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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
COERCION IN IRELAND
AND ITS RESULTS.
pint for 3'ustixc.
By
ANNIE
BESANT.
-------- 4,--------
On the 24th of January, 1881, Mr. Forster, Chief Secretary
for Ireland, asked leave to introduce a Bill entrusting the
Irish Executive with power to arrest and keep imprisoned
any person “ suspected of treasonable practices,” and any
person “ suspected of agrarian crime in any proclaimed
district.” Mr. Forster explained that the proposed Act was
not directed against fair agitation forredressal of grievances,
but was intended to strike only at those concerned in
agrarian outrages. The classes against whom it was to be
directed were three in number : 1st. Those who belonged to
the old secret societies ; 2nd. Those who belonged to new
secret societies ; 3rd. “ Village ruffians.” It was alleged
that the actors in crimes were often known, but that such
was the terror inspired by the outrages that it was impos
sible to obtain evidence sufficient to lead to their conviction.
In the discussions which took place during the debates on
the Bill, re-iterated assurances were given that these classes
were those really aimed at, that the number of arrests would
be small, and that the most scrupulous care should be taken
to avoid abuse of the powers asked for. Mr. Bradlaugh
spoke strongly against the Bill on its first reading ; he said
in the course of his speech :—
“ No member of the House would, he thought, be found to
deny the fact that all kinds of illegal proceedings should be
strongly reprobated. The Government, through the right hon.
gentleman, said they could make no terms with lawlessness (hear,
hear) ; aye! but while in Ireland criminals were few, the sufferers
were many. And they proposed to suspend the constitutional
rights of all. Were they sure they were not about to make terms
with fear and panie ? Terms with the landlord influence and in
justice, which had made the misery of the people, out of which
�2
the crime spoken of had grown ? It was not asserted that the
ordinary law was insufficient for all purposes ; what was asserted
was that men injured would not prosecute, that evidence
could not be obtained to support prosecutions, and that jurymen
could not be found to convict. But what did that show ? It
showed, that the national feeling was with the crime (hear, hear)
—that is, with one kind of crime, not with all crime ; for it was
admitted that in respect of non-agrarian crime Ireland stood
higher than England did. Why was it that there was one class
of crime sheltered by the people of Ireland? It was because
the people had come by experience to think that the Government
gave them no protection, and that the law afforded them no
remedy. They were now, however, instead of being subject to
remedial legislation, to be subjected to eighteen months’ im
prisonment for any crime charged against them, not before a
court of law, but before a magistrate, and which charge was sus
tained by the word of any petty constable. (Hear, hear.) He
believed that the right hon. gentleman would take all the pre
cautions in his power in applying this law, but what effectual
precautions against wrong-doing could be taken when arbitrary
power was brought to bear upon individual liberty? Neither
the right hon. gentleman, nor the noble lord at the head of the
Irish Government, could personally examine the details of every
case. They must trust to others, and these in turn to others,
until at last perhaps private malice might strike the one whom
this House has stripped of his constitutional right.”
Leave was given to introduce the Bill by 164 votes
against 19, the minority being smaller than it ought to have
been, in consequence of the vote being taken suddenly,
while some English Radicals were away for a brief space
of rest, after sitting sixteen hours continuously.
When the second reading of the Coercion Bill was moved,
Mr. Bradlaugh moved its rejection ; he urged :
“ Many members of that House were old enough to remember
the time when the landlords, encumbered with debt, encouraged
resistance to civil law when it was set in motion against them
selves. (Hear, hear.) These landlords, who to-day asked for
extraordinary powers, had themselves left a bad example to the
unfortunate and miserable men who to-day threatened and re
peated the bad acts of their superiors. The right hon. gentle
man had said that the effect of this terrorism was to prevent in
jured persons from prosecuting, witnesses from giving evidence,
and juries from convicting ; but the measure now brought for
ward would not ensure that persons should prosecute, that
witnesses should testify, or juries convict. All it would do
would be to give to the Government or to the unfortunate gen
tleman—and unfortunate indeed would be his position, charger]
with this duty—who had the right of arresting, to give to him
the duty of superseding the conscience of the prosecutor and the
�3
evidence of witnesses; to take the place of all juries, and, on
suspicion, to have the power to imprison the person whom he
arrested for eighteen months............ The right hon. gentleman
had told them that the terror was occasioned by two classes—
men from the old secret societies, and men belonging to the
new ones. Would the House pardon him if he pointed out why
the old secret societies existed? They existed because the land
lords extorted unjust rents, and compelled their tenants to pay
an enormous price for rooms—it was a shame to call them rooms,
for he had seen hovels in which hon. members would not kennel
their dogs nor stable their horses—rent which it was impossible
for them to pay. These unfortunate people had no law to
appeal to, nor could they appeal to Parliament, for Parliament
was deaf to their appeals. This was not an evil created to-day
or by the Land League; it was an evil to which years ago the
right hon. gentleman at the head of the Government had directed
his attention, and tried to grapple with, but which had baffled
him, because his generous efforts had been crippled by the very
landlord class now asking for protection by coercive law. What
was the result? These men could not appeal to the law; for
them the statute had no relief, so they made their own laws and,
the courts being shut to them, established their own secret tri
bunals, secret because illegal. The Prime Minister had made
several attempts to remedy this state of things, but the rights of
land were valued in another place at a higher rate than the rights
of life, and so those efforts had proved useless........... It was
said that the Act was directed against treason. Was there trea
son now ? From the words that had fallen from the right hon.
gentleman there was ground to fear that he thought such to be
the case. But, then, Parliament could not act upon what the
right hon. gentleman thought. If such was really the case, the
evidence ought to be there. He trusted the right hon. gentleman
and the Government in every way that a representative could
do, but no representative should entrust the constitutional
liberties of his fellow-citizens to any Government, except the
strongest evidence was placed before him. The Chief Secretary
for Ireland had told them that there was matter which it was
impossible he could explain—matter possibly of wanton malice,
matter, it might be, of actual treason, but for all that matter
certainly growing out of wrongs endured.”
Unhappily the Coercion Bill passed into law, and has
been in action for the last twelve months. Under it, up to
last week, no less than 918 persons have been deprived of
their liberty, and 511 were still in custody on April 1.
The “ reasonable suspicions,” on the ground of which they
are or have been detained, are of very various character ;
of the 511 still in jail 31 are detained on suspicion of
having committed murder, most of them as principals.
Now the charge of murder is not one which should be kept
�4
hanging over a man’s head; clearly, suspected murderers
should be publicly tried, and either convicted or acquitted.
Are these supposed murderers to be let loose on society in
September next, never, if guilty, to be punished, and never,
if innocent of the horrible crime, to have a chance of
proving their innocence, and purging themselves of so fear
ful a suspicion ? Reasonable suspicion of having attempted
to murder, or to do grievous bodily harm, or of having com
mitted assaults, is charged against fifty-seven persons, while
several others are charged with firing into or attacking
dwelling-houses. There are a few cases of arson, and two
or three of maiming cattle. But the vast majority are
detained on reasonable suspicion of having been concerned
in intimidation, no less than 344 persons being kept in j'ail
on this very vague charge. Mr. Parnell is one of this num
ber, but he is also suspected of having “ been guilty, as princi
pal, of treasonable practices.” Mr. O’Kelly is detained on the
same ground, but Mr. Dillon is only charged with intimida
tion. If Mr. Parnell and Mr. O’Kelly have been guilty of
treasonable practices, why are they not put on their trial ?
Putting on one side for the moment the people suspected of
intimidation, the whole of the other prisoners have a
right to demand that they shall at once be tried for the
offences alleged against them. To imprison men on a vague
charge of suspicion of intimidation is to commit a cruel
injustice ; if there is solid evidence that they have committed
this offence, let them be tried. If there is none, let them
be set free. Four hundred and seven persons have been
arrested under this Act and have been liberated. Were they
guilty or not of any crime ? If yes, why are they set free
untried ? If no, why has a heavy punishment been inflicted
on them ? They have been torn from their homes, their
farms have in many cases remained untilled, for to till the
farm of a “ suspect” was to incur suspicion ; their businesses
have in some cases been ruined by their absence. These
heavy penalties should be inflicted on no one without open
trial, without public judgment. Can Mr. Forster be sure that
every one of the 918 persons arrested is a criminal? If
one of them should be innocent, should be a victim of
private malice, of false witness boldly given because secrecy
ensured safety to the liar—if only one of these be wrongly
suspected, is not a very terrible crime being committed in
the punishment inflicted, and are not bad citizens being
made by wrong committed under sanction of the law ?
�5
Do the men lying in jail come within the classes specified
as those against which the Act was to be directed ? Mr.
Parnell, Mr. Dillon, Mr. O’Kelly, cannot fairly be described
as “ village ruffians,” and if two of them have been guilty
of treasonable practices no Coercion Act was needed for
their arrest. If Englishmen read that in Russia, in Turkey,
in Spain, 918 persons had been arrested during twelve
months on suspicion, that the Government neither put them
on their trial nor released them, a very torrent of righteous
indignation would be poured on the head of the peccant
rulers. Even in Russia they at least try their Nihilists;
they do not punish them “ on suspicion” without trial. How
ever abandoned the criminal, he should have justice. If
some foreign State shut up our citizens on some suspicion of
crime, refusing to try them, refusing to release them,
Englishmen would go mad with fury, and no minister would
keep his place for a month who did not insist on justice
being done. Unhappily, English people are very quick to
see the wrongfulness of their neighbors’ tyranny, but are re
markably dense as to the wickedness of their own.
Putting aside the bad nature of the Coercion Act, it may
be well to note that it has been a most complete failure.
Murder is far more frequent than it was; the most odious
and revolting outrages are committed; neither man nor
woman, rich nor poor, is safe from the blow of the assassin.
The “ village ruffians ” appear to have multiplied, and the
criminals, who are making the name of Ireland shameful in
the eyes of the world, go on their way unscathed.
The Coercion Act is not the only coercive measure now
being largely used in Ireland. By 34 Edw. III., c. 1,
justices of the peace are empowered to “ bind' over to the
good behavior ” “ all them that be not of good fame.” This
statute is being utilised in the most cruel way in Ireland,
more especially against women. If the accused person is
unable, or refuses to enter into recognisances, the justices
can imprison. Now, it must be remembered that the
justices belong to the landlord class, that the persons
arraigned before them belong to the class now struggling to
gain the right to live, and the “justice ” meted out will be
readily understood. Thus, the other day, they ordered a
married woman, Mrs. Moore, to enter into recognisances,
and committed her in default. A married woman is legally
incapable of entering into recognisances, and Mrs. Moore
was imprisoned because her legal incapacity made it impos
�6
sible for her to give the required sureties. Miss Reynolds
was the first lady imprisoned under this most evil law,
which, in Ireland, puts the liberty of the workers at the
mercy of persecuting landlords. She was prosecuted for
advising a man not to pay his rent. I am informed that the
following are the facts of the case : Patrick Murphy lived in
a cottage bought by his father from the man who built it;
it stood on a plot of grass in the middle of cross-roads, and
no rent and no taxes were paid for it during the more than
twenty-one years since it came into the Murphys’ hands.
Rent for three years for this cottage was suddenly claimed
by a landlord from whom Murphy held other land, and to
whom he was in debt. Murphy was advised that if he paid
it, he would lose the right acquired by his long and undis
turbed possession. Miss Reynolds apparently counselled him
not to pay under these circumstances ; she was sent to jail,
and Murphy was turned out of his house.
Miss O’Carroll and Miss Curtis were sent to prison for a
month, charged with belonging to an illegal association, the
Ladies’ Land League. This conviction was quashed on an
informality on the day that their sentence expired.
Miss McCormick was sentenced by Major Lloyd—on the
evidence of a policeman that he believed she had been going
about inciting the people to discontent—to three months
imprisonment in default of bail. The judges, on application,
held that Miss McCormick’s admission that she was a mem
ber of the Ladies’ Land League was a proof of the truth of
the charges. My informant complains that “ in Ireland the
fact of her being a member of the Ladies’ Land League was
held to be a proof of her criminality, while in England, in
the House of Commons, the Attorney-General cited the
fact of her imprisonment as a proof of the criminality of the
League.”
Eugene Sullivan was accused by an “ Emergency man ”
of putting pins in his potatoes ; Sullivan was arrested, but
there was no proof of the charge offered ; the man then
said he went in fear of his life, the only reason therefor
being that when he met Sullivan the latter used to grin
and say “ Three cheers for Parnell.” For this crime
Sullivan was bound over in bail so heavy that he had to go
to jail (for six months).
Miss O’Connor is now in prison at Mullingar. This
young lady—the sister of Mr. T. P. O’Connor, M.P.—is only
twenty years of age, and suffers from weakness of the lungs.
�7
She is imprisoned on the evidence of a constable, who swore
that he heard her tell the people to pay no rent until the
suspects were released. On cross-examination, however, he
swore that she told them to come to a settlement with the
landlord if he would take what was a fair rent; that she
had strongly denounced outrages, quoting O’Connell’s words,
that “ he who commits a crime gives strength to the
enemy.” Surely this poor young delicate girl, so young,
moved by the misery around her to protest, and trying to
restrain the starving from desperate deeds, ought not to be
left in jail. What sort of Government is it in Ireland that
needs such acts as these to be done in its support ?
Imprisonment under this vile statute of Edward III. is of
a far more cruel character than under the Coercion Act.
The prisoners spend twenty-two hours out of the twentyfour in their cells, and during the two hours’ exercise are
not allowed to speak to each other. Imprisonment can be
avoided by entering into heavy recognisances, but the diffi
culty is that the same justices who condemn on suspicion,
estreat the recognisances on suspicion.
I have spoken of one class of outrages committed in
Ireland, but the outrages committed by the landlord order
must also come in for condemnation. During the quarter
ending March 31st, 7,020 persons have been evicted. Of
these, 3,050 persons have been re-admitted as care-takers,
that is, they can be turned out again at any moment, and
seventy-eight have been re-admitted as tenants. Thus,
during the last three months, the landlords have finally
turned out from their homes, 3,892 persons. The number
of evictions in comparatively peaceful Ulster is higher than
in the other provinces. I never shrink from denouncing
the horrible murders and mutilations committed in Ireland,
but horror of crime should not deter us from seeking its
cause. The evictions are the seeds which grow up into
agrarian outrages, and justice will lay on the head of Irish
landlords the heavier share of the guilt of Irish crimes.
Is it hopeless to appeal to the Government to return to
the paths of constitutional liberty in Ireland ? Let them
try their prisoners, and deal out justice; Ireland asks no
more. She does not desire that murders should go un
punished ; bring to open trial the men now imprisoned on
suspicion of having committed murder.
She does not
approve of midnight assault, brutal injury, atrocious wound
ing, malicious arson ; bring out the men charged with these
�8
wicked deeds; try them and condemn them to heaviest
legal punishment if their guilt be proved. Set free the 344
charged with intimidation only ; in such a struggle as that
between the landlords and the tenants of Ireland, the
intimidation is not all on one side, and unless the landlords
are put on their trial for their share of it, those who took
the tenants’ side may well go free. The working of the
Land Act has revealed some of the cruel wrongs done by
the landlords, the exorbitant rents wrung by threat from
the helpless and often starving tenants ; surely some latitude
should be allowed to men fighting before the Land Act
against the wickedness which the Land Act is trying to
prevent.
For the “ treasonable practices ”—judgment is
harder ; I suppose every Government has the right of de
fending itself against treason, but the English are always
very lenient in their judgment of foreign political offenders,
nay, even honor them as heroes when stirred to their
treason by tyranny. The misery of Ireland is the cause of
her disaffection. Let England be generous, and let the
remedial measure have fair play, by giving bill of indemnity
for the past, and “ starting clear.” Mr. Parnell’s treason
able practices cannot be so terribly dangerous to the State,
when he is let out on parole for a fortnight to attend a
funeral. But no chance is given for the healing measures
to cure the sore of Irish disaffection, until not only are
the prisoners in Ireland set at liberty, but until brave, un
fortunate Michael Davitt stands once more a free man on
Irish soil.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1882.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Coercion in Ireland and its results : a plea for justice
Creator
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 p.
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[s.n.]
Date
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[1882]
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N063
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Ireland
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Coercion in Ireland and its results : a plea for justice), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Coercion Acts
Ireland
Ireland-History-1837-1901
NSS
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1cb57a98bf29e9cd84ac29773cc914ee
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
PHYSIOLOGY OB' TEDE HOME.
DIGESTION.
As it will be impossible for me in the small compass of four
lectures to deal with the structure and functions of every
organ of the body, I propose to select those an elementary
knowledge of which will be most useful in home life. Much
discomfort, much diminished vitality, much actual disease,
are caused by ignorance of the simplest facts about our own
bodies. How we digest, how we renew wasted material,
how we breathe—these are matters closely concerning every
one of us, and yet a majority of people are densely ignorant
about them, and a vast mass of unnecessary suffering is the
direct result of this ignorance. The object of these four
lectures will be to throw a little light on the functions of
digestion, circulation and respiration.
The most indifferent glance at the world of which we are
a part reveals to us two great classes of phenomena; we
see one kind of matter inert, passive, receptive, wrought
upon by influences surrounding it but not actively moulding
in return: clay, rock, metal, earth, all these are. examples
ready to our hands, and we label them non-living matter.
The man lying on the cliff distinguishes between himself
and the chalk on which he lies. He says, “ I live ; that
lives not.” The distinction may be accepted as a rough one,
although it would be hard enough to draw the exact line
which separates the living from the non-living, but for con
venience sake we separate off the palpably living, and we
call the science which deals with them Biology, the science
of living things (/?ios, life; Ao-yos, a discourse).
Oui' work falls under this title. But the man on the cliff
sees life around him other than his own ; there is life in the
trees, in the grass, in the flowers. Of living things there
are again too great classes, and though the student knows
that these again melt the one into the other, yet in the higher
�2
Physiology of the Home.
forms of each there is such great divergence that we label
them off separately once more, and call them severally
Animal and Vegetable, and the sciences which deal with
them Zoology (£oov, animal; Xoyos), and Botany (ftoravg, a
plant). Our work, again, falls under Zoology. We narrow
it down yet further by putting on one side all animals save
the highest, Man. And in studying man we find two great
classes of facts ; facts of Anatomy (ava, up ; re/zvo, I cut),
facts of structure, which have to do with the form, material,,
and position of the organs of the body; and facts of Physi
ology (^>vcris, nature: Aoyos), facts of function, which have
to do with the work discharged by the organs. Both these
last classes of facts will come under our notice, for though
I shall deal mainly with functions, it will be necessary to
touch briefly on the organs with which the functions are
connected.
If you take a rope and use it constantly the material
gradually wears away by friction until the rope is no longer
serviceable ; you throw it away and get a new one. If you
work your muscles constantly the material of your musclesgradually wears away; you do not, however, require to
throw them away and procure new ones. Why? The
material of the rope is worn away bit by bit, and is not
renewed ; the material of the muscles is worn away bit by
bit and is renewed. The wearing away of the muscle is as
real as the wearing away of the cord; a man weighed before
and after many hours of hard muscular exertion actually
weighs less at the end than he did at the beginning. Even
if he be idle the wearing away goes on, although less rapidly
than when he is actively exerting himself. The place of'
this lost material must be filled up, else the muscle will wear
out like the rope. The place of the wasted material isfilled up in the living; and the discomfort caused by the
blood exhaustion, consequent on repairing the waste, is
known as the sensations of hunger and thirst, and the
material is ultimately renewed by means of the food which
appeases the want.
