The objections of this class, which my opponent failed to answer, or answered unsatisfactorily, we may notice further on.
In January, 1855, while over on business, I had a public debate at Halifax, England, with Brewin Grant, a congregational minister. This, so far as its impression on my own mind was concerned, was the most unfortunate discussion I ever had. My opponent was the meanest and most unprincipled or ill-principled man I ever met. In a pamphlet which he had published, giving instructions to those who were called to defend the Bible and Christianity against unbelievers, he had laid it down as a rule, that their first object should be to destroy the influence of their opponents, and that in order to do this, they should do their utmost to damage their reputation, and make them odious. He acted on this principle, in his debate with me, with the greatest fidelity. He raked together, and gave forth in his speeches, all the foolish and wicked stories which my old persecutors had fabricated and spread abroad respecting me, except those about my having committed suicide, and being smothered to death, and some others which were so notoriously false that they could no longer be used to my disadvantage. Those stories he improved by making them worse. He made a number of new ones also.
I had published a book, giving the story of my life up to the time of my expulsion from the Methodist New Connexion. This work, like my other works, was written in the clearest and simplest style, so that no man with ordinary abilities could fail to understand it, and no man without powers of perversion bordering on the miraculous, could give to any part of it an objectionable meaning. This book he took, and read, and misread, and interpreted, and misinterpreted, so as to make the impression on persons unacquainted with it, that I had written and published the most foolish, ridiculous, and in some cases, really discreditable things of myself, and even false and unwarrantable statements about others.
Before the discussion came on he gave a lecture on this book. I went to hear it. He spoke about an hour, and every quotation from the work, and every reference he made to it, was false. There was not a word of truth in the whole lecture. There was not a sentence which was not as opposite to truth and as full of falsehood as he could make it. And the ingenuity he displayed in his task was marvellous. It was really devilish. He enlarged my conception of the evil powers of wicked men, in the line of turning good into evil, and truth into lies, beyond all that I could otherwise have imagined. He did a hundred things, the least of which my poor limited capacity would have deemed impossible.
He pursued the same course in the debate. He went as far beyond poor McCalla, as McCalla had gone beyond ordinary sinners. If I had undertaken to correct his misrepresentations, and expose his fictions, I should not have had one moment to give to the subject we were met to discuss. So I did as I did with McCalla, I rebuked the man with becoming severity; I contradicted his statements in the plainest and strongest way I could; I also offered to arrange for a discussion of personal matters, if he wished it, after we had gone through our discussion of principles, and engaged to prove every discreditable story he told of me to be false, and then went on with the discussion. He accepted my challenge to discuss personalities, but neither kept his engagement, nor abated his efforts at misrepresentation during the remainder of the debate.
He was not content with sober, sad, deliberate falsehood; he resorted to ridicule. He pulled comical and ugly faces; put out his tongue; put his thumb to his nose; threw orange peel at me; and said and did other things which it is not lawful for me to utter.
He had thought, I suppose, to disgust me; to tire me out; to make me withdraw from the debate, and give him the opportunity of saying he had put me to flight. He was mistaken. I kept my ground. And I kept my temper. And I kept my gravity. I rebuked him at times with becoming sternness, and then went on with my task. It is probable that I spoke more strongly against the Bible, and that I said harder things against the church and the ministry, than I should have done, if he had conducted himself with any regard to truth and decency; but I did not raise my voice above its usual pitch, nor did I show any unusual signs of indignation, disgust, or irritation. My feelings became more intense, my language more cutting, and my style and logic more pointed and forcible; but my manner was calm, and my behaviour guarded.
And I husbanded my strength. I let him explode, while I let off my steam quietly, and in just measure only, making every particle do its proper work. I wasted neither words, nor strength, nor time. In three or four days my wicked opponent began to get weak and weary. He had tired himself instead of me. He had disgusted and put to shame many of his friends. He had driven away several of his supporters. He had weakened his party. He had strengthened his opponent. He had lost, he had betrayed, his cause. He dragged on heavily. He was all but helpless. I had every thing my own way. I had an easy fight, and a decisive victory.
I had the last speech; and when the battle was over, I felt free to deal with my unprincipled opponent rather severely, and I said: "My opponent has acted, from beginning to end of this debate, in anything but a noble and manly way. I refer not merely to his personal abuse, his use of foul names, his insolence of manner, his malignity of spirit; but to the way in which he has misconducted the argument. He was pledged to prove the Bible of Divine origin and authority. He was bound to bring out, as early as possible, what he thought his strongest arguments, and afford me an opportunity of meeting them. But he did not do this. To judge from his proceedings, you would conclude that he had no faith in any of the popular arguments, such as those employed by Paley, Horne, &c. He sat watching, like an animal we need not name, for some stray thought to pounce upon. He tried every device to draw me from the question, and showed, not only the greatest reluctance, but a fixed determination, not to come any nearer to it himself than he could possibly help. He has shown nothing like courage, nothing like confidence in the goodness of his cause, nothing like openness, candor, or generosity; nothing but craft and cunning. He has never fought like a soldier, but dodged like an assassin. Honorable men give up a cause that can't be honorably maintained. For myself, ye are witnesses, I came out openly, boldly, and at once, and gave my opponent the best opportunity he could have of grappling fairly with my arguments. But he would not meet them. He slunk behind his mud-battery, and instead of firing shot and shell, spurted forth filth. By-and-by he took my old deserted battery, and began to play upon me with my worn-out guns and wooden shot, till his friends compelled him to give up. He complained that I had taken up my position on Mount Horeb, and pattered him with grapeshot from the old Jewish armory, and besought and urged me to plant myself on Mount Tabor, or the Mount of Olives, and try what I could do with Christian ammunition. I did so; but even that did not please him. He stared and squalled, as if it had been raining red-hot shot, as thick as it once poured hailstones and fire in Egypt, killing every beast that was out in the fields. And thus he has gone on. He never seems to have been satisfied, either with his own position or mine. I might have pleased him, no doubt, by giving in before the battle, and surrendering at discretion; but that is not my custom. Well, now the battle draws near its close; and no one, I trust, has lost anything, but what is better lost than found. I am satisfied with my own position, and nearly so with my share of the fight. With a manlier foe, I should have had a pleasanter fight; but soldiers cannot always choose their antagonists, nor can they keep, in all cases, to their own best mode of warfare. The hunter cannot always find the noblest game; and perhaps it is better for his neighbour, if not so pleasant to himself, that he should sometimes be obliged to employ his dogs and rifles in destroying vermin.
"I feel that an apology is due from me to you and the public, for entering the lists with my opponent. It is soon given. When I first offered to meet him in discussion on the Bible, I supposed him to be a well-informed and respectable man, and the representative of the highest intellectual and moral culture, combined with superior talent and experience as a debater, that the orthodox world could boast. I soon found out my mistake, but I did not feel at liberty to withdraw my challenge. When I learned the infamous character of his personal lectures, I declined all further correspondence with him till he should retract his slanders; but still I did not feel free to say I would not debate with him, if his friends should bring him to reasonable terms. His friends in Halifax succeeded in doing so, and out of regard to the wishes of my friends, I submitted to the temporary degradation of being placed on the same platform with my unprincipled calumniator, and the calumniator of the best, the wisest, and the greatest men of every age and nation. I do not regret having done so.