He was in the "Clock Tower"—in a room, that is, on the second story of that part of the House—whither he had gone with the slight requisite show of formal resistance, passing first a short time in the Sergeant's private room. There he was visited by Parnell, Mr O'Kelly, Mr O'Connor Power, Mr Finigan, and Dr Commins, all of whom expressed their cordial sympathy. The imprisonment was a farcical form. A constant stream of friends visited him; and he went about the business of fighting his battle in the country as he would do in his own rooms. On the very evening of his arrest a Committee was formed to secure his liberation, and an appeal drawn up in its name by Mrs Besant. This was distributed by thousands next day; and a fresh petition for signature was likewise framed and sent out broadcast at once. But the democracy did not wait for petitions. The moment the news of the House's action reached the public, a cry of indignation arose, loud enough to alarm Beaconsfield,[141] on whose urgent advice (so it was said at the time) Northcote on the next day moved for Bradlaugh's unconditional release, which was hurriedly agreed to. The stultification of the majority was now complete; and the course taken by Northcote thus far may stand as a fair sample of modern Conservative statesmanship—the policy of irrational resistance, on no better principle than that of partisan habit, ending in ignominious collapse. Still the cry of protest swelled in volume. In less than a week two hundred meetings were held throughout the country to pass resolutions in Bradlaugh's favour; Radical and Liberal clubs and societies of all kinds sent their messages of protest and appeal; and Liberal members who had voted on the Tory side were sharply called to account. Even before matters had come to a crisis, abundant proof was given that a large and earnest minority were dead against the policy of intolerance. In May Mr Labouchere had given notice of a Bill to permit affirmation by any member in place of the oath of allegiance; and by 6th July there had been presented 462 petitions in favour of that measure, with 40,434 signatures, largely obtained through the organisation of the National Secular Society. The effect of these and other displays of popular feeling began to be seen in the House. Liberal members who had voted on the Tory side out of fear of the bigots in their constituencies began to hesitate. On 28th June leave was given to Mr Labouchere to introduce his Affirmation Bill, which was read a first time. The Government, however, took the view that Bradlaugh's rights ought to be legally determined in respect of the state of the law at the time of his election; and instead of supporting or giving facilities for Mr Labouchere's Bill, they proposed the compromise of moving that the excluded member be allowed to affirm pending the legal settlement of his position. This was accepted; and, on 1st July, Mr Gladstone moved as a standing order that members-elect be allowed, subject to any liability by statute, to affirm at their choice.
This was of course the signal for a fresh storm. On Mr Gladstone's preliminary motion that the Orders of the Day be postponed, Mr Gorst pronounced the motion disorderly, and opposed the proposal in advance as being to the effect that "the House should break the law, in order to smuggle Mr Bradlaugh into the House." Gladstone, in moving his order, was studiously moderate, giving as a reason for the Government's not introducing a Bill the impossibility of having the question calmly discussed in the then state of feeling, while urging the necessity of preserving the dignity and decency of the House as a reason for doing something. He went on to defend Bradlaugh fully and forcibly against the charge of having "obtruded his Atheism" on the House, and wound up with a calm contention that it was the duty of the House to further the claim of any member to take his seat under a given law, leaving it to be settled in the law courts whether his claim was valid. Northcote opposed, arguing that there was no fear of a repetition of the scene of last week, since the Speaker could give instructions that Mr Bradlaugh be not allowed to enter the precincts. To accept the motion "would be to some extent humiliating to the House."[142] No question of justice or righteousness was raised by the Tory leader. One of his followers, Lord Henry Scott, advanced the pious proposition that "the mere affirmation of a person who did not believe in a Supreme Being could not be regarded as a binding engagement upon him." Another ignoramus named Smyth explained that the "test of Theism" "pervaded the whole body of the Constitution, of which, like the soul of man, it was the animating principle." "Let Atheists be admitted within its walls, and there would be Atheistical legislation.... Such teaching it was that led to the outbreak of the French Revolution." Thus were old lies made to support new. An Irish Catholic named Corbet spoke of "Mr Bradlaugh's Byzantine doctrines of morality," either forgetting that Byzantium was the typical Christian State for a thousand years, or desiring to asperse the Christian Church which had all along been the great rival of his own. Mr A. M. Sullivan, another Catholic, made a rabid speech, supporting the cause of religion with the plea, "Where was the class that was oppressed now? It was nothing but an individual." He went on to avow that he sought to keep Mr Bradlaugh out of Parliament on the score that his Malthusianism, "taken in conjunction with his Atheistic opinions, struck fatally at the foundation of civil society." The Church of the confessional is naturally zealous for the sacredness of the family; and the Church of the Inquisition for the "foundations of civil society." Men who regard the hamstringing of cattle as at most a pity are naturally warm on the subject of rational control of human procreation. On the other hand, Parnell "wished, as an Irish Protestant, with the utmost diffidence, to say a few words in explanation of the vote he would give to-night." Already he seemed shaken by the resistance of his followers; and he was at pains to say "he regarded the religious tenets of Mr Bradlaugh and his doctrines with reference to over-population as abominable"—a deliverance which reads dramatically in connection with the close of his own career, when an only less insensate and irrational ethic than his own gave the sanction for similar vilification of himself. There was finally a ring of anxious bravado in his avowal that "it was personally an odious task for him to take the course he should on this occasion"—(this after he had voluntarily gone to shake hands with Bradlaugh after the arrest)—"but if he had to walk through the lobby alone, he should deem himself a coward if he did not act up to his conviction."