There are four chief ingredients in organised bodies;
other substances also enter into them, but they are mainly
made up of these four. Of these, three are gases, and one
is a solid. The three gases are hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen; the solid is carbon. These four substances are
�3
Physiology of the Home.
now before you, three are invisible, one is visible. But
the three invisible ones are easily distinguished from each
other by their properties. Without going fully into these—
as the Chemistry of Home will be dealt with by my suc
cessor—I can show you that each apparently empty bottle
contains a different substance. I apply a light to the first;
it burns ; it is hydrogen. I plunge a light into the second ;
the light is extinguished; it is nitrogen. I blow out a light
leaving a red spark, and place it in the third; the spark
bursts into a flame ; it is oxygen. We have then, here, four
different substances, from which we are to obtain muscle
and nerve, blood and sinew, by which we are to replace the
wasted materials in our bodies. The materials are scarcely
promising. A starving man would hardly thank us for our
three bottles and our lump of charcoal. But these four
substances, elements as they are called, useless for food at
present in their separate condition, have the useful property
of combining very readily. Three chief combinations, or
compounds, must be considered; water, carbonic acid, and
ammonia. For convenience sake we use only the first letter
of each element, instead of the full name. We have :
H
0
N
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Nitrogen
These form :
h2o
Water
co2
Carbonic Acid Gas
c
Carbon
H3N
Ammonia
And this is the first step towards our food-stuffs. The
water is at once utilisable, but the other two are not yet
food for us. But they are food for plants. The plants take
into themselves the CO2 , and expelling the oxygen retain
the carbon; they take the nitrogen from the ammonia and
from ammoniacal bodies, and within themselves they so re
combine them as to form food-stuffs suitable for animals.
You will notice that the first compounds are each made up
of two elements ; the next set, manufactured by the plants,
are mostly made up either of three or of four. They con
sist either of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, or of carbon,
oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. The two great divisions
of food-stuffs depend on the presence or on the absence of
nitrogen.
Let us take the non-nitrogenous, or as they are some
�4
Physiology of the Home.
times called the non-azotised, first. They are the food-stuffs
containing only carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. These are i
(1) All the starchy matters; if you look at thin slices,
sections, of potatoe, rice, sago, corn, and many other
vegetable productions, under the microscope, you will see
grains of starch in them ; that starch has been manufactured
by the plant and contains nothing but carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen in certain definite proportions. Gum, and
other amyloids (from amylum, starch) are also found in
plants. (2) All the sugary matters : the sugar of every-day
life is obtained from the sugar-cane, the maple and the beet
root ; the sweetness of ordinary fruit is due to the
presence of another kind of sugar. Yet other kinds are
formed by animals, and are present in milk, in muscle, in
liver. (3) Fats and oils : some of these are formed in plants
—such as palm-oil; others in animals. Now the whole of
these three classes of food-stuffs have one main use when
taken into our bodies : they produce heat. I must again so
far trespass into chemistry as to tell you that heat is caused
by the union of oxygen with some other substance. When
oxygen enters into combination with other bodies heat is
always given out. The substances that we have been con
sidering part with oxygen very readily; they give it up as
they are decomposed inside the body, and thus animal heat
is maintained. Hence the necessity of starchy, sugary, and
oily food-stuffs; the colder the country the more need for
fatty articles of food. The Esquimaux finds the blubber of
the whale delicious ; the Arab would turn from it in disgust..
Why ? because the bitter cold of the North chills the body,,
and the body, in order to keep up the temperature necessary
to life, needs a large supply of fatty matter, which readily
yields up its oxygen for new combinations, that is which
gives the agent needful for the production of heat. On the
other hand the warmth of Arabia renders a comparatively
small amount of fatty matter necessary for the maintenance
of animal heat.
There are certain other food-stuffs, consisting of carbon,
oxygen, and hydrogen, which are mainly stimulating. Such
are the acids produced in fruits, the alcohols, and ethers.
These substances act rapidly on the body, but their effect is
not permanent. Brandy may appear to warm more imme
diately than a good meal, in which fat plays a part, but
�Physiology of the Home.
5
an hour afterwards the man who has taken the brandy will
be colder than before, while the man who has eaten, will
be thoroughly warm. Alcohol—generally termed spirits—
is invaluable where a stimulant is necessary, say in the
case of a person insensible from exposure to cold ; it is not
good as an ordinary article of diet.
I have said that the chief use of the starches, sugars, and
fats is as heat-producers ; the chief use of the second great
class of food-stuffs, the nitrogenous or azotised, is as tissue
formers, that is, as builders up of the various tissues of
the body. It may be well to note, in passing, that while
nitrogenous food-stuffs are primarily tissue-formei’s, they
do help, in small measure, to produce heat, and that while
non-nitrogenous food-stuffs are primarily heat-producers,
they also, to a small extent, aid in the formation of. tissue.
Nature refuses to be marked off by our sharp lines of
division, and in her order work of one kind glideth ever
into work of another.
In this great second class of food-stuffs, nitrogen—as the
name of the class implies—is always present in combina
tion with the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.. The chief
tissue-forming substances are albuminoids, like albumin,
the white of eggs, and gelatinoids, like gelatin, the soft
matter in bone. The albuminoids are some vegetable, some
animal. Albumin is present in vegetables generally ; legumin
is found in such vegetables as peas, beans, pulse, etc.;
gluten in cereals of all sorts. Hence the great value of
wheat and of beans of all kinds as articles of food. Animal
albuminoids are found in meat, blood, milk, and eggs.
Some nitrogenous food-stuffs, like some non-nitrogenous,
are stimulating. Among these we find Thein, the essential
characteristic of tea ; Caffein, that of coffee ; Theobromin,
that of cocoa. These, like alcohol, are stimulants, but the
nitrogen present in them adds to their nutritive power.
If you take these various food-stuffs, sugar, starch, fat,
albumin, and so on, and place beside them some muscle,
some nerve, some brain, and some blood, you still have the
problem before you: How is the food-stuff changed into the
materials which make up the body ? In their solid form
these substances are useless. There are no openings,
whereby solid matter can pass into the blood and reach the
tissues ; all nourishing matter passes into the blood by a
�6
Physiology of the Home.
process called osmosis. Osmosis means passage through a
membrane. If you take a bladder and fill it with sugar
and water, and then place it in a vessel of pure water for
an hour, you will find at the end of the hour that the
water in the vessel is sweet. Some of the sugary water
has passed out of the bladder into the vessel, while some of
the pure water has, in turn, passed into the bladder. This
exchange of liquids through a membrane which has no holes
in it is called osmosis. By osmosis all the nutritive part of
our food passes into the absorbent vessels, and it is, there
fore, absolutely necessary that it shall be dissolved, that it
shall be in solution, otherwise it cannot be taken up and
used in the reparation of tissue. The next lecture will deal
with the organs of digestion ; at present I want only to show
you the changes that take place in the food.
Take, first, the sugars. These are soluble in water.
Place a piece of sugar in cold water inside a bladder; place
the bladder in water. The sugar will dissolve, and by
osmosis will pass into the water outside. We can prove its
presence there by adding to the water copper sulphate and
caustic soda, and then heating: if sugar be present, a
red-brown powder is precipitated. The sugar is, then, very
easily prepared for osmosis; it dissolves in simple water.
But the starch presents a difficulty. I have here some
starch that has been placed in a bladder with water, and
surrounded by water for twenty-four hours. But the water
outside is as pure as when placed there. The starch has
not passed through; we test the water by pouring in a
little iodine, a substanee which gives a purple re-action with
starch; we find nothing. Starch, then, as starch, is useless
in the body. But in this second bladder starch has been
placed, mixed with saliva, with the fluid poured into the
mouth while we are eating. We test the water outside, and
we find it is not pure water; it gives the characteristic
re-action for sugar. What, then, has happened ? The
saliva has turned the insoluble, and therefore useless, starch
into soluble sugar, ready to be taken up and used in the
body. Whenever you eat bread this change goes on in the
■mouth. Hence the importance of thoroughly chewing the
food, and the importance of checking children when they
eat too fast. If bread is “ bolted,” the starch in it remains
starch ; it is useless for nutrition. It is true that there is
�Physiology of the Home.
T
another fluid (from the pancreas, or sweetbread) which
takes up the work left undone by the saliva, but if the saliva
has not done its share too much work is thrown on the
other ; hence discomfort, and indigestion.
The fats are not affected by the saliva, and they pass
through the stomach unaltered. They become very finely
divided, made into “ an emulsion ” as it is called, in the
upper part of the small intestine, and so become capable of
osmosis.
The albuminoids are insoluble in their native state, but
are acted upon in the stomach by the gastric juice, and are
turned into what are called peptones. Peptones are merely
albuminoids, so far as their composition is concerned, but
their properties have been changed. You know that if you
boil an egg the white “ sets ” ; but white of egg which has
been standing in gastric juice will not “set”; it is not
affected by heat. White of egg will not pass through a
membrane, and therefore cannot be absorbed ; but white of
egg, after standing in gastric juice, can pass through, and
can be absorbed. Albuminoids, then, are changed in the
stomach itself into the soluble form of peptones, and become
ready to be taken up.
The food-stuffs, thus rendered soluble, are absorbed by a
large number of little vessels which project into the small
intestine; these vessels run togethei’ into one large one ; the
large one opens into a vein, and in this way the nourishing
part of the food passes into the blood. The blood carries it
to all the tissues of the body, and each tissue takes up the
kind of material that it requires to make good what it has
lost, and so the tissues, constantly wasting, are as constantly
built up again.
It will now be very plain to you that the quantity and the
quality of food required will vary very much according to
the age and the work of the person dealt with, and will vary
also with the climate in which he lives. A man who works
hard, and therefore uses up his tissues quickly, will require
more food than an idle man. An ordinary man in good
work requires daily about 44,500 grains of food, and of this
4,000 grains should be carbon and 300 nitrogen (Huxley)..
He may choose for himself the form in which he will take
them. To live entirely on meat is not good, for 1,000 grains
of meat contain (roughly) 100 of carbon and 30 of nitrogen,.
�Physiology of the Home.
so that it would be necessary to eat some 6 lbs. of meat to
get carbon enough, although 1^ lbs. give sufficient nitrogen.
'On the other hand, if you live only on bread, you must
eat twice as much carbon as you require in order to
get enough nitrogen. In either case the system is
overworked by more matter being put into it than is re
quired. A mixed diet of animal and vegetable food is the
-diet recommended by Physiology. Animal food seems
especially necessary for the reparation of nervous tissue, but
further experiment is wanted before we can lay down
■exactly the kind of food needed for the reparation of each
tissue of the body.
The food of children should be, above all things, nourish
ing and easily digestible. The corn-flours so largely sold for
children’s food are mostly deficient in gluten, while rich in
starch, and are not, therefore, sufficiently tissue-forming.
The same is true of ordinary white bread. Milk, whole
meal bread, beans of all sorts, oatmeal, and fruit, with com
paratively little meat, form the most wholesome diet for
■children.
The mineral constituents of food have been omitted in
this rough sketch; with the exception of salt, they are
■taken in as part of ordinary animal and vegetable food,
and are found unaltered in the various tissues. The chief
of these are : Sodium Sulphate and Sodium Phosphate in
the blood and secretions; Potassium Chloride, Potassium
Sulphate, and Potassium Phosphate in the muscles; Cal
cium Carbonate, Calcium Phosphate, and Magnesium
Phosphate in the bones; Iron Oxide in the blood.
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�PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HOME.
ORGANS OF DIGESTION.
------ --------
In speaking last week of facts of Zoology, we divided them
into two classes:—Anatomy, which includes all facts of
.structure; Physiology, which includes all facts of function.
Our work this week is chiefly anatomical; we are to deal
with the Organs of Digestion.
Let us be sure, first, that we understand the words we are
using. What is an organ ? What is digestion 2
An organ is any special portion of a body which is set
.apart for any special kind of work. In the lowest animals
all parts of the body do all kinds of work equally well. The
Amoeba, for instance, grasps, eats, digests, breathes all over
its body. There are no special portions set apart for special
work : that is, there are no organs. A little higher up in
the scale a mouth appears, and a bag that receives the food.
Instead of taking in food all over, the food is taken in at
the mouth. The mouth is the organ for food-reception, and
so on. The higher the animal, the more complete is this
division of labor, and the organs become more and more
different, more and more perfect in the discharge of their
particular work.
Digestion is, to borrow Dr. Aveling’s definition, “ the
preparation of food for absorption.” Absorption is the
taking up of digested food, in order that it may be carried
to the blood, and so reach the tissues ; digestion is getting
the food ready for absorption, so changing it that it may be
fit to be taken up.
To sum up, “ organs of digestion ” are specialised parts of
the body which prepare food for absorption.
All the changes undergone by the food during digestion
take place in the alimentary canal. Aliment is merely
another name for food, and the alimentary canal is the tube
.along which the food passes. This tube begins at the
�2
Physiology of the Home.
mouth and ends at the anus, and is about 30 feet in length.
You will remember that there are no openings in it save
these two, excepting, of course, the openings into it of ducts,
little tubes, from its own appendages. Imagine, then, a long
tube, expanding at one end into the mouth, expanding again,
some way down, into the stomach ; twisting and turning very
much as the small intestine ; expanding for the third time to
form a little side-bag, the cæcum ; widening to make the
large intestine which encircles the small, and the short com
paratively straight rectum. This canal has three coats : one
is of mucous membrane, and forms the lining of the canal,
so that it comes into contact with the food ; the middle one
is of fibrous tissue, and serves to connect the important
inner and outer coats ; the outer coat is muscular. This
last coat is composed, excepting in the stomach, of two
layers of muscles. One layer is of fibres running round the
tube ; the other layer is of fibres which run lengthwise along
the tube. Now muscle has one great quality, it contracts.
If you take a piece of indiarubber and pull it, it yields to
your pull and stretches ; when you let go, it springs back.
You say it is elastic ; it lengthens easily and shortens again
when released, or you may shorten it by pressure and it will
lengthen when released. This is just what muscle does; it
stretches readily and contracts readily. Hence the use of
the two layers in the muscular coat. The circular layer
contracts, and makes the tube narrower and longer; the
longitudinal layer contracts, and makes it shorter and wider.
We shall see presently how useful these contractions are.
The alimentary canal has, further, various appendages con
nected with it, each appendage having its own definite
function. Having thus briefly described it as a whole, let
us now turn to details.
The Mouth and its Appendages.—The mouth is nearly
oval in shape, and is the organ which receives the food, and
in which digestion begins. The soft red lining is the
mucous coat. The chief appendages are the tongue, the
teeth, and the salivary glands. The Tongue may be dismissed
in a sentence : it is a thick strip of muscle, the organ of
taste, and serves to turn the food about in the mouth so as
to submit it to the action of the teeth, and finally to roll it
into a ball and pass it backwards to the top of the gullet.
The teeth are the organs of mastication ; their work is to
�Physiology of the Home.
3
■crush and bruise the food, to break it up. The use of this
is Obvious. If a cook is going to make soup, she does not
throw the bones in whole : she breaks them up into pieces,
so that all parts of them may come into immediate contact
with the water, and thereby more quickly and readily yield
up their useful components. What the cook does to the
bones, the teeth do to the food. By breaking it up, all
parts of it come into contact with the saliva and more
readily submit to its action. How necessary this is, you will
remember from last week. The teeth, however, are not all
alike ; the first set, or milk-teeth—cut during infancy are
twenty in number. These teeth begin to develop m the
seventh week of fœtal life ; a little groove appears, running
along the jaw, and in this groove. grows up a ridge of soft
(mucous) tissue ; parts of this ridge die off, and so leave
little projecting pieces, called papillæ ; each of these repre
sents a future tooth. I have not time to describe all the
changes that go on ; it must suffice to. tell you that the sides
of the groove bend over and close in the papillæ, so that
when the child is born you see no groove and no papillæ,
but only the smooth surface of the gum. The. papillæ
■develop into teeth, hard matter being laid down in them,
and they cut their way through. The permanent teeth have
been forming at the same time, and move gradually round
underneath the milk-set. The latter fall out from about
the sixth year onwards, and the permanent teeth come
■through ; they are supposed to be complete about the twentyfirst year, when the “wisdom teeth ” ought to be. through.
There are 32 permanent-teeth ; 8 incisor, or cutting teeth,
the “ front teeth ” ; 4 canine, the long pointed teeth on
either side, above and below ; 20 “ double teeth, for
grinding. The canine teeth are for tearing, and are. of no
particular use to us, but they are interesting as showing our
descent from animals who tore their food. A glance at a
picture of a double tooth shows the structure of all ; you
see the fang, which is imbedded in a depression (called an
alveolus) and holds the tooth firmly in its place ; then comes
the neck, the narrower part, and then the crown, visible
above the gum. This crown is covered with enamel, the
hardest tissue in the body, which protects the tooth from
injury. If this gets worn away, or injured, the softer parts
underneath rapidly decay. Hence the importance of keep
�4
Physiology of the Home.
ing the teeth thoroughly clean, and of not taking into the
mouth substances which injure the enamel. Inside the
tooth is a cavity filled with pulp and with a nerve running
into it. Toothache constantly arises from the hard part
of the tooth getting worn through, and this nerve becoming
exposed. When this happens, the only thing to do is to
have the nerve killed and the hole filled up—stopped, it is
called: the remainder of the tooth may thus be saved.
The Salivary glands are six in number—-three pairs, the
parotid, submaxillary, and lingual. Each of these consists
of masses of cells, or vesicles, and from these masses of
vesicles go ducts which run together to form a larger duct,
which opens into the mouth. A gland is an organ which
secretes. To secrete (from secreto) is to separate one thing
from another, to take out one kind of substance and leave
the rest. The cells, or vesicles, of the gland do the work,
and they take out of the blood substances which are needed
for use in the body, or sometimes which need to be expelled
from the body. The salivary glands secrete saliva, and they
pour this substance into the mouth and there it works, as
we saw last week, on the starchy constituents of food.
From the mouth the food passes over the windpipe,
which is closed by a sort of trapdoor, into the pharynx, thepart just behind the mouth. From the pharynx a tube,
about nine inches long, goes to the stomach, and this tube is
called the (esophagus. And now comes in the use of our two
muscular layers. Food which leaves the pharynx does not
tumble down into the stomach. It is seized by a ring of the
circular fibres, which contract on it; when they let it go,
the next ring seizes it, and so it is handed on step by step
till it reaches the stomach. Some of you may have seen a
conjurer drink water while standing on his head, and may
have wondered how it got up, instead of down, to his
stomach. It is the circular rings of the oesophagus that do
all the work, and as the food is handed on to ring after ring, it
makes no difference whether it goes upwards or down
wards.
The Stomach. The oesophagus opens into the stomach,,
the expanded part of the alimentary canal, the opening
being closed except when food is passing by a ring called a
sphincter muscle. The stomach is like a bag, larger on the
left side than on the right, and lies across the body just.
�Physiology of the Home.
5
below the liver. As it is part of the alimentary canal it
has, of course, the regular three coats, but the muscular
coat has three layers instead of two, and in addition to the
longitudinal and circular it has also a layer of oblique fibres,
and when all these are contracting and lengthening a kind
of churning motion is given to the contents of the stomach,
and the food is turned over and about, and thoroughly
mixed. In the lining, or mucous coat, there are a number
of little glands of different kinds, which secrete fluids and
pour them into the stomach. The most important of these
are the peptic glands, which secrete the gastric juice.
When albuminous matter arrives in the stomach, this
gastric juice is secreted and is poured out; the movements
of the stomach mix the juice well up with the food, and
the changes we spoke of, and which you saw last week, take
place. As the gastric juice does its work the soluble
portions of food—called chyme—are pumped out of the
stomach into the small intestine. They pass through
another sphincter muscle, the pylorus or door keeper, and
until the stomach digestion is finished, this muscle will not
allow any solid matter to pass. When the stomach has
completed its work neither food nor chyme remains in it; it
is left perfectly empty, and the secreting action of the glands
stops entirely.
The Small Intestine and its Appendages. The small
intestine is about twenty feet long, and is divided into three
districts, the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. In the duode
num, active digestion continues. Into this part of the intes
tine are poured the secretions from the liver and pancreas,
as well as fluids secreted by little glands in its own lining
mucous membrane. The liver is the large organ which
you see covering the stomach, and lying to the right side of
the abdominal cavity. It secretes the bile, and as it secretes
constantly while the bile is only used intermittently, the bile
is stored up in the pear-shaped organ attached to the liver,
called the gall-bladder. The exact work of the bile is still
rather a matter of dispute. It appears to act as a stimulant
to the intestine, it is to some extent an excrementitious
product—that is, a waste fluid carrying off matters injurious
to the body—and it is also certainly antiseptic—that is, pre
vents decomposition. The pancreas lies partly in the fold
of the abdomen and secretes the fluid which, as we saw last
�6
Physiology of the Home.
week, makes an emulsion of the fats and oils, and also
finishes work left undone by the saliva in turning starch into
sugar. The pancreatic fluid runs down a little duct, and
joins the duct from the liver, the two opening together into
the duodenum.
