts in gold and silver and ivory and sandalwood. The address prepared by the Congress itself was read in lieu of all by the chairman, Sir William Wedderburn, and then the guest made his speech, a grave oration, touched with the tremour of recent suffering and restrained by the sense of broken strength, but full of greatness and dignity—a speech worthy of the man and of the occasion, weighty and wise in its counsels, urging patience, and disclaiming praise. It is impossible to read it without catching the vibration of its deep emotion, and as it were the breath of the listening host. The sight of the living mass, and the hearing of the actual proceedings at the Congress, gave him a new and illuminating knowledge of the great forces he had been dealing with; but he had nothing to unsay or unthink. Of the vitality of the Congress movement he was well assured, and he could gather for himself how much of sympathy among English civil servants had as yet to be concealed.
He had no time to give to seeing the regions and the peoples which the Congress represented; and in any case it was the voyage that was to restore him if anything would. So on 3rd January he set sail from Bombay for home, receiving a tremendous ovation at the Apollo Bunder, where the carriage could scarcely get through the crowds that rained flowers on him and Sir William Wedderburn. The end of January found him once more at his library table and at his work, "marvellously better," indeed, but not restored. There was to be no restoration.
1890-1891.
Before sailing for India Bradlaugh had issued a summons to an extraordinary and special general meeting of the members of the National Secular Society, to be held after his return on 16th February, to receive from him a special statement, and his resignation of the Presidentship, and to elect a successor. This last was a step he had hoped to postpone until he had carried a Bill repealing the blasphemy laws. Freethought and Freethinkers would in that event stand free and equal before the law; and, with endless tasks before him as a legislator, he felt he might fitly withdraw from the more militant and organising work of Secularism, of which he had done so much. But looking to his defeat on his Bill in 1889, and to the desperate illness he had just gone through, he felt he must needs lighten his burdens forthwith as best he could.
The scene of his resignation was a touching one. From all parts of England came men who had fought with and for him, some of them for a good thirty years listening to his teaching and spreading it around, criticising him at times, but always admiring him, standing by him in battle and rejoicing with him in victory; and when he rose to lay down his leadership, and the cheers of welcome on his recovery rang warmer and warmer, it was some time before he could command himself to speak. A few moving periods told of the necessity he lay under of giving up a task which he was no longer fulfilling as he held it ought to be fulfilled. The party would have rejoiced to have him hold the office nominally, letting another do the work. But he "must be a real President or none. My fault," he went on, "has sometimes been that I have been too real a one (laughter), but it is no easy matter to lead such a voluntary movement as ours. I think I am entitled to say that the movement is stronger when I am giving up this badge of office (holding up Richard Carlile's chairman's hammer) than when I first took the presidential chair." And a thunderous cheer endorsed the claim.
The office had no emoluments whatever. The little wooden hammer and its memories had been the prize for a generation of work involving much spending. He calculated that during thirty years he had given to the Society and its branches, as proceeds of benefit lectures, some £3000; and the members on their part gladly relieved him of certain money obligations of considerably less amount. He ended:—
"I do not say, 'We part friends,' because this is not parting. The movement is still as much to me as ever, as much as it has been during my life. For more than forty years I have been a speaker among you. Now I lay down the wand of office, and the right to give command, but I hope always to remain with you a trusted counsellor. And to you, I hope unstained—to you, I hope untarnished, I give back the trust you gave."