Less self-regarding, and much more helpful, was the speech of Mr Richard, the most impressive in the debate. Mr Richard was one of the extremely few Christians who keep one set of gospel passages so constantly in view as never to be led into imitating the rest. He never echoed their words of execration. His very rebukes to his fellow-Christians for their pious scurrility were gentle; and he must have caused some searchings of heart when he observed that "no man who watched what went on, on the first day of the present Parliament, when hon. members were squeezing round the table, and scrambling for the New Testaments amid laughter—('No, no,' and Ministerial cheers)—no man could have watched that scene, and believed that the act had any of the solemnity of a religious act about it." When the otherwise pious Wolff followed, the altered balance of feeling was shown by impatient interruption of his remarks. An exceptionally offensive Catholic, named M'Coan, was called to order by the Speaker for the remark that "a more offensive representative of Atheism never was seen" than Bradlaugh. Finally, after General Burnaby had mentioned that "the Chief Rabbi, although refusing to interfere with political questions, felt very deeply on this subject," the vote was taken, and by 303 votes to 249 Gladstone's motion was carried.
Bradlaugh was now free to make affirmation, and did so next day. Almost immediately on taking his seat he had occasion to vote, and immediately thereafter he was served with a writ to recover a penalty of £500 for illegal voting. The writ had apparently been prepared beforehand. The suitor was one Henry Lewis Clarke, the tool of Mr Newdegate, M.P.,—the latter, a man of the most restricted understanding, notorious as an old opponent of the admission of Jews to Parliament and a rabid assailant of Catholicism, but now eager to combine with Jews and Catholics against the Atheist. A few days afterwards a similar writ was served at the instance of one Cecil Barbour, of Nightingale Lane, Clapham; and yet a third was given notice of; but the work was left to Mr Newdegate's employee.[143] A new stage in the struggle had now been reached.
§ 7.
For nine months—that is, while Parliament sat in the period July-March 1880-81[144]—Bradlaugh now sat in the House, doing his work with intense and continuous application, though all the while there hung over him the shadow of a ruinous litigation. He had taken the risk. On 8th July the Government were asked by Mr Norwood, a hostile Liberal, whether they would instruct the law officers of the Crown to undertake his defence in any suit brought against him; but the answer was, of course, in the negative; and Bradlaugh rose to explain that he had had no communication with either Mr Norwood or the Government on the subject. A fortnight later a Bill was zealously forced through both the Houses to indemnify Lord Byron, who had sat and voted without being sworn, against any action for penalties. Bradlaugh had the experience of helping to safeguard the peer from the prosecution laid against himself.
His Parliamentary activity was many-sided, including as it did the charge of the interests of endless correspondents in all parts of the world who had grievances to redress and claims to put. But above all he devoted himself to the interests of Ireland and of India, the one still suffering from an imperfect realisation of her needs by English Liberals; the other from the general neglect of Liberals and Tories alike. The gratitude of the people of India has been freely given for his service; that of the majority of the Irish members was naturally not prompt. They had wronged him, and so could hardly forgive.
Such a frenzy of malevolence, further, as had been aroused among bigots of all Churches by Bradlaugh's entrance into the House, was slow to decline. Whether outside the House or inside, he was furiously aspersed. A Bill to exclude Atheists was early introduced by Sir J. Eardley Wilmot,[145] and petitions in support of this were largely signed, though wholesale subscription by the children of Sunday Schools was in many cases found to be necessary to fill the sheets. But petitions for his exclusion were a small part of the storm of malice that assailed him. It would fill a volume to recite or even cite the hundreds of denunciations—often vile and grossly libellous, and nearly all implying a religious motive—which were poured forth against him week by week. Clergymen naturally formed the bulk of the assailants; and of these the State Church furnished the largest contingent, all grades of the hierarchy being represented; but the President of the Wesleyan Conference, on behalf of the Conference Committee, presented a hostile petition to Parliament; and the secretary to the same Conference issued a circular calling upon the various Wesleyan bodies to join in the general movement against the Atheist. Protestants vied with Catholics in the foulness of their abuse, the ferocity of their enmity.
On the other hand, it must be put on record that in every church, in varying numbers, there seem to have been lovers of freedom as well as persecutors. Some of the most forcible and earnest letters sent to the newspapers on Bradlaugh's behalf were written by clergymen of the Church of England; and many Nonconformist clergymen spoke out on his side ably and warmly. At a Church Conference, more than one priest of the Establishment defended him bravely and well. Even from within the pale of the Church of Rome there came voices of protest against the intolerance of the majority. On 27th June 1880 the "Home Government Association" of Glasgow sent to Bradlaugh a resolution of the majority of its members to the effect "that this meeting of Irish Roman Catholics ... most emphatically condemns the spirit of domination and intolerance arrayed against you, and views with astonishment and indignation the cowardly acquiescence, and in a few instances active support, on the part of a large majority of the Irish Home Rule members to the policy of oppression exercised against you." Bradlaugh was peculiarly quick to appreciate such messages of sympathy and fairness from religious opponents. The words of Bright on his behalf in the House brought tears to his eyes; and he never forgot to be grateful for them. In his own journal, immediately after his entrance to the House on tentative affirmation, he printed the following appeal:—