The jejunum is so called because it is generally found
empty after death, the ileum because it is much twisted. All
these three parts of the small intestine are thickly studded
with villi, little projections like the finger of a glove, which
stick out into the canal of the small intestine. Each villus
has a little tube, or tubes, in it, called lacteals, and all these
are plunged into the digested food—now called chyle—and
suck it up as fast as they can. They absorb the nutritive
matter, the fluid passing through their delicate walls, as you
remember, by osmosis. As the villi continue to suck up the
fluid, the contents of the intestine become more and more
solid ; they are slowly passed along by the muscular move
ments of the intestine until they arrive at the cæcum.
The Large Intestine.—The large intestine commences
at the cæcum, and is about five feet long. The cæcum itself
is a mere blind bag, small in man, but large in many of the
lower animals. So far as we know, it serves no useful
purpose in man, but it is occasionally the cause of disease,
by lodging hard particles which give rise to inflammation.
When the digested food reaches the cæcum, it has yielded
up most of its nutritive material, and the remaining matter
is useless, and has to be expelled from the system. The
large intestine, here called the colon, passes first upward
(ascending colon), then turns to the left and crosses the
body (transverse colon), turns downwards (descending colon),
and then makes a remarkable S-like turn (sigmoid flexure).
Throughout its length it is sacculated—drawn into little
bags, or sacculi—and as the superfluous portion of the food,
now called fæces, passes along it, being carried on as before
by the muscular movements of the intestine, it gets lodged
in the sacculi, and is so prevented from falling back between
the contractions. This muscular movement—peristaltic
action, as it is termed—may be very easily seen by pinching
the intestine of an animal which has been lately killed : a
slow wave of movement will run along it. The last six or
eight inches of the intestine are named the rectum, and
extend from the sigmoid flexure to^the anus. The rectum
�Physiology of the Home.
7
is not sacculated, increases in diameter as it descends, and
ends in a sphincter muscle.
You may reasonably ask, what causes all these move
ments, whereby the food is propelled along the alimentary
canal, from mouth to anus? We are not conscious of these
muscular contractions, noi’ are they, mostly, under the
control of the will. When a morsel of food has reached
the top of the oesophagus it passes out of our power. We
do not even feel it pass down the oesophagus unless it is very
hot, very cold, or actively injurious. Unhappily our time is
too brief to allow us to go fully into this interesting question.
It must suffice to say that muscle left to itself does not
contract.
But distributed to all these muscles of the
alimentary canal are a number of fine cords called nerves.
When the nerve contracts it moves the muscle, and all the
muscular movements are the result of nervous action.
But you may again ask : What causes the nervous action ?
It is a property of nerve to respond to a stimulus. When
the nerve responds to an external stimulus, and responds
without sensation—that is, the stimulus causes action, but
we are unconscious of the action—such nerve-action is called
reflex. Reflex action is action caused by external stimulus,
and performed without sensation. The whole of the move
ments of the oesophagus, stomach and intestines are reflex.
The stimulus is the food pressure. The food presses against
the delicate nerve fibres; the nerve-fibres, responding to
this stimulus, are set in motion; moving, they move the
muscles to which they are distributed, and the muscles con
tract. The food is pushed on by the contraction, presses
against fresh nerve-fibres, and so on. If the nerves are
destroyed, the muscular contractions stop, showing that the
muscles do not contract of themselves. Destroy the nerves,
and the food may press for ever against. the muscles with
out causing them to contract.
We must now return, in conclusion, to the small intestine,,
and see what becomes of the chyle. We have already seen
that each villus contains a tube or tubes ; these minute tubes
run into glands (mesenteric glands) in the mesentery, the
thin membrane that connects together the folds of the
intestine, and here the chyle undergoes considerable changes.
Corpuscles—small rounded bodies that we shall speak moreof when we come to deal with the blood—make their
�8
Physiology of the Home.
appearance, the constituents of fibrin are formed, and the
chyle changes in color from white to a pale reddish-yellow.
This modified chyle is collected in a triangular cavity or
cistern (yreceptaculum, chylC), which lies at the back of the
body, against the backbone. From this cistern a duct
(thoracic duct) runs up along the backbone as far as the
root of the neck, being from eighteen to twenty inches in
length ; at the top it turns to the left and arches downwards,
entering the blood system at the junction of the internal
jugular and subclavian veins, and pouring its contents into
the blood.
We have thus traced our food from its four primary
elements until it reaches the blood, which is to carry it to
repair the tissues, and have briefly sketched the organs
which work upon it and change it. The next lecture will
deal with the organs to which the food is now committed,
and with the way in which the blood nourishes the body.
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�PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HOME.
CIRCULATION.
We defined an organ last week as “ any special portion of a
body which is set apart for any special kind of work.” The
first things we have to consider to-night are the Organs of
Circulation, the special portions of the body concerned in
the circulation of the blood.
The organs of circulation are of four kinds : the heart,
the arteries, the capillaries, the veins.
The Heart.—The heart lies obliquely between the lungs
in the upper half of the trunk, the apex pointing forward
and rather to the left, the broad upper end being in the
middle line of the body. The average adult human heart is
about 5 inches long, 2^ inches thick, and 3|- inches broad in the
widest part. It is conical in shape and hollow, and is divided
within into four compartments, the right and left auricles,
and the right and left ventricles. A septum (septum, a fence)
runs from base to apex, completely dividing the right side
from the left, so that there is no communication possible
between the two sides in a healthy person. This septum has
an auricle and a ventricle on either side of it, and each
auricle communicates with the ventricle of its own side.
The material of the heart is muscle, of which you will
remember the chief characteristic is contractility. The
muscular walls are not of the same thickness throughout;
those of the auricles being considerably thinner than those
of the ventricles, and the wall of the right ventricle being
thinner than that of the left. You all know that exercise
strengthens muscles ; the arm of a blacksmith is larger and
harder than that of a writer, and when we find that there
is so great a difference between the walls of these cavities
we may feel sure that the greater thickness is the result of
greater work. The work of the heart is to propel the blood,
and the propulsion of the blood outside the heart falls wholly
on the ventricles ; the muscular walls of the ventricles,
being more used, generation after generation, have become
permanently thicker than those of the auricles; similarly,
while the right ventricle has only to propel the blood round
�2
Physiology of the Home.
the lungs, the left has to drive it all round the body, hence
the muscular wall of the left is thicker than that of the
right. The openings (auriculo-ventricular orifices) between
each auricle and the ventricle of its own side are oval in
shape and surrounded by a fibrous ring. The openings are
guarded by valves, folds of the lining membrane of the heart,
which are in such a position that they can completely close
the aperture. On the right side the valve is composed of
three triangular segments (tricuspid valve, from tres, three,,
and cwspzs, a point), while the similar valve on the left
side has two (mitral valve, so-called from its supposed
resemblance to a mitre). The description of one of these
valves will serve for both. The segments of the tricuspid
valve are attached by their bases to the fibrous ring, their
points being free. From these free points and from the
surface on the ventricle side, go thin cords of tendon, a
fibrous inelastic tissue, and these cords (cAonfe tendinaf are
attached to little muscular pillars (musculi papillares} three
or four in number, projecting from the inner wall into thecavity of the ventricle. These cords are long enough to
allow the segments of the valve to join each other and com
pletely close the auriculo-ventricular opening ; they are not
long enough to allow the points of the valves to be pushed
up into the auricles. We shall now be able to understand
what happens when the heart “ beats,” that is contracts and
expands ; the “ beat ” is caused by the apex of the heart
striking against the wall of the chest. Imagine the heart
empty, or, if you are wise, get a bullock’s heart and experi
ment ; imagine some fluid pouring into the right auricle, till
it is full; the auricle contracts and presses on the fluid; the
fluid tries to escape, and the easiest way out of the auricle
is through the opening into the ventricle ; it pours through,
the valve yielding readily and being flattened against the
walls of the ventricle by the rush from above ; the ventricle
becomes full and begins to contract, forcing the fluid once
more to escape. Meanwhile the segments of the valve have
been pushed up as the ventricle fills until they nearly meet,
and the fluid, pressed by the contraction of the ventricle,
pushes against them and completely closes them; it con
tinues to push against them, but the chordce tendince
prevent them from going upwards any further, and the
fluid is compelled to escape into an open tube, called
the pulmonary artery, leading out of the ventricle. A very
sharp hearer might say : “As the ventricle contracts the-
�Physiology of the Home.
3
sides come nearer together, and therefore the valve would
gradually rise into the auricle if pressed from below.” Quite
so, if the cords were attached directly to the wall of the
ventricle, but yon will remember that they are attached not
to the wall, but to little pillars projecting from the wall,
and as these also are of muscle they contract at the same
time as the wall, and becoming shorter keep the cords tense.
There are not many adaptations more beautiful and more
remarkable than this, so to speak, compensating contraction.
Arteries.—An artery is a vessel, a tube, which carries
¡blood away from the heart. This tube has three coats, a
lining of serous membrane, a fibrous, better termed a
muscular coat, and an outer of a very simple tissue, called
•connective. The middle coat is thick and strong in the
large arteries, hence these are exceedingly elastic. Two
great arteries rise from the heart, the pulmonary (^pulmo, a
lung) from the right ventricle, the aorta from the left. The
pulmonary divides and sends a branch to each lung; these
branches divide again and again within the lung. These
. are the only arteries in the body that contain impure blood.
The aorta sends branches all over the body, to the head,
trunk, and limbs, and these contain pure blood, keeping
-every tissue in working order.
Capillaries.—The arteries, after dividing in this fashion,
open at length into the capillaries (capillus, a hair), minute
vessels varying in diameter from 1/isoo to 1/gooo of an inch.
These capillaries form a fine, close network, the meshes of
which vary very much in size. The network is closest
wherever nourishment is most required and most rapidly
■used, for the actual work of nutrition goes on in the capil
laries. In some parts the space between the capillaries is
. actually less than the diameter of a capillary, so that the
nourishing blood is brought into the very closest contact
with every part of the tissues. When I add that the wall
of a capillary is a very delicate homogenous membrane, you
will see how easily the tissues can, by osmosis, take out of
the blood whatever they require.
Veins.—A vein is a vessel which carries blood towards
the heart. Like the artery, it has three coats, but the
middle one is very thin, and in consequence of this the veins
■ are but slightly elastic. Another great distinction between
arteries and veins is the valves found in most of the latter.
These valves are folds of the lining, shaped much like
watch-pockets, with the opening directed towards the heart
�4
Physiology of the Home.
If, therefore, the blood be flowing towards the heart, the
valves are pressed against the walls of the vein, and offer
no impediment to the circulation. But if the blood begin
to flow back, the pockets at once fill, become distended,
and bar the passage. The use of this is obvious. Blood
has to return to the heart from the lower part of the
body against, the force of gravity, and these valves prevent
it from falling backwards. The veins begin where the
capillaries end, just as the capillaries begin where the
arteries end. The veins nearest the capillaries are very
minute ; they join to make larger ones, join again and
again, until at last all the blood from the lower part of
the body is gathered in the inferior vena cava, and all the
blood from the upper part, except from the lungs, into the
superior vena cava, and these two pour their contents into
the right auricle. All the blood from the lungs is poured
into the left auricle by four pulmonary veins.
Course of Circulation.—We can now trace the course
of the blood. We divide the circulation of the blood into
two systems—the greater, or systemic, and the lesser, or
pulmonary circulation. We will take the greater first.
Blood that has been aerated in the capillaries of the lungs
is poured into the left auricle through the pulmonary
veins. It passes through the auriculo-ventricular opening
into the left ventricle. As the heart contracts, it is forced
to find a way of escape. The mitral valve closes the open
ing into the auricle, but the aorta is open, and it rushes into
that. Through artery after artery it travels, its containing
vessel ever growing smaller and smaller, until it reaches a
capillary network. Through this it travels slowly, very
slowly, yielding up its nutritive material, and at length
passes into a vein. Travelling now towards the heart, it
passes on and on, its containing vessel ever growing larger
and larger, until it reaches either the inferior or the superior
vena cava. It flows into the right auricle, and through the
auriculo-ventricular opening into the right ventricle, and
has concluded the systemic course. There is, however, no
rest for it. The contracting ventricle drives it out, and as
the opening into the auricle is closed by the tricuspid valve,
it is driven through the only other opening into the pulmo
nary artery. It goes either to the right or left lung, through
the capillaries, through the veins, back into the left auricle,
whence we traced its course, thus completing the pulmonarv
circulation. All the blood that has been round the body
�Physiology of the Home.
5
goes to the lungs ; all the blood that has been round the
lungs goes to the body. Why ?
Arterial and Venous Blood.—The question finds its
answer in the difference between the blood returned to the
heart from the body, and that returned to it by the lungs.
The words “ arterial” and “ venous ” are not very accurate,
but they are generally used; they are inaccurate, because
the pulmonary artery contains venous blood, and the
pulmonary vein arterial. The most striking difference
between arterial and venous blood is that of color; the
arterial is scarlet, the venous purple. The most impor
tant difference is the presence of much oxygen in the
arterial, of much carbon dioxide (carbonic acid gas) in the
venous. Oxygen is breathed in by the lungs, and this
oxygen is carried by the blood to the tissues ; it enters into
combination with the carbon of the tissues, and carbon
dioxide (carbonic acid gas) is formed; this is not wanted,
is even harmful, in the body, and it is carried away by the
blood. In the arteries there is scarlet oxygenated blood; in
the capillaries the oxygen is yielded to the tissues, the
carbon dioxide is taken from the tissues; in the veins there
is purple deoxidised blood, charged with CO2, requiring
purification in the lungs.
Cause of the Circulation.—This constant movement
of the blood now needs to be explained. The primary
cause of the movement is the alternate contraction and
expansion of the heart. The heart is a muscle, it is there
fore very contractile. The stimulus to the nerves, causing
them to act on the muscle, is the blood. When the blood
fills the heart, it stimulates nervous action, the nerves act on
the muscular fibres and they contract. The blood expelled,
the stimulus is absent, the muscle relaxes and the heart
expands. And so, alternately, we have contraction and
expansion. Remembering that the blood will always move
in the direction of least resistance, we at once understand
why, on being pressed out of the heart, it rushes into the
pulmonary artery and the aorta. The movement of the
blood, however, does not depend only on the contraction of
the heart; the elasticity of the arteries aids and regulates
the flow. The moment the rush of the blood consequent
on the contraction of the heart has ceased, the aorta in turn
contracts on the blood ; it would flow back to the heart, but
the ever useful valves, this time (semilunar valves) round
the aortic opening interpose, and the contracting artery
�6
Physiology of the Home.
ioYces the blood onwards. This action of the arteries gives
rise to the “pulse.” The pulse is the expansion of the
artery at a particular point, responding to the impulse sent
from.the heart. The blood is thus pushed on through the
arteries, each “ beat” of the heart driving fresh blood into
the aorta, so pressing on the blood already there. In the
capillaries the blood is pushed on from behind, and is also
aided, by several agencies classed under the head of
“ capillary action,” which time does not permit me to deal
with. In the veins it is propelled by the pressure from
behind, and also sucked on, as it were, by the emptying of
the heart in front. Any attempt to flow backwards is, as
we have seen, checked by the valves. It is practically use
ful to. remember the several directions in which the blood
flows in the arteries and veins ; suppose a limb be badly cut
and a suigeon be not at hand. If the cut have severed an
artery the blood will be bright scarlet, and will flow in
regular jets, like water pumped out; if this be the case,
remembering that arterial blood flows away from the heart,
twist a bandage very tightly above the injury, so as to cut
off the supply coming from the heart. If a vein be severed
the blood will be dark and flow steadily, without any
jerking motion ; in this case, remembering that venous blood
flows towards the heart, twist the bandage tightly below
the . wound, so as to cut off the supply coming from the
capillaries.
Blood.—It is time to answer the question; “ What is
blood ?” Gray very well defines it as “ a fluid holding a
number of minute cells or corpuscles in suspension.” The
corpuscles (corpusculum, a little body) are of so'lid matter,
forming about 1/7 of the blood ; there are also other solid
materials in the blood, albumin, fat, salt, and sugar, making
up another. 3/2s, so that
of the blood is solid and 3/4
water. This calculation is very rough, for the composition
of blood is not a constant. If blood be left standing, the
liquid and solid parts will separate out, and we have a
clot surrounded by fluid. In the clot, entangled among
structureless strings, called fibrin, we find the corpuscles,
and these are of two kinds, white and red. The white are
cells, constantly change their shape, and closely resemble
the white corpuscles of chyle; the red are semi-solid bi-con
cave (hollowed on each side) discs, and are two or three
hundred times more numerous than the white. These cor
puscles are the gas-carriers, and the difference of color
�Physiology of the Home.
7
between arterial and venous blood is thought to be due
merely to the difference of the refraction of light severally
from rounder or more flattened corpuscles.
The function of blood is to nourish and to equalise the
temperature of the body. We have seen food transmuted
into chyle, and the chyle poured into the blood system;
when we further learn that the liquid part of the blood
(liquor sanguinis') and the liquid part of the chyle (liquor
chyli) are identical, and that little difference can be found
between the white corpuscles of the blood and those of the
chyle, we have not much difficulty in tracing our foodstuffs
into the capillaries and, by osmosis, into the tissues.
Evolution of Heart.—In studying the wonderful
mechanism of the heart, the marvellous adaptation of the
organ to the function which it is its work to discharge, we
are almost compelled to ask : “ How did all this come into
existence ? ” If the human heart were the only one known
to us, the question would be hard to answer, but we are
fortunately able to trace the evolution of the heart from a
most imperfect beginning to its present condition. Without
dwelling on the mere tube of insects, and passing over the
very simple hearts of the invertebrate animals, let us hastily
glance at the hearts of the great divisions of the vertebrate
(back-boned) kingdom. The lowest class of the Vertebrata
is that of the fish, Pisces. In the lowest again of these, the
Amphioxus, the heart is a simple tube, a “pulsatile cardiac
trunk ” (Huxley), and “ contractile dilatations ” aid in pro
pelling the blood. The typical fish’s heart has two chambers,
one auricle and one ventricle, and may be regarded as
the tube, bent upon itself. In the highest fish, the heart
acquires three chambers, two auricles, and one ventricle,
thus graduating into the normal heart of the second
vertebrate class, the Amphibia, of which the com
mon frog is the best-known representative.
Here the
heart has two auricles, of which the right receives
the venous blood from the body, and the left the arterial
blood from the lungs. Unfortunately the frog has only one
ventricle, and as both auricles open into it, and discharge
their contents into the ventricle at the same time, the blood
it contains is to a great extent mixed. Certain folds and
valves tend to prevent complete mixing throughout, but the
result is scarcely satisfactory. An advance is made in the
next case, the Reptilia, and here we may take the snake as
an example. The snake’s heart has two auricles and one
�8
Physiology of the Home.
ventricle, but there is an incomplete partition separating
the ventricle into two halves, one containing venous and the
other arterial blood, and when the heart contracts, this
partition almost divides the ventricle into two chambers. In
the highest Reptilia, the crocodile has a four-chambered
heart, the septum becoming complete ; this great advantage
is, however, neutralised by the main arterial and venous
trunks crossing just outside the heart and communicating by
an opening, or foramen as it is called, and the blood mixing
through this. In the birds (Aves) and the mammals (Mammalia) the heart has four separate chambers and the arterial
never mixes with the venous blood.
We have thus a steady gradation from the tube of
Amphioxus, through the two-chambered heart of the com
mon fish; the three-chambered of the frog; the three
chambered, but with partially divided ventricle, of the snake;
the four-chambered, but with communication outside, of the
crocodile; up to the four-chambered, with uncommunicating
vessels, of the bird and the mammal. Thus we see gradual
evolution of a more perfect type, each improvement first
hinted at, then introduced, then perfected.
In the development of the individual a similar evolution
takes place. The heart is at one time a mere straight tube,
the veins connected with one end, the arteries with the other.
It soon becomes doubled on itself, and shortly afterwards a
longitudinal septum grows out dividing it into two chambers.
Later, two septa grow out transversely, dividing off the
auricles from the ventricles. Still the separation of arterial
and venous blood is not complete, for there is an opening
between the auricles, the foramen ovale, and there is also a
duct from the right ventricle to the aorta. The foramen
ovale closes at birth, except in cases of disease (morbus
ceruleus), and the duct is completely closed by the tenth
week after birth. Thus the evolution of the race is to some
extent repeated in the evolution of the individual, and the
development of the infant traces for us the development of
humanity.
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�PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HOME.
RESPIRATION.
Respiration is the purification of the gases of the blood..
We have seen that the corpuscles of the blood are gas
carriers ; that they carry to the lungs from the tissues the
carbonic acid gas which has been formed in work and
which needs to be expelled, and also carry from the lungs to
the tissues the oxygen which is required for use in the body..
We have now to investigate the organs of respiration and
the method in which the function is discharged.
Organs of Respiration. These are: the nose; the
mouth; the pharynx; the larynx ; the trachea ; the bronchi;
the bronchial tubes ; the air-sacs and air-cells; the skin.
The bronchial tubes, air-sacs and air-cells may be included
generally under the lungs; the nose, mouth, pharynx, larynx,
trachea and bronchi, may be regarded merely as the air
passages leading to the lungs. Some of you may be sur
prised at my mentioning the skin as an organ of respiration,
but when I remind you that the body of a medium-sized
full-grown man daily gets rid of 400 grains of carbonic acid
gas through the skin, you will see that the skia comes fairly
within the definition of an organ of respiration, that is, of
a special part of the body which purifies the gases of the
blood.
We will consider 1st, the air-passages; 2nd, the lungs;
3rd, the skin.
The air-passages opening on the exterior are two, the nose
and the mouth. Both these passages open internally into
the pharynx. If the mouth be closed, respired air passes
into the two anterior nares, or nostrils, up the nasal fossae
(fossa, a ditch or trench), and through the two posterior nares,
little openings into the pharynx. The air has thus arrived
at the top of the throat, just behind the mouth. If, instead
of breathing through the nose, you breathe through the
mouth, the air passes straight to the pharynx; so that in
�2
Physiology of the Home.
either case it arrives at the back of the mouth. The presence
of these posterior nares, 01* internal nostrils, explains how, if
you are bathing, water may run up your nose into your
throat, or how, in smoking, you may take smoke into the mouth
and breathe it out at the nose. Into the pharynx opens the
larynx, a kind of box, triangular above, rounded below,
which is situated at the top of the trachea, or windpipe.
The larynx is formed of nine cartilages, one of which, the
thyroid, is especially prominent in men, and is known as the
pomum Adami, or Adam’s apple. It is closed above by a
little lid of cartilage, the epiglottis, and contains the vocal
cords, the delicate strings of our voice-machine. When
food passes from the mouth to the oesophagus it goes over
this lid, the larynx being drawn beneath the tongue ; the lid
is then shut down, the hinge, so to speak, of the lid being
just behind the tongue. When food “goes the wrong way,”
it is because this process has been imperfectly performed,
and the morsel has slipped into, or wedged itself against the
larynx, so obstructing the air-passage. Hence the danger of
laughing or speaking when food is passing into the gullet.
“Don’t speak with your mouth full,” is a maxim of physi
ology as well as of politeness. Any action which raises the
epiglottis opens the air-passage, and a passing morsel may
enter and cause suffocation. We have not time to dwell on
the action of the vocal cords, we must content ourselves
with passing by them into the trachea, or windpipe.
The trachea is a tube of about 4^ inches in length, and is
formed of membrane with cartilaginous rings running twothirds of the way round. These rings are imperfect behind,
where the trachea comes into contact with the oesophagus,
along the froDt of which it lies. 1 he trachea divides into
the two bronchi, the right bronchus, about an inch long,
going to the right lung, and the left, about two inches in
length, going to the left. When the bronchus enters the
lung it divides and subdivides, forming the bronchial tubes.
The lungs are paitly made up of the numberless ramifica
tions of these bronchial tubes, but before dealing with these
it will be well to pau^e for a moment on the thorax, the
cavity which contains the lungs. This cavity is a perfectly
air-tight box, bounded by the backbone behind, the breast
bone in front, and the ribs on either side, the interstices of
the ribs being filled with the powerful intercostal muscles.
�Physiology of the Home.
3'
The bottom of the box is formed by the diaphragm, a
remarkable muscle, shaped something like a fan, attached
in front to the lower end of the breastbone, at the sides to
the ribs, at the back to the vertebral column, and arching
over the abdomen. The diaphragm is pierced by the oeso
phagus and the great blood vessels, but adheres closely round
them, permitting no air to enter. The thorax contains,
besides the lungs, the heart which lies between them and all
the great vessels and nerves connected with heart and lungs,
as well as the greater portion of the oe'Ophagus. The liver
and stomach lie immediately below it, being separated from
the thorax by the diaphragm. The position of the diaphragm
varies according to circumstances. When the lungs are
partially emptied the diaphragm is much arched, the concave
side being toward the abdomen. When air is breathed in
the diaphragm is partially flattened, enlarging the cavity of
the thorax. After a full meal, the diaphragm is pushed
upwards by the extension of the stomach, and the oppres
sion in breathing felt after an excessive meal is due
partly to the upward pressure of the diaphragm against
the lungs.
Before quitting the question of the thorax, a few moments
must be devoted to the cause of our regular breathing.
You will have noticed that I have laid stress on the fact
that the thorax is perfectly air-tight. If it were not so
breathing would be impossible. When air is expired from
the lungs it is driven out partly by the elasticity of the lungs
themselves, the bronchial tubes contracting upon it and
expelling it. The outward motion is also perhaps assisted by
delicate cilia—hair-like processes from the lining of the tubes—•
which constantly sweep outwards the solid and liquid contents.
The muscles of thechest also come largely into play in expelling
the air, by lessening the cavity of the thorax. Their several
movements are too complex to be described in a lepture like
this. The diaphragm,lastly, does a share of the work; like all
muscles it contracts, and when it contracts it becomes flatter
and therefore descends, and as the ribs are rising while the
diaphragm is descending, the thoracic cavity enlarges, and
air rushes in to fill the space thus given. The whole of the
muscular action is, as before, controlled by nerves, and is
reflex, not voluntary. We can partly control it by our will,
and we can voluntarily hasten or slacken the movements ; but
�4
Physiology of the Home.
in the normal healthy condition, respiration goes on without
our notice. As the normal number of respirations in a
minute is fifteen, it would clearly be excessively troublesome
if the brain had to see that the work went on properly; the
task falls conveniently to the nonsensating division of our
nervous system.
One difference may be worthy noting, the difference
between male and female breathing. In the male the
diaphragm is very much used ; in the female it plays a com
paratively small part, while the muscles connected with the
ribs are the chief agents. Notice the breathing of a man and
a woman, and see how much more the bosom of the latter
rises and falls ; the upper ribs are coming largely into play,
while in the man they do but little work. A moment’s
thought, and the remembrance of the way in which Nature
adapts beings to their life-conditions, will suggest to you
the “ why ” of this difference. Woman is the reproducer of
the race ; during many months of her life, before she gives
birth to a child, violent movement of the diaphragm would
result in injury, and the condition necessary for health in
one part of life becomes a sexual characteristic, common to
the whole.
Let us return now to the anatomy of the lung, the sur
roundings of which we have been considering. Each lung
is covered by a double membrane, one fold of the membrane
clothing the lung, the other fold lining the cavity of the
thorax, in which the lungs and heart are enclosed. Between
these two folds is a small quantity of fluid, which enables
them to run smoothly over each other. Inflammation of
the pleuiae, or of these coats of the lungs, is the painful and
dangerous disease known as pleurisy. The lung is composed
of a large number of lobules, or little lobes. Each lobule
consists of a little branch of the bronchial tube—which
subdivides, each subdivision ending in a minute expansion or
atr-suc—and the nerves, blood-vessels and lymphatics in close
relation to it, all being held together by connective tissue.
A number of these lobules make up a lobe, and of these
lobes the right lung has three, the left two. Reverting for a
moment to the air-sacs mentioned above, it is necessary to add
that in the walls of the air-sacs are little alveoli, depressions,
very badly called air-cells. These range from x/7o to 1/2oo of an
inch in diameter, and over the walls of each of these cells
�Physiology of the Home.
5
spreads a net work of capillaries, into which pours the dark
■carbonic-acid-burdened blood from the subdivisions of the
pulmonary artery, and out of which flows the scarlet
oxygen-laden blood to the pulmonary veins. So close is the
capillary net work that the space between the. capillaries is
only from 1/soo to 1/i25 of an inch. By osmosis, once more,
the carbonic acid gas passes out and the oxygen passes in.
The oxygen is brought down to the air-cells as part of .the
air through all the passages that we have been considering.
Air is a mixture chiefly of oxygen and nitrogen, the
nitrogen serving mei'ely to dilute its too vigorous companion;
the oxygen in the air breathed into the lungs is seized upon
by the corpuscles, and they give up in exchange the dele
terious carbonic acid gas, which passes up the air-passages
and out of the mouth or nose.
The exchange of oxygen for carbonic acid gas is not the
■only difference in inbreathed and outbreathed air. Expired
air is of a higher temperature than inspired, and it is also
charged with a considerable amount of water in the con
dition of steam. It is estimated that the lungs of an
ordinary adult send out daily about 5,000 grains (9 ozs.) of
steam, and 12,000 grains of carbonic acid gas, but it must
he remembered that the amount of steam and of carbonic
acid gas thus exhaled depends not only on the age, but also on
the work of the individual.
Before speaking of the effect of this action on the air,
we must complete our brief study of the organs of respira
tion by considering the skin. The skin is composed of two
distinct layers, differing in nature, the scarf-skin, cuticle, or
epidermis above, and the true skin or derma lying below.
In the true skin, or sometimes just below it, are a number
of small bodies called sweat-glands, and from , these run
ducts, which open by a tiny valve on the exterior of the
body. By these is discharged the watery matter, known as
perspiration, and if a limb be tied in an indiarubber bag it
is found that the air within the bag becomes charged, not
only with aqueous matter but also with carbonic acid gas.
Since 400 grains of carbonic acid and 10,000 grains of. water
are thus discharged daily by the skin, the enormous impor
tance of the healthy action of the skin at once becomes
apparent. Let dust fall on the skin and mixing with the
perspiration clog the openings of the valves, and the dis
�6
Physiology of the Home.
charge is at once checked; the matter that ought to be got
rid of is kept in the body; the other excretory organs try to
get lid of it, the lungs chiefly woi'king at the carbonic acid'
gas and the kidneys at the water; over much labor is
thereby thrown upon these organs, and they suffer. How is
all this mischief to be prevented ? The answer comes in
one word : cleanliness. The body needs to be thoroughly
washed, and where people work hard in dusty atmospheres
the necessity is the more stringent. The public baths now
found in London are veritable hygienic institutions, and
men, women, and children who visit them will find doctors5'
visits less frequent.
Ventilation.—We have seen that every person is con
tinually breathing oxygen into the body, and is continually
breathing out carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid gas. Hence
it results that if a person be shut up in a room to which
oxygen has no admittance, he will gradually use up the
oxygen therein contained, and gradually replace it with
carbon dioxide. As soon as the carbon dioxide amounts to
1 in 1,000 parts, the air of the room will begin to have an
oppressive odor. The man will get drowsy and disinclined to
exertion ; a little later he will sink down half-sleeping, half
fainting ; if he be left unrescued, he will die, and he will'
die not of any active poison administered to him, but from
privation of the oxygen necessary for the maintenance of
life. Carbon dioxide is sometimes called a narcotic poison,
but it is not the presence of carbon dioxide that kills; it is
the absence of free oxygen. When in crowded rooms
people faint, they faint from want of oxygen ; the venous
blood carried to the lungs is not oxygenated there;
it^ goes back to the left side of the heart still charged
with carbon dioxide. In this condition it is supplied
to the tissues.
The brain receives this, instead of'
the fresh bright blood which it is in need of; giddiness,
drowsiness, faintness, are the immediate consequences, and,
if the mischief be allowed to continue, these result in death.
A modified form of this injury is caused whenever a room is
“ close,” although actual faintness may not ensue. People
are so afraid of “draughts” that they prefer the “close
ness,” not knowing that the latter is really more dangerous
than the former. But there is no need to suffer either from
draughts or from closeness. Cut a slip of wood, about an
�Physiology of the Home.
7
inch thick, to fit along the bottom sash of a window; shut
the window down upon this. It will seem quite closed ; but
if you look at the middle of the window, where the bolt
comes, you will see a slit as wide as your piece of wood.
Fresh oxygen from outside will rise through this, and,
spreading upwards, will cause no draught. If, in addition,
you leave your window half an inch open at the top, you
will feel no uncomfortable stream of cold air, but your
room will be healthily ventilated, and your brain will be the
^clearer for it. One other agent we may call to our help in
ventilating our rooms. Flowers are not only beautiful, they
are also health-giving. They feed on the carbon dioxide,
so long as light falls upon them, and, retaining the carbon,
they excrete the oxygen. Although they breathe just as
we do, taking up oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide,
yet, as long as they are in the light, they feed so much more
than they breathe that their total effect upon the air is to
diminish the carbon dioxide in it, and to increase the free
oxygen. Flowers are, therefore, really useful in the room,
and while they bring light and grace, color and sweetness
into our homes, they also come as messengers of health,
working for us as purifiers of the air.
Much unnecessary lung disease is caused by mere care
lessness. Remembering the delicate machinery of capillary
network and minute air-cell that I have traced for you, you
will readily understand that rapid changes of temperature,
or the introduction of foreign materials would very easily
disorganise the mechanism. Yet people go suddenly out of
a hot, close room into keen, cold air, unthinkingly subjecting
these exquisite machines to the mischievously sudden altera
tion of temperature. A handkerchief placed over the mouth
for a few moments after passing into the outer air from a
hot room would prevent many a “ bad cold on the chest.”
Various trades are characterised by special lung diseases.
If you pay a visit to a surgical museum, you may see lungs
preserved there of miners, cotton-spinners, etc. The miner
Suffers from coal-dust breathed into the lungs in the air; the
cotton-spinner from cotton-fluff carried thereinto in similar
fashion; the Sheffield grinder from steel-dust. These dangers
might be lessened in the last two cases by the continual swing
ing of large fans in the work-rooms, driving away the dust;
they might be completely avoided by the wearing of respi
�8
Physiology of the Home.
rators by the workers, as all dust would be stopped in these,,
instead of going on into the lungs.
Again, as to clothing. The apex of each lung rises about
an inch or an inch and a half above the line of this first rib.
The lower part of the neck, therefore, needs to be protected
even more than the chest itself. Yet mothers let babies
and little children play about in the open air in winter in
low-necked frocks, and then wonder that they suffer from
cough, bronchitis, and inflammation of the lungs.
This brief course of lectures has now come to an end. I
shall have wholly failed in my object, if it has only served
to amuse some idle hours. I trust rather that our talks may
have raised the desire to know more of a most interesting
subject, and will lead many to study fully that which has
been so superficially treated here.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
■I
London: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Physiology of the home
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Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8,8,8, 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Contents: Digestion -- Organs of digestion -- Circulation -- Respiration. Thursday lectures delivered at the Hall of Science. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Author statement from OCLC WorldCat. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Biology
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Human Physiology
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DEATH'S TESTt^
OR
CHRISTIAN LIES ABOUT DYING INFIDELS.
“Those thetr idle tales of dying horrors.”— Carlyle.
There has recently been hawked about the streets of
London a penny pamphlet, called “ Death’s Test on
Christians and Infidels—Echoes from Seventy Death Beds.”
It is not an original performance, but has been “compiled
by R. May,” who appears to be a city missionary, and who
evidently possesses about as much intelligence and know
ledge of literature as usually belongs to that class of men.
Intrinsically, the pamphlet is beneath contempt, but it may
deceive many unsuspecting minds, and in response to
numerous invitations I have decided to honor it with a
reply. Reuben May is an insignificant person; yet like
other venomous little creatures he may cause annoyance to
his betters. I detest all vermin and would gladly shun
them. But sometimes they pester one beyond endurance,
and then one is obliged to sacrifice his dignity and to act
in the spirit of Swift’s maxim, “ If a flea bite me I’ll kill it
if I can.”
Before, however, I reply to Reuben May’s ridiculous com
pilation, let me deal briefly with the subject of
Death-Bed Repentance.
Carlyle, in his essay on Voltaire, has a memorable passageon this subject.
Reuben May, with other Christian
scribblers, is probably alike ignorant and careless of its
existence; but the great authority of Carlyle will have its
due weight in the minds of unprejudiced seekers for truth.
“ Surely the parting agonies of a fellow-mortal, when the
spirit of our brother, rapt in the whirlwinds and thick _ ghastly
vapours of death, clutches blindly for help, and no help is there,
are not the scenes where a wise faith would seek to exult, when
it can no longer hope to alleviate! For the rest, to touch
farther on those their idle tales of dying horrors, remorse, and the
�2
death’s test.
like ; to write of such, to believe them, or disbelieve them, or in
anywise discuss them, were but a continuation of the same
ineptitude. He who, after the imperturbable exit of so many
Cartouches and Thurtells, in every age of the world, can continue
to regard the manner of a man’s death as a test of his religious
orthodoxy, may boast himself impregnable to merely terrestrial
logic.”—“ Essays,” vol. ii., p. 161.
Reuben May and his silly coadjutors are no doubt “ im
pregnable to merely terrestrial logic.” It would probably
require a miracle to drive common sense into their heads.
But I trust there are other readers more accessible to reason,
and it is for them I write, even at the risk of being thought
guilty of “ the same ineptitude ” as those who manufacture
or believe the “ idle tales of dying horrors.”
Suppose an “ infidel” recants his heresy on his death-bed,
what does it prove ? Simply nothing. Infidels are com
paratively few, their relatives are often orthodox; and if,
when their minds are enfeebled by disease or the near
approach of death, they are surrounded by persons who
continually urge them to be reconciled with the religion they
have denied, it is not astonishing that they sometimes yield.
But such cases are exceedingly rare. Most men die as they
have lived.
Old men form the majority of these rare cases, and them
recantation is easily understood. Having usually been
brought up in the Christian religion, their earliest and
tenderest memories are probably connected with it; and
when they lie down to die they may naturally recur to it,
just as they may forget whole years of their maturity and
vividly remember the scenes of their childhood. Old age
yearns back to the cradle, and as Dante Rossetti says—
“Life all past
Is like the sky when the sun sets in it,
Clearest where furthest off.”
It is said that converted Jews always die Jews ; and mission
aries in India know well that converts to Christianity
frequently, if not generally, die in their native faith. The
reason is obvious. Only strong minds can really emanci
pate themselves from superstition, and it needs a lifetime of
settled conviction to undo the work of the pious misguiders
-of our youth.
Christians who attach importance to the “ death-bed
�DEATIl’S TEST.
3
Decantations of infidels ” pay their own religion a poor com
pliment. They imply that the infidel’s rejection of their
creed while his mind is clear and strong is nothing to his
acceptance of it when his mind is weak and confused. They
virtually declare that his testimony to the truth of their
creed is of most value when he is least capable of judging
it. At this rate Bedlam and Colney-Hatch should decide
our faith. There are some people who think it could not
be much more foolish if they did.
Cases of recantation are rarer now than ever. Sceptics
are numbered by thousands and they can nearly always
secure the presence at their bedsides of friends who share
their unbelief. Freethought journals almost every week
report the quiet end of sceptics who having lived without
hypocrisy have died without fear.
Christians know this. They therefore abandon the idea
of manufacturing fresh death-bed stories, and stick to the
old ones which have been refuted again and again. But
surely it is time we had some fresh ones. Voltaire and
Paine have been dead a long time, and many great Free
thinkers have died since. Why do we hear nothing about
them 2 Why have not the recantation-mongers concocted a
nice little story about the death of John Stuart Mill, of
Professor Clifford, of Strauss, of Feuerbach, or of Comte ?
Because they know the lie would be exposed at once. They
must wait until these great Freethinkers have, like Voltaire
and. Paine, been dead a century, before they can hope to
defame them with success. Our cry to such pious rascals is
“Hands off!” Refute the arguments of Freethinkers if
you can, but do not obtrude your disgusting presence in the
death chamber, or vent your malignity over their graves.
On the Continent, however, there have been a few recent
attempts in this line. One was in the case of
Isaac Gendre,
the
Swiss Freethinker.
The controversy over this gentleman’s death was sum
marised in the London Echo, of July 29th, 1881.
“A second case of death-bed conversion of an eminent
'Liberal to Roman Catholicism, suggested probably by that of
the great French philologist Littre, has passed the round of the
Swiss papers. A few days ago the veteran Leader of the Frei
burg Liberals, M. Isaac Gendre, died. The Ami du Peuple, the
�4
death’s test.
organ of the Freiburg Ultramontanes, immediately set afloat the
sensational news that when M. Gendre found that his last hour
was approaching he sent his brother to fetch a priest, in order
that the last sacraments might be administered to him, and the
evil which he had done during his life by his persistent Liberalism
might, he atoned by his repentance at the eleventh hour. This
brother, IV!. Alexandre Gendre, now writes to the paper stating
that there is not one word of truth in the story. What possible
benefit can any Church derive from the invention of such tales ?
Doubtless there is a credulous residuum which believes that
there must be ‘some truth ’ in anything which has once appeared
in print.”
It might be added that many people readily believe what
pleases them, and that a lie which has a good start is very
hard to run down.
Another case was that of
M. Littee,
the great French Positivist, who died a few months ago at
the ripe age of eighty-one. M. Littre was one of the fore
most writers in France. His monumental “ Dictionary of
the French Language ” is the greatest work of its kind in
the world. As a scholar and a philosopher his eminence
was universally recognised. His character was so pure and
sweet that a Catholic lady called him “ a saint who does not
believe in God.” Although not rich, his purse was ever
open to the claims of charity. He was one who “ did good
by stealth,” and his benefactions were conferred without
respect to creed. A Freethinker himself, he patronised the
Catholic orphanage near his residence, and took a keen
interest in the welfare of its inmates. He was an honor to
France, to the world, and to the Humanity which he loved
and served instead of God.
M. Littre’s wife was an ardent Catholic, yet she was
allowed to follow her own religious inclinations without the
least interference. The great Freethinker valued liberty of
conscience above all other rights, and what he claimed for
himself he conceded to others. He scorned to exercise
authority even in the domestic circle, where so much tyranny
is practised. His wife, however, was less scrupulous. After
enjoying for so many years the benefit of his steadfast tole
ration, she took advantage of her position to exclude his
friends from his death-bed, to have him baptised in his last
�DEATH S TEST.
O
moments, and to secure his burial in consecrated ground
with pious rites. Not satisfied with this, she even allowed
it to be understood that her husband had recanted his heresy
-and died in the bosom of the church. The Abbe Huvelin,
her confessor, who frequently visited M. Littre during his
last illness, assisted her in the fraud.
There was naturally a disturbance at M. Littre’s funeral.
As the Standard correspondent wrote, his friends and
-disciples were “ very angry at this recantation in extremis,
and claimed that dishonest priestcraft took advantage of the
■darkness cast over that clear intellect by the mist of
approaching death to perform the rites of the church over
his semi-inanimate body.” While the body was laid out in
Catholic fashion, with crucifixes, candles, and priests telling
their beads, Dr. Galopin advanced to the foot of the coffin,
•and spoke as follows :
“ Master, you used to call me your son, and you loved me. I
remain your disciple and your defender. I come, in the name of
Positive Philosophy, to claim the rights of universal Freemasonry.
A deception has been practised upon us, to try and steal you
from thinking humanity. But the future will judge your enemies
and ours. Master, we will revenge you by making our children
read your books.”
At the grave, M. Wyrouboff, editor of the Comtist review,
La Philosophic Positive, founded by M. Littre, delivered a
‘brief address to the Freethinkers who remained, which con
cluded thus:—
“ Littre proved by his example that it is possible for a man to
possess a noble and generous heart, and at the same time espouse
a doctrine which admits nothing beyond what is positively real,
and which prevents any recantation. And, gentlemen, in spite
of deceptive appearances, Littre died as he had lived, without contra
dictions or weakness. All those who knew that calm and serene
mind—and I was of the number of those who did—are well
aware that it was irrevocably closed to the ‘ unknowable,’ and
that it was thoroughly prepared to meet courageously the irre
sistible laws of nature. And now sleep in peace, proud and noble
thinker! You will not have the eternity of a world to come
which you never expected; but you leave behind you your
■country that you strove honestly to serve, the Republic which
you always loved, a generation of disciples who will remain
faithful to you, and last, but not least, you leave your thoughts
And your virtues to the whole world. Social immortality, the
�f
q
death’s test.
only beneficent and fecund immortality, commences for you
to-day.”
M. Wyrouboff has since amply proved his statements.
The English press creditably rejected the story of M.
Littre’s recantation. The Daily News sneered at it, the Times
described it as absurd, the Standard said it looked untrue.
But the Morning Advertiser was still more outspoken. It
said—
“ There can hardly be a doubt that M. Littre died a steadfast
adherent to the principles he so powerfully advocated during his
laborious and distinguished life. The Church may claim, as our
Paris correspondent in his interesting note on the subject tells us
she is already claiming, the death-bed conversion of the great un
believer, who for the iast thirty-five years was one of her most
active and formidable enemies. She has attempted to take the
same posthumous revenge on Voltaire, on Paine, and on many
others who are described by Roman Catholic writers as calling
in the last dreadful hour for the spiritual support they held up to
ridicule in the confidence of health and the presumption of their
intellect.”
In the Paris Gaulois there appeared a letter from the
Abbe Huvelin, written very ambiguously and obviously
intended to mislead. But one fact stands out clear. This
priest was only admitted to visit M. Littre as a friend, and
he was not allowed to baptise him.
The Archbishop of
Paris also, in his official organ, La Semaine lleligieuse,
admits that “ he received the sacrament of baptism on the
morning of the very day of his death, not from the hands of
the priest, who had not yet arrived, hut from those of Madame
LittreT The Archbishop, however, insists that he “ received
the ordinance in perfect consciousness and with his own
full consent.” Now as M. Littre was eighty-one years old,
as he had been for twelve months languishing with a feeble
hold on life, during which time he was often in a state of.
stupor, and as this was the very morning of his death, I
leave the reader to estimate the value of what the Arch
bishop calls “ perfect consciousness and full consent.” If
any consent was given by the dying Freethinker it was only
to gratify his wife and daughter, and at the last moment
when he had no will to resist; for if he had been more com
pliant they would certainly have baptised him before. Sub
mission in these circumstances counts for nothing ; and in
any case there is forceful truth in M. Littre’s words, written.
�death’s test.
in 1879 in his “Conservation, Revolution, et Positivisme ”
—“ a whole life passed without any observance of religious rites
must outweigh the single final act.”
Unfortunately for the clericals there exists a document
which may be considered M. Littre’s last confession. It is
an article written for the Comtist review a year before his
death, entitled “Pour la Derniere Fois”—For the Last
Time. While writing it he knew that his end was not far
off. “For many months,” he says, “my sufferings have
prostrated me with dreadful persistence. . . . Every evening,
when I have to be put to bed my pains are exasperated, and
often I have not the strength to stifle cries which are
grievous to me and grievous to those who tend me.” After
the article was completed his malady increased. Fearing
the worst he wrote to his friend, M. Caubet, as follows :—
“ Last Saturday I swooned away for a long time. It is for
that reason I send you, a little prematurely, my article for the
Review. If 1 live, I will correct the proofs as usual. If I die,
let it be printed and published in the Review as a posthumous
article. It will be a last trouble which I venture to give you.
The reader must do his best to follow the manuscript faithfully.”
If I live—If I die ! These are the words of one in the
shadow of Death.
Let us see what M. Littre’s last confession is. I trans
late two passages from the article. Referring to Charles
G-reville, he says :—
“I feel nothing of what he experienced. Like him, I find it
impossible to accept the theory of the world which Catholicism
*
prescribes to all true believers; but I do not regret being with
out such doctrines, and I cannot discover in myself any wish to
return to them.”
And he concludes the article with these words :—
“Positive Philosophy, which has so supported me since my
thirtieth year, and which, in giving me an ideal, a craving for
progress, the vision of history and care for humanity, has pre
served me from being a simple negationist, accompanies me
faithfully in these last trials. The questions it solves in its own
way, the rules it prescribes by virtue of its principle, the beliefs
it discountenances in the name of our ignorance of every thing
absolute ; of these I have, in the preceding pages made an ex* To a Frenchman Catholicism and Christianity mean one and the
same thing.
�8
death’s test.
amination, which I conclude with the supreme word of the com
mencement : for the last time.”
So much for the lying story of M. Littre’s recantation.
In the words of M. Wyrouboff, although his corpse was
accompanied to the grave by priests and believers, his name
will go down to future generations as that of one who was
to the end “ a servant of science and an enemy to super
stition.”
Having disposed of M. Littre’s case I return to Reuben
May’s trumpery pamphlet, dealing first with
His Pkefa.ce,
which is a wonderful piece of writing. His fitness to write
on any subject is shown by the following passage:
“I have avoided selecting cases which some would call ‘dying
fancies,’ ‘imagination,’ and ‘ visions.’ Such cases there are, both
on record and within the observation of many of those who have
widely attended the sick and dying; and although we refrain
from entering into the subject here, this is remarkable about
such cases, viz., that they are generally of two distinct classes—
(1) visions of angels, hearing beautiful music, seeing beautiful
places, etc.; (2) of those who have great fear, despondency, and
alarm; seeing fiends, smelling brimstone, feeling scorched by a
huge fire, etc. I believe invariably the first are those who have
professed religion in health, and the latter those who have
neglected it. Anyhow, my personal observation confirms this
opinion.”
If ever a Colney Hatch Gazette is started the proprietors
would do well to engage Reuben May as editor.
Another passage is very interesting:
“There is an intelligent man, close upon fourscore years of
age, now residing in the centre of London, and who I hope is a
Christian, who has for the greater part of his life—for reasons
not necessary to mention here—been conversant and mixed up
with, the followers of the leading infidel lecturers, past and
present, who says, that he has had an opportunity to watch very
many such to their closing earthly days, and that never has a
single instance come under his notice but that there was a
desire to turn from infidelity and in most to receive the con
solations of religion.”
Why is not this “ intelligent man’s ” name given ? Be•cause the lie might then be exposed. Why has he watched
so many infidel death-beds, and how did he obtain so many
opportunities ? Why does Mr. May only hope the man is a
�death’s test.
9
Christian ? If he does not know him well enough to be
sure, how can he have the audacity to publish such a
sweeping assertion on the man’s bare word ? Against this
anonymous and general testimony I put the specific fact that
our journals constantly publish cases of Freethinkers who
have died thoroughly convinced of the truth of their prin
ciples, and without the slightest misgiving ; cases in which
the names and addresses are given, not only of the deceased,
but also of the friends who were with him to the last. For
my own part, I have known many Freethinkers who were
steadfast unto death, but I have never known a single case of
recantation. Nor do I believe Reuben May has. If he has
let him give name, address, place and time, so that it may
be authenticated.
A word as to this pious scribbler’s method of compilation.
He says that “ the cases selected are from various published
and acknowledged authentic works.” What does the man
mean ? An authentic work is simply one written by the
author whose name it bears. Am I to suppose that Mr.
May believes everything he sees in print ? If not, I should
like to know what trouble he has taken to verify the stories
he has printed. My belief is that he has taken none. He
seems to have become possessed of a few antiquated works,
and to have spoiled a quantity of good paper in copying
from them what suited his purpose. What are
His Authorities?
Dr. Simpson’s “ Plea for Religion,” the Rev. Erskine
Neale’s “ Closing Scenes,” and a few more works of that
kind. They are all written by special pleaders ; not one of
them has any authority in the world of literature ; and at
the very best they are worth very little, since none of their
authors witnessed the scenes which are alleged to have taken
place at the death-beds of infidels. Mr. May should have
gone to original sources. No doubt his meagre acquaintance
with literature prevented him from doing so, and perhaps he
thought any stick was good enough to beat the infidel dog.
In exposing him, however, I shall go to original sources, and
the information I give may be useful to ignorant Reuben
May as well as to other readers.
.Erskine Neale’s “ Closing Scenes ” is first laid under con
tribution in the case of
�10
death’s test.
Thomas Paine
The author’s strong bias is apparent in almost' every line.
He describes “ Common Sense ” as a “ clever but malignant
pamphlet.” He states that Paine, when he returned to
America in 1802, was suffering from “intemperance and a
complication of disorders.” He does not cite any authority
in support of the charge of intemperance, nor does he inform
the reader that hard drinking was the custom in Paine’s
time. Fox, the great Whig statesman, was frequently
inebriated, and his great Tory rival, William Pitt, the
Premier of England, was often carried drunk to bed. Mr.
Neale also omits to mention the honorable circumstance
that Paine’s “ complication of disorders ” was brought on by
his long imprisonment in a dungeon of the Luxembourg, for
having, as a member of the National Assembly, spoken and
voted against the execution of Louis XVI.
Mr. Neale cites “an eyewitness” of Paine’s “closing
scene,” but this anonymous person does not pretend that
*
Paine recanted.
He dwells on the fact that the dying
infidel “ required some person to be with him at night, urging
as his reason that he was afraid he should die unattended.”
There is, however, nothing wonderful in this. Few men, I
presume, would like to be left alone on their death-bed.
He further states that Paine called out, in his paroxysms of
pain, “ O Lord, help me 1 God, help me I Jesus Christ,
help me I O Lord, help me ! ” But surely no man would
attach any importance to ejaculations like these. Hospital
attendants will tell you that patients utter all sorts of cries
in their agony, without meaning anything by them. Vanini,
who was burnt to death as an Atheist at Toulouse, in 1619,
is reported to have cried out on seeing the stake, “Ah, my
God 1 ” On which a bystander said, “ You believe in God,
then ; ” and he retorted, “ No, it’s a fashion of speaking.”
This anonymous eyewitness himself refutes the story of
Paine’s recantation, in the following passage:—
“ I took occasion, during the night of the 5th and 6th of June,
to test the strength of his opinions respecting revelation. I pur
posely made him a very late visit; it was a time which seemed
to suit my errand ; it was midnight. He was in great distress,
constantly exclaiming the words above-mentioned, when, after a
Probably Dr. Manley.
�death’s test.
11
considerable preface, I addressed him in the following manner,
the nurse being present:—
“ ‘Mr. Paine, your opinions, by a large portion of the com
munity, have been treated with deference ; you have never been
in the habit of mixing in your conversation words of coarse
meaning; you have never indulged in the practice of profane
swearing ; you must be sensible that we are acquainted with
your religious opinions, as they are given to the world. What
must we think of your present conduct? Why do you call
upon Jesus Christ to help you ? Do you believe that he can
help you? Do you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ?
Come, now, answer me honestly; I want an answer as from the
lips of a dying man, for I verily believe that you will not live
twenty-four hours.’ I paused some time at the end of every
question. He did not answer, but ceased to exclaim in the above
manner. Again I addressed him: ‘Mr. Paine, you have not
answered my questions : will you answer them ? Allow me to
ask again, do you believe, or—let me qualify the question—do
you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?”
After a pause of some minutes he answered, ‘ I have NO WISH TO
believe on that subject.’ I then left him, and know not whether
he afterwards spoke to any person on any subject, though he
lived, as I before observed, a few hours longer—in fact, till the
morning of the Sth.”
Reuben May probably thought it impolitic to rest here.
He therefore made another extract from “ The Life and
Gospel Labours of Stephen Grellet.” This pious worthy
states that a young woman, named Mary Roscoe, frequently
took Paine some delicacies from a neighbor. To this young
woman, according to Stephen Grellet, he confided a secret
which he never revealed to his dearest friends. He told
her, With respect to his “Age of Reason,” that “ if ever the
devil ■ had • any agency in any work, he has had it in my
writing that book ; ” and she repeatedly heard him exclaim
“ Lord Jesus, have mercy on me ! ”
Now this young woman is no doubt Mary Hinsdale, the
servant of . Mr. Willett Hicks, a Quaker gentleman who
showed Paine great kindness during his last days. Her
story was published and widely circulated by the Religious
Tract Society in 1824. William Cobbett, who admired
Paine as a politician although he dissented strongly from his
religious views, published a conclusive reply.
While in
America he had investigated the affair. He had called on
Mary Hinsdale herself, at the instance of Charles Collins,
who wanted him to state in his contemplated Life of Paine
�12
death’s test.
that he had recanted. She shuffled, evaded, and equivo
cated ; she said it was a long time ago, and she could
not speak positively. Cobbett left in disgust, thinking the
woman a match for the Devil in cunning. He concludes his
exposure of the recantation story thus:
“ This is, I think, a pretty good instance of the lengths to
which hypocrisy will go. . _ . . . Mr. Paine declares in his last
will, that he retains all his publicly expressed opinions as to
religion. His executors, and many other gentlemen of un
doubted veracity, had the same declaration from his dying lips.
Mr. Willett Hicks visited him to nearly the last. This gentleman
says that there was no change of opinion intimated to him ; and
will any man believe that Paine would have withheld from Mr.
Hicks that which he was so forward to communicate to Mr.
Hicks’s servant girl ? ”
Cheetham, who libelled Paine in everything else, acknow
ledged that he died without any change in his opinions.
And this Mary Hinsdale, subsequently trying to play the
same trick on the reputation of an obnoxious young lady,
Mary Lockwood, as she had played on Paine’s, was proved
by the young lady’s friends to be a deliberate liar.
Perhaps the best answer to the lying story of Paine’s re
cantation, is to be found in the fact that he wrote the
second part of his “Age of Reason” in the Luxembourg, while
under apprehension of the guillotine. He states this in the
Preface. “ I had then,” he writes, “ little hope of surviving.
I know, therefore, by experience, the conscientious trial of
my principles.” Clio Kickman (p. 194) gives also the
testimony of Dr. Bond, an English surgeon in the suite of
General O’Hara, who said:
“Mr. Paine, while hourly expecting to die, read to me parts
of his “ Age of Reason and every night when I left him to be
separately locked up, and expected not to see him alive in the
morning, he always expressed his firm belief in the principles of
that book, and begged I would tell the world such were his
dying opinions.” .
The subject may be left here. I think I have disposed of
Reuben May’s authorities, and satisfactorily shown that
Thomas Paine died as he lived “ an enemy to the Christian
religion.”
Next comes the case of
V OLTAIRE.
This splendid Freethinker, whose name is a battle-flag in
�death’s test.
13
the hottest strife between Reason and Faith, has been the
•subject of more malignant slander than even Thomas Paine.
Superstition has reeled from the blows of his arguments and
writhed from the shafts of his wit, but it has partly avenged
itself by heaping upon his memory a mountain of lies.
Reuben May does not name the author of his section on
Voltaire. Most of it is a translation from the Abbe Barruel,
■who evidently wrote for pious readers ready to believe any
thing against “ infidels.” His diatribe bristles with false
hoods and absurdities.
Voltaire is charged with “ a want of sound learning and
.moral qualifications,” which will “ ever prevent him from
being ranked with the benefactors of mankind by the wise
■and good.” The writer meant by hypocrites and fools!
Voltaire’s reputation is too firmly established to be over
thrown by Christian scribblers. Our greatest living poet,
Robert Browning, salutes him thus—
Ay, sharpest shrewdest steel that ever stabbed
To death Imposture through the armor-joints! *
'Carlyle, who is very grudging in his admissions of Voltaire’s
worth, says “ He gave the death-stab to modern supersti
tion,” and adds “It was a most weighty service.”f Else
where Carlyle reluctantly admits his nobility of character:
“ At all events, it will be granted that, as a private man,
his existence was beneficial, not hurtful, to his fellow-men :
the Calases, the Sirvens, and so many orphans and outcasts
whom he cherished and protected, ought to cover a multi
tude of sins.”j:
Buckle, the historian of civilisation, writes:—
“No one could reason more closely than Voltaire, when
reasoning suited his purpose. But he had to deal with men im
pervious to argument; men whose inordinate reverence for
antiquity had only left them two ideas, namely, that everything
old is right, and that everything new is wrong. To argue against
these opinions would be idle indeed; the only other resource
was, to make them ridiculous, aud weaken their influence, by
holding up their authors to contempt. This was one of the
tasks Voltaire set himself to perform, and he did it well. He,
therefore, used ridicule, not as the test of truth, but as the
scourge of folly. And with such effect was the punishment
* “ The Two Poets of Croisie.”
t “Essays.” Vol. II., p. 181.
St. 107.
J Ibicl.
P. 154.
�14
DEATH S TEST.
administered, that not only did the pedants and theologians of
his own time wince under the lash, but even their successors feel
their ears tingle when they read his biting words; and they
revenge themselves by reviling the memory of that great writer,
whose works are as a thorn in their side, and whose very name
they hold in undisguised abhorrence........... His irony, his wit,
his pungent and telling sarcasms, produced more effect than the
gravest arguments could have done ; and there can be no doubt
that he was fully justified in using those great resources with
which nature had endowed him, since by their aid he advanced
the interests of truth, and relieved men from some of their most
inveterate prejudices.”—“ History of Civilisation,” Vol. II.,
p. 308-9.
Taking him as a whole, Buckle thinks he is probably the
greatest historian Europe has produced. Lamartine cha
racterises him as “ ce genie non le plus haut, metis le plus vaste
de la France ”—not the loftiest but the greatest genius of
France. And lastly, Brougham, in his “ Life of Voltaire,”
says—
“Nor can any one since the days of Luther be named, to
whom the spirit of free inquiry, nay, the emancipation of the
human mind from spiritual tyranny, owes a more lasting debt of
gratitude.”
What does Reuben May think now ? These great writers
regard Voltaire as a “ benefactor of mankind.” Surely they
are as “ wise ” as Reuben May’s anonymous author, and
probably as “ good.”
The Abbe Barruel’s first misstatement is glaring and
unpardonable. He writes of Voltaire as “ the dying
Atheist.” Now, Voltaire was a Theist, and he penned
arguments in favor of the existence of God such as few
theologians have equalled. He is 'credited with the saying
that “ If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent
him.” He described an Atheist as a monster created by
nature in a moment of madness. He quarreled with some
of the most eager spirits engaged on the great Encyclo
pedia for going too far in a negative direction. During his
last visit to Paris, only a few weeks before his death, when
Benjamin Franklin’s grandson was presented to him, he
said “ God and Liberty, that is the only benediction which
befits the grandson of Dr. Franklin.”* Yet the Abbe
Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, p. 111.
�death’s test.
15
Barruel calls Voltaire an Atheist. A writer so grossly
inaccurate is scarcely worth notice.
He also says that Voltaire in his famous phrase Ecrasez
L’Infame (crush the Infamous) referred to Jesus Christ.
This is another gross mistake. Voltaire had great respect
and admiration for Jesus as a man. By the Infamous he
meant the Church with its dogmas, its priestcraft, its op
pressions, and its crimes.
He states that the Abbe Gauthier, with the curate of St.
Sulpice, was unable to gain admission to Voltaire’s apart
ment, in consequence of Diderot, D’Alembert, and other
“ conspirators ” surrounding him. This is another false
hood, as the sequel will show.
Now for the story of Voltaire’s “ recantation.” In those
days every Freethinker wrote with the halter round his
neck. Voltaire was always in peril, from which only his
wonderful adroitness saved him. He disliked martyrdom,
had no wish to be burnt to please the faithful, and thought
he could do Truth more service by living than by courting
death. Consequently, his whole life was more or less an
evasion of the enemy. Many of his most trenchant attacks
on Christianity were anonymous; and although everyone
knew that only one pen in France could have written them,
there was no legal proof of the fact. When Voltaire came
to die, he remembered his own bitter sorrow and indigna
tion, which he expressed in burning verse, at the ignominy
inflicted many years before on the remains of the poor
actress, Adrienne Lecouvreur, which were refused sepulture
because she died outside the pale of the Church. Fearing
similar treatment himself, he is said to have sent for the
Abbe Gauthier, who, according to Condorcet, “ confessed
Voltaire, and received from him a profession of faith, by
which he declared that he died in the Catholic religion
wherein he was born.” This story is generally credited,
but its truth is by no means indisputable ; for in the Abbe
Gauthier’s declaration to the Prior of the Abbey of Scellieres,
where Voltaire’s remains were interred, he says that “when
he visited M. de Voltaire he found him unfit to be confessed!
The Curate of St. Sulpice was annoyed at being fore
stalled by the Abbe Gauthier, and as Voltaire was his
parishioner, he demanded “ a detailed profession of faith
and a disavowal of all heretical doctrines.” He paid the
�16
death’s test.
dying Freethinker many unwelcome visits, in the vain hope
of obtaining a full recantation, which would be a fine
feather in his hat. The last of these visits is thus described
by Wagniere, one of Voltaire’s secretaries, and an eye
witness of the scene. I take Carlyle’s translation :—
Two days before that mournful death, M. l’Abbe Mignot, his
nephew, went to seek the Cure of Saint Sulpice and the Abbe
Gauthier, and brought them into his uncle’s sick-room ; who, on
being informed that the Abbe Gauthier was there, “Ah, well! ”
said he, “ give him my compliments and my thanks.” The
Abbe spoke some words to him, exhorting him to patience. The
Cure of Saint Sulpice then came forward, having announced
himself, and asked of M. de Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he
acknowledged the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ? The sick
man pushed one of his hands against the Cure’s calotte (coif),
shoving him back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side,
“ Let me die in peace (Laissez-moi mourir en paix) !” The
Cure seemingly considered his person soiled, and his coif dis
honored, by the touch of a philospher. He made the sick-nurse
give him a little brushing, and then went out with the Abbe
Gauthier.
A further proof that Voltaire made no real recantation
lies in the fact that the Bishop of Troyes sent a peremptory
dispatch to the Prior of Scellieres, which lay in his diocese,
forbidding him to inter the heretic’s remains. The dispatch,
however, arrived too late, and Voltaire’s ashes remained
there until 1791, when they were removed to Paris, and
placed in the Pantheon, by order of the National Assembly.
Having disposed of the “ recantation,” I must refute
another lie. Reuben May’s pamphlet states that—
“In his last illness he sent for Dr. Tronchin. When the
Doctor came, he found Voltaire in the greatest agony, exclaiming
with the utmost horror—I am abandoned by God and man.’
He then said, “Doctor, I will give you half of what I am worth,
if you will give me six month’s life.’ The Doctor answered,
‘Sir, you cannot live six weeks.’ Voltaire replied, ‘Then I
shall go to hell, and you will go with me! ’ and soon after
expired.”
Was there ever a sillier story ? Who, except a lunatic or a
Christian, could believe it ? Why did Voltaire want exactly
six months’ life? He was then in his eighty-fifth year,
and had surely lived long enough. Why did he say he was
going to hell when he believed there was no such place ?
And why did he suppose the Doctor would go to hell too for
�death’s test.
17
being unable to prolong his existence ? The person who
invented this story was a fool, and Reuben May is a ninny
to print it.
The story is an evident lie. After this funny conversa
tion, Voltaire “ soon expired.” Now Wagniere has left
an account of Voltaire’s end which disproves this. Carlyle
translates it thus :—
“ He expired about quarter past eleven at night,
the most
perfect tranquillity, after having suffered the cruelest pains, in
consequence of those fatal drugs, which his own imprudence, and
especially that of the persons who should have looked to it,
made him swallow. Ten minutes before his last breath, he took
the hand of Morand, his valet-de-chambre, who was watching
him ; pressed it, and said, “ Adieu, mon cher Morand, je me meurs ”
Adieu, my dear Morand, I am gone.” These are the last words
uttered byM. de Voltaire.”
Wagniere’s narrative looks true, unlike the rubbish of Dr.
Tronchin, the Abbe Barruel, and Reuben May.
Further on in Reuben May’s pamphlet we read of a parson
who was told by another parson that a friend of his had
seen an old nurse who waited on Voltaire in his last illness,
and who declared that “ not for all the wealth of Europe
would she see another infidel die.” But as no one who
visited Voltaire mentions this woman, and as no nurse is
alluded to by friend or enemy, I unceremoniously dismiss
her as “ a mockery, a delusion and a snare.”
My readers must, I think, be fully satisfied that Voltaire
neither recanted nor died raving, but remained a sceptic to
the last, and passed away quietly to “ the undiscovered
country from whose bourne no traveller returns.”
I take next a foolish story about
Volney,
another great Frenchman, and author of the famous “ Ruins
of Empires ” :—
“ Volney in a Storm.—Volney, a French infidel, was on board
a vessel during a violent storm at sea, when the ship was in
imminent danger of being lost. He threw himself on the deck,
crying in agony, ‘ Oh, my God ! my God 1 ’ “ There is a God,
then, Monsieur Volney ?’said one of the passengers to him.
‘Oh, yes,’ exclaimed the terrified infidel, “there is! there is!
Lord, save me! ’ The ship, however, got safely into port. Volney
was extremely disconcerted when his confession was publicly re
�18
death’s test.
lated, but excused it by saying that he was so frightened by the
storm that he did not know what he said, and immediately
returned to his atheistical sentiments.”
Reuben May gives no authority for this story. He seems
to think that his readers, like himself, will believe anything
they see in print. I have traced it back to the “ Tract Maga
zine ” for July, 1832, where it appears very much amplified
and in many respects different. It appears, in a still dif
ferent form, in the eighth volume of the “ Evangelical
Magazine,” where it professes to be taken from Weld’s
“ Travels in America ” This date is a great many years
after Volney’s time. I cannot find any earlier trace of the
story, and I therefore ask the reader to reject it as false
and absurd.
The next case is that of “ the noble Altamont,” but as I
cannot discover who the noble Altamont was, and suspect
him to be the aristocratic hero of some eighteenth-century
romance, I pass on to the case of
Hobbes.
This great thinker, who knew Bacon, Selden, and Ben Jonson
in his youth, and Dryden in his old age, lived to be upwards
of ninety. Reuben May’s pamphlet states that, when dying,
he said “ he was about to take a leap in the dark.” Well,
that was only an emphatic way of expressing his doubt
whether there is a future life or not. We are also told that
he always had a candle burning in his bedroom, as he was
afraid of the dark. So are thousands of true believers. In
Hobbes’s case, this was partly due to an accident which
caused his premature birth, and partly to the fact that at
the time of the “ candle” story he was a very old man, and
in dread that some religious fanatic might carry out the
threats of assassination which were frequently made. He
knew that the Church of England wanted to burn him
alive, and that he was saved from martyrdom only by the
protection of eminent personages in the State.
Cooke, the Leicester Murderer
is the next case. He attributed his wickedness to “ infidel
associations.” But we have no statement from his own
hand, and his “ confession,” like that of Bailey, the
Gloucester murderer, was no doubt fabricated or improved
�death’s test.
19
by the chaplain. All the other murderers of this century
have been undoubted Christians.
David Hume
comes next. Reuben May gives an extract from one of his
essays, but says nothing about his end. I will supply the
omission. Dr. Adam Smith, author of the “Wealth of
Nations,” received the following letter from Dr. Black,
Hume’s physician, the day after his death:—
“Edinburgh, August 26th, 1776.—Dear Sir,—Yesterday,
about four o’clock, Mr. Hume expired. The near approach of
his death became evident in the night between Thursday and
Friday, when his disease became excessive, and soon weakened
him so much that he could not rise out of bed. He continued
to the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or feelings
of distress. He never dropped the smallest expression of im
patience, but, when he had occasion to speak to the people about
him, he always did it with affection and tenderness............. When
he became very weak it cost him a great effort to speak, and he
died in such a happy composure of mind that nothing could
exceed it.”
Adam Smith, in sending this letter to his friend William
Stratham, wrote:
“Upon the whole I have always considered him, both in his
life-time and since his death, as approaching as near to the ideal
■of the perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of
human frailty will admit.”
What a contrast to Doctor Johnson, his great contem
porary, the champion of piety as Hume was of scepticism,
who had such a morbid horror of death I While the pious
Johnson quailed at the very thought of death, the sceptical
Hume confronted it placidly, regarding it only as the ringing
down of the curtain after the great drama of life.
Let us take another sceptic, whom Reuben May does not
mention, the great historian,
Edward Gibbon.
Lord Shaftesbury, his confidential friend, wrote thus of
his death:
“ To the last he preserved his senses, and when he could no
longer speak, his servant having asked him a question, he made
a sign to him that he understood him. He was quiet, tranquil,
■and did not stir; his eyes half shut. About a quarter of an hour
before one he ceased to breathe. The valet-de-chambre observed.
�20
death’s test.
that he did not, at any time, evince the least sign of alarm or
apprehension of death.”
In his second pamphlet Reuben May gives a long extract
on the death of
Frederic the Great.
He admits that the old king remained a sceptic to the
last, and when a pious Christian wrote to him on his death
bed about the prospects of his soul, he only remarked, “ Let
this be answered civilly : the intention of the writer is
good.”
Reuben May fills up the rest of his stupid pamphlets with
cases of dying Christians. The first of these is unfortunate.
Addison, when nearing his end, sent for his noble son-inlaw to “See in what peace a Christian can die.” Now Joseph
Addison was a frightful brandy-drinker, and it has been
satirically hinted that in order to go through this pious and
edifying performance he braced himself up with half-a-pint
of his favorite liquor.
The rest I leave without comment. Christians, like other
people, doubtless die in the religion of their childhood.
The adherents of every other creed do the same. My
purpose is simply to show that Freethinkers neither recant
their heresy nor quail before inevitable death, and I think I
have succeeded.
When Mirabeau, the mighty master-spirit of the Revolu
tion, lay dying in Paris amid the breathless hush of a whole
nation, he was attended by the great Cabanis. After a
night of terrible suffering, he turned to his physician and
said, “My friend, I shall die to-day. When one has come
to such a juncture there remains only one thing to do, that
is to be perfumed, crowned with flowers, and surrounded
with music, in order to enter sweetly into that slumber from
which there is no awakening.” Then he had his couch
brought to the window, and there the Titan died, with his
last gaze on the bright sunshine and the fragrant flowers.
He was an Atheist. Why should the Atheist fear to die ?
From the womb of nature he sprang and he will take his last
sleep on her bosom.
PRICE
TWOPENCE, j
London: Freethought Publishing Company, 28, Stonecutter St., E.C-
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Death's test, or: Christian lies about dying infidels
Creator
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 20 p. ; 20 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Date of publication from British Library. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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[1882]
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N189
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Death
Free thought
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Text
Language
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English
Death
Last Words
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
INGERSOLL’S TILT WITH TALMAGE.
Wu ^nsiucr of
ROBT. G. INGERSOLL
TO A SERMON PREACHED
BY THE
REV. DE WITT TALMAGE,
EROM THE TEXT :
“ The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
Trade, supplied l>y
JOHN
HEYWOOD,
DEANSGATE AND RIDGEFIELD, MANCHESTER;
AND 11, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS,
LONDON.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
�Mr. Ingersoll’s Answer to a Sermon by
the Rev. De Witt Talmage, preached
from the text:
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
The text taken by the reverend gentleman is an insult, and
was intended as such. Mr. Talmage seeks to apply this text
to any one who denies that the Jehovah of the Jews was and
is the infinite and eternal Creator of all. He is perfectly
satisfied that any man who differs from him on this question
is a “ fool,” and he has the Christian forbearance and kindness
to say so. I presume he is honest in this opinion, and no
doubt regards Bruno, Spinoza, and Humboldt as idiots. He
entertains the same opinion of some of the greatest, wisest,
and best of Greece and Rome. No man is fitted to reason
upon this question who has not the intelligence to see the
difficulties in all theories. No man has yet evolved a theory
that satisfactorily accounts for all that is. No matter what
his opinion may be, he is beset by a thousand difficulties,
and innumerable things insist upon an explanation. The best
that any man can do is to take that theory which to his mind
presents the fewest difficulties. Mr. Talmage has been edu
cated in a certain way—has a brain of a certain quantity,
quality, and form—and accepts, in spite, it may be, of himself,
a certain theory. Others, formed differently, having lived
under different circumstances, cannot accept the Taimagian
view, and thereupon he denounces them as fools.
Mr. Talmage insists that it takes no especial brain to reason
out a “ design” in Nature, and in a moment afterward says
that “when the world slew Jesus, it showed what it would do
with the eternal God, if once it could get its hands on Him.”
�R. G. Ingersoll’s Reply to Mr. Talmage.
3
Why should a God of infinite wisdom create people who would
gladly murder their Creator? Was there any particular
“ design ” in that ? Does the existence of such people con
clusively prove the existence of a good Designer ? It seems to
me—and I take it that my thought is natural, as I have only
been bom once—that an infinitely wise and good God would
naturally create good people, and if He has not, certainly the
fault is His. The God of Mr. Talmage knew, when He created
Guiteau, that he would assassinate Garfield. Why did He
create him ? Did He want Garfield assassinated 1 Will some
body be kind enough to show the “ design ” in this transaction ?
Is it possible to see “design” in earthquakes, in volcanoes,
in pestilence, in famine, in ruthless and relentless war ? Can
we find design in the fact that every animal lives upon some
other—that every drop of every sea is a battlefield where the
strong devour the weak ? Over the precipice of cruelty rolls
a perpetual Niagara of blood. Is there design in this ? Why
should a good God people a world with men capable of burn
ing their fellow men—and capable of burning the greatest
and best ? Why does a good God permit these things ? It
is said of Christ that He was infinitely kind and generous,
infinitely merciful, because when on earth He cured the sick,
the lame, and blind. Has He not as much power now as He
had then ? If He was and is the God of all worlds, why does
He not now give back to the widow her son ? Why does He
withhold light from the eyes of the blind ? And why does
One who had the power miraculously to feed thousands, allow
millions to die for want of food 1 Did Christ only have pity
when He was part human ? Are we indebted for His kindness
to the flesh that clothed His Spirit? Where is He now?
Where has He been through all the centuries of slavery
and crime? If this universe was designed, then all that
happens was designed. If a man constructs an engine
the boiler of which explodes, we say either that he did
not know the strength of his materials, or that he was
reckless of human life. If an infinite being should con
struct a weak or imperfect machine, he must be held account
able for all that happens. He cannot be permitted to say
that he did not know the strength of the materials. He is
�4
R. Gr. Ingersoll's Reply to Mr. Talmage.
directly and absolutely responsible. So, if this world was
designed by a being of infinite power and wisdom, he is
responsible for the result of that design.
My position is this: I do not know. But there are so many
objections to the personal God theory that it is impossible
for me to accept it. I prefer to say that the universe is all
the God there is. I prefer to make no being responsible. I
prefer to say: If the naked are clothed, man must clothe
them; if the hungry are fed, man must feed them. I
prefer to rely upon human endeavour, upon human intelli
gence, upon the heart and brain of man. There is no
evidence that God has ever interfered in the affairs of man.
The hand of earth is stretched uselessly toward heaven.
From the clouds there comes no help. In vain the ship
wrecked cry to God. In vain the imprisoned ask for release—
the world moves on, and the heavens are deaf and dumb and
blind. The frost freezes, the fire burns, slander smites, the
wrong triumphs, the good suffer, and prayer dies upon the
lips of faith.
My creed is this :
1. Happiness is the only good.
2. The way to be happy is to make others happy. Other
things being equal, that man is happiest who is the nearest
just, who is truthful, merciful, and intelligent.
3. The time to be happy is now, and the place to be
happy is here.
4. Reason is the lamp of the mind, the only torch of
progress; and instead of blowing that out and depending
upon darkness and dogma, it is far better to increase the
sacred light.
5. Every man should be the intellectual proprietor of
himself—honest with himself and intellectually hospitable—
and upon every brain reason should be enthroned as king.
6. That every man must bear the consequences, at least,
of his own actions; that if he puts his hands in the fire, his
hands must smart, and not the hands of another. In other
words, that each man must eat the fruit of the tree he plants.
Mr. Talmage charges me with blasphemy. This is an
epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.
�R. G. Ingersoll's Reply to Mr. Talmage.
5
Whoever investigates a religion as he would any department
of science, is called a blasphemer. Whoever. contradicts a
priest, whoever has the impudence to use his own reason,
whoever is brave enough to express his honest thought, is a
blasphemer in the eyes of the religionist. When a missionary
•Speaks slightingly of the wooden god of a savage, the savage
regards him as a blasphemer. To laugh at the pretensions
of Mohammed in Constantinople is blasphemy. To say in
St. Petersburg that Mohammed was a prophet of God is also
blasphemy. There was a time when to acknowledge the
divinity of Christ was blasphemy in Jerusalem. To deny
His divinity is now blasphemy in New York. Blasphemy is
to a considerable extent a geographical question. It depends
not only on what you say, but where you are when you say
it. Blasphemy is what the old calls the new.
The founder of every religion was a blasphemer. The
Jews regarded Christ as a blasphemer. The Athenians had
the same opinion of Socrates. The Catholics have always
looked upon the Protestants as blasphemers, and the Pro
testants have always held the same generous opinion of the
Catholics. To deny that Mary is the Mother of God is
blasphemy. To say that she is the Mother of God is
blasphemy. Some savages think that a dried snake skin
stuffed with leaves is sacred and he who thinks otherwise is
a blasphemer. It was once blasphemy to laugh at Diana of
the Ephesians. Many people think that it is blasphemous
to tell your real opinion of the J ewish J ehovah. Others
imagine that words can be printed upon paper, and the
paper bound into a book covered with sheepskin, and that
the book is sacred, and that to question its sacredness is
blasphemy. Blasphemy is also a crime against God, and yet
nothing can be more absurd than a crime against God. . If
God is infinite you cannot injure Him. You cannot commit a
crime against any being that you cannot injure. Of course,
the infinite cannot be injured. Man is a conditioned being.
By changing his conditions, his surroundings, you can injure
him, but if God is infinite, he is conditionless. If he is con
ditionless, he cannot by any possibility be injured. You
can neither increase nor decrease the well-being of the infinite.
�6
H. G. Ingersoll’s Reply to Mr. Talmage.
Consequently, a crime against God is a demonstrated impossi
bility. The cry of blasphemy means only that the argument
of the blasphemer cannot be answered. The sleight of hand
performer, when some one tries to raise the curtain behind
which he operates, cries “ blasphemer! ” The priest, finding
that he has been attacked by common sense, by a fact,
resorts to the same cry. Blasphemy is the black flag of
theology, and it means no argument and no quarter I It is
an appeal to prejudices, to passions and ignorance. It is the
last resort of a defeated priest. Blasphemy marks the point
where argument stops and slander begins. In old times it
was the signal for throwing stones, for gathering fagots, and
for tearing flesh; now, it means falsehood and calumny.
In my view, any one who knowingly speaks in favour of
injustice is a blasphemer.
Whoever wishes to destroy
liberty of thought, the honest expression of ideas, is a
blasphemer. Whoever is willing to malign his neighbour
simply because he differs with him upon a subject about
which neither of them knows anything for certain is a
blasphemer. If a crime can be committed against God, he
commits it who imputes to God the commission of crime.
The man who says that God ordered the assassination of
women and babes, that He gave maidens to satisfy the lust
of soldiers, that He enslaved His own children, that man is
a blasphemer. In my judgment, it would be far better to
deny the existence of God entirely.
It is also charged against me that I am endeavouring to
“assassinate God.” Well, I think that is about as reason
able as anything Mr. Talmage says. The idea of assassinating
an infinite being is of course infinitely absurd. One would
think Mr. Talmage had lost his reason 1 And yet this man
stands at the head of the Presbyterian clergy. It is for this
reason that I answer him. He is the only Presbyterian
minister in the United States, so far as I know, able to draw
an audience. He is, without doubt, the leader of that denomination. He is orthodox and conservative. He believes
implicitly in the “Five Points” of Calvin, and says nothing
simply for the purpose of attracting attention. He believes
that God damns a man for His own glory j that He sends
�R. G. Ingersoll's Reply to Mr. Talmage.
7
babes to hell to establish His mercy, and that He filled the
world with disease and crime simply to demonstrate His
wisdom. He believes that billions of years before the earth
was, God had made up His mind as to the exact number
that He would eternally damn, and had counted His
saints. This doctrine he calls “glad tidings of great joy.”
He really believes that every man who is true to himself is
waging war against God; that every infidel is a rebel; that
every free-thinker is a traitor, and that only those are good
subjects who have joined the Presbyterian Church, know the
Shorter Catechism by heart, and subscribe liberally toward
lifting the mortgage on the Brooklyn Tabernacle. All the
rest are endeavouring to assassinate God, plotting murder of
the Holy Ghost, and applauding the Jews for the crucifixion
of Christ. If Mr. Talmage is correct in his views as to the
power and wisdom of God, I imagine that his enemies at last
will be overthrown, that the assassins and murderers will not
succeed, and that the Infinite, with Mr. Talmage’s assistance,
will finally triumph. If there is an infinite God, certainly he
ought to have made man grand enough to have and express
an opinion of his own. Is it possible that God can be
gratified with the applause of moral cowards 1 Does he seek
to enhance his glory by receiving the adulation of cringing
slaves ? Is God satisfied with the adoration of the frightened 1
But Mr. Talmage has made an exceedingly important dis
covery. He finds nearly all the inventions of modern times
mentioned in the Bible. I admit that I am somewhat amazed
at the wisdom of the ancients. This discovery has been made
just in the nick of time. Millions of people were losing their
respect for the Old Testament. They were beginning to
think that there was some discrepancy between the pro
phecies of Ezekiel and Daniel, and the latest developments in
physical science. Thousands of preachers were telling their
flocks that the Bible is not a scientific book : that Joshua
was not an inspired astronomer, that God never enlightened
Moses about geology, and that Ezekiel did not understand
the entire art of cookery. These admissions caused some
young people to suspect that the Bible, after all, was not
inspired; that the prophets of antiquity did not know as
�8
7?. G. Ingersoll's Reply to Mr. Talmage.
much as the discoverers of to-day. The Bible was falling into
disrepute. Mr. Talmage has rushed to the rescue. He
shows, and shows conclusively, as anything can be shown
from the Bible, that Job understood all the laws of light
thousands of years before Newton lived ; that he anticipated’
the discoveries of Descartes, Huxley, and Tyndall; that he
was familiar with the telegraph and telephone ; that Morse,
Bell, and Edison simply put his discoveries in successful
operation; that Nahum was, in fact, a master mechanic;
that he understood perfectly the modem railway and
described it so accurately that Trevethick, Foster, and
Stephenson had no difficulty in constructing a locomotive.
He also has discovered that Job was well acquainted
with the trade winds, and understood the mysterious
currents, tides, and pulses of the sea; that Maury was
a plagiarist; that Humboldt was simply a Biblical
student. He finds that Isaiah and Solomon were far
behind Galileo, Morse, Meyer, and Watt. This is a
discovery wholly unexpected to me. If Mr. Talmage
is right, I am satisfied the Bible is an inspired book.
If it shall turn out that Joshua was superior to Laplace,
that Moses knew more about geology than Humboldt,
lhat Job as a scientist was the superior of Kepler, that
Isaiah knew more than Copernicus, and that even the
minor prophets excelled the inventors and discoverers of our
time then I will admit that infidelity must become speech
less for ever. Until I read this sermon, I had never even
suspected that the inventions of modern times were known
to the ancient Jews. I never supposed that Nahum knew
the least thing about railroads, or that Job would have
known a telegraph if he had seen it. I never supposed that
Joshua comprehended the three laws of Kepler. Of course
I have not read the Old Testament with as much care as
some other people have, and when I did read it I was not
looking for inventions and discoveries. I had been told so
often that the Bible was no authority upon scientific
questions, that I was lulled almost into a state of lethargy.
What is amazing to me is that so many men did read it
without getting the slightest hint of the smallest invention.
�R. G. Ingersoll's Reply to Mr. Talmage.
9
To think that the Jews read that book for hundreds and
hundreds of years, and yet went to their graves without the
slightest notion of astronomy or geology, of railroads,
telegraphs, or steamboats. And then to think that the early
fathers made it the study of their lives, and died without
inventing anything! I am astonished that Mr. ' Talmage
does not figure in the records of the Patent Office himself,
I cannot account for this, except upon the supposition that
he was too honest to infringe on the patents of the patriarchs.
After this, I shall read the Old Testament with more care.
Mr. Talmage endeavours to convict me of great ignorance
in not knowing that the word translated “rib” should have
been translated “side,” and that Eve, after all, was not
made out of a rib, but out of Adam’s side. I may have been
misled by taking the Bible as it is translated. The Bible
account is simply this: “And the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And He took one of
his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib
which the Lord God had taken from man made He a woman,
and brought her unto the man. And Adam said: This is
now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be
called woman, because she was taken out of man.” If Mr.
Talmage is right, then the account should be as follows:
“ And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam,
and he slept; and He took one of his sides, and closed up
the flesh thereof; and the side which the Lord ’ God had
taken from man made He a woman, and brought her unto
the man. And Adam said : This is now side of my side, and
flesh of my flesh.” I do not see that the story is made any
better by using the word “ side ” instead of “ rib.” It would
be just as hard for God to make a woman out of a
man’s side as out of a rib. Mr. Talmage ought not to
question the power of God to make a woman out of a bone,
and he must recollect that the less the material the greater
the miracle. There are two accounts of the creation of man
in Genesis, the first being in the twenty-first verse of the
first chapter, and the second being in the twenty-first and
twenty-second verses of the second chapter. According to
the second account, “ God formed man of the dust of the
�10
R. G. Ingersoll’s Reply to Mr. Talmage.
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”
And after this, “ God planted a garden eastward in Eden,
and pnt the man” in this garden. After this, “He made
every tree to grow that was good for food and pleasant to
the sight,” and, in addition, “ the tree of life in the midst of
the garden” beside “the tree of the knowledge of good and
eviL” And He “put the man in the garden to dress it and.
keep it,” telling him that he might eat of everything he saw
except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. After this,
God, having noticed that it was not good for man to be alone,
formed out of the ground every beast of the field, every fowl
of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would
call them, and Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl
of the air, and to every beast of the field. “But for Adam there
was not found an helpmeet for him.” We are not told how
Adam learned the language, nor how he understood what God
said. I can hardly believe that any man can be created with the
knowledge of a language. Education cannot be ready made
and stuffed into a brain. Each person must learn a language
for himself. Yet in this account we find a language ready
made for man’s use. And not only man was enabled to
speak, but a serpent also has the powei’ of speech, and the
woman holds a conversation with this animal and with her
husband; and yet no account is given of how any language
was learned. God is described as walking in the garden in
the cool of the day, speaking like a man—holding conversa
tions with the man and woman, occasionally addressing the
serpent. In the nursery rhymes of the world there is nothing
more childish than the creation of man and woman. The
early fathers of the church held that woman was inferior to
man, because man was not made for woman, but woman for
man; because Adam was made first and Eve afterward.
They had not the gallantry of Robert Burns, who accounted
for the beauty of woman from the fact that God practised on
man first, and then gave woman the benefit of his experience.
Think, in this age of the world, of a well educated, intelligent
gentleman telling his little child that about six thousand
years ago a mysterious being called God made the world out
of His “omnipotence;” then made a man out of some dust
�R. G. Ingersoll's Reply to Mr. Talmage.
11
which he is supposed to have moulded into form; that he
put this man in a garden for the purpose of keeping the trees
trimmed j that after a little while he noticed that the man
seemed lonesome, not particularly happy, almost homesick;
that then it occurred to this God that it would be a good
thing for the man to have some company, somebody to help
him trim the trees, to talk to him and cheer him up on
rainy days; that thereupon this God caused a deep sleep to
fall on the man, took a knife, or a long, sharp piece of
“ omnipotence,” and took out one of the man’s sides, or a rib,
and of that made a woman; and then this man and woman
got along real well till a snake got into the garden and
induced the woman to eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil; that the woman got the man to take a bite;
and afterwards both of them were detected by God, who was
walking around in the cool of the evening, and thereupon
they were turned out of the garden, lest they should put
forth their hands and eat of the tree of life and live for ever.
This foolish story has been regarded as the sacred, the
inspired truth, as an account substantially written by God
himself; and thousands and millions of people have supposed
it necessary to believe this childish falsehood, in order to
save their souls. Nothing more laughable can be found in
the fairy tales and folk-lore of savages. Yet this is defended
by the leading Presbyterian divine, and those who fail to
believe in the truth of this story are called “ brazen faced
fools,” “deicides,” and “ blasphemers.”
By this story
woman in all Christian countries was degraded. She was
considered too impure to preach the gospel, too impure to
distribute the sacramental bread, too impure to hand about
the sacred wine, too impure to step within the “holy of
holies,” in the Catholic churches too impure to be touched
by a priest. Unmarried men were considered purer than
husbands and fathers. Nuns were regarded as superior to
mothers, a monastery holier than a home, a nunnery nearer
sacred than the cradle. And through all these years it has
been thought better to love God than to love man, better to
love God than to love your wife and children, better to
worship an imaginary deity than to help your fellow-men.
�12
II. G. Ingersoll's Reply to Mr. Talmage.
I regard the rights of men and women equal. In love’s fair
realm husband and wife are king and queen, sceptred and
crowned alike, and seated on the self-same throne.
Mr. Talmage denies that the Bible sanctions polygamy,
but I see nothing in what he has said calculated to change
my opinion. It has been admitted by thousands of theolo
gians that the Old Testament upholds polygamy. Mr. Talmage
is among the first to deny it. It will not do to say that
David was punished for the crime of polygamy or concu
binage. He was 11a man after God’s own heart.” He was made
a king. He was a successful general, and his blood is said to
have flowed in the veins of God. Solomon was, according to
the account, enriched with wisdom above all human beings.
Was that a punishment for having had so many wives ? Was
Abraham pursued by the justice of God because of the crime
against Hagar, or for the crime against his own wife ? The
verse quoted by Mr. Talmage to show that God was opposed
to polygamy, namely, the eighteenth verse of the eighteenth
chapter of Leviticus, cannot by any ingenuity be tortured
into a command against polygamy. The most that can be
possibly said of it is, that you shall not marry the sister of
your wife while your wife is living. Yet this passage is
quoted by Mr. Talmage as “ a thunder of prohibition against
having more than one wife.” In the twentieth chapter of
Leviticus it is enacted: “ That if a man take a wife and her
mother they shall be burned with fire.” A commandment
like that shows that he might take his wife and somebody
else’s mother. These passages have nothing to do with
polygamy. They show whom you may marry, not how many;
and there is not in Leviticus a solitary word against poly
gamy—not one. Nor is there such a word in Genesis, or
Exodus, or in the entire Pentateuch—not one word. And
yet these books are filled with the most minute directions
about killing sheep and goats and doves—about making
clothes for priests, about fashioning tongs and snuffers—and
yet not one word against polygamy. It never occurred to
the inspired writers that polygamy was a crime. It was taken
as a matter of course. Women were simple property. Mr.
Talmage, however, insists that, although God was against
�R. G. Ingersoll’s Reply to Mr. Talmage.
13
polygamy, he permitted it, and at the same time threw his
moral influence against it. Upon this subject he says : “No
doubt God permitted polygamy to continue for some time,
just as He permits murder, arson, and theft, and gambling
to-day to continue, although He is against them.” If God is
the author of the Ten Commandments, He prohibited mur
der and theft, but He said nothing about polygamy. If He
was so terribly against these crimes, why did He forget to
mention the other. Was there not room enough on the tables
of stone for just one word on this subject? Had He no time to
give a commandment against slavery? Mr. Talmage of course
insists that God has to deal with these things gradually,
his idea being that if God had made a commandment
against it all at once, the Jews would have had nothing more
to do with Him. For instance, if we wanted to break canni
bals of eating missionaries, we should not tell them all at
once that it was wrong, that it was wicked to eat missionaries
raw; we should induce them first to cook the missionaries,
and gradually wean them from raw flesh. This would be the
first great step. We would stew the missionaries, and after
a time put a little mutton in the stew, not enough to excite
the suspicion of the cannibal, but just enough to get him in
the habit of eating mutton without knowing it. Day after
day we would put in more mutton and less missionary, until
finally the cannibal would be perfectly satisfied with clear
mutton. Then we would tell him that it was wrong to eat
missionary. After the cannibal got so that he liked mutton
best, and cared nothing for missionary, then it would be safe
to have a law upon the subject. Mr. Talmage insists that
polygamy cannot exist among people who believe the Bible.
In this he is mistaken. The Mormons all believe the Bible.
There is not a single polygamist in Utah who does not insist
upon the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. The
Bev. Mr. Newman, a kind of peripatetic theologian, once
had a discussion, I believe, with Elder Heber Kimball at Salt
Lake City, upon the question of polygamy. It is sufficient
to say of this discussion that it is now circulated among the
Mormons as a campaign document. The elder overwhelmed
the parson. Passages of Scripture in favour of polygamy were
�14
-K. G. Ingersoll's Teply to Mr. Talmage.
quoted by the hundred. The lives of all the patriarchs were
brought forward, and poor parson Newman was driven from
the field. The truth is, the Jews at that time were much like
our forefathers. They were barbarians, and many of their
laws were unjust and cruel. Polygamy was the right of all
practised, as a matter of fact, by the rich and powerful, and
the rich and powerful were envied by the poor. In such
esteem did the ancient Jews hold polygamy, that the number
of Solomon’s wives was given simply to enhance his glory.
My own opinion is, that Solomon had very few wives and that
polygamy was not general in Palestine. The country was
too poor, and Solomon in all his glory was hardly able to
support one wife. He was a poor barbarian king with a
limited revenue, with a poor soil, with a sparse population,
without art, without science, and without power. He sus
tained about the same relation to other kings as Delaware
does to other States. Mr. Talmage says that God persecuted
Solomon, and yet, if he will turn to the twenty-second
chapter of I. Chronicles, he will find what God promised to
Solomon. God, speaking to David, says: “ Behold, a son
shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest, and I will
give him rest from his enemies round about; for his name
shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto
Israel in his days. He shall build a house in my name, and
he shall be my son and I will be his father, and I will
establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.”
Did God keep his promise ? So he tells us that David was
persecuted by God, on account of his offences, and yet I
find in the twenty-eighth verse of the twenty-ninth chapter
of i. Chronicles, the following account of the death of
David . And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches,
and honour.” Is this true ?
Then I am charged with attacking Queen Victoria, and of
drawing a parallel between her and George Eliot, calculated
to lower the reputation of the Queen. I never said a word
against Victoria. The fact is, unlike Mr. Talmage, I am not
acquainted with her never met her in my life and know but
little of her. I never happened to see her in “ plain clothes,
reading the Bible to the poor in the lane,” neither did I ever
�E. G. Ingersoll’s Eeply to Mr. Talmage.
15
hear her sing. I most cheerfully admit that her reputation
is good in the neighbourhood where she resides. In one of
my lectures I drew a parallel between George Eliot and
Victoria. I was showing the difference between a woman who
had won her position in the world of thought and one who
was queen by chance. This is what I said: “ It no longer
satisfies the ambition of a great man to be a king or emperor.
The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being the Emperor
of the French. He was not satisfied with having a circlet of
gold about his head—he wanted some evidence that he had
something’of value in his head. So he wrote the life of Julius
Csesar that he might become a member of the French Academy.
The emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above
their fellows. Compare King William with the philosopher
Haeckel. The king is one of the “anointed by the Most
High” —as they claim—one upon whose head has been
poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king
with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual Colossus above the
crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen
Victoria. The queen is clothed in garments given her by blind
fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears
robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius. The
world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to
art. I said not one word against Queen Victoria, and did not
intend to even intimate that she was not an excellent woman,
wife, and mother. I was simply trying to show that the world
was getting great enough to place the genius above an acci
dental queen. Mr. Talmage, true to the fawning, cringing
spirit of orthodoxy, lauds the living queen and cruelly
maligns the genius dead. He digs open the grave of George
Eliot, and tries to stain the sacred dust of one who was the
greatest woman England has produced. He calls her “ an
adulteress.” He attacks her because she was an atheist—■
because she abhorred Jehovah, denied the inspiration of the
Bible, denied the dogma of eternal pain, and with all her
heart despised the Presbyterian creed. He hates her because
she was great and brave and free—because she lived without
“faith” and died without fear—because she dared to give
her honest thought, and grandly bore the taunts and slanders
�16
R. G. Ingersoll's Reply to Mr. Talmage.
of the Christian world. George Eliot tenderly carried in
her heart the burdens of our race. She looked through
pity’s tears upon the faults and frailties of mankind. She
knew the springs and seeds of thought and deed, and saw
with cloudless eyes through all the winding ways of greed,
ambition, and deceit, where folly vainly plucks with thornpierced hands the fading flowers of selfish joy—the highway
of eternal right. Whatever her relations may have been—
no matter what I think or others say, or how much all regret
the one mistake in all her self-denying, loving life—I feel
and know that in the court where her own conscience sat as
judge, she stood acquitted—pure as light and stainless as a
star. How appropriate here, with some slight change, the
wondrously poetic and pathetic words of Laertes at Ophelia’s
grave—
Leave her i’ the earth ;
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring ! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall this woman be,
When thou liest howling !
I have no words with which to tell my loathing for a man
who violates a noble woman’s grave.
John Heywood, Excelsior Steam Printing and Bookbinding Works,
Hulme Hall Road, Manchester.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The answer of Robt. G. Ingersoll to a sermon preached by the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, from the text: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Manchester; London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from British Library. Stamp on front cover: Freethought Publishing Co., Printing Office, 68 Fleet Street., E.C., A. Bonner, Manager. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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John Heywood
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1882]
Identifier
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N330
Subject
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Atheism
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The answer of Robt. G. Ingersoll to a sermon preached by the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, from the text: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Free Thought
NSS
-
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b5f1ccd3a1db28e0c2742c2e54b3f93c
PDF Text
Text
LESSONS FOR THE DAY,
Consisting of DISCOURSES delivered it South Place Chapel, Finsbury,
By MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Published every Thursday.
HE publication of this Serial was commenced on October 5th,
1882, to meet the
the
Tdiscourses delivered onconstant applicationsat for copies of Chapel,
Sunday mornings
South Place
Finsbury, and also with the view of disseminating as widely as pos
sible the principles of Rational Religion. Of those principles Mr.
Conway is recognised as one of the most able exponents, and when
fairly examined they will be found to meet the requirements of the
modern intellect, and to have a thoroughly practical bearing on the
every-day life of the individual, the family, and the community.
It has been too much the habit to treat religion as a matter only
for the church and for one day in the week ; but “ Lessons for
the Day,” although delivered on Sunday mornings, will not be
found inappropriate to any time or place, since they deal with
matters in which all intelligent persons not only ought to be, but
are interested.
The co-operation of all who desire to see rational religion
triumph over superstition on the one hand, and selfish indifferentism on the other, is earnestly invoked, to aid in securing for this
periodical a wide circulation.
Since the publication was'Steeted there have been many expres
sions, both in the press and privately, of the high estimation in
which the “ Lessons ” are held by those under whose notice they
have come ; and it may fairly be hoped that a further continued
effort to make their existence known amongst the liberal and
earnest-minded will make the enterprise self-supporting.
A FEW OPINIONS OF TITE PRESS.
“ ‘ Lessons for the Day ’ is the title under which, from week to
week, will in future be issued the discourses of Mr. Moncure D.
Conway, at South Place, Finsbury. Mr. Conway is well known
as one of the boldest and most eloquent of the preachers who
undertake to propound on Sundays a higher religion than generally
finds expression in the orthodox churches and chapels. He is
also a well-known writer of books on secular subjects, if, indeed,
it is possible to distinguish between the secular teaching of one
who sees religion in everything, and the religious teaching of one
who finds the purest spiritual life in the honest performance of
every-day affairs. These penny ‘ Lessons of the Day,’ published
by Mr. E. W. Allen, ought to be profitable to a very large class of
pupils.”—Weekly Dispatch, Oct. 15, 1882.
“ We commend this tract (‘ Blasphemous Libels ’) to the atten
tion of the zealous, well-meaning folk who in this ancient city
are ‘ working the oracle ’ against the Affirmation Bill. We think
that a quiet perusal of the tract will show them that the less they
stir up this matter the better for the religious peace of the common
people.”—Western Times, March 27, 1883.
[P. T. O.
�“ Mr. Moncure D. Conway has now for some time published,
week by week, his Sunday morning discourses at South Place
Chapel, .Finsbury. Number 16 of these publications deals with
the subject of ‘Prayer;’ and though the views which are ex
pressed by Mr. Conway upon this matter are not those which are
cherished by most of our readers, we may say that his words are
often so suggestive, and always so pertinent, that Christian
preachers and teachers will do well to peruse them. In peaceful
hours of thought and feeling, when religious men are far off from
the battle, and the noise of things militant, Mr. Conway observes
that ‘ a very serious confusion is apt to arise in any mind that
attempts to pray. To whom are we praying ? For what are we
praying ? And why should we pray for it ? Are we praying because
of old habit, or because of a genuine conviction that prayer has a
definite place in the economy of nature, like eating and working ?’
Such questions as these arise, and may stagger the sincerest heart.
Strong thinkers and deep natures want help on such difficulties.
Any way, Mr. Conway writes like a man in earnest.”—Christian
World, Jan. 25, 1883.
“ In literary value alone they are of high merit, and the rational
thought which pervades them is well calculated to sow the seeds
of Rationalism among the thoughtful. Mr. Conway is an apt and
versatile scholar, and his discourses are well worth preservation.”
—Secular Review, Nov. 18, 1882.
The following have alre idy been published
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
1.—THIS OUR DAY.
2.—THE CELESTIAL RAILWAY.
3.—JACOB’S WELL.
4.—THE DESCENT FROM THE '
CROSS.
5.—MARY MAGDALENE’S VISION.
6—INDIVIDUAL AND SPECIES.
7.—THE
EDUCATION
OF
CHARACTER.
8.—PESSIMISM.
9.—NEW VIEWS OF NATURAL
RELIGION.
10.—SOVEREIGNTY OF THE
SUBJECT.
11.—TRUTH CRUSHED TO EARTH.
12.—THE DOUBTING DISCIPLE.
No. 13—THE BIRTH OF A GOD.
No. 14.—THE HUMANIZED UNIVERSE.
No. 15.—SACRED BOOKS.
No. 16.—PRAYER.
No. 17.—SAINTLY SOLDIERS.
No. 18.—SAINT AGNES.
No. 19.—THE FIRST PERSON.
No. 20—THE GOSPEL OF ART.
No. 21.—EVOLUTIONIST ERRORS.
No. 22.—WHAT CAN INDIA TEACH
US ?
No. 23.—THE WOUNDED CHRIST.
No. 24.—BLASPHEMOUS LIBELS.
No. 25.—WAGNER.
No. 26.—THE FREETHINKER’S VISION
BEYOND DEATH.
The Publisher, Mr. Allen, Ave Maria Lane, will supply copies free by post for 6s. 6d. per
annum, if any difficulty is four 1 in obtaining them otherwise.
USTOW
BEADY.
LESSONS FOR THE DAY, VOL. 1,
Containing the above 26 Nos. neatly bound in cloth,
PRICE THREE SHILLINGS.
Also CASES for binding the first volume, price SIXPENCE EACH.
LESSONS FOR THE DAY
May be obtained of the following Booksellers and Newsagents :—
Wade & Co., Ludgate Arcade.
J. Samuel, 41, Randolph St., Camden Town.
H. Cattell. 84, Fleet Street.
M. A. Baker, 125, Kentish Town Road.
Freethought Publishing Co., Fleet Street.
M. Austin, 12A, Grange Rd., Chalk Farm Road.
J. Simpson, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.
B. Dobell, 62, Queen’s Crescent, Haverstock
Ritchie & Co., Red Lion Court, Fleet Street.
Hill.
Fawless & Co., 1, Philpot Lane, E.C.
B. Ralph, 10, St.John’s Road. Hoxton.
Terry & Co., 6, Hatton Garden.
G. R. Hanson, in, Roman Rd., Victoria Park.
E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn.
W.Ackland, 4, BishoD’s Rd., Cambridge Heath.
T. Baker, ig, Windmill Street, Finsbury.
R. Morriss, 19, Camberwell Green.
W. Toler, 54, Praed Street. W.
Shore Bros., 33, Newington Green Road.
Dale, 50, Crawford Street, W.
B. Buckmaster. Newington Butts.
R. M. Morrell, 13, Francis Street, W.C.
St. George’s Hall, Lower Edmonton.
G. Chard, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.
Wm. West, 4, Birkbeck Villas, Birkbeck Rd.,
G. Biddiss, 98, Euston Street.
Tottenham.
J. C. Parkinson, 39, Ossulston Street, N.W.
J. C. Ames, Lyham Road, Clapham Park.
W. Gammell, 35, High Street, Camden Town.
&c.
&c.
Additions to this list may be sent to , ■. "t. R. Wright, 44, Essex Street, W.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lessons for the day, consisting of discourses delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, by Moncure D. Conway
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
South Place Religious Society
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 1 leaf ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1882]
Identifier
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G5715
Publisher
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[s.l.]
Subject
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Lessons for the day, consisting of discourses delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, by Moncure D. Conway), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Lectures
Moncure Conway
-
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3a91edaf5145490b644f743522cde24f
PDF Text
Text
REPORT
OF THE
COMMITTEE
OF
SOUTH PLACE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY,
FOR THE YEAR 1881.
�SOUTH PLACE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY,
1881.
Minister:
MONCURE D. CONWAY, M.A., Inglewood, Bedford Park, Chiswick, W.
Committee:
Mr. W. CROWDER.
„ P. EVERITT.
„ S. G. FENTON.
Mrs. I. FISHER.
Mr. 0. FITCH.
Miss C. FLETCHER.
Mr. J. A. GOTCH.
„ C. B. GRANT.
„ J. HALLAM.
„ R. G. HEMBER.
Miss E. PHIPSON.
Mr. J. PUNNETT.
„ W. J. REYNOLDS.
„ G. E. SADD.
Miss SHAPLAND.
Mr. W. C. STOREY.
H. THORNDIKE.
99
J. H. K. TODD.
99
G. WALKER.
99
r. T. R. WRIGHT.
Treasurer and Chairman :
Mr. GEORGE HICKSON, 35, Highbury New Park, N.
Secretary:
Mr. W. J. REYNOLDS, 19, Cawley Road, Victoria Park, E.
Auditors:
Mr. C. H. SEYLER.
Mr. J. A. LYON.
Trustees:
Mr.
„
„
„
„
W. BURR.
J. CUNNINGTON.
G. HICKSON.
J. A. LYON.
M. E. MARSDEN.
W. C. NEVITT.
J. L. SHUTE R.
F. WALTERS.
S. H. WATERLOW, Bart.
M.P.
Mr. A. J. WATERLOW.
Mr.
„
„
Sir
Secretary Soiree Committee :
Miss E. PHIPSON, 14, Connaught Square, W.
Choir Master and Organist:
Mr, J, S. SHEDLOCK, 4, Lower James Street, Golden Square, W.
�80UTH PLACE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY.
REPORT FOR 1881.
In taking a glance at those events of the past year which have
touched most closely the aims and sympathies of this Society, we
find many things which afford ground for encouragement and
congratulation. To us, it cannot be a matter for unconcerned or
indifferent reflection, that the sinister divorce between politics and
morality which has often been illustrated in our previous history, is
no longer witnessed. In nothing has our boasted civilization
been more deeply discredited, than in the cynical contempt with
which the authority of ethical principles has been repudiated in
the direction of national affairs, even by men who would be the
last to dispute their binding force in private life. A new era, we
may thankfully hope, has now dawned upon us, in which “ our
country, right or wrong,” shall no longer be the watchword ; when
British interests shall no more be made the excuse for territorial
aggression ; when the rights of other nations shall be equally
respected, whatever their colour, creed, material power, or credit
in the money market; when, in short, the weak are treated with
as much consideration as the strong, and it is generally acknow
ledged that the real greatness of Great Britain rests on her moral
grandeur rather than on her military prowess and pecuniary
resources.
This principle has been illustrated not only in foreign affairs,
but also in the remedial legislation of the past session with regard
to Ireland. This is not the place to deal in any detail with this
�4
much vexed question, but we cannot fail to observe with satisfaction
that, in the face of much opposition and strong temptation to
pursue the old lines of stern repression, the one main desire and
determination of this country has been to do justice, regardless of
class interests.
But while, in looking around us, we see much to rejoice at, we
are also bound to face the fact that there is much which may well
give pause to optimistic congratulations, and lead us to take a
sober measure of the strength of that fortress of superstition and
intolerance, which it is one of our main objects to undermine.
Not to dwell upon various reported instances of persons losing
public appointments by reason of their heterodox opinions (either
openly avowed, or, as in one case, only suspected), the case of
Mr. Bradlaugh is of itself sufficient to display most impressively
at once the virulence and the vitality of the forces which are
arrayed against freedom of opinion in religious matters. Although
to the thoughtful mind there is something intensely ludicrous
in the notion that the status of an almighty ruler of the universe
can be affected by the admission of an individual who denies his
existence, to a seat in Parliament; or that his position can be
rendered more secure by the efforts of the gentlemen who kindly
come forward to protect him; still the main aspect of the case is a
serious one, and indicates the necessity for unremitting vigilance
and renewed effort on the part of all who value either political or
religious freedom. Our members will, doubtless, remember how
effectively this disgraceful attempt to wrest constitutional forms
into the service of theological animosity, was dealt with by
Mr. Conway in his lecture, “ The Oath and its Ethics,” and will
be glad to know that the Committee sent a copy of the address
when published to every Member of Parliament, and to the editors
of the leading newspapers.
Attention has recently been called, in the public press, to the
comparatively small attendance at the ordinary places of worship
in various towns; but the facts thus disclosed can hardly be sur=
�5
prising to those who recognize the great gulf which is now firmly
established, and is daily growing wider, between present-day
knowledge and dogmas which took shape when the whole of that
knowledge was practically non-existent. The question which
rather calls for an answer is — why, in the face of
so much growing intelligence, do so many still go to church ?
The answer given in a leading periodical—that even an Agnostic
ought to go to church in order to set a good example, because, on
the whole, the teaching does more good than harm, and that he
does not deny a deity, but only doubts his existence—will, we should
hope, satisfy few, and might easily be shown to be untenable.
Though the Agnostic may not deny, as a philosophical propo
sition, the existence of a creator of the universe, he most cer
tainly must, if his moral nature be such as to qualify him for a
position in decent society, deprecate the worship of the jealous,
revengeful, and despotic deity of the ancient Hebrews, whose
praises are appointed “to be said or sung in churches”; and the
doctrine that what one does not believe one’s self should be coun
tenanced, in order that it may continue to impose on the less
instructed, is morally pernicious ; and, if practically carried out,
would prevent all reforms whatever.
We can hardly pass by unnoticed the death of Deau Stanley,
occupying, as he did, so conspicuous a position in the Broad
Church party. In the service which’ he rendered to the emanci
pation of religion from the fetters of dogma, he perhaps “ builded
better than he knew”; but not the less on this account do we owe
an appreciative tribute to the large human sympathy displayed
throughout his career, and to the fact that in him theological
rancour and prejudice ever found an unflinching antago
nist.
The publication of the Revised Version of the New Testament
is an event not without interest, but its main importance lies in
the fact that it brought home to multitudes in this country, per
haps for the first time, the fact that Jesus and his Apostles did not
�6
speak or write in English, and that there might possibly be
doubts as to what really was the “Word of God.”
During the past year it has been a source of much pleasure to
your Committee to note not only the bodily health and vigour
which Mr. Conway has enjoyed, but the increasing richness of his
mental resources, and especially to remark that throughout his
lectures there has run a pure vein of moral earnestness which can
not have failed to influence his hearers for the better. Several of
these lectures have been published, and have met with a consider
able sale; but we commend to your consideration, and that of our
successors, the question whether some means cannot be devised
for obtaining for these addresses a much wider circulation than
can be expected under the present system.
Our platform has also been very ably occupied during the year
by Mrs. Livermore; three times by Dr. Andrew Wilson, who
kindly presented us for publication his last lecture on “The
Religious Aspects of Health”; and by Mr. Frederic Harrison,
whose lecture on “ Pantheism and Cosmic Emotion ” has also
been kindly given to us by Mr. Harrison, and printed during the
past year.
The attendance on Sunday mornings has been good, but there
still remain more seats unlet than we had hoped would be the case.
During the recess the outside of the Chapel was painted. This
was accomplished without trenching on our ordinary sources of
income, by the aid of a few of the members, who voluntarily
raised the necessary amount. A small sum has also been expended
in advertising the services at railway stations; and though much
effect has not yet been traced to this source, it is hoped that a
steady continuance of the same means may not be without sub
stantial results.
A fund has been started for the purpose of paying off the
mortgage debt in accordance with the recommendation received
by the Committee at the last Annual Meeting. The sum obtained
during the past year, including subscriptions, special collection
�7
and profits on Soirees, amounted to £74 Is. 8d. Trustees will
have to be appointed, in whose names this fund will be invested.
Owing to the death of the mortgagee, a new mortgage had to be
effected, and it is gratifying to be able to state that this was
arranged at a reduced rate of interest.
In order to meet objections which were sometimes raised to the
character of some of the hymns in our collection, a preface has
been prepared by Mr. Conway, explaining the circumstances under
which they are used, which can hardly fail to prevent any mis
understanding in future.
The monthly soirees during the past year have been unusually
attractive, and the Committee desire to thank most heartily the
ladies and gentlemen through whose unwearied exertions they have
been made so successful. The Annual Ball also in April afforded
much satisfaction to the members. By these united means a sum
of £30 9s. 8d. has been added to our resources.
By reference to the Balance Sheet it will be seen that the
receipts for seat rents are in excess of those of the previous
year. On the occasion of the death of a highly respected
and valued member of the congregation, a special appeal was
made on behalf of his widow and family, which produced a sum
of £115 11s. 4d., which is included in the Benevolent Fund.
In our last report no reference was made to the musical portion
of our services, as it was felt not to be altogether satisfactory, and
was then receiving the anxious attention of the Committee. The
same careful consideration has been continued throughout the
year, and finally, though with great reluctance, it was decided to
replace the whole of the choir, with one exception, and also the
organist. It is as yet too early to speak very decisively as to the
result, especially as unforeseen difficulties at the last moment pre
vented the full realization of the improvement, but it is the firm
determination of your Committee not to rest satisfied until this
important portion of our public service is rendered as nearly
perfect as posssible,
�Your Committee cannot conclude this Report without expressing
the great regret with which they have received the resignation by
Mr. W. J. Reynolds of the important office of Hon. Sec. to the
Society. For many years he has discharged the important and
onerous duties devolving upon him in a manner beyond all praise,
and it will be a satisfaction to all to know that it is from sheer
lack of time, not from any diminution of interest, that he feels
compelled to relinquish what has been to him throughout a labour
of love. Probably, the most important business awaiting the new
Committee will be the selection of someone able to worthily fill
the office thus vacated.
�NOTICE.
In accordance with the Rules, seven members of the Committee
will retire from office at the ensuing Annual Meeting, and are not
eligible for re-election until next year. The members so retiring
are Mr. W. Crowder, Mr. P. Everitt, Mr. C. B. Grant, Mr. J.
Punnett, Mr. G. E. Sadd, Mr. W. C. Storey, and Mr. T. R. Wright.
In addition, Mr. R. G. Hember has resigned, and Mr. 0. Fitch
vacates his seat on the Committee by having ceased to be a member
of the Society. The members will, therefore, have to elect nine
new members of the Committee and two Auditors. Nominations
for the above offices must be forwarded to the Secretary (in
writing) on or before February 2nd. Printed forms for nomina
tions can be obtained in the library, or will be forwarded by the
Secretary upon application.
The Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday,
February 16th, at 7 p.m. precisely.
Fbedkbick G. Hickson & Co., 257 High Holbobn, W.C.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Report of the committee of South Place Religious Society for the year 1881
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
South Place Religious Society
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8, [3] p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[South Place Religious Society]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1882]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5581
Subject
The topic of the resource
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Report of the committee of South Place Religious Society for the year 1881), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
South Place Religious Society
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Text
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Life of Richard Cobden
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Whitehurst, Edward Capel [1838-1923]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: p. 98-136 ; 22 cm.
Notes: Review by John Morley of "The Life of Richard Cobden" by John Morley published London: Chapman & Hall, 1881. Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Westminster Review 61 (January 1882).
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1882]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT31
Subject
The topic of the resource
Book reviews
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Life of Richard Cobden), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts