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LIFE AND LAST DAYS
Robert Owen,
✓
OF
NEW LANARK.
By GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
Centenaby Edition.
LONDON:
TEUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW,
1871.
��PREFACE.
The discourse on the death of Robert Owen, which concludes
this brief ‘ Life/ was several times delivered in London and the
provinces; the last time, and in its completest form, in the
Public Hall, Rochdale, January, 1859. On this occasion
Jacob Bright, J.P., presided.
* Mr. Jacob Bright was the first mayor of Rochdale, and is
the brother of John Bright, M.P. In his opening remarks
on taking the chair, he said, “ Mr. Holyoake, it was known,
was well qualified to speak upon Mr. Owen, and would no
doubt treat the subject with ability.” Mr. Bright did not say
one word as to whether he agreed or disagreed with Mr.
Holyoake or Mr. Owen. That point on which so many
chairmen. would have anxiously exonerated themselves, Mr.
Bright said nothing whatever. With the usual courage of his
family, he did what he choosed to do because he thought it
right to do it, quite careless of consequences. He neither asked
permission of the public nor apologised for taking it.’*
‘ In acknowledging the tribute paid to the memory of the
great philanthropist (by the presence of Mr. Bright in the
chair), the lecturer said he “ knew how to distinguish between
courtesy and complicity, and did not infer coincidence of
opinion on the part of the chair from that act.” Mr.' Bright, in
speaking to the vote of thanks passed to him, expressed his
satisfaction at the manner in which the subject had been treated.
" He thought the meeting must be instructed, and bp the better
for discourses of the character of the one to which they had
listened. The lecturer had remarked that ‘ we still live in an
age when prejudice was stronger than justice.’ That was true;
but when he (Mr. Bright) heard any man generally spoken
against by easy-going, well-to-do, and conventional people, he
always thought there must be some good in him, and he had on
this and other grounds a conviction (though differing in many
respects from Mr. Owen) that he was a man of honest ability
and benevolence, and deserved the esteem of his country, and
this impression, the Discourse to which they had listened that
night had confirmed.’!
Z. Mellor, Esq., Town Clerk of Rochdale, Mr. Aiderman
Livesy (though only recovering from a severe illness), Mr.
Aiderman Healey, Mr. Councillor Boothman, R. Mills, Esq.,
and the leading members of the Co-operative Store, were
amongst the audience present on this night.
* Reasoner, No. 660.
t Homing Star.
�4
PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF R. OWEN.
‘ Mr. Owen looks to nothing less than to renovate the world, to extirpate
all evil, to banish all punishments, to create like views and like wants,
and to guard against all conflicts and hostilities.’—Duke Bernard of
Saxe Weimar.—Daily News, November 19, 1858.
1771—Born, May 14, in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, North Wales.
1781—Arrives in London.
1783—Writes to Mr. Pitt against Sabbath desecration, from Mr.
McGuffog’s, Stamford.
1786—Engages and resides with Mr. Satterfield, Manchester.
1789— Enters into partnership with Mr. Jones, of that city.
1790— Is engaged by Mr. Drinkwater, at £300 a year.
1791— Worked up the first bags of American cotton imported into England.
1792— Proposes Dr. Dalton as a Member of the Philosophical Society of
Manchester. Discusses with Coleridge.
1794—Assists Robert Fulton, the inventor.
1797—First visits Lanark.
1799— Married Miss Dale, daughter of David Dale, of Glasgow.
1800- 8—Aids Lancaster and Bell to commence instructing the poor.
1803—Presents a Report on the state of the Cotton Trade of Great
Britain to the Glasgow Committee of Manufacturers.
1809—Commences Infant Schools at New Lanark.
1812— Was Chairman of the first Public Meeting held in Glasgow to
consider a Ten Hours’ Bill.
1813— Completed the publication of his Essays upon the Formation of
Character.
1814— Jeremy Bentham becomes his partner.
1815— Corresponds with Bishops of London, Durham, Peterborough, and
St. David’s, who are interested in his proceedings. Is visited,
at New Lanark and in London, by many of the following friends:
Lord Stowell, Lord Stewart, Romilly, Baron Goldsmid, Duke of
York, Joseph Hume, Lord Lascelles, Dr. Bowring, Prince
Esterhazy, Henry Brougham, Vansittart, Canning, Cobbett,
- Wilberforce, Godwin, Carlile, Clarkson, Zachary Macaulay(father
of Lord Macaulay), the first Sir Robert Peel, Malthus, James
Mill, Southey, Ricardo, Sir James Mackintosh, Colonel Torrens,
Francis Place, Edward Baines, etc. Becomes acquainted with
Lords Liverpool and Sidmouth, Miss Edgeworth, Archbishop of
Armagh, John Quincey Adams. Sends his Essays on Forma
tion of Character to Napoleon Buonaparte, who desired to know
the author. The Emperor and Empress of Russia stay a fortnight
at New Lanark.
1816— Opening of the Institution in New Lanark for the formation af
character.
1817— Denounced all the religions of the world in the City of London
*
Tavern
1818— Visits the Continent, the Duke of Orleans, Cuvier, La Place, A.
Von Humboldt, Camile Jourdain, Duke de la Rochefoucault,
* In 1817 all the London mails were delayed twenty minutes by the load
of newspapers to be carried, containing reports of Mr. Owen’s speeches. In
three days he gave away 40,000 copies. On another day he ordered 30,000
of the Times and other papers, then costing 7d. and 8d. each.
�5
Sismondi, Prince Metternich, Pestalozzi, Fellenberg. Published
‘ New Views of Society.’ Letter to Archbishop of Canterbury on
the union of churches and schools.
1819— -Lent to Lord Lansdowne and Lord Brougham a teacher whom he
had trained (Mr. Buchanan) to establish the first Infant School
in Westminster. Duke of Sussex, Bishops of London, Exeter,
and Carlisle, Basil Montague, Dukes of Bedford and Portland,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and others, appointed on committees
to consider Mr. Owen’s plan.
1820—Reports to the County of Lanark on the best means of relieving
the distress of the poor.
1821— 3—Holds public meetings in the Rotunda, Dublin.
1824.—Purchases Harmony Estates, Indiana, from the Rappites, consist
ing of a village and 30,000 acres.
1826— Returns to Scotland. Revisits America.
1827— Returns to New Lanark to arrange his retirement.
1828— Goes out to Mexico with sanction of British Government. Is
offered California. Serves His Majesty as a sailor.
1829—Debates with Rev. A. Campbell in Cincinnati.
1832-3—Edits the ‘ Crisis’ in conjunction with his son, Robert Dale Owen.
Labour Exchange in Gray’s Inn Road is established.
1836 to 1844—Publishes Book of the New Moral World.
1838-9—Queenwood Community commences.
1840—Is denounced by the Bishop of Exeter in the House of Lords.
Publishes Manifesto in reply.
1841— Lectures on the Rational System of Society in the Egyptian Hall.
1844—Resides in America.
1847—Leaves America, and resides in England.
1849—Publishes ‘ Revolution in Mind and Practice.’
1850—Letters to Human Race.
1851— Commences ‘Robert Owen’s Journal.’
1853— Publishes ‘Rational Quarterly Review,’ which announces his
‘spiritual’ views.
1854— ‘ New Existence of Man upon Earth.’ ‘ Address to the Human
Race on his eighty-fourth birth-day.’
1855— Holds the World’s Convention, St. Martin’s Hall.
1856— Issues the ‘ Millennial Gazette.’
1857— Publishes his Life in two volumes. Attends the Social Science
Congress, Birmingham.
1858—Attends the Social Science Congress in Liverpool. Visits his birth
place, Newtown. Dies there, November 17.
WORDS FOR ROBERT OWEN’S MONUMENT.
Looking down into the earth, into which poor Robert Owen’s coffin was
thrust, the words of the poet were never so applicable—
* They have made him a grave too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true.’
Of all who ever breathed the breath of life, Robert Owen was the man of
largest heart, of head most wise, continually throughout the course of a
long life, sedulously, zealously, thinkingly, with ever open purse in hand,
generously, devotedly intent on devising how, best, and soonest, to miti
gate the misery incidental to the destiny of man.
Col. H. Clinton.
�6
PRINCIPAL WORKS OP R. OWEN.
The principal works of Mr. Owen are inserted here for the convenience
of any reader who may desire further information as to his principles.
Book of the New Moral World, in neat cloth boards
...
5
Development, or Principles of Home Colonization, quarto
...
1
Egyptian Hall Lectures, in reply to the Bishop of Exeter
...
1
Manifesto in reply to the Bishop
..
..
...
0
Lectures on Marriages of the Priesthood
..............
0
Address at the Opening of the Institution at New Lanark
..
0
Report to the. County of Lanark
.....................................
0
Signs of the Times
..
...
..
..............
•.
0
Address to Socialists
...
..
...
..
...............
0
Lectures at the Mechanics’ Institution -.
..
..
..
0
Owen and Brindley’s Discussion
...
...
..
...
0
Address on Eighty-fourth Birthday, and Legacy (May, 1854.) ...
°
Inauguration of the Millennium. (May, 1855.)
..
...
0
Address on Spiritual Manifestations. (July, 1855.)
..
..
0
The Millennium in Practice. (August, 1855.) ..........................
0
Report of the Great Preliminary Meeting on the Coming Millen
nium, on the 1st of January, 1855.
..
...
0
Tract on the Coming Millennium. (January, 1855.) Two
Series. Id. each series;
7 copies for
0
The New Existence of Man upon the Earth; Part 1, with an
outline of Mr. Owen’s early life, and his Addresses, etc., in
1815 and 1817. (March, 1854.)
..........................
...
2
Part 2. With Address on Opening the original Infant School
. (1816) ; Memorials to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle
(1818) ; and Essays on the Formation of Character.
(1812-13.) (June 1854.)
'..............
2
Part 3. With Report to Lanark County. (1820.) (1854.)
..
I
Part 4. With proceedings in Dublin. (1823.) (1854.)
...
2
Part 5. With Evidence respecting New Lanark. (1854.)
...
2
PartG. With Record of Spiritual Manifestations. (1855.) ...
2
Part 7. With Outline of a New Government, etc. (1855.) ...
2
The Future of the Human Race; to be attained through the ..
Agency of Spirits. (1854.)
...
..
...
..
1
National-Review, etc. (1835.) 4 Parts and 1 Vol.
..Is. and 4
Journal, Four Vols. (1850-2.)
..........................
each vol.
2
The Revolution in Mind, etc. (1850.)
.....................................
1
Letters to the Human Race. (1850.)
...............
..
..
1
Life, Two Vols.
...
...
..
..
..
...
... 21
Millennial Gazette, 1856—8, 16 numbers, from 6d. to 5s. each.
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�7
LAST DAYS OR ROBERT OWEN.
4 Gone Before ’ were the words the Hon. Robert Dale Owen selected
to place at the head of the funeral cards, in memory of his illustrious
father. The manner of his going was in keeping with the simplicity,
calmness, and beauty of his life.
Mr. Owen persisted at his advanced age, in feeble health, and in
an inclement month, October, 1858, in going down to Liver
pool. But a National Association for the advancement of Social
Science stirred the pulses of the venerable propagandist. It was the
child of his own genius and labours. At the end of his journey to
'Liverpool he had to take to his bed. On the day of the meeting—the
last public meeting he was destined to appear at—he ordered Mr.
Rigby to dress him. His feebleness was such that the operation took
two hours. He was then placed in a sedan chair, and carried to the
Hall. Four policemen bore him to the platform. It is now matter
of public history, how kindly Lord Brougham, as soon as he saw his
old friend, took him by the arm, led him forward, and obtained a
hearing for him. Then Mr. Owen, in his grand manner, proclaimed
his ancient message of science, competence, and good will to the world.
When he came to the conclusion of his first period, Lord Brougham,
out of regard to his failing strength, terminated it. He clapped his
hands, applauded his words, then said, ‘ Capital, very good, can’t be
better, Mr. Owen! There, that will do.’ Then in an under tone,
‘ Here, Rigby, convey the old gentleman to his bed.’ He was carried
back. As soon as he reached his bed he became unconscious. An
hour after he revived.
‘ Rigby, Rigby,’ he called.
• Yes, Sir—here I am.’
‘ How did I speak ? What did I say?’
‘ O, very well, Sir. I have taken down your words.
*
‘Very good, read them to me. Ah, that will do. Very important,
very important.’
Then he became unconscious again.
That scene on the Liverpool platform will not soon die out of
recollection. Lord Brougham and Mr. Owen, the two marvellous
men who stood there, were a sight not soon to be beheld again. Lord
Brougham’s vivacity at eighty was as wonderful as Mr. Owen’s un
dying ardour at eighty-eight.
For two weeks he kept his bed at the Victoria Hotel. Mr.
Rathbone frequently called to inquire after Mr. Owen’s health.
Mr. Brown, M.P., and many gentlemen, paid him a similar
compliment.
One morning he exclaimed, ‘ Rigby, pack up,
we’ll go.’
‘ Go where, Sir—to London ?’
‘ Go to my native place. I will lay my bones whence I derived
them.’
’ Dressing, delays, and carryings brought him to the Mersey. He
was conveyed over. He took the rail to Shrewsbury. Thence a
�carriage to travel thirty miles into Wales. When he came to the
border line which separates England from Wales he knew it again.
It was more than seventy years since he passed over it. He raised
himself up in his carriage, and gave a cheer. He was on his own
native land once more. It was the last cheer the old man ever gave.
He wanted to persuade Mr. Rigby that he must be sensible of the
difference of the atmosphere. With brightened eyes the aged wan
derer looked around. The old mountains stood there in their ancient
grandeur. The grand old trees, under whose shadow he passed in
his youth, waved their branches in welcome. * What scenes had the
wanderer passed through since last he gazed upon them 1 Manufac
turing days, crowning success, philanthropic experiments, public
meetings at the London Tavern, Continental travel, interviews with
kings, Mississippi valleys, Indiana forests, journeys, labours, agitations,
honours, calumnies, hopes, and never ceasing toil; what a world,
what an age had intervened since last he passed his native border.
When he reached a beautiful estate he had known in early days,
he said, ‘ Rigby, we will drive up to the gates, and you ask if Dr.
Johns is at home.’ The astonished domestic answered, ‘ Why, Dr.
Johns has been dead twenty years.’ ‘ Once a man and twice a child,’
was true of Mr. Owen. His early life had come over him like a flood.
He was in the dreamland of his early days. ‘ Dead twenty years,’
recalled him to the consciousness that death had gone before him and
reaped the field of his youthful memories. Learning that the lady of
the house was a daughter of Dr. Johns, he said, ‘ Rigby, go and say
Robert Owen is at the gate.’ She no sooner heard that unexpected
name, than she came out to the carriage door, and with a woman’s
quickness saw how it was with the ancient friend of her father. She
had him conveyed into her house and placed by the fire. ‘ Now, Mr.
Owen,’ she said, ‘ you are once more in your own country, among old
habits and customs, what shall I get for you ?’ His answer showed
how deeply his childhood days had come back to him. ‘ Make me
some flummery!—wheat and milk; the diet of his father’s table. He
partook of it. He hardly ever ate afterwards.
His visit to Newtown was one of curiosity. He arranged to call
Mr. Rigby Mr. Friday, and himself Mr. Oliver, and had themselves
so reported at the Bear’s Head Hotel. When he was able to go out,
he had his carriage stopped two doors below, at the house of his birth,
and sent in Mr. Rigby to buy two quires of the best note paper, and
ask if that was the house in which Mr. Owen was born. It soon
appeared that that fact was known and respected, and Mr. David
Thomas, the occupant, showed Mr. Rigby the room in which Mr.
Owen’s birth occurred. Suspecting the truth, he asked Mr. Rigby
if the old gentleman in the carriage could be Mr. Owen. Mr. Rigby,
who had no orders to own it, and too little diplomatic skill to parry a
question in which he was so much interested, neither answered no nor
yes, but something between the two, and Mr. Thomas believed what
he was not told. On Mr Thomas delivering the note paper at the
carriage window, Mr. Owen, without speaking, took his hand and
t Called fermity in Devon, flummery in North Wales.
�9
shook it warmly twice, and ordered his carriage to be driven back to
Shrewsbury, and thence to Liverpool he went by railway. Unless
for the pleasure of seeing the old country again by passing through
it, and of re-appearing in Newtown as a visitor in his own proper
name, one knows not the purpose of this journey. Mr. Owen had
sent a letter to Mr. David Thomas, of Newtown, saying that provided
a public meeting could be convened by the principal inhabitants, he
should be happy to proclaim an important message to the people, be
the guest of Mr. Thomas, and sleep once more in the house of his
birth. The ruling passion was strong in death. When he reached
Shrewsbury on his return, he went to the Lion Hotel, and took to his
bed again. From thence, by request, he was carried to his carriage,
and once more retraced his steps to Newtown. He dwelt by the way
upon all the early scenes of his youth, and pointed out to Mr. Rigby
various objects of interest to him. He entered Newtown now in his
own way, and in his own name. Though he had promised Mr.
Thomas to be his guest, he would not present himself at his house
until he was recovered—it being contrary to his ideas of courtesy.
He took up his residence at the Bear’s Head Hotel, two doors from
his birth-place. He slept in room No. 3 ; he died in room No. 14.
He now desired Mr. Rigby to return to London, and send down Mr.
Dale Owen, and he remained alone at the Bear’s Head. Mr. Lewis,
a bookseller in Newtown, rendered him attentions during several
days, which Mr. Owen valued highly, and Mr. David Thomas was
assiduous in kind offices to him. During a week he took only
sugar and water. Dr. Slyman, of Newtown Hall, was his medical
attendant. Mr. Owen, though never an abstainer from wine, was
most temperate in his habits; and though most essential to him in his
exhausted state, declined to take stimulants now. Dr. Slyman con
siders that he might have recovered if he had. Climatic disease,
bronchitis being an accompaniment, is the explanation Dr. Slyman
gave me of the immediate cause of his death. Two or three days
before his death Mr. D. Thomas asked Mr. Owen (the Rector having
called) whether he should invite him up, and whether he should read
to him from the Bible and make some exhortation. Mr. Owen turned
his head, and said in his commanding way, ‘No, no.’ Mr. Owen was
much better qualified to exhort any Rector than any Rector to exhort
him. Mr. Owen had no idea that he should die then. In a year or
t wo—when he might die he no doubt intended to die in Newtown. But
he never alluded to the possibility of dying. He always acted with
such strength of will that he never calculated on any obstacle, and it
never occurred to him that death might interfere with his plans.
This was Mr. Dale Owen’s impression of his father’s feelings. He
(Robert Owen) sent Mr. Rigby to the church of St. Mary’s to
ascertain the exact spot of ^.is father’s grave, but he regarded these
facts as for future use. jit was information he wanted. At three
o’clock on the afternoon before his death, Mr. Owen was laying grand
plans for the regeneration of Newtown, and when the Rector called
upon him he occupied him with a discussion upon the details, and
requested him to be good enough to see the magistrates and other
�10
authorities to obtain their co-operation. The day before his decease,
his eldest son (the Hon. Robert Dale Owen) arrived at Newtown,
accompanied by a lady in whose house Mr. Owen had often been a
guest, who rendered to him the last offices of friendship. He called at
half-past one at midnight, and asked the time. He probably did not dis
tinctly hear it, and supposed the reply to be half-past two. His eyes were
dim then, but fearing his attendants might suffer from loss of rest, he
avowed himself to be in no want of anything, and desired them to
retire. Of course they were always at hand, and when an hour after
he again asked the time, he was answered half-past two. At the end
of a similar period he made a renewed inquiry as to the time, and on
being told it was half-past three, his sense of hearing being low, he
evidently understood the reply to be half-past two, and he said in his
usual smiling way, ‘ Why it has been half-past two these three hours.’
He thought some friendly imposition was being practised upon him,
and he showed his perfect possession of his mind by quietly rebuking
it. It was after this, about seven in the morning, as his son held his
hand, and a friend stood near him, that he placidly passed away.
Death, which commonly beautifies the features, re-imprinted his
perennial smile upon his face. His lips appeared as though parting
to speak, and he slept the sleep of death like one whose life had been a
victory.
Mr. Owen does not appear to have recurred in his last illness to the
‘ spirits,’ with whom he had, according to his own report, for four or
five years maintained a friendly and familiar intercourse.
The following letter, which appeared in the daily papers, will best
tell the story of his last moments. It is from his son, the Hon. R.
D. Owen:—
‘ Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Nov. 17,1858.
‘ Mt Dear Sir,—It is all over. My dear father passed away this morning,
at a quarter before seven, and passed away as gently and quietly as if he
had been falling asleep. There was not the least struggle, not a contrac
tion of a limb, or a muscle, not an expression of pain on his face. His
breathing gradually became slower and slower, until at last it ceased so
imperceptibly, that, even as I held his hand, I could scarcely tell the moment
when he no longer breathed. His last words, distinctly pronounced about
twenty minutes before his death, were “ Relief has come.” About half-an~
hour before, he said, “ Very easy and comfortable.”
Fog and frost prevailed everywhere as we set out from London, on
Saturday night, November 19th, to attend the funeral at Newtown.
Mr. Rigby, the faithful secretary of Mr. Owen, and Mr. Truelove, on
the part of the John Street friends, and Mr. Law, were of the party.
From twelve to two we were detained at Stafford waiting. By three
we were at Shrewsbury. We went down to the Lion Hotel, to visit
the pathway through which our dear old master was last carried. By
four o’clock we were on the mail coach, out for a four hours’ ride,
through Welchpool to Newtown. It was a pleasure to get once more
beyond the confines of civilisation, where there were no railroads, and
to drive along with smoking horses and blowing bugle, to chat to the
�Il
guard and treat the coachman, to plunge through the fog, get nipped
by the frost—to have insolvent horses mistake a tree for a sheriff’s
officer, shy into the hedge, and half toss us over— then to draw up
under a lamp post and nearly be knocked down, and be knocked up
again by a huge mail bag, which the guard threw at you as the best
way of getting it on to the coach—then rattling on again, making
turnpike keepers start up wildly in their first sleep, run about the
road in their shirts to throw open the gates—then dropping small
bags of letters on little boys’ heads—throwing them over garden
walls, and disturbing the whole country as we passed along. The
friend who sat by me had a vague notion that he should go head
first off, to prevent which he held by the strap that bound the lug
gage. The guard, to save me from a similar fate, suggested that the
said strap should be twisted round me. Disposed to agree to anything,
I acquiesced, and in a short time nearly had my head pulled off—for
every vibration of the coach, and every clutch of my friend nearly
strangled me. When we arrived at an Inn, my friends got out of
their cloaks, and I out of my strap, and we plunged about wildly
stamping like macadamisers, brushing the frost from our heads, and
recovering circulation in noses and toes, lighting cigars against field
gates, and imbibing, like true teetotallers, hot ginger beer; but one
is bound to confess that the greatest abstainer of the party lost his
pledge in the fog, and by the time we got to Welchpool he ordered
the first ‘ brandy hot,’ which it is also true that he never got, for
his companions had drank up all the scanty glasses the landlady had
left out for the morning coach.
When we reached the Welch border, over which our lost friend had
passed, we took off our hats. We were entering what was to us the
kingdom of the dead. The whole land seemed sacred where he lay.
Wales, as far as one could see in the night, possesses a foliage more
graceful than England. English trees wear an irregular, spasmodic
outline, as though they had met with opposition in growing, and were
savage at it; while the Welch trees were round or slim, tall or
diffusive, with more proportion and grace, as though they were there
of their own accord, and were glad of it. This may be fancy, but
fancy to a traveller is sister of fact, and often delights him more. At
last, houses came in sight—old gables projected—hills overshadowed—
the Severn was running by—now we are amid low streets—now over
a bridge—now we turn a corner by the cross—there, that plain,
pleasant-looking house—a stationer’s shop at the very end of the
chief street, Bridge Street—there, that is where Mr. Owen was born 1
Ah, here, two doors to the left is the Bear’s Head Hotel, where he
lies. A pleasant hostlery. We drove up to the Elephant and Castle,
but returned and ‘ put up ’ at the Bear’s Head. Our cards being sent
up to the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, we were welcomed by him. He
resembles his father greatly. Lesser in stature, but hair, air, gentle
ness of tone, refinement, and kindness of manner are the same.
On,Sunday evening the late Mr. Owen was removed into the
house of his birth. Mr. Thomas had had a canopy of drapery hung
under which to place the coffin, which was covered with plain black
cloth, bearing a plain brass engraved plate, with the words—
�12
‘Robert Owen, of New Lanark.
Born, May 14, 1771,
Died, November 17, 1858.’
In accordance with the presumed wish of Mr. Owen, everything
was done unostentatiously, and as inexpensively as possible He
desired to set an example of simple and costless taste in all things.
Mr. Thomas, who kindly and efficiently superintended the public
arrangements, adopted the principle of associating the aged as far as
possible in the funeral, connecting Mr. Owen with the earliest associa
tions in Newtown. The oldest inhabitants, equal to the task, bore the
bier. Three of his schoolfellows or playmates were discovered to be
living; one, Mr. William Williams, the father of the post mistress of
Newtown, died a day or two after Mr. Owen. Two old gentlemen,
with tottering steps, walked in the procession, dim of sight, and hard
of hearing. It was very touching to see them guided along in a
ceremony which must soon attend themselves. The chief shops of
the town put up shutters out of respect to their eminent townsman,
who had come to die among them. But for my brother’s marriage
taking place at Fleet Street on Saturday, we should have done the
same there. On Monday, however, the day of the burial, I ordered
the house closed. On the day of the burial, Mr. Robert Cooper
arrived, though the day before it had fallen to him to attend the same
sad offices for his own mother. Colonel Clinton had arrived from
Royston, Mr. W. H. Ashurst from London, Mr. and Mrs. Francis
Pears from London, and Mr. Thomas Allsop from the Den, Teignmoutb.
Mr. W. Cox and Mr. Pare were already there. When the procession
left the Cross all business was suspended, the streets were crowded,
windows, housetops, road-side elevations, contained curious watchers—
old people especially peered with reverential gaze upon the bier. Odd
looking windows in gable-looking houses, in high ways and narrow
streets, that seemed not to have been open for ages, were thrown
wide now, and young girls and children crowded to see the memorable
sight. The medical and clerical professions, gentlemen and manufac
turers of the town, joined in the procession. It first went to St.
David’s, the new church, where the Rev. Mr. Edwards, M.A.,
officiated, Mr. A. A. Evans played the Dead March in Saul, very
effectively, as the procession left the church, and we proceeded to St.
Mary’s, an old Saxon church, now in ruins, standing in a romantic
spot. It is said to be a structure of the ninth century. The tower
has been standing nearly a thousand years. The old bells peal as
clearly now as when Harold was king. How one would like
to be able to converse with the early ringers! The body of the
church is now in ruins. The windows are gone, the roof is dropping
in, the gallery is dipping. A noble willow, planted from the slip
brought from the famous one over Napoleon’s tomb at St. Helena,
grows under the shadow of the tower. Near to that spot we laid
Mr. Owen in his parents’ grave. The enclosure of the churchyard
had fallen into decay, and an inhabitant of Newtown, who returned
from Australia with a little wealth, gave £50 to build new walls.
�13
But the walls want suitable gates, and Mr. Dale Owen has presented
a new pair of iron ones. The Severn runs by the side of the church
yard, and near to Mr. Owen’s Grave are two small grave stones, one
in the form of a heart, bearing the initials R. O. (Richard Owen) :
another stone near it is in the form of a diamond, bearing the initials
J. L. (Jane Lewis.) Richard Owen was a distant relative of our Mr.
Owen. Richard and Jane Lewis were lovers, whose parents forbade
their union, and they went to the opposite side of the Severn, and on
the bank, in sight of their graves, poisoned themselves. The inhabi
tants erected a bower over their graves, connecting both. And here
the poor mother of Richard Owen used to come and sit and knit all
the day through, and often, as the sextoness told us, her father, who
was sexton in her youth, had at twelve o’clock at night to induce the
old lady to return to her home. She sleeps now by the side of her
child. This bower of so many sad and moving memories had fallen
into decay. Mr. Dale Owen, with that graceful feeling by which his
father was distinguished, has ordered this bower to be restored.
There in the old churchyard, under the ancient tower, where the
glorious Severn ripples, we buried Mr. Owen. All was solemn, and
touching, and graceful, except the ceremony. Never did the church
service, that stereotyped, and, in parts, painful ritual, sound more
harshly than over the pure old man. Mr. Allsop, who would have
walked from Devonshire, had it been necessary, to be present at the
grave, would not enter the church. He preferred the solitude of
nature, where the reverence of the heart was undisturbed by hollow
formularies. On arriving in the town he addressed to me the letter
I shall here quote:—
* Newtown, Montgomeryshire, Nov. 22, 1858.
‘ Mr dear Friend,—The grave has closed on Robert Owen (if great
aims and a blameless life constitute greatness and goodness)—a great and
pre-eminently good man—and what a worker! For seventy years, since
the year 1788, when my informant saw him rolling up a piece of silk very
neatly, and with his mind ever absorbed upon the great problem of
humanity, he has never passed one hour in idleness, one hour not devoted
to the deliverance of his fellow-man from the degradation of superstition,
and the tyranny of class and capital.
‘ It pained me deeply that such a man, after life had departed, should
pass into, or rather under, the mummery of an outworn creed, which it had
been the great labour of his life to expose and destroy. What hope can we
rationally entertain of the future, when the followers of Robert Owen endure
Christian burial for their master, whose chief merit was his exposure of the
system of priestcraft and superstition? Why, the very Indians through
out Central America and Mexico, have recently rejected their mystery men,
having detected them in their frauds, whilst our mystery men are accepted
“by a most thinking people,” to use Cobbett’s expression, as of divine
appointment, and their existing revelation as the perfection of reason. It
is not by this weak conformity to the absurd practices enjoined by our super
stition, that any progress is to be hoped for.
‘ It was not thus that George Fox obtained for the Quakers full
recognition of their independence, it was not by such means that Cromwell,
Ludlow, and Ireton succeeded. Oh, for one hour of that true man, fanatic
though he was, and his Ironsides, to show the men of this age of what stuff
�14
the men were made who withstood tyranny and priestcraft in the olden
time. In this time of cant and profession, where every man is liberal—
God save the mark! in profession; where are the men who bear witness to
the truths which are known—“familiar as Household Words?” Where
are the men who, despising the opinion of others, or what is said to be
opinion, who bear witness to their conviction? What men, out of the
myriads who laugh at the superstitions rampant throughout the world,
show their sense and appreciation of truth by refusing to serve or invoke a
Deity, of whose existence they have no evidence? For if a Being, such as he
is described, did exist, he should be superseded. Where the men
that refuse any longer to perpetuate that horrid system of punishing men
for crimes which that system has rendered inevitable, and from which they
cannot escape?
‘ After Savonarola, Giordano Bruno, who follows to bear testimony to the
truth as it is in him ? Alas for an age and a people who seem determined
that custom shall be fruitful and reason barren. Who can hope for a
pureri uner life, or any real devotion?—Ever yours,
T. Allsop.
Let us hope that men of the true mould yet live. We believe they do.
Is not the writer of this letter one ? But there was a difficulty in the
case. As Mr. Owen appeared .to wish to lie in the grave of his ances
tors, the wish was sacred, and was to be complied with—and as they
lay in consecrated ground, the church had dominion there. The
Rector declined to allow friends to speak at the grave. The ceremony
of the church could, as in the case of Richard Carlile, be forced upon
the dead. To have protested against it, as Mr. Carlile’s eldest son did,
would have produced a scene. This would be undesirable, Mr.
Owen’s life had been peace and good will. Better ten Popes officiated
at his grave, than disturb his funeral by a broil. Had I had the
pleasure of knowing Mr. Robert Dale Owen intimately (I never met
him until my arrival in Newtown), I would have suggested that, since
a clergyman was inevitable, that we ask the Archbishop of Dublin,
whose noble friendship for Blanco White makes his memory reveren
tial—or Maurice, or Kingsley, some priest whose large sympathy with
mankind places him on a level with Mr. Owen, or whose genius
would sanctify his service—from such lips I could have bowed with
out pain before the offices of the church. The Rev. Mr. Edwards,
who did officiate, I met at the public breakfast, I walked from the
church in conversation with him, I spent some time with him at Mr.
Thomas’s house in the evening, and frankly own that his conduct was
very graceful throughout. He kept, with the good taste of an edu
cated gentleman, from making any one conscious of his professional
position, and we all owe him esteem for his bearing. Yet it is justice
to ourselves to own our sentiments, and to vindicate them.
The churchyard was crowded. Even the windows of the ruined
church were thronged. In one window Mr. Allsop observed an elfish
old woman, holding up two elfin children, black-eyed, wild, and
picturesque. The whole scene, daguerreotyped, would have been
striking. Next to the old men, who stood around, the prettiest
feature was the procession of young children whom Mr. Owen, living,
delighted to have around him. The little band stood there at the
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grave of the old man who brought so many blessings upon child
hood.
For once, I confess, bigotry would have been a blessing. How I
prayed that the clergy would do by Mr. Owen as they did by Voltaire
and Paine, refuse him the rites of Christian burial. Then we would
have performed the last offices of humanity in our own way. Had
they refused him a grave, we would have borne the old man away,
and have laid him among his own people. Multitudes would have
awaited the arrival of his remains at Euston Station, and we would
have buried him in the presence of his disciples in London.
Reporting over, and a hasty dinner, I proceeded to the grave to
relieve Mr. Rigby, who, for reasons we had, remained in the church
yard when all had left. The solitude of the old ifian’s grave, as I
groped my way to it in the dense fog, brought back, in a flood, all the
bright recollections of his busy life—so closed. Later, Mr. Pare and
Mr. Allsop joined me. By the fitful light the workmen had there, I
gathered some of the ashes of Mr. Owen’s ancestors, and preserved
them for an urn to be kept at Fleet Street. Early next morning, I,
Mr. Pare, and Mr. Allsop were the first pilgrims to the grave. One
relic of the dead, which the frost-hardened earth did not enable one
to entomb, was gathered to be preserved with the ashes, lest some
sacrilegious foot should trample upon it. In the dim light of the
breaking day we took farewell of that spot to which many a traveller
in time to come will turn.
Newtown Hall, the residence of Dr. Slyman, Mr. Owen’s last
physician, is a delightful mansion, situated in a kind of park. It was
formerly the residence of Sir John Powell Price. In the old time Charles
the First had shelter there. In Mr. Owen’s youth it was a school,
and there he received his education. Mr. Owen’s birth-place is a good
and agreeable house; very old. Its polished oaken floors are as firm
now as ever. The room in which he was born is one of the pleasantest
cosiest little rooms imaginable—just the room in which one would like
to be born, if one could be consulted before-hand in the matter. The
deed conveying the house to Richard Owen, Robert Owen’s father,
bears a transfer by the well-known ‘ Abraham Newland,’ on the part
of the Bank of England—and I discovered one party to the deed bore
the name of Lloyd Jones, no relative, of course, of him whose name
Mr. Owen’s friends know.
In dense fog and biting frost we again took our places on the coach
top for Shrewsbury. Mr. Allsop sat on the front box, Mr. Pare and
I behind him. That was a glorious journey, not soon to be forgotten.
Mr. Pare, one of Mr. Owen’s literary executors, always various and
eloquent on the theme of his great master’s character, and Mr. Allsop,
recalled golden memories of the old time and the old heroes. Never,
too, had winter so many wonders in my eyes. A thick silvery rime
covered all visible nature. The very hedges shone as though embossed
with all the richness of Italian art. Trees and shrubs and sprays
hung in every variety of beauty. The deep fog shut out all beyond
the road-side trees, which came in sight one by one, wth a new
mystery of loveliness. The dense haze seemed like some spirit of the
�16
woods, holding up her beautiful children to our gaze. Each tree stood
out in its bright and sparkling glory, like a bride—our whole ride was
through an endless procession of them. When Shrewsbury Castle
came at length in sight, I was sorry for the first time in my life to
come in sight of a castle. We had left the dreamland of poetry and
death behind us. The busy world and its recurring struggles were
now before us—and we entered it with sad hearts.
ORATION ON THE DEATH OE MR. OWEN.t
Delivered in the Public Hall, Rochdale.—Jacob Bright, J.P.,
in the Chair.
When military and spiritual heroes die, their deeds and deserts are
emblazoned in the popular memory. Parliamentary grants, bio
graphies, and mausoleums render them substantial tributes. When
the soldier dies in a just cause, or the saint departs who has displayed
human virtues, men begrudge them neither honour nor renown. We
here, however, record the history of one who was neither soldier nor saint
—who yet fought like a warrior in a holy cause, and who did more for
humanity than any general or any saint during the two generations
in which he lived. Has the world a spare hour to devote to the
memory of one whose profession was humanity, and whose daily study
was the social welfare of the common people ?
It is a reproach brought against the working class, that they are
ungrateful to those who have served them; that they receive
benefits without troubling themselves to ask to whom they owe them;
that their prejudices do not prevent them taking what they can get,
but that their prejudices prevent them acknowledging their benefactors;
that they suffer them to die from among them, and render them no
honour and no thanks. We meet to-night to remove that stigma as
far as we are concerned.
A great publicist has died—Robert Owen. Death, the warder of
the unknown world, has admitted through his mysterious portals no
greater friend of the people, than Robert Owen.
For a period
extending back to the end of the last century, Mr. Owen
was a standard-bearer of advanced opinions.
Children owe
him thanks, for he founded infant schools; Dutch paupers owe him
thanks, for he drew up the plan which secured them independence;
workmen owe him thanks, for he set the example of shorter hours of
labour; Prussia owes him thanks, for he was the author of their
national system of education; Trades Unionists owe him thanks, for
he headed their vast and perilous deputation to Lord Melbourne, on
behalf of the Dorchester labourers; Politicians who believe in progress
t There is an oratorical pretension about the word oration which I conld not fulfil, and
do not like ; but to dissect a friend in a ‘ Lecture ’ or a * Discourse,’ immediately on his
decease, seems a cold-blooded proceeding. ‘ Oration ’ implies more of passion and feeling
—on this account, therefore, I retain it.
�17
without war, owe him thanks, for he insisted upon international
*
arbitration before Peace Societies were ventured upon; Co-operators
owe him thanks, for he it was who taught them how to economise the
expenditure of their earnings ; Teachers owe him thanks, for he first
developed the plan of normal schools; the People owe him thanks,
for he first suggested those schemes of social recreation, and those
attentions to their physical condition, which are now the recognised duty
of the highest classes to promote. There has been no public man in
this century so true a publicist as Mr. Owen. He took a wise and
wide interest in the welfare of the people, beyond any other leader of
opinion. He had no contemporary, and he leaves no successor. The
poor man, read in the history of his own order, may say of the
death of Mr. Owen, with much more truth than Sir Walter Scott
said of Pitt, or Gladstone of Peel—
‘ Now is the stately column broke;
The beacon light is quenched in smoke;
The trumpet’s silvery voice is still;
The warder’s silent on the hill.’
There was a certain newness about Mr. Owen which is singular. He
was born at Newtown, he first became distinguished at New Lanark,
he then established ‘ New Harmony,’ in Indiana, afterwards the ‘ New
Moral World,’ he was the author of ‘ New Views,’ he proposed a ‘ New
State of Society,’ and one of his latest publications was the ‘ New Exist- •
ence of Man upon Earth,’ and he had, as we all know, a freshness and
newness of spirit which often shamed young men, and surprised the old.
Though I had the privilege of knowing Mr. Owen twenty years, and
of having my attention professionally drawn to his views, I do not
assume myself to be capable of giving an adequate estimate of his
character or services. I pretend to express only my own conception
of them. There are few men living who know the whole compass of
his career—who have read all his speeches—all his writings—all his
remarkable correspondence; who have perused the newspaper
comments upon his proceedings, during the last fifty years of his
public agitations. I know few who have done so, and without doing
this no one can fully appreciate the nature or extent of the influence
he has exercised. Not only England, but America, London, and the
capitals and courts of every nation in Europe, have, at one time or
other, resounded with his name. Emperors have been his guests,
kings his listeners, princes his friends, statesmen his correspondents,
philosophers his partners. The foremost men of the past age turned
to him for inspiration; rulers waited upon his words, and the peoples
of two worlds once believed in him as a deliverer. A man must have
native force of character who achieves this. It is not a well-meaning
man of mere feeble philanthropy, but a man of ability, of feeling, and
of truth, to whom we pay the tribute of our respect to-night.
To Mr. Owen’s memory I offer homage, but it is the homage of
* I believe that to the good offices of Mr Owen, we owe exemption from a
second American war, both nations having accepted his mediation.—Dr. J, Watts,
‘ Manchester Examiner,’ Nov. 23,1858.
�18
discrimination. That is the manliest reverence which praises within
the limits of truth. I hate the flatterer. Either he is a knave who
intends to impose upon me, or a patron who intends to befool me, or a
coward who applauds because he has not the courage to condemn, or
a weak-eyed man who can only see one thing at a time. I hate the men
who, by wholesale praise, hide from me what I should be, and keep
me what I am. I prefer the man who blows hot and cold to him who
blows all hot, because I want to be invigorated, not to be stifled.
This sentiment will rule all I say. I stand here to honour him of
whom I speak, by frankness as well as praise, and not to $our hollow
compliments into the ‘ dull cold ear of death.’
Robert Owen, like Thomas Paine, was endowed with great natural
capacity for understanding public affairs. He was accustomed to give
practical and notable opinions upon public questions, quite apart from
his own doctrines; and his society was sought as that of a man who
had the key of many State difficulties. Those know little of him who
suppose that he owed his distinction wholly to his riches. A manmust
be wise as well as wealthy, to achieve the illustrious friendships which
marked his career. He had personally an air of natural nobility about
him. He had, as the Daily News says, ‘ an instinct to rule and com
mand.’ I only knew him late in life, when age had impressed measure
upon his steps and deliberateness on his speech. When he had the
vivacity of youth and middle age, he must have been an actor on the
political stage of no mean mark. He always spoke as ‘ one having
authority.’ He had a voice of great compass, thorough self-posses
sion, and becoming action. Like many other men, he spoke much better
than he wrote. Only two or three years ago, at a private dinner,
arranged that Mr. Joseph Barker might be introduced to him, there were
several University men, and authors of some note, present. Mr. Owen’s
conversation was the most brilliant of all the company. On the last
occasion on which he presided in public was when he made the pre
sentation of a purse to his faithful attendant Mr. Rigby. The
patrician manner in which he spoke of his old friend, the dignity
without haughtiness, the kindness without condescension, I never
saw equalled. It was a relic of the old manner, which I have seen
alleged in romance, as the characteristic of the princely employer, but
which I never witnessed before. The meeting was like a reception
by Talleyrand.
Mr. Owen’s speeches had vivacity and humour. His writings have
little of either. His best book, and the one that made his reputation,
*
his ‘ Essays on the Formation of Character,’ Francis Place revised for
him. Mr. Owen ought always to have put his manuscripts into the
hands of others. He had noble thoughts, but when he took his pen
in hand he fell into principle spinning, which is always duller reading
than the Fifth Book of Euclid. It is very true and very important,
but it bores you. However, his Life of himself—his last work and
most interesting of all—contains more personal facts of interest and
importance than any political biography which has appeared in our
time.
The impression Mr. Owen made upon workmen of the last genera
�tion is best described by one whose name is an honour to that order—
I mean Ebenezer Elliott. In an address sent by Trades Unionists of
Sheffield in 1834, Elliott says—‘ You came among us as a rich man
among the poor, and did not call us a rabble. This is a phenomenon
new to us. There was no sneer on your lips, no covert scorn in your
tone.’
These words show us how working men were treated some thirty
years ago. It was in reply to this address that Mr. Owen made a
remark which is an axiom in the best political liberalism of
these dayshe said ‘ Injustice is a great mistake.' It is not merely
*
wrong, wicked, malevolent, hateful; it won’t answer, it won’t pay. It
is a blunder, it is a disgrace as well as a crime.
Mr. Owen was an apostle, not a rhetorician. He never looked all
round his statements (as Mr. Bright now does) to see where the enemy
could come up and pervert them. He said ‘ man was the creature
of circumstances’ for thirty years, before he added the important
words ‘ acting previous to and after his birth.' He had the fatal ideas
of the New Testament, that equality was to be attained by granting to
a community ‘ all things in common ’—at the commencement.
Whereas this is the result, not the beginning. You must begin with
inequality and authority, steering steadily towards self-government
and the accumulation of the common gains, until independence is
secured to all. Mr. Owen looked upon men through the spectacles of
his own good nature. He never took Lord Brougham’s advice ‘ to
pick his men.’ He never acted on the maxim that the working class
are as jealous of each other as the upper classes are of them. All that
he did as a manufacturer he omitted to do as a Founder of Communities.
As a manufacturer, even Allen, his eminent Quaker partner, wrote to
him, ‘ Robert Owen, thou makest a bargain in a masterly manner ! ’
Dr. Bowring allowed that the only time Jeremy Bentham ever made
money, was when he was a partner of Mr. Owen. In after life Mr.
Owen was really reckless of his own fame. No leader ever took so
little care in guarding his own reputation. He lent his name to
schemes which were not his. The failure of Queenwood was not
ascribable to him. When his advice was not followed, he would say
‘ Well, gentlemen, I tell you what you ought to do. You differ from
me. We will not quarrel. Carry out your own plans. Experience will
show you who is right?’ Then failure came, for which he was not
responsible, but it was ascribed to him. The public knew nothing of
Executives which he withdrew from. They only knew Robert Owen,
and whatever failed under his name, they inferred failed through him.
Mr. Owen was a general who never provided himselfwith a rear guard.
While he was fighting in the front ranks, priests might come up and
cut off his commissariat. His own troops fell into pits against which
he had warned them. Yet he would write his next dispatch without
it occurring to him to mention his own defeat, and he would return
to his camp without missing his army.
Mr. Owen’s fault was that he was always playing at world making
# January 15,1834.
�—no, I retract that word. I will not say ‘playing’—he was too
earnest a man for that—but he was always dreaming of world making.
Now, to sweep the world clean and begin again is a rather extensive
undertaking. It would be a great interruption to business. And it is
difficult to pack up the human race and put them out of the way,
while the world is being cleared.
So the world objected to the
operation, and Mr. Owen never had his way.
But let us
not be too hasty to condemn Mr. Owen for this idea. He was
a young man and had commenced as a theorist when the first
French Revolution broke out. He saw France and America both
make the attempt of reconstituting society. Things were so bad,
politically and religiously, that nobody had any hope and little chance
of amending them. Many men besides Mr. Owen thought it better
to begin again. When Pope, the poet, who suffered from great con
stitutional debility, stumbled, and nearly fell as he was getting into a
boat, he exclaimed, by way of apology to the waterman—‘ God mend
me!’ ‘I think, sir,’ answered the waterman, ‘God had better make a
new one! ’ This was the opinion of most political Reformers when
Mr. Owen was young. Their only hope was in a new state of society.
Even the present Queen’s father said, when introducing Mr. Owen
to a public meeting in the Freemason’s Hall, London, so late as 1819
—‘ It may be doubted whether the permanent safety of the British
Empire does not depend upon the measures which may be speedily
adopted to ameliorate the condition of the working classes,’ and these
measures he called upon Mr. Owen to explain.
It is difficult to judge yet the great act of Mr. Owen in ‘ denouncing
all the religions of the world,’ as he did in the City of London Tavern
in 1817. It was part of his plan. It was a deliberate act. He told
his religious partner, Mr. Allen, the Quaker, that he would do so two
years before. This act arrested the acceptance of his social system.
From being a Social Reformer, Mr Owen commenced to be a Religious
Reformer, and, being a thorough man, he did by the Church as he did
by the State—he proposed to reform it altogether. For this work,
Mr. Owen appears to me to have made no adequate preparation. He
followed the instinct of his conscience without calculation. The
ominous meeting in the Rotunda of Dublin in 1823, sealed the fate
of his Social Reform, and condemned his schemes ever after to the
hands of the minority. The great powers of society set their faces
against him, and the people were too poor to carry his ideas out.
The greatest person of distinction who best understood Mr, Owen, and
who did not desert him on account of his irreligious views, was the
Queen’s father, to whom we have before referred. He said at one of
Mr. Owen’s meetings, two years after he had denounced all religions,
‘ If I understand Mr. Owen’s principles, they lead him not to interfere
to the injury of any sect; but he claims for himself that which he is
so desirous to obtain for his fellow creatures—“ religious liberty and
freedom of conscience”—and this he contends for, because his experience
compels him to conclude that these principles are now necessary to secure
the well-being and good order of society.’ This is excellently put, and
is really all Mr. Owen meant. Being always a Theist, he was logically
�error in denouncing ‘ all religions. His province, as it appears to
*
me, was to defend humanity against the abuses of religion, and main
tain, as the Duke of Kent puts it, ‘ religious liberty and freedom of
conscience? However, Mr. Owen thought differently, and nobly he
acted up to his convictions. Like Paine, he threw away worldly
honour and renown for the sake of conscience. His courage was of
the highest order. He quailed before no tumult—no disappointment
made him despair. He was ready to lead an army, and he was equally
ready to lead a forlorn hope. And when he had retired from the
world, and was stretched upon his solitary bed in Newtown, and all his
toils and visions were over, and the sands of life were ebbing fast, and
a few short hours would close his long account with the unheeding
world, the clergyman who called upon him asked him ‘ whether he did
not regret the waste of his life upon fruitless efforts and unaccepted
schemes ?’ The old philosopher’s eye brightened, and he answered:—
‘No, sir; my life has not been spent uselessly. I have proclaimed
important truths to the world, and if they were not regarded by the
world, it was because the world did not understand them. Why should
I blame the world ? I am in advance of my time.’ The clergyman
admitted that he never saw more consistent philosophy than was
manifested by the brave old man.
Let us also remember here that there was one noble priest of the
Church of England who understood this aspect of Mr. Owen’s cha
racter and defended it. ‘No disposition,’ said the Rev. Sidney Smith
(Canon of St. Paul’s), ‘ has been more powerfully, or more success
fully satirised, than the sanguine temperament of some men, which
prevents them from learning a lesson of caution or prudence; men
who are never daunted by disappointment, nor delayed by defeat;
who trust implicitly in a fortune which has so often deceived them ;
and believe in the continuation of a success which has met with so
many interruptions; but, bad as this is, it is infinitely better than the
opposite extreme. The man who cannot be taught to despair is better
than the man who cannot be taught to hope, is better than the man
whom no success can ever inspire with confidence, whom no blessing
can ever teach to enjoy, who is dark in the blaze of noon ; dead in
the fulness and freshness of life.’
It was Mr. Owen’s idea that the existing system would fall to pieces
of its own weight, and he astonished people by naming the time when
this would happen. He was wrong about the time, but right about
the fact. Ia. not the system always falling to pieces? What is the
meaning of our panics, pauperism, and ‘ great social evil ’? Did not
Ireland fall to pieces when three millions of people perished of
famine ? Has not our Indian Empire fallen to pieces in a very tragic
manner within these twelve months ? The system in some part or
other is daily tottering and falling, and has to be repaired and renewed.
Mr. Owen did not believe in the renewal of society. In this he was
wrong. His own views enabled this repair to be made. They were more
practical views than even Mr. Owen thought. His own dream of a
science of society which he entertained in 1817 is adopted in 1858 at
Liverpool. The nobility who deserted him in 1823 now take up his
�22
ideas—they deny his name and work by methods of their own—but
they work with his materials and in his field.
There are three principal misapprehensions current upon Mr.
Owen’s views—by the political economists who regarded him as inter
rupting the course of society—by the clergy who held that he taught
false views of the formation of character—by newspaper writers who
considered that he sought to bring about an impractical state of Com
munism. The best correction of these errors is to state what his views
were on these points.
1. The old terror of political economists was that Mr. Owen wished
to interfere with the means by which twenty millions of mouths were
fed. He did not propose to interfere with the means, but to improve
the means. At present the twenty millions are not engaged, and never
were engaged, in any concerted action to fill their mouths, but are
scrambling for each other’s loaves, lying in wait to intercept each
other’s fortune, and not unfrequently cutting each other’s throats by
the way. Mr. Owen thought this system might be improved—the
world has now come round to the same opinion.
2. What Mr. Owen maintained as to the formation of character was
that the circumstances in which men were placed exercised an influence
upon the mind for good or for evil. Nobody doubts this now. Air.
Buckle, in his brilliant book on the ‘ History of Civilisation,’ has esta
blished this truth beyond dispute. Mr. Owen said, if you want better
men, place them in better circumstances, raise the wages of the poor—
diminish their labour—better their food—improve their dwellings—
increase their knowledge—let science serve them—let art refine them
—give them wholesome recreation, and secure them moderate compe
tence. This was not orthodox gospel, but it is a gospel very much
wanted in the world.
3. When a great painter once executed a picture of the deluge, all
the world went to see it: and they found on the canvass nothing
delineated but a boundless waste of water, and one solitary spar pro
jecting above it, upon which a single snake had crawled. What could
tell the tale of desolation so well ? All the agony and hopelessness of
a doomed and drowned world were pictured there. So now, if any
man would picture the hollowness of our present civilisation, he has
only to pourtray a vast crowd of men with a solitary gallows standing
above them, on which some poor wretch—perhaps a woman—is hanging.
There you behold at once the falsehood of our civilisation—the poverty
of social science—the incompetence of government—the feebleness of
education—the weakness of the Church. We first rear the criminal
and then strangle him. We ought to speak with moderation of the
triumphs of Christianity so long as the Gallows is the conspicuous
companion of the Cross. Mr. Owen never ceased to say we ought to
manage these things better, and the world called him ‘ a man of one
idea.’ He was thought to be a man of one idea because he had
but one way of stating it. You might as well call Newton a man of
one idea because he merely discovered the law of gravitation—that was
one idea, but it was capable of boundless and sublime applications.
In the same manner Mr. Owen’s idea of the influence of physical
�23
circumstance is applicable to every detail of human condition.
Mr. Owen’s great Communistic idea was, that the ordinary conditions
of subsistence, and dwelling, and clothing, ought to be guaranteed
in common to all: that moderate labour, on the part of the many, and
moderate attainments in the science of society on the part of the few,
would enable this to be done. He saw that there would always be a
savage element in society so long as the lower classes were left to
scramble like barbarians for the supply of their physical wants. So
long as labour is presided over by want and death, civilisation will
alternate between splendour and tragedy. And history shows this to be
true. It was urged that to have food, shelter, garments, and knowledge
in common, would ruin everything, enervate everybody. This is
said still, although we have old things and are having new things in
common, without these results. Communism simply means that state
of society in which the common fruits of intellect, art, and industry
shall be so diffused, that poverty shall be impossible and crime
unnecessary. And we are every day attaining to this. The laws
of the universe are common. Light, and sky, and air are com
mon. Life and death are common. In the hour of his birth the
young prince screams for air like any pauper; and unceremonious
Death who has the entree of the poor-house, walks into the
parlour of the gentleman without sending in his card. The
noble building is now open to the gaze of the shoe black as well as
to the connoisseur. Works of highest art and books of rarest value
are now being made accessible to all. Fire offices insure the cottage
or the mansion. The careless are as secure as the careful. Life
insurance is another form of equality. The strong and temperate
are made to use their prolonged lives to pay up premiums which
go to the progeny of the weak and the reckless. The virtuous and
the vicious, the base and the noble, are all declared equal in the sight
of the law. The same police watch over the life of the scoundrel and
the patriot. Before civilisation began, the weak had to take care of
themselves, and had to get strength or discipline. Now the feeble
and the stout, the coward and the brave, are equally protected. In
savage times a man had to take care how he got into a quarrel. In
all danger, whether he sought it, or whether it was thrust upon him,
he had to defend himself. It was the reign of animal competition.
The law has done away with this competition. The apparent effect of
this is to encourage the coward and the sneak. That personal daring
which made the inspiration of Homeric song, which made Sparta a
name of energy through all time—which still makes the blood tingle
in the pages of Sir Walter Scott, is no longer a daily requisite or
means of renown. A man need not either carry arms or use them. He
neither requires personal bravery nor discipline. A set of men are
paid to defend him. He has only to call the police. An old warrior
of the romantic days would rather die than utter the craven cry. If
a man gets into a disputation he is not allowed to settle it in honest
hot blood, but must refer his quarrel to the decision of a cold-blooded
magistrate, who will probably give the decision against him, and com
pliment his enemy. How the hot blood boiled—how courage blushed
�24
with shame—how the pride of manliness was stung, when craven,
cringing Peace, in the name of law, first put valour down! But we all
know now that the peace-maker was right. There is plenty of
exercise for courage without our expending it in broils and bloodshed.
The equality of the law has produced justice—and the equality of
competence will lead to happiness, security, and morality. Society
will not be disorganised, though Co-operators and Communists should
succeed in finding that condition of human society, in which it shall
be impossible for a man to be depraved or poor.
These were Mr. Owen’s convictions. He never explained the
process, nor did he foresee all the steps by which this change would
come about, but let us not deny to him the honour of that inspiration
to which modern English society owes its highest improvements.
Mr. Owen, dead but a few days ago, lives fresh in our thoughts.
How will he live in the memory of posterity ? Longfellow bids us so
live that,
‘ Dying we may leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.’
Lord Macaulay has estimated how few of all the children of litera
ture are quoted in the third generation. Of the thousands of books
which are printed, how few will survive in the memory of posterity!
Of the myriads of men now passing through time—how few will leave
traces of their presence! The many build their temples, they erect
their mansions, they set up their landmarks, but the great sea of
events rises, and the deluge washes every vestige away. Mr. Owen
may be one of the memorable and solitary exceptions, because his
influence will live in the progress of humanity. He may have been a
visionary, an enthusiast, or a dreamer; but the dreamer dreamed grand
and enduring dreams. We see his footprints on the plains of society as
deeply impressed as Robinson Crusoe saw footprints on the desert
island on which he was thrown. Lord John Russell the other day at
Liverpool, in one of the happiest compliments paid in modern times,
said in reference to Lord Brougham, that in the great war between
the Prince of Conde and Marshal Turenne, it once happened that the
Prince of Conde was called from the field to a distant part of the country.
It occurred one night during his absence, that Turenne observed his
outposts blazing. From one to another, the conflagration spread, and he
soon found himself in a circle of fire. ‘ I thought,’ said he to his officers,
‘ you told me Conde was far away.’ - ' So he is,’ was the reply. ‘ So he
may have been,’ Turenne answered, ‘but depend upon it he has
returned. I see the hand of Conde in this.’ So, said Lord John
Russell, in that happier warfare now conducted against social evils—
whenever you discover any marked improvement going forward in
society, you may not be told that Lord Brougham has done it—but
you know by this sign that he has been here. And something of this
kind may be said of Lord Brougham’s friend, Mr. Owen. Priests may
efface his name, calumny may blot his reputation, cowardice may
refuse to quote his services, ingratitude may forget them—but time
will sweep away the dust of bigotry, the historian will come and
remove the incrustations of prejudice, and underneath posterity
will see—the tracings of our master’s hand.
�But it was not so much for Mr. Owen’s geriras as for his disinter
estedness that I love him. He was a Materialist without sensualism,
he was a Sceptic who yet had positive principles. He taught that
benevolence ought not to be a cheap sentiment of pity. He taught
pity to leave off weeping and ally itself to improvement. He hated
that grand patriotism which talked platitudes of well meaning, and
did no work. He kept no terms with that religion which recited creeds
and collects, and rendered humanity no service. He had the faculties of
a man, but the soul of a woman. He sought to conquer not by force but
by attraction; but he had that tenderness of woman, which passes from
the ball room to tend with patient hand and unmurmuring devotion
the bedside of the sick. No affluence corrupted Mr. Owen. He was
familiar with courts, and could himself command the luxuries of life;
but while the song rose high and the revel was long, he turned aside,
like Howard, to listen to the wail in the prison, and the shriek in the
cottage.
While we sit here at this moment, while you listen and I speak,
tears trickle in many a dungeon in Europe—many a proud heart is
breaking—despair that will soon be insanity, chafes against prison
walls this night. I speak not of suffering which crime begot and
restrained brutality endures, but of that agony of patriotism which
men feel who have tasted the noble draught of freedom, and
who have fallen and failed in extending it to their countrymen.
In this hour how many in our own land are there whose utmost
toil will never bring them competence, who by no privation can ever
escape the fear of want—who will see their children grow up
inadequately educated, and in thousands of cases without education at
all—parents who see no happy future for their children, and children
who will see their parents toil while they can stand, and die at last
without sunshine on their doors or peace in their hearts. There are
myriads who exclaim in the impassioned words of Louis Blanc,
‘The Saviour has come, when comes salvation?’ All this we
should never suffer ourselves to forget. Among this audience
the mind’s eye may see other faces than those which occupy
seats. As I lo.ok around I can see other eyes than yours—in
the sounds that break from you, one may hear others which you
do not make. Be not sad, be not despairing, but deem it a guilty
thing to partake of a joy in which you forget those who are excluded
from it by no fault of their own. And why we honour Mr. Owen is,
that he sympathised with all unhappy destiny—he never forgot it, and
laboured unceasingly to change it. For seventy years he was the
servant of the poor. For their deliverance he abandoned ease, wealth,
and worldly honour. All around him greed thirsted for gold, he saw
thousands were added to thousands, acre to acre; he saw men give
themselves up to the pride of family, of title, of position; he himself
despised all allurements, and plotted for the welfare of mechanics,
labourers, weavers, and miners. It was not the praise of the poor
which he sought, for he constantly rebuked them. It was their
welfare which he studied. He had no satisfaction in the splendour
of courts so long as the hovel stood in sight. He could enjoy no
pleasure while there existed the sorrows of the poor.
�26
I may repeat here what I said in the Cowper Street debate, in 1853,
when Mr. Owen was calumniated by a Minister at my side. Robert
*
Owen spent his long and honourable life in the service of the
people. He travelled from clime to clime, from court to court,
and from town to town, on his noble mission of benevolence. There
have been none so high but he invoked their aid: there have been
none so low but he has stooped to bless th?m. Where the priest has
given us barren prayers, and the politician promises, Mr. Owen dis
pensed his gold with a princely hand. He joined in all schemes of
philanthropy without reference to sect or party. His purse was
open to courts which neglected him, to nobles who dissented from
him, and to the Church which cursed him. But undeterred by toil,
undaunted by danger, unchilled by calumny, even in his old age,
when other men grow cold and conservative, his heart beat with the
gener is hope of youth, and he moved among us with that radiant
smile which never waned, and that kindly voice which never varied:
unhasting and unresting, he knew neither selfishness nor apathy.
A few days ago, when I listened in the Town Hall of my native
town, Birmingham, to the magnificent orations of Mr. Bright (if the
chairman will permit me to make the allusion in his presence), when
I heard him allude to the unrewarded heroism of that poverty which
in this country oscillates between independence and pauperism, when
I heard him say in his imposing way—‘ I do not care for military
greatness or renown: I care for the condition of the people among whom
I live * * Crown, coronet, mitres, military displays, pomp of war,
wide colonies, and a huge empire, are in my view all trifles light as
air, unless with them you can have a fair share of comfort, content
ment, and happiness among the great body of the people. Palaces,
baronial castles, great halls, and stately mansions do not make a
nation.’ And then he added a sentence the like of which we have
not heard in Europe since the days of Mirabeau, ‘ The nation in every
country dwells in the cottage.’ And in the smile of the cottager he
alone read the glory of the Government. In this noble passage I
heard a man of genius uttering that sentiment which Mr. Owen in
another way and on other principles, gave his life to enforce.
Out of the master’s grave will there arise a new and invigorated
party? Now death passes the responsibility from the master to the
disciple. The mantle of Elijah will always fall if shoulders can be
found worthy to wear it. But I shall say here I do not see all the
characteristics one ought to see in his surviving disciples. The long years
of apathy and inactivity which have succeeded the seizure of Queen
wood, ought now to be atoned for by wise exertions to vindicate the
memory, and what Mr. Owen would much more value, extend the
knowledge of his views. Weak humanity and forcible feebleness
will never save society—it requires thought, earnestness, unity, and
action to do that.f
_______ ________ __________
• The Rev. Brewin Grant.
+ Col. Henry Clinton earnestly and wisely calls Social Reformers to
united action, that great social services may fitly attest Mr. Owen’s worth and
influence.
�27
We now turn to the closing scene of all. The circumstance of Mr.
Owen’s death, and his own apparent wish to lie with his fathers,
rendered his burial within the precincts of the Church inevitable.
And I readily honour the toleration of the Church, which gracefully
conceded him her sepulture. But I should have honoured her yet
more had she waived her right to read her ceremony over his
remains, and have permitted the last offices of affection to be
performed by his friends. He who in his manhood had said
‘ Theology was a disease; ’ he who in his mature years declared that
‘ mankind had had no rest in the past, would know no rest in the
future, under the dominion of the priesthood ;’ he who during seventy
years protested against the ceremonies of an obsolete superstition;
he should have been spared in death the repetition of words which
were the earnest aversion of his life. No gentleman obtrudes upon
another words he declines to hear, and the first instinct of honour
leads him to shrink, with jealous sensitiveness, from treating the dead,
who can no longer complain, with less respect than he would show
when living. Why should the Church, which aspires to the highest
regard, be less scrupulous in her code of conduct ? As we laid Mr.
Owen down by the old Church of St. Mary, Newtown, which had
stood there the professed witness of truth since William the Conqueror
landed, as I listened to the rippling of the honest Old Severn, which
descends from Plinlimmon’s Mount, and felt the sharp true frost in
the air, and heard the old bells toll which had summoned thirty
generations of men to the tomb, where, it is said, no falsehood is
suffered—it grated harshly upon the ear to hear the truth violated in
that hour. As my eye met that of mourners around, men who had
stood at the grave of Lamb and Coleridge, of Cobbett and O’Connell, and
who at home and in distant lands had braved every human danger to
set mankind free, and who had grown grey in unchanging reverence
for Mr. Owen, because he had been the first in courage to demand, and
the loudest and longest in his cry for ‘ Truth without mystery, mixture
of error, or fear of man’—I felt in that hour that nature was real, grief
was real, the only hollow and false thing was the Service of the Church.
I did think that the Church would have shown dignity by her
silence, and that the poorest genuine word from the heart of a friend,
would have been a far holier ceremony in that hour. What need was
there for priestly ceremony ? No priest can consecrate the ground where
we lay those who die for humanity. All earth is made sacred where their
bones repose. The frank blessing of a wise and pure man, though I might
not deem it religiously efficacious, I could esteem, if it came from a gen
erous heart though expressed in the language of a creed. The form is
secondary if the spirit be true. But if the blessing on me implied a curse
on my brother, who differed from me in faith—if my admission to the
sanctuary of sympathy was accompanied (as it is in the Church
Service) by the exclusion of other members of the human family who
err—if they err at all, not in intent, but from misdirection, or want
cf higher light—from that narrow and unwholesome blessing, I would
turn away. The bleakest, dreariest, obscurest spot in this big world,
wouldbeholy ground to me compared with the daintiestsepulchre bigotry
�'28
had so consecrated. The wild winds—storm and tempest such as fell on
Lear’s head, would be more consoling to me than those accents of sal
vation which concealed in them the wail of my brother, my friend, or
my neighbour. And much more true is this of Mr. Owen, whose
whole life was made up of the double passion of charity and humanity.
However, all is over now, and we inherit alone the example of his life.
He exiled himself from the splendid acquaintances of his youth, and
made himself an outcast and a martyr, that the truth might be spoken,
and the poor might be saved. Let us love the outcast, the exile, and
the martyr wherever they may be found. There is light in their
footsteps. The incendiary fires the world accuses them of igniting,
are the beacon fires through which those who come after them will be
saved. Their fate, as I once heard it grandly said, is not to be mourned
over, but to be imitated. When Mr. Owen entered upon public life he
found men were the vassals of the crown, the prey of the priests, the
property of the tax-gatherer. They bled for the king—they bowed
before the clergy—they toiled for the pension list. The crown took
their bodies—the mitre their souls—the state their means. They
lived in ignorance—they laboured without reward—and what is
worse, they put themselves like dry sticks under the cauldron of cor
ruption. Mr. Owen taught industry its power, and property its
duty; and was the first to show the working class how to struggle
for their own improvement without anger or impatience. It was he
who taught them that golden lesson of peace, that the true way to
effect Reform is to change erroneous systems and not to hate men.
Well might his end be peace. As I stood in the room where he
passed away, I thought how many golden memories had crowded
round his dying bed. How the devotion of his life—his labours of
love—the friendless whom he had saved—the poor whom he had
served—the words of kindness he had spoken—the deeds of mercy he
had done, must have been the bright visions of his midnight hours.
It recalled to my mind one of Leigh Hunt’s fine contributions to the
Religion of Humanity, in which he tells the story of a certain Oriental
Owen, one Abou Ben Adhem—
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lilly in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
‘ What writest thou? ’ The vision rais’d its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, ‘ The names of those who loved the Lord.
*
‘ And is mine one?’ said Abou. ‘ Nay, not so,’
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, ‘I pray thee, then,
‘ Write me as one that loves his fellow men.’
The angel wrote and vanish’d. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And show’d the names whom love of God had L1ob3’XAnd lo J en Adhem’s name led all the rest.
ms END.
�
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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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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Life and last days of Robert Owen, of New Lanark
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Edition: Centenary ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 27 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Contains list of principal works of Owen.
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Holyoake, George Jacob
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Trubner & Co.
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1871
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G4963
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Co-operative Movement
Socialism
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Robert Owen
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Text
SECOND EDITION, NOW READY.
THE
SACRED
ANTHOLOGY
A BOOK OF ETHNICAL SCRIPTURES.
BY
MONCURE
DANIEL
CONWAY.
Triibner & Co^Ludgate Hill.
The second edition of this work contains an Index of Authors,
in addition to the Index of Subjects, List of Authorities, &c.,
and the Chronological Notes have been carefully revised.
The book contains 740 Readings from the Asiatic and Scan
dinavian Sacred Books and ClassicsJarranged according to
subjects in 480 pages royal 8vo, with marginal notes.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
It is certainly instructive to see the essential agreement of so many
venerated religious writings, though for depth of meaning and classicality
of form none of them approaches the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.
The idea of the work is an excellent one, and Mr. Conway deserves great
credit for being the first to realise it.— Westminster Review.
It remains for us to point out some of the remarkable coincidences
in the principles of morals and religion which Mr. Conway’s diligence
and tact have brought together. Hillel and Confucius enunciated the
same warning in almost the same words—“ What you do not wish done
to yourself do not to others.” Beneath a tropic sky, the flamingoes and
green parrots suggest the same lessons as the ravens and lilies of the
field upon the hills of Galilee. A few words sum up with unsurpassed
pathos the parable of the virgins—“A poor man watched a thousand
years before the gate of Paradise ; then, while he snatched one little nap
jt opened and shut.”— Theological Review.
�2
Few more valuable contributions have been made to the popular study
of comparative theology than Mr. Conway’s “ Sacred Anthology,” well
fitted to serve as a volume of devout reading to those who choose without
theological forethought or afterthought to apply it to that use. To the
more speculative student, it curiously illustrates at once the different
genius of the various nations of the world, and the identity of human
nature in its apprehension of the loftiest topics of faith and morals. Few
can read it without feeling their mental horizon enlarged, and without a
deeper sense of the common humanity that lies at the basis of the dif
ferences by which history, climate, and civilisation disguise men and
nations from each other.—Daily News.
The book may fairly be described as a bible of humanity, and as an
ethical text book it might well be adopted in all schools and families
where an attempt is made to instil the highest principles of morality
apart from religious dogma. He has produced a work which a great
number of people have long been desiring to possess, and which is likely
to mark a distinct epoch in the'progress of ethical culture.—Examiner.
The result is most interesting. For the first time, an English reader
may judge for himself of the moral and religious merits of writings which
heretofore have been to him only venerable and shadowy abstractions.
We shall be much surprised if every reader does not lay it down in a
better mental frame than was his when he took it up. It teaches charity
and toleration, and makes men less spiritually arrogant. It is not with
out even greater lessons to those who have ears to hear.—The Echo*
The “ Sacred Anthology ” should find a place on every library shelf.
It is a bible free from bigotry, and were an Universal Church ever estab
lished, might fairly be a lesson book for that church. The labour ex
pended by Mr. Conway in editing, abridging, and selecting, can hardly
be fairly estimated. We can heartily recommend it to Freethought
Societies as a volume in which they may find readings otherwise inaccess
ible to them.—National Reformer.
The principal authorities for the beautiful thoughts and precepts so
skilfully collected by the editor, are given at the close of the volume, to
make his work as complete as possible. Mr. Conway also publishes
chronological notes, and it is scarcely necessary to say that his views
with regard to the dates of our sacred books differ considerably from those
adopted by orthodox divines.— The Pall Mall Gazette.
A very slight examination of the volume will show that it is indeed a
valuable anthology of the scriptures of all races. As complete and
entertaining a volume as one would wish to read. —The Bookseller.
It will be seen that all the sacred books of mankind have their prin
cipal features in common ; that the differences between them are not of
essential nature, but of degrees of manner and style, and that an inspired
spirit variously modified and expressed breathes through all. Mr. M. D.
�Conway has contributed a real service to an enlightened view of this
subject by his “ Sacred Anthology,” a book which we commend to the
attention of all who are accustomed to speak of the bible as the only
word of God.—The Inquirer.
Such of our readers as may have studied a remarkable book, India in
Greece, which appeared some twenty years ago, are well aware of the
extent to which Indian rites and customs after having been transported
to Greece, and thence re-exported to Italy, have become permanently
imbedded in the Romish system. Indeed, we believe there is scarce a
Popish notion, emblem, or ceremony that may not be distinctly traced
to a Pagan source. However, if the original have come from thence,
thence also may be derived an anecdote that may somewhat tend to
diminish its ill effects. For among the wise Hindoo aphorisms (as ren
dered in Mr. Moncure Conway’s recent book), we find the following,
which some amongst us might ponder with advantage at the present
time :—“ Sdnyfisis (? Hindu Rits) acquaint themselves with particular
words and vests; they wear a brick-red garb and shaven crowns; in
these they pride themselves ; their heads look very pure, but are their
hearts so ?” “ Religion which consists in postures of the limbs (mark
this ye clergy of St. Alban’s, Holborn) is just a little inferior to the
exercises of the wrestler.” “ In the absence of inward vision boast not
of oral divinity.” We are not sure that Vishnu’s philosophy would not
compare favourably with that of Pio Nono.—The Rock.
Many years ago, Philip Bailey, of E Festus,” announced as forthcoming
a book entitled “ Poetical Divinity,” the object of which was to show by
quotations from the bards of all time, that they all held substantially the
same creed which we presume was held by Festus himself—Pantheism
plus Universal Restoration. This book never has appeared, but Mr
Conway’s is arranged on a somewhat similar plan, and is altogether a
volume of such a unique yet delightfully varied character that it must
commend itself to readers of every sort. We have seen already the eyes
of a rather strictly orthodox person glistening with eager delight over
many of the maxims and beautiful little moral fables with which it abounds.
—The Dundee Advertise-M^
It would be impossible that such a book, even if it were compara
tively carelessly done, could be without interest; but Mr, Conway’s task
has been most conscientiously performed, and it will be found of the
greatest possible value, for it casts a strong light upon many matters
which are frequently in discussion.—The Scotsman.
Mr. Conway has conferred a signal service on the literature of Theism by
publishing for the first time a comprehensive collection of some of the best
passages from the ancient scriptures of different nations. A few years ago
we, in the Brahmo-Somaj, made an humble effort in that direction, which
resulted in the issue of a small book of theistic texts now in use during
service in most of our churches. Mr. Conway’s excellent publication
is on a far grander scale, embraces a wider variety of subjects, and ex
tends its selection through a much larger range of scriptural^ writings
than we could command.—The Indian Mirror.
�4
There is, I suppose, no book in existence quite like it, perhaps none on
the same plan and of equal scope. He who found no higher use for the
book would rejoice in it as a handbook for scriptural quotations not
otherwise readily accessible, as the number of volumes from which they
have been brought together sufficiently proves. There is nothing we
more need mentally than a tinge of Orientalism, something to give a new
bent and scope to minds fed perpetually on the somewhat narrow and
practical literature of the Western races. Mr. Conway, with his eager
poetic instincts, his warm feeling and wide sympathies, is a good guide
to those in search of what is most impressive to the imagination or
stimulating to the sensibilities.—“ G. W. S.,” in the New York Tribune.
A Significant Book.—Significant of what? Of interest in the
religious life of men who are outside the pale of Christianity, of that
“ sympathy of religions ” which has lately found in the missionary lecture
of Max Muller in Westminster Abbey an exhibition which might
well strike terror into High Church dignitaries, of a growing faith that
the attitude of Christianity towards the other great religions of the world
is not wholly that of a teacher, but may be that of a pupil; of this, at
least—we trust of much beside.—-Rev. John W. Chadwick, in the
“ Liberal Christian” New York.
He then read a few sentences from a book called “ Sacred Anthology,”
which work, he said, was a compilation from the religious works of all
nations, some older than our bible : the book he should leave on the desk
as his bequest to the society.—Report of an Address by A. Bronson
Alcott, Esq., at the opening of a new hall in Massachusetts.
“The Anthology” may be obtained through any Bookseller, or
from the Librarian, the Chapel, 11, South Place, Finsbury.
Price, ios. Postage, 9d.
�
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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
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The sacred anthology: a book of ethnical scriptures [announcement]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of Publication: London
Collation: [4] p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. The publisher's announcement for the second edition. Includes extracts from press reviews of the first edition. Duplicated between pages 200-201 of Joseph Estlin Carpenter's review also in Conway Tracts 6.
Publisher
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Trubner & Co.
Date
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[1889?]
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G5598
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[Unknown]
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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 Sacred Anthology: a book of ethnical scriptures), 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
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Text
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English
Subject
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Book reviews
Book Reviews
Conway Tracts
Moncure Conway
Oriental Literature
Sacred Books
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V
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*****
ENGLISH
r
INSTITUTIONS
AND THEIR MOST
NECESSARY REFORMS.
A CONTRIBUTION OF THOUGHT
BV
FRANCIS W. NEWMAN,
LATE PROFESSOR IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
LONDON:
TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1865.
*
�Where materials are vast, conciseness may be accepted by the
Reader as a compliment to his intellect, not as a dogmatism.
Whatever the colour of his political creed, let him consent for
h^fr an hour to suspect fallacy in his customary axioms.
judges freely who does not think freshly.
No one
�ENGLISH
INSTITUTIONS
AND THEIR MOST
NECESSARY REFORMS. '
HERE are times in national history, at which
the urgent business of the classes in power is,
to increase the number of citizens loyal to the con
stitution : then, what seems to be a great democratic
move, may be made simply to avoid civil war. Such
was the crisis of 1832: such might have been that
of 1848. But, in spite of insurrection successful in
Sicily, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, the English aristo
cracy in the latter year judged stiff and total resist
ance safer than any concession; relied on our hatred
of anarchy ; and by rallying the middle classes round
the standard of legality, quickly dissipated all fear
of Insurgent Reform. That lesson has not been
lost on Conservatives. Our wealth is more massive,
our thriving class reaches lower, in 1865 than in
1848. Education has spoiled political aspirants for
revolutionists. Let Reformers therefore take to
heart, that they have no chance now of succour from
the influences which carried the Reform Act of 1832.
If they are to have any organic changes, great or
small, they must persuade the actual holders of
constitutional power, and not forget the House of
Lords: otherwise, they do but waste their effort. ‘
For the reforms urged in these pages I would
plead with equal simplicity before the House of
Lords or before an assembly of Chartists. The
T
�4
arguments would differ in their relative importance,
but would never need to be dissembled.
The
nuisances which have to be abated, bring evil to
every political order and class of the nation, though
the weakest part of the nation of course suffers most
from them.
Where the object of a great national reform is, to
strengthen one Order by lowering another; to humil
iate the pride of a dynasty or of a peerage; or to en
force some large sacrifice of pecuniary means :—the
nature of the proposed change cannot be disguised.
Undoubtedly much strong language is heard among
us against aristocracy and in favour of democracy,
which, taken to the letter, might seem to imply that
aristocracy, in its legitimate sense, is to be depressed
and stript of honour.
But in fact bureaucracy
and centralization are the real foes, both of them
hostile to the genius of the constitution in former
days, and in no way closely allied to aristocracy as
such. Centralization has come in from Continental
Despotism, from the first French Revolutionists, and
largely from the writings of Bentham, as I under
stand. Bureaucracy has been ever on the increase
through the enormous extent of the empire, and the
immensity of power devolving on the ministry of
the day; while Parliament is too slow in learning
facts to be any adequate check. The House of
Peers, as an Order, has no interest in bureaucracy,
and none in centralization. Hence without a shadow
of paradox, and with perfect straightforwardness, I
maintain, that from a true Conservative point of
view our nation has to retrace many wrong steps
and make many right ones, quickly and boldly.
Not that it is paradoxical to hold, that in certain
cases it is for the true interest and true honour of a
ruling class—just as to a despotic king—to have
new checks put on its power. No man is to be
congratulated that his baser passions can bear
sway over him without restraint; and no party, no
�ministry, no Order of the State, is stronger or more
honourable, when its less wise or less virtuous
members can assume the guidance of it. Whatever
from without bridles them, is a real strength to the
party or Order, and will tend to its permanent
honour.
In a pamphlet already widely disseminated, I
have avowed my conviction, that to extinguish all
future creation of hereditary peers is the first need
ful step of reform. But it is equally my conviction
that this may be so done, and ought to be so done,
as to make us all proud of the House of Lords,
strengthen its efficiency, and in no way impair
practically its hereditary character, which (under
rightful modifications) I know how to value.
The course which Whig-Radical Reform has
hitherto taken has greatly frightened many reason
able Conservatives : I maintain that it ought also to
displease, if not alarm, all sincere and reasonable
Radicals,—because it tends to bring us to the French
goal not to the American goal. With a Central
authority preponderating so enormously over our
Local; a Parliament by the side of which every
Municipality is a pigmy; a Ministry, wielding an
executive so vast, while our Mayors and Lord
Mayors have sunk into pageants;—every step of
change which merely extends the Parliamentary
franchise, is a step towards a system in which it is
decided by universal suffrage once in 7 years, what
oligarchy shall be our despotic rulers. A Reform
in the direction of restoring the essential principles
of the old English Constitution ought not to frighten
Conservatives: a reform to re-establish what through
total change of' circumstances is now unsuitable,
ought not to be desired by Radicals. I cannot but
feel that it is a popular fallacy to say, that because
the original Parliament was elected by universal
suffrage, therefore the same thing is now proper.
Admit for the moment that the fact was as is
�6
asserted: yet the different functions needed from
the modern Parliament demand far wider political
information and intelligence in its electors. The
existing system is confessedly inadequate to the
nation : Tories and Whigs have avowed it, nor am
I defending things as they are. But before we
enter on a course which must become a mere ques
tion of strength, and may convulse us—not by civil
war, but by bitter discontents and impaired patriot
ism—more deeply than any one yet knows; let
thoughtful men of all sides be willing to reconsider
the entire position of things.
§ i. Before judging what reforms we need, we must
consider what grievances exist. I enumerate under
six heads the greatest of our organic evils and
sorest of our dangers.
i. Our wars made immorally. —War is crime on
*
the greatest scale, except when it is a necessary
measure of police for a commensurate object of
justice. No man can be hanged or deprived of his
property without the solemn verdict of men sworn
to uphold the right : yet we bombard cities, depose
princes, take possession of territory, drive families
into beggary, without any previous public hearing
or public deliberation; without any verdict of jus
tice ; at most by the vote of a secret cabinet, not
sworn to prefer the just to the convenient; nay, the
thing may be done at the will of one or two men in
Asia, without orders from England, or by the hot
headedness of a commodore; yet be ratified and
followed up, barely because it would hurt our pride
to disown it. These wars disgrace our ruling classes
*List of Queen Victoria’s wars.—War of Canada,—of Syria,—of Afghan
istan,—of Scinde and Moultan,—two Punjaub wars,—two Caffir wars,—war of
Assam,—war of Burma,—three Chinese wars,—Persian war,—Russian war,—■
war of Japan,—New Zealand wars,—war of Bhootan,—besides wars internal
to India or Ceylon, little wars in West Africa, and in South America. Of all
these wars only one (that of Russia) received previous mature consideration and
had national approval; and only one (the first Punjaub war) was a war of
defence against a foreign invader. Even that invasion was caused by our
aggression and conquest of Scinde.
�7
to the foreigner and bring upon them diplomatic
humiliations. To the poor of this country they are
’ the direst and most incurable of evils, entailing and
riveting upon them all their depression. If there
be a government of God on earth, no nation can
afford to make wars of cupidity or of pride.
This first grievance implies that Parliament is no
adequate check on the Ministry, and that the Min
istry has iro adequate control on its distant subor
dinates, in the matter of extra European war.
2. Our administrative inefficiency.—At the time
of the Crimean mismanagements, there was great
. outcry for administrative reform : it is not needful
here to do more than allude to the monstrous and
frightful facts which so harrowed the mind of Earl
Russell, then in the cabinet as Lord John Russell.
But in that great war, our Admiralty postponed to
build the gunboats wanted for the Baltic in 1854
and 1855 : built in preference great ships which
were not needed, and finally completed the gunboats
by 1856 after peace was made.—In the last four
years, the United States Admiralty, beginning from
nothing in their docks and almost nothing on the
seas, have built fleets adequate to their vast war ;
with 2000 miles of coast to blockade and great
flotillas on the rivers. It has been done for less
cost in gold, than that which our Admiralty has
expended in the same four years of peace: yet at
this moment we hear the outcry, that our ships and
guns are inferior to the American. On such details
I cannot pretend to knowledge; but it is needless
to prove that the incompetence of the Admiralty is a
chronic fact in England. Even the French Admiralty
has commented on it.—Now if the Admiralty is
inefficient, is the War Office or Civil Service likely
to be better, when the Admiralty is precisely the
organ on which it is hereditary with all English
statesmanship to pride itself?
The second grievance implies that Parliament
�8
has no adequate control over Ministerial incapacity
or favouritism.
3. The state of Ireland.—Lord Macaulay declared
Ireland to be the point at which the empire is always
exposed to a vital stab. No one will pretend that
Ireland is flourishing, or is loyal, or that the members
of the London Parliament have confidence in their
own understanding of Irish questions. A population
larger than that of some European kingdoms, inhab
iting a separate island—yet close to us—predomi
nantly of a foreign race, very many of them still
speaking a foreign tongue, differing also in religion;
is not easy to govern wisely, and cannot be perma
nently disaffected without grave mischief to us all.
Thirty thousand soldiers to overawe the Irish, are
a display to the world, that we still hold the island
as a conquest, and cannot trust them as fellow
citizens. The prohibition of volunteer soldiers tells
the same tale. Meanwhile the prime of the labour
ing classes emigrate, and propagate hatred against
us in America.
This grievance has lasted long enough to make
it clear, that the imperial Parliament is an inefficient
organ for Ireland, and that the Irish members are
inefficient or damaging for English legislation. The
Irish Parliament ought to have been reformed, not
destroyed.
4. The state of Established Churches.—Fivesixths of the population of Ireland are Dissenters :
so is a very large fraction of Wales. Half of
England is in Dissent, and no effort has ever been
made to bring back the most numerous body (the
Wesleyans) who on principle approve of a State
Church. Scotland is in a wonderful position through
the destruction of her Parliament. The articles of
Union are expounded to mean, that the Imperial
Parliament is bound forever to support the West
minster Confession of Faith, (which never was the
faith of England) whether Scotland believe it or not.
�9
Two successive vast schisms have rent away
masses of population from the Established Church ;
the latter in our own day, under Dr. Chalmers, who
was a vehement advocate for State Churches.
It is not my part to lay down that State Churches
are right or wrong : but I understand two character
istic boasts of “ Conservatives ” to be,—the House
Of Lords and the State religion. Each of these is in
secular decline under the existing routine, and must
continue to decline, if it be felt to obstruct, not to in
vigorate, national life. In the abstract, I do not
dissemble my own preference for territorial Churches
over Sects ; but the example of the United States
proves that Sectarianism is less hurtful in the ab
sence than in the presence of a Sectarian Church
Establishment. Thus we manage to get at once the
worst evils of both systems.
This topic suggests that the attempt at uniformity
is the wreck of state religion. Indeed, in the case
of Scotland uniformity is sacrificed, but in just the
most mischievous way,—that of enacting an ever
unchangeable creed.
Populations in a different
mental condition demand diversity in teachers and
in religious worship. These need local adjustment
by local assemblies, on which, at most, a veto alone
should be reserved to the central legislature.
5. The state of our Peasantry.—Almost from the
beginning, the peasantry have found the Parliament
to be an unfriendly organ. Under Edward III.
their wages were fixed by law, and they were
punished if they refused to work. For four centuries
and a half they were forbidden to make their own
bargains. Who can imagine that a Parliament of
landlords which thus treated them would not make the
laws of land unfairly favourable to landlords ? Yet
such laws are treated as sacred and unchangeable.
At present,in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England,
we find the actual cultivators of the soil to be worse off
than in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, or
�(atlength) than in Russia; nay, in afar less thriving
and happy condition than in the little island of
Guernsey. In Guernsey and in Belgium land is
scarcer than in England, in America it is far more
abundant; yet in each extreme the peasantry are
better off than with us. We have evidently to
adjust the arrears of six centuries’ oppression. Who
can hope that evils of that antiquity will be cleared
off by the old machinery ?
6. The incompetency of Parliament to do its
duties to India.—The English empire is a vast
machine of three parts. First, the United Kingdom,
with outlying military posts. Secondly, the true
English Colonies, which contribute to us neither
men nor money, yet have to be defended against
dangers real and imaginary. Thirdly, the perilous
splendour of India, where 150 millions are subjected
to the Queen’s direct rule, and thereby to her
Parliament. To these add 30 millions at home, and
you find 180 millions which have to be watched
over by a single supreme legislature. N or only so:
but 50 millions more of Indians, through their
princes, are in subordinate alliance to the Queen.
These princes are liable to be dethroned by the pen
of the Queen’s Secretary. To all such, the appeal
for justice lies to the British Parliament.
It is but the other day, that an Indian prince
appealed against an executive decree which had
deprived him of his royalty and thereby ejected all
his countrymen and kinsmen from high office. His
cause came before Parliament and was voted down
by ministers and placemen. Without assuming that
the vote was unjust, it may be judged monstrous to
eject all natives from high office because their prince
has misbehaved. In any case, Indians will never
become loyal to British rule, if their appeals against
the local executive are heard, not in a court of Law,
by judges sworn to do justice, but by men banded
as partizans, and virtually judges in their own
�11
cause. An eminent Indian officer recently states,
that, though not a shot be fired, 10,000 soldiers
are required yearly, merely to keep up in India the ex
isting force of 75,000 British troops. Grant that sani
tary arrangements may lower this frightful number :
yet how many will be wanted if we make new annexa
tions ? if we absorb more and more native principal
ities ? if we develop Indian wealth and mechanism
while wounding the native sentiment ? All these
agencies are going on at this moment. A general
insurrection may be surely counted on within thirty
years, unless, before that time, we win the loyalty
of Indian patriots. Even the movement of 1857
would have been irresistible, if the insurgents had
actively extended its area at once, or if certain
princes had gone against us. Unless the drain of
men for the Indian army be stopped, the sooner we
avow ourselves to be, like Switzerland and Belgium,
neutral in all European questions, the better for
our good fame. We are ourselves cementing India
into one country. Another insurrection, an insur
rection of collective India,—if successful, would
inflict on England an amount of loss, ruin, and
disgrace, which could not be recovered in a whole
generation;—if unsuccessful, would still multiply our
difficulties tenfold, and make it doubtful whether
expulsion would not have been better for us.
§ 11.
For these six grievances and dangers Reforms
are needed. Of what Reforms do we now hear talk ?
Prominently and solely of Extended Suffrage and
*
the Ballot. Let me grant to a Radical, that each
of these may have its value;—the Ballot for its
mechanical convenience, and as a temporary engine
to save a limited class from intimidation. Yet
unless these are mere steps towards after-reforms,
they will leave Parliament overworked and helpless,
* Since this was in type, Triennial Parliaments have been claimed.
�12
the Bureaucracy as despotic as ever, India disloyal,
the House of Lords as obstructive as ever to all
religious freedom. If after-reforms are intended,
they must be avowed at once, or we shall be once
more told that the settlement is “ final,” and is to
last for a full generation. That Mr. Bright and the
late lamented Mr. Cobden expected changes in the
possession of land, with benefit to our peasants,
from these two measures of reform, I infer from a
celebrated altercation; but the mode in which they
are to operate and the length of time before they
will bring relief, remain extremely obscure. The
artizan class from 1840 to 1846 gave their effort to
sustain the Corn Laws; the peasants also, if they
had the vote, would probably use it against them
selves. To give voting power to ignorant masses,
accustomed to abject obedience, is surely no political
panacea.
The primary weakness of our organization lies in
the enormous over-occupation of the House of
Commons. With great talent, knowledge and ex
perience, in more than 600 men,—by tact to divide
labour and put each man to his special work ;—by
standing Committees and Permanent Chairmen, in
whom the House could confide, and to whom they
could refer for information and counsel; no doubt a
vast deal of work might be done, and without very
long speeches. But no ministry has ever shown a
wish to aid the Legislative body to conduct its work
energetically.
On matters of administration the
ministers must of course take the initiative; but they
will never invent an organization which is to control
them ; which in fact must be devised and maintained
strictly as against them. New principles are wanted.
At present the holders of power and the expectants
of power combine to subject the independence of the
Legislative to the Bureaucracy; and this usurpation
is veiled under the phrase,—prerogative of the
Crown.
Merely to extend the franchise will not
�i3
add to the chance of getting abler members of
Parliament, nor a larger number of men resolved to
fight against any of the grievances enumerated.
The task laid on the Commons House is at present
too overwhelming. Without new machinery which
shall relieve it of the present intolerable load, no
imaginable change in the mode of electing is likely
to cure the evil. One supreme legislature for 230
millions! Englishmen who come out of practical
life and have been deeply immersed in special and
very limited occupations, are to judge on Private
Bills innumerable, and on the affairs of people very
unlike to us and quite unknown to us! In the
United States, for 31 millions of people there are 35
independent local legislatures, each having on an
average less than a million; while the Supreme
Congress is wholly disembarrassed of all local law,
and regulates only a defined number of topics which
concern the entire homogeneous Union. Our colon
ial legislatures legislate only for the home interests
of perhaps half a million, two million, or at most
three million people. It does not require super
human wisdom in legislators to do tolerably well
work thus limited. But it is a truly barbarous
simplicity to put one organ to the frightfully various
work of our Commons House. Entirely new organs
appear to me an obvious and undeniable necessity,
however disagreeable to men of routine.
Nor should it be left out of sight, that in the last
century and a half, while our population has been
growing in numbers and our affairs in complexity;
so far have we been from increasing and developing
our organization, that we have destroyed or spoiled
the organs which existed.
The Parliaments of
Ireland and Scotland have been annihilated (one by
flagrant, the other by suspected, bribery,) and the
power and status of our Municipalities and our
County organization have been gravely lowered.
The old Municipalities and Counties were the
�14
sources from which Parliament derived its own
rights and power : to the new institutions limited
rights have been jealously measured out by Parlia
ment. Every Empire needs to be made up of
Kingdoms or Governments; every such Govern
*
ment, of Provinces or Counties ; and each smaller
unit should have complete political life, with as much
power over itself as can be exercised without
damage to the nation. From these elementary
principles we have gone widely astray, working to
wards a central confusion which always threatens
alternate despotism and anarchy.
To invent new organization is not really difficult.
California thirteen years ago was infamous as a nest
of gamblers and robbers, mixed with gold-diggers ;
but the instant that a sufficient mass of honest men
was poured in, they constructed admirable institu
tions, and have now among other good things
popular colleges which we may envy. The diffi
culty is, to persuade English aristocrats to adopt
anything new, until the old has become quite in
tolerable. Let wretched Ireland be a witness to
that! It means that millions of the nation must
go through martyrdom,—that public calamity and
disgrace must be incurred,—that disaffection must
become dangerous ; before the classes which are at
ease will consent to the creation of any machinery
which they suspect might ultimately undermine
their power. This is no true Conservatism. This
is the way to ruin an aristocratic order. It is not the
able men, the experienced men, who so feel or so rea
son ; it is the meaner members of their party, whom
the leaders will not risk offending, until public calam
ityforces them, or until the nation, gaining a clear idea
of what it wants, speaks so pointedly, that the real
party-leaders come over to it. This I hold to be the
right course for the Radicals, who (it seems) must
be the movers. Let them make it their business to
convince such men as Mr. Gladstone and Lord
�i5
Stanley in the two great parties of the State, that
the things which they claim are reasonable and
right,—and with a view to this, let them impress
the same thing on as many members of Parliament
as they can,—and the necessary reforms will be car
ried, however novel in principle. Those who call
themselves “ practical men”—are apt to snuff out
every proposal that goes beyond routine, by the
reply,—“ There is no use in talking of it; for it is
quite impossible: ” and until a public opinion has
been formed in favour of it, every new thing is of
course impossible. But what our colonies and the
United States do, is not impossible to Englishmen
at home when they resolve upon it.
The inertia of our aristocratic ranks, miscalled
Conservatism, has undoubtedly a marvellous resist
ing force ; and this is the great danger of the country.
When all the world beside is in rapid movement,
and that world is in intimate relations—industrial,
political, social, literary, — with England ; when
moreover our own population is in steady change ;
organic reforms ought to accommodate themselves
easily and quickly,—if possible, spontaneously,—
to the changes of society. This would be true
Conservatism ; for this is vitality. Reform which
comes too late, fails to avert political disease.
The noblest function of high legislation is to guide
and conduct Reform.
Let those who think Inertia to be Conservative,
look with a fresh eye on the outer world. Russia
has cast off her slave system, and is organizing her
Governments into centres of independent political
life. She increases her population three times as
fast as England every year, and loses none
by emigration. In a quarter of a century more she
is likely to have ioo millions, not of disfranchised
men, or discontented subjects, but of real citizens,
under 40 or 50 local Parliaments, combining their
strength in one Empire.—Germany may ere long
�i6
be involved by her Prussian dynasty in a great
civil war, which (even if it do not become a Re
publican contest) can scarcely fail of ending in a
great union of their many local governments : a
Union which may chance even to absorb Holland
and Switzerland by the good will of these little
states. The Germany of the future is resolved to
be a power on the high seas, with at least forty
millions of people, who will cease to emigrate largely
when they are politically better satisfied.—France
will be to us ever a better neighbour, the richer and
the more commercial she becomes: yet so much the
more certainly is she our rival on the seas.—The
Italian fleets, with those of Southern Germany,
will supersede our functions as police of the Medi
terranean, and therefore might seem our valuable
allies: whether our Conservatives will so regard
them, is another question.—But the broad fact is,
that with the increase of good government on the
continent, and still more with the progress of free
institutions, the relative power of England must
sink and does sink: and we can less than ever afford
to have a discontented Ireland, and a peasantry who
are nearly at the bottom of the European scale.
Something yet stronger remains to be urged.
English and Irish peasants must be compared, not
merely to the peasants of Guernsey or of Europe,
but to those of America. There, a nation, among
whom in every moral and social sense our people
find themselves at home,—a nation which, since
the death of George III., has absorbed three
million British emigrants, — has decided on the
overthrow of slavery, and is resolved to people its
vast fertile lands by bestowing them freely on culti
vators. The Slave States will soon attract emigrants
even more than does the far West. America (to
say nothing of Canada) might receive ten million
new citizens in the next ten years with no result to
herself but increased prosperity. An emigrant who
�i7
has manly strength, industry, and temperance,
landing at New York with a few dollars, can in
3 or 4 years lay by enough to stock a farm, receive
public land, and become a freehold cultivator.
Should emigration from our counties once commence
in earnest, the Irish Exodus teaches that it is like a
syphon which sucks the cask dry,—the stream in
front attracting that behind. If English landlords
desire our problem to work itself out on the Irish
pattern ; if they can look complacently on the possi
bility of a constant dwindling of the English popu
lation, with results which need not here be pointed
at, they have only to persevere in their past
routine.
In this connexion there is yet one more topic
which English Whigs and Tories ought not to over
look : (I am unwilling to lay stress on it, yet it is
too important wholly to omit ;)—the danger—as
they will view it—of Republicanism becoming mili
tant in Europe. Their folly has prepared the way.
They abandoned Hungary, with its territorial no
bility, its old precedents, its rights founded on treaty,
when it had no thought of throwing off royalty.
By refusing to acknowledge the belligerency of
Hungary, and to reassume that place of Mediator,
between her and Austria, which (with Holland) we
had held in making the peace of 1710,—we con
nived at Russian invasion, and made Gorgey’s
treason a possibility.
Our first punishment was
our own Russian war, which came in the train. The
next is, that the English aristocracy now is isolated,
and Hungary (irreconcileable to Austria) will become
a Republic on the first opportunity. Hitherto the
French dynasty has failed to attain a constitutional
position, without which it has no mark of perma
nence ; nor is Victor Emmanuel’s throne the stronger
for all the humiliations which the French Emperor
has put upon it. Whether in France or in Ger
many events give the initiative, matters but little. A
c
�i8
civil war may rise in Germany, either from the un5
endurable encroachments of a prince, or by the con
tagion of revolutionary spirit. Whatever the cause
of German commotion, Republicanism would quickly
become an established fact in Hungary ; and once
successful there, would reanimate the struggle else
where. It will not wait to be a second time crushed
by the combination of kings. No one can predict
what is to come ; but no reasonable man will now
deny that events of an ordinary kind may lead to
the establishment of Republics in Hungary, Ger
many, and France. Would not English Conserva
tives and the Crown itself then regret, if by
obstructing all reforms, and initiating nothing likely
to remove the causes of discontent, they had per
petuated a sullen indignation against British Institu
tions ? Even in 1848 Tories rejoiced, that Lord
Grey’s Reform Bill of 1832 had become law.
S.ni.
What steps of Organic Reform do I then desire
to recommend to the attention of the reader ? I must
distinguish between immediate and ultimate measures.
Five measures appear to me of immediate urgent
importance.
1. The establishment of an Imperial Court in
India, to judge all causes between the Queen’s Go
vernment and the Princes ; with power similar to
that which the Queen’s Bench would put forth, if here
the Government were to eject a nobleman from his
estates. The mere inauguration of such a Court
would send a gush of loyalty through Indian hearts,
and would encourage the princes to lessen their
native armies. The establishment of one disputed
title by it (say, the confirmation of the Rajah of My
sore against Lord Canning’s unexpected and harsh
decision, which extinguishes his dynasty with his life,)
would allow us to reduce the Indian army by one
half. Its restitution of a single prince unjustly
�19
rdeposed, with restoration of his jewels and wardrobe,
might bring down the English force to the standard
of 1833. The mark of a “ tyrant ” (according to the
old Greeks) was his defence by a foreign body-guard:
we bear that mark of illegitimate sway at present.
To make India loyal, to save the yearly sacrifice of
health or life to 10,000 young men, now the miserable
victims of our army system, is so urgent an interest,
that I put this topic foremost. Too much import
ance can hardly be given to it. Each soldier is said
to cost us /ioo; hence the pecuniary expense also
is vast. But until we restrain ourselves from ag
gression, all attempts permanently to improve the
state of our millions at home must be fruitless.
Nor only so : but considering that 200 millions of
Indians would be represented in that Supreme
Court, a splendid commencement would be given to
“ Arbitration instead of War,” for which Cobden
contended in Europe.
English judges would be
faithful to their duty ; but, by adding natives of
India to the Court, we should set a potent example
to the whole world, fraught with good will to men,
and likely to bring us blessings from God.
The responsibilities of the English Parliament
would be greatly lightened by this measure ; which
would at least relieve them of their arduous judicial
duties towards the Indian princes.
2. The boon which was solemnly guaranteed to
India by Lord Grey’s Ministry in Parliament, and
by the Parliamentary Charter of 1833, should be at
once bestowed, bona fide. It was promised that to
every office, high or low, except that of Gov. Gen.
and Commander-in-Chief, native Indians should be
admissible on equal terms with British-born sub
jects. “ An exception corroborates the rule concerning
things not excepted. For twenty years this solemn
act was made a dead letter; then in 1853, under
pretence of new liberality, the delusive system of
competitive examinations was established, subjecting
�20
natives to unjust disadvantage, and forcing them to
come to England to be examined. If this system
of trickery be kept up by the old influences which
Lord Grey threatened with extinction if they dared
to resist that important clause in 1833,—all our
other good deeds and good intentions may prove
inadequate to win Indian loyalty. Our task there
is, to rear India into political manhood, train it to
English institutions, and rejoice when it can govern
itself without our aid. If a part of our aristocracy
and middle classes is too narrow-minded to under
stand how noble is such a function, the rest of Great
Britain ought not to remain silent,—to the great and
certain mischief of the empire.
3. The Mutiny Act, which is never passed for
more than one year, should not be re-enacted in its
present barbarous state, but with several important
modifications. Of these, I shall here specify but
one. No soldier or sailor who kills, wounds, or de
stroys, should be exempted from the ordinary
responsibilities of a civilian, except after the Queen
(or her accredited Viceroy) has publicly proclaimed
war. Then, and then only, if a soldier attack the
country against which war has been proclaimed,—
and none another,—should he be able to plead
“ military command ” in his justification. Against
violent and sudden attack civilians and soldiers alike
may make defence with deadly weapons. Admirals
and Consuls will cease to involve us in war of their
own initiation, only when they become unable to
shield the tools of their will from personal responsi
bility.—[I suppose that it is the Mutiny Act which
here needs modification. If there be some other
Act which exempts the soldier from guilt, then it is
that which needs repeal.]
4. Irish Ecclesiasticism has to be reformed with the
least possible delay. The topics are too well known
to dwell on. The Lord Morpeth Bill of 1837 and
Lord Leveson Gower’s of 1825,—both murdered
�21
by the House of Lords,—tell what needs to be done
for Ireland.
5. What I mention fifth, might be executed
first. — The principle of creating Life Peers, re
called by Lord Palmerston in the case of Lord
Wensleydale, should be avowed by the nation,
and enforced by the executive, but with one essential
modification of pre-eminent importance. Let the
" Commons vote a humble address to her Majesty,
representing that the House of Peers needs to be
elevated in honour and called to higher and more
active functions ; and with a view to this implore
her that in future she will create none but Life
Peers, and such Peers as can be trusted by her
faithful Commons to co-operate diligently in the
public service; that therefore also she will instruct
her ministers to seek a vote from the Commons,
commending for public merit any individual for
whom they are disposed to solicit from her Majesty
the honour of a Life Peerage.—The majority of the
Peers will be too sensible to resist the nation and
the Commons in such a cause, and a vast step on
ward will have been made.
So much for immediate Reforms : but what are
the more distant, yet necessary objects ?
We cannot undo in a day the malversations of
centuries. Every idea of immediate final Reform
is a sad delusion. For a century and a half, as
above remarked, instead of developing our ancient
organs, we have lamed or destroyed them. To re
make or invent requires both special knowledge and
wisdom. A popular movement cannot possibly dic
tate details. But I will not shrink from saying my
thought in outline, where I have thought a great
deal.
1. To stop unjust wars, entangling treaties, and
unwise diplomacy, the House of Lords should have
supreme controul over Foreign Affairs. The right
of advising her Majesty to declare war should be
�22
taken from the Privy Council, (which is in this mat
ter now a wooden machine,) and should be given to
the Lords ; every one of whom should have a right,
like that of the American Senate, to enter the Fo
*
reign Office and read every despatch. No Treaty
should be valid unless confirmed by the Lords, and
by the Commons also, if it involve pecuniary con
tingencies, and the House should have a right to
order the unmutilated publication of whatever di
plomatic document it pleases.
2. Every appointment to office should be made
out in the words, that her Majesty appoints the
person, “ by the consent of the House of Peers.”
Then the House would have a veto on every ap
pointment.
The Ministry would not dare to
appoint through mere favouritism, and would gain
power to resist importunate claimants of their own
party, whom they now reluctantly gratify.
Of course these new and high functions could
not be given to the Lords, until the nation trusts
them : and perhaps no Conservative, no peer, would
wish the Upper House to have this prominence in
the empire without some change in the present con
stitution. Sismondi,—a writer who energetically
combines an aristocratical creed with zeal for a freeholding peasantry,—declares as a historical induc
tion, that the essence and energy of aristocracy is
corrupted from the day that it becomes formally he
reditary. In England it has been saved by the dying
out of so many old peerages, and by the incessant
creation of new ones. The sole innovation of prin
ciple which I propose, is, that the creation shall be
made, not to reward partizanship, or to stock the
house with wealthy men ; but that^shall be voted
°l /optzmj cuique, (as the Romans have it) by the
representatives of the nation, and thus made a true
Aristocracy, a rule of the Best.
3. We want safety for our food which is on the high
seas.—The mischief of Bureaucracy is strikingly
�23
Illustrated in the recent history of this topic. In
i860 the United States Government sent a circular
to all its ministers in Europe, requesting them to
propose neutral privileges for all merchant ships in
time of war: and Earl Russell gave a decided re
fusal, without letting Parliament know that the offer
had been made. Three years later, Mr. Cobden re
vealed the fact, having got information of it from
America; and asserted of his own personal know
ledge that every Court of Europe would have
gladly acceded to the measure, if Earl Russell had
accepted it. The American Government did not
expect refusal from this quarter; for Lord Palmer
ston in a public speech at Liverpool had declared
his desire of such an arrangement. More recently
indeed, he has tried to back out of what he then
said ; but, as is believed, solely because he had found
Earl Russell unconvinceable. Such is the power of
one man, secretly to obstruct a matter of vital inte
rest to the nation. The doings of that one ship,
the Alabama, in spite of all the efforts of the Fede
ral navy, are a sufficient warning of what England
would suffer in a war with a power quite third-rate
on the seas. In fact, it is probable that either Aus
tria or Prussia could annihilate our merchant navy.
To compute the misery which would be endured by
the middle and lower classes of England from the
stagnation of foreign trade and the cutting off of
foreign food,—is impossible. It is not yet too late
to repair Earl Russell’s grave error; but if war
once come upon us, we then shall repent too late.
4. I believe that Ireland ought to be divided into
four Provinces, England into (perhaps) six, Scotland
into two; Wales would remain “the Principality:”
hence might be thirteen Provincial Councils with
free power of local taxation and local legislation,
subject only to a veto from Parliament, which in
most cases would gradually become a formality.
Time and trial, or lawyer’s skill, would discover in
�24
what cases the veto might be definitely renounced.
The Councils should be elected by a very extended suf4
frage, which in two generations might reach to every
adult who is ostensibly independent. The more
the Councils should relieve the Parliament of all
business except that in which the empire is neces
sarily a unit, the better. To controul the Executive
—to arrange all that is general to the United King
dom,—to look after India and the Colonies ; will
remain a more than sufficient task, if not only all
Private Bills are stript away, but also all business
concerning Education, Churches, the Poor, the Law
Courts, and Militia or Volunteers. If we had thus
many centres of national life, of high cultivation and
refinement, the unhealthy and threatening growth of
London would be arrested. We should soon have
many Universities, Free Education for all ranks, and
many small Army-systems, in wholesome emulation.
The Counties and the large Towns would no longer
be isolated, as strongholds of aristocracy and demo
cracy ; but the country gentlemen and nobility
would seek and find their places in the local Execu
tive and in the Provincial Councils, without being able
to block out meritorious men of every rank. The
poor would have a chance of rising to the top of the
scale. Instead of society being mischievously divi
ded, as now, into horizontal strata, its relations
would be local and territorial; for every Council
in England and its Executive would have a power
and dignity equivalent to that of a kingdom such as
Belgium or Holland.
Each would regulate its
local Religious Establishments : one would vie with
another in diffusing education : experimental legis
lation might become fruitful; and whatever mani
fest benefit one part had devised, would be initiated
without the ordeal of long Parliamentary cam
paigns.
The decay of English institutions from the acces
sion of William III to the death of George III was
�mainly due to the fact, that during European war
an English Parliament can ill attend to anything
else. J ust so, Parliamentary Reform was abandoned,
because Russian war came upon us.
This is an
evidently defective and barbarous condition; and
puts us into melancholy contrast to the United
States, in which no intensity of war lessens the do
mestic energy of the State Governments.
5. The question of Parliamentary suffrage cannot
be properly argued here. It is now complicated by
Mr. Hare’s ingenious proposals, of which I would
gladly see experiment in a single district, as in that
of the metropolis. To discuss his scheme fully
would require much space; to give an opinion
shortly would be arrogant. But to many reasoners
on the subject of the suffrage, a few general remarks
may be not superfluous.
Representative Legislators are an artificial sys
tem. Many men say to me : “I am not bound, to
obey laws, unless I have consented to them
iwy
'representative?' What if another say : “ I am not
bound to obey laws, unless I have consented to them
myself? " I think, that of the two, the latter state
ment has more reason. The former is every way
absurd. My representative may have voted against
the law ; then, I am not bound ! Women also are
free from all statute laws, by this argument. More
over, I never consented to be bound by my repre
sentative. Representation is a mere means to an
end. Justice to all orders and persons is the end.
Inasmuch as injustice in legislation generally pro
ceeds from one-sidedness of mind, a legislature
which does not contain men from all ranks is almost
certain to be unjust to the ranks excluded. But
merely to admit a right of voting, does not ensure
the object aimed at. The English farmers have
always had votes, but never in our days have
had representatives of their interest in Parliament.
Nor is the vote a natural right of individuals.
D
�26
If convenience suggested to cast lots in each rank,
and pick out a sort of jury from it as an electoral
college, no class would be injured, and no individual
could complain, as long as the results proved good.
Nor is it true that the men called “ potwall^ers ”
in old days were in any moral sense “ elevated ” by
the Parliamentary vote. That small shopkeepers,
artizans, farmers, peasants, and the entire female sex,
are wholly unrepresented in Parliament, seems to me
a great defect, apt to involve injustice to each
class, whenever it happens to have some special
interest and rights. But to remedy the evil is a
matter of extreme difficulty.
Neither extended
suffrage, nor universal suffrage seems to me likely
to bring an alleviation, until a distant date, after
living men are in their graves.
That persons may be “ elevated ” by possessing
the suffrage, they must be able to meet, and discuss,
and form definite opinions ; and not merely vote
once in seven years, but wait upon their representa
tive and press their judgments upon him, and be
able to call him to account, or be enlightened by
his explanation. A man who needs the Ballot to
shield him, and dares not allow the colour of his
political opinions to be known,—can do none of
these things; cannot fulfil the cardinal duties of a
constituent, and is degraded, not elevated, by pos
sessing the vote. Men who are too numerous or
too distant to meet and confer, are generally a mis
chievous constituency. Cliques and “ caucuses,” or
other Clubs, unknown to the Constitution, generally
snatch power out of their hands. I cannot convince
myself that the workmen who have “ Unions” are
not often in miserable subjection to the power of a
clique. The “caucuses” of the United Stateshave
constantly enabled those who are called “ trading
politicians ” to dictate the course of public events,
owing to the President being elected by suffrage on
too vast a scale. A nation which enjoys very
�27
vigorous local institutions,—where the Parish, as well
as the State, is in high energy, and education is not
only free to all, but accepted by all,—may bear
the occasional exercise of such a vote,—and will
use it well in a time of great national tension. But
to introduce those who have no daily political duties,
no local activity, no wide political thought, into the
responsibility of voting in huge masses once in seven
years, for a Parliament which is to be “ omnipotent; "
and to expect that this will promote liberty ;—seems
to me a lamentable and wild mistake. Electors
ought to have clear opinions as to the competence
of the elected for the highest and most difficult of
the tasks which will befal him. The welfare of our
millions is sacrificed by mismanagement of remote
affairs , as to which they have little knowledge and
no care. They should be able, not only to confer
and advise one another publicly, but to keep up
active personal relations with their representative.
Any enlargement of the franchise which impedes
these processes, or makes elections more expensive,
and leaves the expense on the candidate, must (I
fear) be a change greatly for the worse. At pre
sent, the power of a minister to threaten a dissolu
tion,—which means, to threaten a fine of some
hundreds or even thousands of pounds on single
members, if the voting be not to the minister’s taste,
is a disgrace and a grave mischief.
The French Reformers in the last century, who
first inEurope conceived generous and noble ideas
of popular power, were aware that nothing but con
fusion could come of Universal Suffrage acting
directly on a central system in a populous nation.
They devised the system of Double Election ; and
in my belief were fundamentally right. But on a
sound foundation they built unsoundly. The bodies
which thus elect, ought not to exist merely for the
sake of electing. They should elect because they are
a substantive power, trusted for other high duties,
�28
and therefore trustworthy for this function also. I
will not conceal my opinion, that if the United
Kingdom were divided into Provinces, every mem
ber of the Imperial Parliament ought ultimately to
be an ambassador delegated by the direct vote of his
Provincial Council; delegated with instructions, and
each liable to be separately recalled, and replaced at
the will of the Council. Such a system, I think,
would be a virtual return to the original idea, in
which the Knights and Burgesses certainly never
represented individuals, but represented corporate
bodies. There is the very same reason for electing
the central Parliament by representative Councils,
as there is for legislating by representatives, and
not by a folkmote, when a nation is counted by mil
lions. From every Council, on an average, seven
might every year be appointed, to sit for seven years,
unless recalled. Some of the seven every year
would be selected to gratify the petition of every
order of men : thus every class would have virtual
representatives in Parliament.
Every delegate
should have an honourable stipend from his own
Council, and never be permitted to incur any -election
expenses. In this way, from a humble origin, merit
might rise, first into the local legislature or local
executive, next into central posts of honour. And
there is no such security for the welfare of the lowest
ranks, as when a sensible fraction of the Executive
Government is ordinarily filled by men who have
risen .from below. At present no such men rise, nor
can rise, even into the Legislature, extend the suf
frage as you may.
After sons of peasants and of artizans shall be
found in high places,—after the House of Peers is
popularized,—no one would despair of changes in
the tenure of landed property, such as may elevate
the entire order of the peasantry ; but if it is to be
delayed so long, the problem will be solved by
Emigration in a mode far less satisfactory to the
�29
landlord class. If landlords are wise, they will
understand their danger ; and will prefer to have a
House of Peers which shall deal with it. Surely it
is happy for the Russian nobility that the Emperor
has taken in hand the removal of serfdom, instead
of awaiting the chances of revolution.
6. That pernicious system of Centralization which
makes French legal liberty impossible, and has
gravely damaged England, in India has run riot
without controul. When the East Indian Company
overthrew local treasuries in India, and put into
their central exchequer at Calcutta the tolls of roads
and ferries of the most remote South, they per
petrated a deed which doomed their rule to be a
blight upon the land, even if the virtue of their
lowest servants had been on a par with the best.
We know by positive official statement that in con
sequence of this diversion of moneys from their
local purpose, the roads of whole kingdoms became
overgrown, and so lost, that their old course was
matter for official inquiry. This hideous blunder
remains unreversed. India has no local treasuries.
Every coin in every province is liable to be spent
in some war against Nepaul, Afghanistan, or Thibet.
War is made with the very life-blood of material
prosperity: roads and bridges, canals and tanks,
cannot be repaired during war, while their funds are
mixed with the war funds. Many have of late been
finding out, that colonists will involve us in wars
with barbarian neighbours as long as they can sup
port their wars out of the resources of the Home
Government. Not less true is it, that India will
never be without a war, as long as there is a centra
lized treasure to support it and no Parliament to
refuse supplies. Mr. Bright many years since made
an elaborate speech in Parliament, which was heard
by all sides with very respectful attention:—if he
had followed it up, and claimed inviolable local
treasuries, he would have said all that I am here
�30
pressing. He urged that every Indian Presidency
should be independent of the rest, and that each
should be in direct relation to the Home Govern
ment. India, it is often said, is a continent, not a
country,
The diversities of its inhabitants are
enormous. No one proposes for it uniform legisla
tion.
If an English ministry could be at once
convinced that India ought to be divided into many
coordinate governments, it might be a reform not of
the distant, but of the near future. Parliament
would acquiesce in any thing proposed by the
ministry. There is evidently no reason in doubting
that a Government of io million people could defend
its own frontiers against any rude neighbours or
half barbarous potentates; and a Government thus
limited, would have far less tendency to aggression
than the powerful and proud Executive of 150
millions. A Viceroy is wanted in India, not to
govern but to reign. Take away the Governor
General, and send a prince of the blood royal, to
represent the Empress Queen to the Indian princes ;
—to receive their occasional homage and their
formal applications -to be the medium of transmit
ting their diplomacy to England, or their suits to
that Imperial Court which I imagine. The Central
Executive should be a mere “ Board of Works” for
Railways, Canals, Rivers, Harbours, Post, and Mint,
without a Foreign Office, an Army, or a Navy.
India will not cease to be drained’by war expenses,
and thereby to be misgoverned, until ambitious
central despotism is destroyed.
Every point above proposed by me, (except the
neutralization of merchant vessels in time of war,
to which Lord Palmerston once gave voluntary
assent) is developed out of the single principle, that
Centralization, and the Bureaucracy which it nou
rishes, must be severely abated. If Bureaucracy is
to be depressed, something else must be elevated.
What must that be ? I say, the House of Peers
�31
and an Imperial Court of Law. This ought not to
frighten a Conservative. But the House cannot
get or keep public support,—it cannot really lead
the nation,—without a Reform. What milder reform
is possible, than is above suggested ? What more
honourable to Peerage ? The strongest Democrats
rejoice to be presided over by a popular nobleman.
To a Reformed House of Peers the warmest lovers
of liberty among us would shortly rally. . A popular
movement can only dictate principles; such as are
these: let us have true Aristocracy, not Bureaucracy:
let us have political vitality every where, restricting
Centralization to its true functions : let every class
be represented in the Legislature, and be admissible
into the Executive.
Such principles are broad enough to be popular.
Details must be directed by cultivated intelligence,
independent of the ministry of the day. Every
ministry, like a Turkish Pasha, has an intense inte
rest in the present, and a very feeble interest in the
future. To allow a ministry to dictate permanent
policy is a truly grave mistake, tending to Turkish
ruin. The ministry has a task to execute ; but a
power which has a more permanent stake in the
country should prescribe what task. When the
House of Commons looks to the ministry to lead it,
and the Lords have no popular support, what else
can be expected but short-sighted policy ?
I have said enough, yet I wish to add, that I re
gard our system of voluntary political societies, made
for special objects, as a wretched crutch, and an
enormous waste of time and money. The argumen
tations which they carry on ought to be heard on
the floor of a local constitutional assembly,—of a
parish or municipality first,—thence by transference
to a Provincial Council, through which any petitions
should ordinarily go to Parliament. Then both
sides would hear one another from the beginning;
whereas now, an elaborate process is needed, before
�32
even the best cause can get a hearing from adversa
ries, while foolish schemes linger without effective
refutation.—The case of our peasants is sad and
disgraceful; but it needs wisdom still more than
sympathy. To abolish the Law of Primogeniture
might bring no immediate visible result; but it
would excellently inaugurate a new principle, and
give some hope for the future.
WILLIAM IRWIN, PRINTER, 5, PRINCESS STREET, MANCHESTER.
�
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English institutions and their most necessary reforms. A contribution of thought
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897.]
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Text
AUSTRIA
IN
P»/
z
•
■
18 6 8.
BY
EUGENE
OSWALD.
Reprinted from the “ English Leader.”
TRÜBNER & CO, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1868.
�LONDON:
printed at
Hie
victoria press
83a,
(for
the emplotment of women),
farbingdon street, e.c.
�AUSTRIA IN
1868A
I.t
If there is a subject on which it is high time the friends of justice
and freedom—the Liberals of Europe, if there must be a party name,
or the party of progress—should revise their former opinions, that
subject is that of Austria. And it is not an inconsistent reversion
of a former judgment, by ignoring the evidence hitherto before us,
which we recommend; it is a reconsideration of it by the light of
new and altered facts, and in the greater clearness of aspect which
recent changes, by repressing gloomy shadows, have, at last,
allowed us. He who was an opponent to Austria, because he was a
friend of freedom, is not hereby required to be a friend of freedom no
longer. He is invited, on the contrary, to discover in the new
turn which things have taken in Austria the possibility of a new
element being added to the cause of freedom. We say the possibility,
we wish we could at once use a stronger term. But our feeling, after
so many disappointments, is not one of certitude, is one barely of
hope, and even this wants, sometimes, faith to prop it up against
doubt. Still, this is the position which, we believe, we plainly see
before us. Austria was formerly a bulwark of Conservative
despotism in Europe. Severely chastened, she promises now to be a
bulwark against the aggressive despotism of Russia. She was the
former because she misunderstood her own position, and began by
repressing the energies of her own people. She promises to be the
latter, because she seems to have arrived—at a late hour, it is true—
at feeling her own mission, and she begins by calling forth the vitality
that is in her populations. Grievously battered by successive storms,
heavily burdened by the acts of her former captains, with but little
confidence expressed in her by those who surround her, the old ship
starts on her new voyage. But many of the causes which threatened
disaster formerly have been removed, her course is now steered by
the firm hand of a clear-sighted helmsman, and if the crew do but
keep up a good heart and a good understanding among themselves
a long career may be yet before her, and she may protect old
* In this reprint of the following chapters, which originally appeared in the
weekly paper, the English Leader, only a few verbal alterations have been made,
and two or three footnotes and documents have been added.
t Austria, a Constitutional State: a Short Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and
Development of Constitutional Life in the Austrian Dominions, London i Dulau
& Co. pp. 100.
B
2
�4
dominions and discover new ones, a blessing to herself and others.
If!
We of the present generation, when, youthful and hopeful, we took
our stand under the banner of freedom, and began a long and
chequered march, did not set out as friends of Austria. She was
to us a dark and frowning image, an image to be broken ere the goal
of that young army of 1848 could be reached. But if it is grievous
as life wears on to lose many of the rosy illusions for whose realisation
we longed, is it not a gracious, and a rare, experience to see depart
from us the darkening shadow of hatred 1 We have hated Austria—
the State, though not the Austrian people. We have now done with
our hatred, and we are not the poorer for that.
We have hated Austria. And was that hatred a mere heirloom,
and a thing which had come to us from our reading the outpourings
of French republicanism, of Protestant antagonism ? No doubt, on
such historic basis, on the recollections of the French Revolution, or
of the philospher-king, Frederic II., or of the Thirty Years’ war,
stood many a one unconsciously when he joined in the chorus :
Delenda est Austria. But was there not ample reality about us in the
doings which the generation immediately before us witnessed, and
which we witnessed ourselves 'I Did not Austria stand before us,
soulless, cold, with a mighty shadow and a leaden weight, an
oppressor, together with the Bourbons, in Italy; an oppressor,
together with Prussia, in Germany ; an oppressor, together with
Prussia and Russia, in Poland ; an oppressor, on her own account,
in Hungary, and in oppressive league with the enemies of freedom
in Switzerland 1 So she appeared to us, and when we were startled
by the moan from Silvio Pellico’s dungeon, or listened indignantly
to La Fayette’s prison tale, no voice but that of sweet, thought
lulling music came on the side of Austria; or, now and then, though
the hand of Government rested heavily on literature, the lyre of an
anonymous poet, like Anastasius Grün, broke through the stillness,
*
saying but too plainly—“Yes, you are right; this beautiful Austria
of ours is a prison, and a place of gaolers, and therefore hateful.”
But it added, “ It need not be so ; over these beautiful lands, these
broad rivers, these waving forests, the life of freedom may yet be
shed; the night may give way to the day, and her people may be
happy, and render others happy, if she only learn her own interests
and keep to them.” If 1
And so, though all is not yet as it might be, the day has broken,
and Austria, having released the spasmodic grasp at the throat of
others, feels the new life flowing through her, and with it comes a
new mission—which was, indeed, long present before her, but could
not be clearly perceived, because oppression dims the eye of the
oppressor. Ard our hatred is gone, and we look hopefully on the
new brother, thinking his life may be of a new—and to most of us
unexpected—value to himself, and to all of us, if he but cure him
* Count C. von Auersperg.
�5
self of those severe wounds which the contest has left all over his
body. If!
But the conversion of the friends of freedom to new views towards
Austria is, as yet, by no means complete, and as far as it goes, it has
made progress but slowly. And so far-reaching are the decrees of
fate, so inevitable the consequences of ill-deeds, so interwoven the
destinies of men and States, that when in 1866, for the first time
since many a long day, Austria came forth, as against Prussia, as the
champion of justice, by upholding the Bund, which, forbidding war
between the members of the Confederation, was one of the guaran
tees of European peace, and in defence against the most atrocious
double-dealing, the most shameless swindle attempted—and now,
alas ! carried out—by Prussia against the inhabitants of SchleswigHolstein, whom she pretended to free that she might swallow them
better, substituting herself as King Stork for King Log—even in that
hour, and with that most righteous cause, Austria succumbed. For
Prussia, who had just come forward in the vilest service to Russia
as her hangman’s assistant against the poor Poles, opening her
territories for Alexander’s bands to capture the fugitives, Prussia,
most perfidiously, called up another righteous cause to her help ;
and the conscience of mankind was divided, and in many an honest
breast the feeling for Italy against Austria overlaid the feeling for
Austria against Prussia. Might she lose there and win here !—such
was the wish of many, and it was a natural and a legitimate wish.
Still, almost general were the sympathies with Italy, spare those for
Prussia, till the luck of Austria went down in that terrible evening
sun of Sadowa, and Prussia, the successful seceder from her federal
bond, was applauded by those whose cry of condemnation against
the American seceders could never rise high enough; and the
Hohenzollern, under the dictates of his unscrupulous statesmen,
filched from the lips of honest and short-sighted enthusiasts the cry
of Unity, to use it in order, by his aggrandisement, to bring about
the disruption of the Fatherland.
Deprived of her Italian possessions, which had driven her into
the abyss, expelled from that Germany which she had led for five
hundred years, and often misled, and often neglected, and which she
had, in the face of Prussian intrigue, unsuccessfully endeavoured, in
1863, to reform, shorn of most of her prestige while acquiring a new
and unexpected one on the sea, shaken in her very foundations,
bleeding from many wounds, yet not without a ray of hope, though
even that is overclouded with shadows (for had not Albert conquered
at Custozza, he whose daughter, in the promise of youth, has just
been burnt to death; had not Maximilian prepared the victory of
Lissa, he who nobly dying expiated dearly his misjudgment ?) Austria
bestirred herself setting her house in order.
She had tried it before, over and over again, these last nineteen
years ; and the memoire which we cite at the head of these observa
tions gives us the record of her attempts. It is not cheerful reading,
this account of the long travail of constitutional life in Austria ; but
�6
to him who will understand the present, it is useful, nay necessary.
Manifold and sometimes violent were the experiments to cure the
“ sick man; ” and it required indeed no slight robustness in the
impatient patient to outlive the tentative doctors of Centralisation,
of Federalism, of Dualism. It is in the latter that we see Austria
now settled. The Magyars have gained their cause, for which they
struggled for so many years, with a persistency admirable, though
not free from national selfishness. The other populations of the
empire might before this have consolidated the building of their
political freedom, had the Magyars chosen to throw their lot in with
them. Yet it is not to be wondered that they stood out from what
would appear to them but the shifty quicksands of experimentalising,
as compared with the firm rock of their Golden Bull, their Pragmatic
Sanction, their Coronation Preamble of 1790, their Laws of 1848,
their Continuity of Right. They have gained their point, and—
though some clever writers are willing to taunt them with their being
no literary people —they have fulfilled their special mission among
*
the nations of the continent, by proving what can be achieved by a
firm, and it may be a stubborn, adherence to existing law—existing
though all the scaffolds in the world should take the place of its
judgment-seats, and all the inkstands flood the writing on its parch
ments. They have achieved what the more moderate, and the great
bulk of that nation of aristocrats required ; and there is satisfaction
in seeing this firmness of national character rewarded, though its aims
are not quite—-or rather are far away of what the democratic sympa
thisers in Great Britain have fancied them to be, or what the words
of Kossuth, trying to be “ all things to all men,” would have led one
to believe, when in one of the brilliant hues of the many-coloured
rainbow of his splendid eloquence he identified himself with the
republicans of France against that Louis Bonaparte, whom, an
emperor, he followed in so docile a manner. And it must not be
overlooked, but mentioned in their praise, that the Magyars, as the
hour of their victory drew near, gave more heed to the moderate
councils of Deák, Pulszky, Eotvos, and others, and that by agreeing
to the common treatment, between Vienna and Pesth, of many
affairs, they have indeed, on their side, made important concessions
to the general interests of the empire, so far’ overcoming their
national egotism. In what way they will further tend remains to
be seen. In their hands, in a great measure, the fate of Austria now
lies. If, judging sanely of their own position, surroundings, and
numbers, they go hand in hand with the German population of
the empire, and if both together know how to conciliate by justice
the different other races, the great Danube State, the wedge between
Russia and Europe, may yet be saved from the threatening danger of
Panslavism. If, on the other hand, they burrow deeper into the isola
tion of their Magyarism, they are indeed in a position to cut Austria’s
throat—and their own.
Cornhill. August: “The Pageant in Pesth.'
�7
IL
Already there lies before us a most important outcome of the yielding
of the emperor to the voice of the people on this side, and on that
of the Leitha, the little frontier river between Germany and Hun
gary. Those legislative steps have been taken at Vienna and Pesth
which seal the doom of the unfortunate Concordate.
*
Many of our
readerswill recollect the unfavourable impression produced in 1855
by this unlucky compact with Rome, by which Austria, enormously
exaggerating the respect due to the Church of the great majority
of her inhabitants, and in her then pursuit of a thoroughly reaction
ary policy, striving to be the Catholic-Conservative power par
excellence, gave up to the Papal Court and its hierarchy so much of
the rights of the State, so much of the rights of the individual. By
so doing she created an atmosphere of priestly influence and
interference, which gradually became unbearable, not to the Pro
testants and Confessors of the Greek, or Orthodox Jaith alone, but
also to very many of the Roman Catholics themselves. Well, and
with rare eloquence was this compact denounced by Kossuth, him
self a Protestant, yet once acknowledged as leader by a nationality
chiefly Catholic. Still we should put too great a blame on Austria
for this mistaken step, were we to look at it as an isolated fact.
It must not be forgotten that it belongs to a period of general
continental reaction against the spirit of 1848, a period which saw
the priest and the dogma called in on every side, to help the
corporal and the bayonet to uphold the tottering thrones. This
revival of priestly influence, long prepared by literary agencies, and
showing its head openly in the Sonderbund of Switzerland, tenta
tively in most countries of Europe, in Belgium especially, nay in
England herself, had received, in 1849, a mighty impulse by what
the eloquent and learned historian, Edgar Quinet, trying to arrest
the calamity, aptly called the crusade against the Roman Republic.t
The fall of Rome, which the enthusiasm of Mazzini and the heroism
of Garibaldi could no longer delay, carried the shortsighted victors
farther than they, or some of them, had intended, and the note
paper of the then President of the Republic, Louis Bonaparte’s
letter to “ mon cher Edgar,” proved a very inefficient drag in the
course of Papal ascendancy. Events being turned from one direc
tion, irresistibly rolled into the opposite one, and the temporal
power being re-established, offered its help to all the secular powers.
* Whilst this reprint passes through the press, news arrives of the Upper
House of the Austrian Reichsrath having, amidst great public rejoicing, adopted
the Bills on Public Schools, and on Civil Marriage—bills which virtually and by
regular legislative proceedings put an end to the Concordate.
t “La Croisade Autrichienne, Française, Napolitaine, Espagnole, contre la
République Romaine.” Par E. Quinet, représentant du peuple. 4me éd. Paris :
Chamerot.
�8
A politico-priestly odour went through the world.
*
The late King
of Prussia, burying in mysticism his originally bright gifts, and tend
ing to his own insanity, and to the stupefaction of his subjects, saw
with a well-pleased eye the activity of Protestant Pietists—the sort
of people who represent to worthy Lord Shaftesbury the modern
German mind, and give him so much satisfaction—and was not
wholly averse to the perambulations of the Jesuits. One of the first
acts of Louis Napoleon’s new power, after the subversion of the
constitution, was to hand over the national pantheon to the Roman
Catholic clergy, who thenceforth, and till 1859, proved stout allies,
and were treated as such. What wonder that Austria, which but
once, under Joseph II., and during the short reign of Leopold II.,
had seen her sovereign free from priestly influence, should offer to
grasp the hand of Rome, or be seized by her grip. Perhaps even
a greater thought than one of mere internal reaction was among the
motives of Baron Bach, the then leading spirit of the Hofburg :
“ Hungary lies at the feet of your majesty,” were the words with
which the Russian Prince Paskiewitch had announced to his master
at St. Petersburgh the result of the help vouchsafed to the House of
Hapsburg. And this dangerous protector is a member of the
Orthodox Greek Church. Might not the Court of Vienna hope
that, by making itself the chief champion of Roman Catholicity,
it could gain in a possible collision the sympathies of Catholics in
Europe—and in the Russian Empire, in Poland, for instance 2 If
so, the arrow overshot its aim : the loss of sympathies at home and
abroad greatly outbalanced any possible advantage in the direction
indicated. But we cannot wonder at the conduct of the Vienna
government, for without such far-reaching motives, even the govern
ments of two of the smaller states that have always been in the van
of German progress—though the Prussian scribes have tried to
obscure the fact—fell into the snare: Baden, which by sustaining
temporary Prussian conquest and occupation, and driving into exile
one man in every 120, had been rendered pliable enough for a little
while, to give way under repeated pressure/and so had Wurtemberg,
without such excuse, and by we know not what freak of popular
weakness. It is true such victory did not last long, and, in i860,
rhe estates of Wurtemberg, by formally asking again for the convo
cation of the German Parliament—not meaning thereby the sham
of Bismarkia—and those of Baden, by annulling the Concordate,
again inaugurated the German movement for freedom which, in
1849, had been suppressed by the Prussian cannon. The turn of
Austria has now come. We must indeed not expect her, as some
members of Messrs. Whalley and Murphy’s Society might wish, to
take a position hostile to Catholicism ; and no doubt, by doing so,
her Government would act both unwisely and unjustly ; for the
Roman Catholics are the majority of her population, both in the
whole empire and in each of the two parts—the Cis-Leithian
* Very full details in the pious W. Menzel’s “ Geschichte der letzten vierzig
Jahre.” 3rd edition. Stuttgardt, 1865. Tom ii., pp. 384-392.
�9
countries and Hungary, taken separately. They are credibly stated
to form 70-39 per cent, of the whole population. This, without
counting the United Greeks, that is, those who are in some sort
connected with Rome, having, in exchange for the concession of
the marriage of priests and the Eucharist in both forms, acknow
ledged the supremacy of the Pope. These form 9-87 per cent, of the
whole population. The members of the not united or Orthodox
Greek Church, again, are 8'44 per cent. The confessors of both
forms of the Greek Church—18’21 per cent, of the whole population
—are chiefly found in the South Slavonic portions of the empire, in
Croatia, Slavonia, and parts of Hungary. The Protestants—9-33
per cent. —inhabit principally Transylvania (Unitarians) and parts
*
of Hungary, though a considerable fraction are also left, the rem
nants of once powerful Churches, in Austria proper and Bohemia.
The terrible converting process to which the Hussites and other
Protestant Czechs, or Slavonians of Bohemia, have been subjected
in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries has led them, of course,
back to the Roman Church, to which it is well known the Poles, or
Slavonians of Galicia, likewise in their great majority belong; and
these two facts, coupled with strong dialectic differences, are of
political importance, as they may go some way towards counteract
ing the machinations by which both the West Slavonians and the
South Slavonians are to be drawn together into what appears to
some enthusiasts-)- a bond of loving brotherhood, but to others the
meshes of the Russian net. In the Tyrol the people are nearly to
a man (and woman) Roman Catholic. Sincerely religious, and a
trifle bigoted, they have even to be weaned by Government from
expressing their dislike of Protestants by the upholding of inadmis
sible restrictions. Under such circumstances, it is natural enough
to expect that considerable regard will still have to be shown to the
Roman Catholic religion by the Austrian Government. But that
government, in unison with the Vienna Reichsrath and the Pesth
Diet, is on the good road to that equality of rights of all religious
* We take these figures as to the number of different Churches from Reden’s
“ Staatshaushalt und Abgabenwesen des Oesterreichischen Kaiserstaats,” Darm
stadt, 1853, pp. 1,024. The numbers of the population there given have, no
doubt, increased since the period to which this very comprehensive work refers,
but the proportions cannot have essentially changed.
f The two ladies, amongst others, Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby, who have
just published the results of their travels, for which they were prepared by the
Pan-slavist agitators of Prague and Vienna. “The Turks, the Greeks, and the
Slavons. ” Bell & Daldy, 1867, pp. 688.
In this connection may also be mentioned Dr. Humphrey Sandwith’s “Notes
on the South Slavonic Countries, in Austria and Turkey in Europe.” (Black
wood & Sons, 1865, pp. 66.)--The Author knows more about Turkey than
about Austria, but he is willing enough to include, in favour of the Slavonians,
the latter in his condemnation of the former. It is perhaps fair to suppose that,
had he lived to see Austria turning into a new path, his views might have been
modified. Compare also “The Serbian Nation and the Eastern question,” by
Vladimir Yovanovitch. (Bell & Daldy, 1863.) The author is unjust to the
■Turks, quoting against them pretended words of the Koran which he cannot have
read.
�IO
professions which has become, in our days, the unabateable claim—
or, at least, the ideal—of the political philosopher. Let the dead
body of the Concordate be buried out of sight in as decent and
decorous a manner as maybe; its departed spirit will-no longer
vex the soul of any friend of freedom and justice.
III.
The pamphlet which we mentioned at the head of these articles,
and whose title we again cite below, betrays its origin by a number
*
of Germanisms. These occur rather in the manner of viewing and
illustrating matters, than in mere verbal peculiarities, and need
repel no reader. This German, or, we should say, Austrian origin
does, in our eyes, no harm to the value of the mémoire, and we
rather like that this origin should be so manifest to the reader as
almost to lift the pamphlet out of its sphere of anonymous produc
tions, and give it somewhat of the stamp of tangible responsibility.
It is highly desirable that the public should learn more about
Austria from Austrian sources, or from the friends of Austria, and in
this view we were glad to see in the ably conducted new weekly,
The Chronicle, a series of articles proceeding evidently from very
unusual knowledge of the case, and others during the last year in
Macmillan's and the Cornhill, though some of the contributions in
the latter be tinged by the personal disappointments of a minor
diplomatist. What an English author, conversant by a long stay
with Austria, has said of her, is certainly in a great measure true.
“ The chief sources from which we have obtained information
respecting her, have been those inimical to herself. And again
“We were in reality ignorant of her true condition, of her necessi
ties, of her difficult and peculiar position towards her various peoples,
and of the real motives which guided her.”t
This want, then, of more direct information, or, at any rate, of
evidence for the accused, is to some extent supplied in the pamphlet
before us. Not fully ; further elucidations in the same direction
will from time to time become desirable ; and even now it would
help one greatly to get out of a state of bewilderment which so
many attempts at constitutional organisation leave behind, were the
author to draw up a little collection of documents, which at the side
of the historic account would state, as nearly as might be in the
words of the charters and resolutions themselves, the actual condi
tion of things, omitting that which has. been abrogated, and filling
* “Austria, a Constitutional State : a Short Sketch of the Use, Progress, and
Development of Constitutional Life in the Austrian Dominions.” London : Dulau
& Co., Soho Square, 1867.
•¡•“Prussian Aggression and Englands Interests.
London: E. Stanford,
Charing Cross, 1866.
�II
up the picture with such geographical and statistic detail as would,
in such connection, be very welcome to the foreigner.
On this present state of things we will hear our author, premising,
however, that the reader has to represent it to himself as preceded
by these sevenfold successive different conditions.
(a) Before 1848 Absolutism, practically pur et simple on this side
of the Leitha, with an occasional and almost nominal activity of pro
vincial estates unconnected with each other, and totally without
practical influence; but on the other side of the Leitha, the full
activity of [the Hungarian Diet, then simply an oligarchic body, pro
tecting the privileges of the nobility ; Metternich the master.
(p} In Vienna, in Hungary, everywhere, the revolutionary fever of
1848, resulting in much bloodshed, abolition of old rights, aspira
tions after new ones, but practically leaving behind it the great
result of freeing the cultivator of the soil from the remainders of
serfdom; nobody in particular governing, everybody wishing to
govern.
(p) The octroyed constitution of March 4th, 1849; a dead-born
child wishing to grow great by abolishing the authority of Hungary ;
granting centralised parliamentary institutions which never acted ;
a baby Hercules strangling himself with the serpents he wanted to
kill; Baron Bach the nurse.
(ff) After the great catastrophe of 1859, the establishment of the
Reichsrath, or rather its change, or “ enlargement ” by decree
of 5th March, i860, from a Council of State into a semi-parliamen
tarian assembly drawn from the revivified provincial diets, and with
small powers to be exercised by its eighty members, some appointed
by the emperor for life-time, others selected by him out of a list of
candidates, three for each seat, to be proposed by the diets; as
sembly meeting, so constituted, yet demanding financial and other
reforms ; obtaining the change of the character of the Reichsrath
from a consultative into a “ deliberative and consulting ” body.
(Imperial Rescript of 17th July, i860.) Counts Goluchowski and
Rechberg the inefficient soothers of the patient.
(e) The period of the diploma of 20th October, i860, extending
the numbers of the Reichsrath, and especially its functions, re-es
tablishing the Hungarian Parliament, though not yet all its privileges ;
creating a restricted Reichsrath for affairs respecting the Cis and
Transleithan countries ; attempting a reorganisation of the consti
tution of the estates of non-Hungarian crown lands, not without
a good by-taste of feudalism ; steering a middle course between
federalism, that means in Austria the almost complete autonomy,
under feudal leaders, of the single provinces, and centralism, that
is the bureaucratic negation of local individuality ; satisfying no
one, erecting nothing tangible but loud agitation in Hungary, de
claring in unmistakable Magyar, not elsewhere intelligible, that they
would not go to Vienna, happen otherwise what might; the father
and would-be manager of the chaos, Count Goluchowski, a Pole.
(/) Out of which chaos sprung the imperial patent of February
�12
26th, 1861, parliamentary again, interpreting itself as being the fulfil'
ment of the October diploma, and as being its counterpart also ; the
position of Hungary remaining essentially the same; that of the
other provinces being by the influence of German liberals modified,
in a sense unfavourable to the federalistic, feudal, and Slavonic
views ; the constitution of the Reichsrath somewhat assimilated to
the English model, an upper and lower house created, the members
of the lower house no longer nominated by the emperor, but elected
by the provincial diets, which were confined, however, in their
choice of delegates, being bound to elect a certain proportion from
among the supposed representatives of the different interests or
localities, according to a principle on which the provincial estates them
selves were made to rest, and which was not quite an innovation;
*
the new “ Reichsrath”—after the abolition of the old one, restricted
and not restricted—being called together, expecting to be joined by
the Hungarians; Hungarians declining, as usual, won’t go anywhere,
stand by Pragmatic Sanction ; Reichsrath turned into a special and
restricted Reichsrath, meaning this time for the treatment of all
non-Hungarian affairs ; this, in all essentials still, or again, the new
constitution, auctore Chevalier Von Schmerling ; Reichsrath meeting
now, 1867, again, but no longer expecting Hungarians. But this is
anticipating—
(o) The Hungarians still standing out, not coming to Vienna,
though Transylvania, that is, the non-Magyar portion thereof—
Germans and Roumains—did send deputies, the Reichsrath at
Vienna gained indeed control over the finances (not sufficient to
end the financial troubles), and the principle of ministerial responsibilityf—the former of which principles the Prussian Chamber has
* At the same time each crown-land was furnished with special regulations in
respect to the number of representatives, and the mode of their election by the
different classes of electors ; the boundaries of the country districts being carefully
defined. The various classes of electors were divided into three categories :—1st.
The large landed proprietors. 2nd. Citizens of towns and market-places, inclu
ding members of the Chambers of Commerce. 3rd. Inhabitants of country
districts, including voters in their own right having a so-called votum virile. The
two first categories were direct voters, the third category were indirect voters ;
they had to choose a voter for every 500 inhabitants. Thus many citizens were
entitled to a double vote; as, for instance, a member of the Chamber of Com
merce could vote in that capacity as well as in that of a ratepayer, so that already
a greater regard was paid to the principle of the “representation of interests”
than “ class'representation,” as was formerly the case. Taking the diet of Lower
Austria as an example, we find it composed of two ecclesiastics (the Archbishop
of Vienna and the Bishop of St. Polten), the rector of the university, fifteen depu
ties from among the large landowners, twenty-four from towns and market-places,
four from the Chamber of Commerce, and twenty from the country districts.
The qualification for an elector of the first category was the payment of 200 florins
annually in direct taxes. For the second category, 20 florins in Vienna and
10 florins in the other towns. Members of the Chambers of Commerce, clergy
men, professors, and officials, were voters without regard to the payment of
taxes^n
of May, then, Minister von Schmerling declared himself authorised
to inform the members of both Houses that the declaration made in the House of
Representatives on the 2nd of July, 1861, by the ministry to hold themselves
�13
just lost by means of the North German Bismarkian hoax, while she
could never gain the latter—and thus, already five years ago, a
French writer could say, and be reprimanded for it, that there was
more liberty in Austria than in France. But neither the State in
her integrity, nor the government itself, nor the advantages gained
by the liberal party, could gain consistency and duration, while the
Hungarians, allying national with aristocratic feeling, and with whom
for a while the Slavonians, both feudal and generally destructive,
joined, continued to stand out, deaf to every consideration but those
drawn from their own valuable privileges. As to the rejection of the
proffered gifts, there was no doubt among them, they divided only
whether they should reject them by an address to the emperor—
or rather king—or should pass them by with a resolution. The
speech of Dedk, the great leader of the moderates, will be long
remembered, and is noteworthy as containing the substance of the
Hungarian grievances against Austria (13th May, 1861).
“In former times,” he said, “the disputes between the sovereign and the
Hungarian nation arose from two parties giving different interpretations to the
laws, the validity of which was recognised by both. At present the Austrian
government is trying to force Hungary to accept a constitution as a boon, in lieu
of those fundamental laws to which she is so warmly attached. On the side of
Hungary are right and justice, on the other side is physical force. During the
last twelve years we have suffered grievous wrongs. The constitution which we
inherited from our forefathers was taken from us; we were governed in an
absolute way, and patriotism was considered crime.
Suddenly his majesty
resolved‘to enter the path of constitutionalism,’ and the diploma of the 20th
of October, i860, appeared. That document encroaches on our constitutional
independence, inasmuch as it transfers to a foreign assembly (the Reichsrath) the
right to grant the supplies of money and men, and makes the Hungarian government dependent on the Austrian, which is not responsible for its acts. If
Hungary accepted the diploma of the 26th October, she would be an Austrian
province.. The policy of the Austrian government is a direct violation of the
Pragmatic Sanction, the fundamental treaty which the Hungarian nation in 1723
concluded with the reigning family.* We must therefore solemnly declare that
*
responsible to the Reichsrath for the maintenance of the Constitution and for the
exact fulfilment of the laws, had been given with the express sanction of the
emperor ; that his majesty had consented to the principle of ministerial responsi
bility ; and that the decree of the 20th of August, 1851, enacting that the ministry
should be responsible solely and exclusively to the monarch, had been revoked.
With this declaration another corner-stone was inserted in the constitutional
edifice which considerably strengthened the moral power and authority of the
House.
7
* The Pragmatic Sanction is the fundamental political contract with respect
to the succession to the throne which the Hungarian nation in 1723 concluded
with the King, of Hungary, the ancestor of the present reigning family. The
Hungarian nation gave the female line of the Hapsburgs the right to reign in
Hungary on condition that the future sovereigns of that line should govern accord
ing to the existing laws of the country, or according to the laws which might in
future be made. The Emperor Joseph II., who was never crowned in Hungary
governed that kingdom absolutely; but its inhabitants never recognised him as
their lawful sovereign. Maria Theresa was the first “king” who in virtue of
the Pragmatic Sanction ascended the throne of Hungary, and she faithfully ful
filled the conditions of that bilateral treaty. Leopold II., the second Hungarian
king, who ascended the throne on the death of Joseph II., signed an inaugural
diploma, took the usual coronation oath, and, besides, sanctioned the 10th
�i4
we insist on the restoration of our constitutional independence and self-govern
ment, which we consider the fundamental principles of our national existence.
We can on no account allow the right to vote the supplies of money and men to
be taken from us. We will not make laws for other countries and will share our
right to legislate for Hungary with no one but the king. . . We will neither
send deputies' to the present Reichsrath nor take any share in the representation
of the empire.” At a subsequent sitting of the Hungarian Diet, Count Julius
Andrassy (now Hungarian minister), made a still more determined speech in
defence of Hungarian independence. ‘ ‘ The nationalities inhabiting the empire,
he said, “ must choose between centralization and federation. Centralization and
absolutism must necessarily go hand in hand. If the principle of duality is
recognised, and Austria has a free constitution, a union between the empire and
Hungary may easily be effected. The Hungarian nation refuses to have anything
to do with the promulgated constitution of the 26th of February. The position
of Austria as a great power is better secured by the principles of duality than by
the principles of unity. The Hungarians will continue to insist on the restoration
of the laws of 1848.”
IV.
The Radical-Magyar party had insisted and carried that the title of
“ Imperial Royal ” should not be given in the address to the king,
who was simply called i£ your majesty,” consistently with the Magyar
doctrine, which did not admit the validity of his predecessor s abdi
cation, and the present emperor’s accession, and with the Hungairan axiom, Princefs est qui jurat, qui jurata serz'ctt et qui coronatus
esl, an axiom which is worthy of a free nation, and pleasing to an
imaginative one.
With a royal rescript, dated the 3°th Julie> the address was
returned—
“We consider it to be our first duty,” said the emperor m this rescript, “ in
order to preserve the humble respect that is due to our royal person and our royal
hereditary rights-a respect which the throne and its dignity demand by good
right, and which has been set aside in this address of the States and representa
tives by their discarding the forms legally used, to reject the address which, in
violation of the royal prerogatives, is not addressed to the hereditary King of
Hungary.”
The Hungarian Parliament gave way on this point, and the form of
the address in which it had been proposed by Deak being restored, it
was adopted unanimously, and received by the emperor from the
Article of the Laws of 1790, which guaranteed to Hungary all her constitutional
rights and privileges. Francis I., in his inaugural diploma, guaranteed the
maintenance1 of the rights, liberties, and laws of the nation, and m the 33rd year
S his reign (1825) hi solemnly recognised the validity of the above-mentioned
both Ardfle of the Laws of /790. King Ferdinand V. (the ex-Emperor Ferdi
nand I., of Austria) gave similar guarantees in his mauguial diploma, and
besides sanctioned the Laws of 1848. The male line of the Hapsburgs was
extinct in 1740 (Charles VI. died in that year), and Hungary would have been at
liberty to elect her own king had not the Pragmatic Sanction been concluded m
1723 7 By the Pragmatic Sanction Hungary and. Austria aie united m the
“person” of the sovereign, but there is no trace in the Hungarian laws of a
“real” union between the two countries.
�*5
hands of the two presidents. Our author summarises as follows the
answer which, after some wrangling between the October men and
the February men'—distinctions little observable from here and at
this time—was given by Minister Schmerling’s advice :—
The emperor does not insist on amalgamation, and grants internal autonomous
administration, but requires dynastic, military, diplomatic, and financial unity
with the rest of the empire. . . The emperor will spontaneously restore the
Hungarian Constitution under the conditions necessary to the development of the
whole empire. He recognises the laws of 1848, concerning the abolition of the
privileges of the nobles, the corvées and feudal burdens, the general admissibility
to public employments and to the possession of landed property—that relating to
the electoral rights of the lower classes ; but he cannot sanction the laws of 1848,
which are hostile to the rights of the non-Magyar population of the Hungarian
counties and to the Pragmatic Sanction, and must be modified before the negotia
tions are entered into about the Coronation Diploma. The Diet is requested to
bestow its attention upon this revision; it is besides requested to send provisionally
deputies to the present sittings of the council of the empire—according to the
fundamental law of the 26th of February—in order to protect the influence of the
country upon the general affairs which are to be debated and settled in the course
of August.
The answer of the Hungarians was so energetic and thorough a
11 non possumus " that the pope might have envied it. Received
with much emotion, the Imperial rescript was handed for reply to
Deàk, who produced a voluminous document, asserting with great
judicial knowledge the rights of Hungary, declaring to “hold fast
the constitutional independence of the country and the Pragmatic
Sanction, without any exception whatever,” and rejecting the Impe
rial Diploma of October i860, and the intended application to
Hungary of the patent of the 26th of February, 1861; solemnly
protesting “ against the exercise on the part of the Reichsrath of any
legislative or other power in regard to Hungary,” and reiterating the
declaration “that they will not send any representatives to the
Reichsrath, whose acts and ordinances referring to Hungary, or its
annexed parts, must be regarded as unconstitutional and not
binding.” Received with rapturous approval, the proposed address
was immediately adopted in the Lower House by an immense
majority, in the Upper House unanimously and without any
alteration.
The emperor’s unfavourable reply was followed by many resigna
tions of high Hungarian officials.
“On the 22nd of August the royal rescript, dated the 21st,
decreeing its dissolution, was read in the Diet. The plan of opposi
tion adopted by the Hungarians was that of passive resistance by
the non-payment of taxes. In consequence of this, and in order to
quell the demonstration of the comitats, the committee meetings of
the latter were closed by the military. General Count Palffy was
appointed Governor of Hungary, the country placed under martial
law, and a sort, of military dictatorship established. Soldiers were
billeted on the inhabitants, the taxes were sullenly paid, but no out
break occurred, although the feeling of discontent was stronger than
�i6
ever. In an autograph letter the emperor made known his intention
of restoring the Hungarian Constitution, promising at the same time
to keep intact the rights and liberties of the people, and to convoke
the Diet and the municipalities of the kingdom in accordance with
the terms of the October Diploma; but the six months within which
the Diet was to be re-convoked passed without any change being
made in the situation. The Cabinet of Vienna determined to break
the spirit of the nation by applying to the countries beyond the
Leitha the worst maxims of the Bach period. The passive resist
ance of the Hungarians, however, continued up to the time of the
reconciliation effected by Baron von Beust’s ministry.”
Under such circumstances, the Vienna “ Reichsrath ” and the
constitutional laws establishing it could not, as we have observed, gain
much consistency. In vain the emperor, struggling against the
resisting force of circumstances and men, spoke to his Vienna
Parliament these solemn words—
I consider it to be my duty to my peoples to declare the General Constitution
in accordance with the diploma of the 20th of October, i860, and with the
fundamental laws of the 26th of February, 1861, to be the “ inviolable foundation
of my united and indivisible empire,” and I on this solemn occasion swear
faithfully to observe it and to protect it with my sovereign power, and I am
firmly resolved energetically to oppose any violation of the same, as I shall
consider it as an attack on the existence of the monarchy, and on the rights of all
my countries and peoples.
The Slavonic agitation increased these difficulties, thus resumed
by our author :—“ Owing to the agitation prevailing in Hungary,
the issue of writs for new elections, as prescribed by the Patent of
26th February, 1861, could not have led to any result. Conse
quently, of the 343 members who ought to have attended, 85
deputies of Hungary were absent from the Reichsrath; so were,
from analogous reasons, the 9 deputies from Croatia and Slavonia,
and the 20 Lombardo-Venetians, and even of the remaining 203
members of the Germano-Slavonian provinces all were not present.
The Reichsrath thus lost much of its importance and its influence,
because it represented only those countries the affairs of which
belonged to the sphere of the restricted Reichsrath, and as such it
was also shortly after regarded by the Government. By strict right
this assembly was incompetent, especially in regard to financial
matters, which could only be legally and constitutionally settled by
the co-operation of a complete Reichsrath in which all the kingdoms
and countries of the empire were fully represented.”
At last, on the occasion of a visit of the emperor to Pesth, in the
winter of 1864-65, a journey which he is said to have undertaken con
trary to the wish of his ministers, signs of the feasibility of an arrange
ment with the Hungarians appeared. Schmerling had thought, we
know not on what ground, that only with Ultra Liberals of Hungary,
was such an arrangement possible. But the Conservative Count
Majlath was named chancellor. The Conservatives and moderate
Liberals together inclined to a compromise.
�Il
“ Ever since the dissolution of the Hungarian Diet,” says our
author, “and the retirement of Vay and Szesen, close relations had
been kept up between the Hungarian Old Conservatives and the
Federalist section of the Reichsrath. They showed, on the other
hand, great attention to Francis Deák, and endeavoured to come to
an understanding with him as a leader of the moderate Hungarian
Liberals. About Easter, 1865, a highly conciliatory article appeared
in his organ at Pesth, which was speedily followed by three letters
from Pesth, published in the Debaite, setting forth authoritatively the
programme of the moderate Hungarian Liberals. The Debatte,
speaking in the interest of the Old Conservatives, claimed for these
letters a careful and candid perusal, which they obtained from a very
wide circle, and so contributed materially to prepare the way for a
reconciliation. The principal points laid down in those letters were
that without the retirement of M. von Schmerling no good under
standing between Hungary and Vienna could be dreamt of, and
that Deák and his friends were generally in favour of a conciliatory
policy. They then pointed out that the Hungarians took their stand
upon the Pragmatic Sanction, and that to leave so firm a standing
ground would be impossible. The leading principles enunciated by
the writer were, that a central parliament was impossible; that a
separate Hungarian ministry was indispensable; and that the
countries east and west of the Leitha must be considered as two
aggregations of lands having a parity of rights.”
But it was thought that no compromise could be effected while the
Vienna Reichsrath, with its claim to comprise all parts of the
monarchy, was in activity. An Imperial “patent,” of September
20, 1865, suspended its activity. From this lengthy document we
will quote the concluding passages—
Until the fundamental laws of the different provinces are brought into accord,
the great and promising idea of a general and constitutional representation of
the empire cannot be properly realised.
In order to redeem my imperial promise, and to avoid sacrificing the reality to
the form, I shall endeavour to come to an understanding with the legal repre
sentatives of my peoples in the Eastern parts of the empire, and shall propose to the
Hungarian and Croatian Diets to accept the diploma of the 20th of October,
i860, and the fundamental law relative to the representation of the empire, which
was published with the patent of 26th February, 1861.
. It being legally impossible to make one and the same ordinance an object of
discussion in the one part of the empire, while it is recognised as a binding law in
the other parts, I am compelled to suspend the law relative to the representation
of the.empire, at the same time especially declaring that I reserve to myself the
right, before I come to a decision, of submitting to the legal representatives of my
other kingdoms and countries, whose opinions will receive the consideration due
to them, the results of my negotiations with the representative bodies of the
Eastern kingdoms, should they be in accordance with the law which provides for
the maintenance of the unity, power, and influence of the empire.
I regret that this measure, which is absolutely necessary, will lead to an inter
ruption of the constitutional action of the lesser Reichsrath, but the organic con
nection and equal value of the various parts of the fundamental law, on which is
based the action of the Reichsrath, renders it impossible that one part of it can be
jn force while the other is in abeyance.
C
�i8
Previous to this, Chevalier Schmerling had been replaced as head
of the Austrian Cabinet by Count Belcredi, the friend of the Slavonic
federalists.
The considerations of the compromise with Hungary and the
representation of Parliamentary life in Austria we must reserve for
our next article.
V.
In our preceding article we brought the history of the Austrian
constitution and the re-establishment of the Hungarian institutions
down _ to the appointment of Count Belcredi, and the issue of the
imperial patent of September 20th, 1865, by which the exercise of
the Austrian constitution of October, i860, and February, 1861,
was suspended until it could be, after due constitutional delibera
tion, accepted by the Hungarian Diet.
A doubt is allowed whether this step was so “ absolutely neces
sary ” as the imperial patent declared it to be. It certainly was far
from being considered so by a great part of the people, and a great
number of leading politicians. It gave very great satisfaction, no
doubt, to the Czechs of Bohemia, who knew the presiding minister,
Count Belcredi, to be favourable to their particularist tendencies,
and who promised to themselves all sorts of successes as the result
of the new discussions into which the as yet new-born constitutional
life of Austria was to be drawn. A similar feeling existed in Galicia,
the Poles for once finding themselves on common Slavonic ground
with the Bohemian Czechs.
*
An assembly of German deputies at Vienna, in October, expressed
* By no means a common thing. The Poles find as little sympathy among the
Czechs as do the Germans or the Hungarians. Some valuable testimony to that
effect has just been offered to the English public : a well-informed writer in the
Westminster Review for October, who looks forward to the destruction of Austria
in the interest of the Slavons, and who, in his dislike to Germans and Magyars,
almost lifts the visor of anonymity, to show a Russian countenance, says of the
Poles:—“Whose last insane insurrection, we may say in passing, the Czech
politicians from the first condemned ” (W. R., vol. Ixiv., new series, p. 454). Such a
passage is worth volumes of writing and hours of talk ; it shows at once the great
necessity, on which we have before insisted, of Germans and Hungarians standing
firmly together, in view of the threatened Slavonic upheaving, whilst sharing in a
spirit of justice all civil freedom with their fellow subjects. Yet so much was it
the fashion but a few months ago in English liberal circles to greet with a welcome
any movement hostile to Austria, that a very well-meaning man, while the
Hungarian difficulty was not yet quite decided, said to the present writer that
“ the Hungarians ought to make common cause with the Czechs against Austria.’’
Any combination, however impossible or unnatural, was wished for or welcomed
which would seem to lead forces against the German civilising element. And as
yet it is hardly acknowledged that it is by the Austria of to-day that the Poles
receive the fairest measure, while oppressing Prussia is extolled, and oppressing
Russia ogled with.
�19
themselves unanimously against the suspension of the constitution,
and when the different provincial diets were convoked, for their
action was not suspended, it became clear that the step which Count
Belcredi had caused the emperor to take was by no means generally
approved on this side of the Leitha. Seven of them, representing a
population of about four and a half millions, expressed, either in
resolutions or addresses, dissatisfaction with the September Act,
which dissatisfaction was most decidedly pronounced in the ad
dresses of the Diets of Lower Austria and Vorarlberg. That of the
latter was couched in such violent and disrespectful language that it
was not received by the crown. The Diets of Galicia, the Bukowina,
Bohemia, and of the seaboards of Istria, Trieste, etc., acted quite
contrary to the former, and voted addresses expressing gratitude for
the September manifesto. The Diet of Dalmatia likewise voted an
address approving of it, but regretting the suspension of the Reichsrath. In the Diets of Moravia and Carniola, neither motions nor
addresses to express thanks or dissatisfaction were carried. The
Diet of Tyrol did not enter into any discussion of the September
manifesto. It simply received it in silence. The diets (including
Dalmatia) which in their addresses to the throne expressed approval
of the September Act, represented a population of upwards of ten
and a half millions.
The “ silence ” of the Tyrol Diet is not a little significant. It
was bought by Count Belcredi making concessions to the bigoted
feeling which pervades too much the otherwise excellent population
of that interesting country. Baron Schmerling had at last ordered
—what was but a long over-due fulfilment of a privilege conferred
by the constitution of the German Confederation, of which the
Tyrol formed a part—that Protestants had a right to acquire landed
property and settlement in that Catholic country. Count Belcredi
supplemented or interpreted this declaration so as to forbid the
formation of Protestant communities, unless the consent, in every
case, of both the government and the diet could be obtained, and
he exemplified his meaning by refusing permission to the Protestants
of Meran to constitute themselves as a community. By such acts,
and by the favour shown in Bohemia to the Czechian language over
the German, the language of the intelligent and industrious minority,
the presiding minister showed that he looked for his support to the
feudal chiefs, the Slavonic populations, the Ultramontane priests.
With all that, he was not prepared to make to the Hungarians the
large sacrifices which they required ; and the suspension of the
constitution, effected, it was said, to render an agreement with
Hungary more possible, gave hardly more satisfaction on the other
side of the Leitha than on this. The Hungarian press even regretted
the suspension of the activity of the “ restricted Reichsrath,” which
ought to have continued its activity while the négociations with
Hungary were being carried on. And indeed the argument in the
imperial rescript as to its “ being legally impossible to make one
and the same ordinance an object for discussion in the one part of
c 2.
�20
the empire, while it is recognised as a binding law in the other
parts,” seems to us but to be a narrow and pedantic lawyer’s view.
The restricted or lesser Reichsrath might, it still appears to us, have
further transacted the business of the non-Hungarian countries.
The .emperor’s advisers had, however, as we have shown, prevailed
on him to declare that “ the organic connection and equal value of
the various parts of the fundamental law, on which is based the
action of the Reichsrath, renders it impossible that one part of it
can be in force while the other is in abeyance.” But even this kind
of homage paid to the Hungarians by temporarily suspending for
their sake the recently acquired constitutional rights of the non
Hungarian populations, failed to conciliate the proud Magyars, deaf
at that time to any consideration drawn from the general weal of the
empire, and bent exclusively on the re-establishment of their pecu
liar institutions and practical independence. Count Belcredi, how
ever, by no means meant to go the length of their desires, and they
by no means meant to accept the diploma of October, i860, and
February, 1861, even though they were no longer to be imposed on
them, but submitted to their discussion and approval. “No com
mon representation at Vienna” continued to be their battle-cry,
after their Parliament had been restored as well as before. They
simply continued to demand their own constitutional liberties, from
which demand they knew not to separate the other of having the
partes annexes, especially the unwilling Croatia, and the but halfwilling Transylvania, restored to their control; showing again that
curious compound of love of freedom for themselves and of dominion
over others which, we fear, is a characteristic of the Magyar race.
These demands, the “ Continuity of Rights,” and the “ territorial
integrity of the Crown of St. Stephen,” were formulated in extra
parliamentarian conference at Pesth, November 11, and the imperial
government showed compliance at once with the second demand
while it prepared itself partially to give way to the first; the direction
of the public mind in Hungary passing in the meanwhile more and
more from the hands of the Old-Conservative party, on whose sup
port the emperor had counted, and one of whose chiefs, Count
Majlath, had found a place in the ministry, into that of M. Deak
and the stern defenders of Hungarian constitutional doctrine. On
December 14, 1865, the Hungarian Diet was opened at Pesth by
the emperor. In the conciliatory speech from the throne, he said
that a contradiction existed between the view of some Austrian states
men, who asserted that Hungary had forfeited all her constitutional
rights by the insurrection of 1848-49, and the claim of the Hunga
rians to have all reform carried out on the basis of historical rights.
This contradiction could only be reconciled by the Pragmatic
Sanction, which both parties had taken as their point of departure.
He recognised the necessity of the self-government of Hungary, so
far as it did not affect the unity of the empire and the position of
Austria as a great power. He wished to re-establish the integrity of
the Hungarian crown, and, in order to effect this, steps had been
�21
taken that Transylvania and Croatia should be represented in the
Diet at Pesth.
The first task before the Diet was to take into consideration those
questions which concerned all the provinces. The emperor wished
the Diet to keep in view, as their principal aim, the unity of the
empire and the position of Austria as a great power.
The second object of the Diet was to be the revision of the laws
of 1848, which had to be modified, since they were incompatible,
not only with the unity of the empire, but also with the rights of the
sovereign.
After these questions the Diet was to discuss the programme of
the coronation of the Emperor of Austria as King of Hungary. He
hoped that the confidence between the nation and the king would
be increased, and that the great work of discentralising Austria and
Hungary would give satisfaction to all the nationalities composing
the empire.
Thus the royal speech set aside for ever that dangerous doctrine
which had occasioned so much bitterness and rendered all sincere
understanding impossible—the doctrine of the “ forfeiture of rights ”
—choosing as a starting point the mutually admitted basis of the
Pragmatic Sanction. The emperor recognised in his speech the
political and autonomous independence of Hungary and its depen
dencies, and declared that the crown would keep intact all clauses
of that compact referring to the integrity of the Hungarian crown,
laying particular stress, however, on the requirements of the empire
as a great power, and on the necessity for a combined constitutional
management of those affairs which concerned the whole realm.
Upon this clear legal foundation the pending political questions had
to be settled.
The draught of the address in reply to the emperor’s speech from
the throne did not come on for discussion in the Lower House of
the Diet until the month of February, 1866. Like M. Deák’s
addresses of 1861, it was very firm in tone. It contained 58 long
paragraphs and was remarkably loyal, expressing confidence in the
sovereign, and congratulating his majesty on the constitutional senti
ments contained in the speech from the throne and his recognition
of the continuity of rights. But it pleaded for the letter of the law
as regarded the old constitution. It rejected the October Diploma
and the February Patent as bases of negotiation, and expressed
great satisfaction that the monarch had acknowledged the Pragmatic
Sanction as the point of departure, pointing out that the safety of
Austria and the independence of Hungary were not antagonistic. It
announced that a special bill would be prepared for the settlement
of matters common to Hungary and the rest of the monarchy, and
declared the. readiness of the Diet to negotiate with the other
provinces while reserving the independence of each. It stated that
it was the desire of the Diet to bring about the real restoration of
the constitution, and expressed a hope that his majesty would
speedily be crowned as King of Hungary. It thanked his majesty
�22
for having summoned the Croatian and Transylvanian deputies to
the Diet at Pesth, and demanded that the Hungarian crown should
be fully reintegrated by the reincorporation of Dalmatia and Fiume
with Hungary. It solicited an amnesty for political offenders, and
demanded the re-establishment of municipal autonomy and the nomi
nation of a Hungarian ministry. There were other passages in the
address which seemed intended to admit of compromise, particularly
as to the necessary unity in the treatment of affairs common to the
whole empire. The draught of the address was adopted almost
unanimously.
The Upper House was not satisfied with the address voted by the
Lower House, and the magnates decided by a majority of 83 (136
against 53) to present a separate address, which, however, in prin
ciple coincided with that of the Lower House.
On February 27, deputations from both Houses presented addresses
to the emperor at Ofen. In reply his majesty said, he hoped the
magnates, faithful to their traditional mission, would throw the whole
weight of their wisdom and impartiality into the scale for the reali
sation of his paternal intentions, and that the Lower House would
follow the course pointed out in the speech from the throne, in order
to combine the attainment of their own constitutional rights with
an arrangement equally satisfactory to the other nationalities. His
majesty then abruptly left the audience room, and the deputation
withdrew in surprise without pronouncing the usual Eljens.
On the 28th February, M. Deâk moved in the Lower House at
Pesth the appointment of a commission of 67 members (52 Hunga
rians and 15 Transylvanians) to arrange the mode of treating the
affairs common to Hungary and Austria, thus taking the first step
towards arriving at an understanding.
A few days afterwards, on the 3rd of March, an imperial rescript
in reply to the addresses of both Houses was read in the Diet, in
which the emperor expressed his satisfaction at the acknowledgment
made by the Diet that certain affairs were common to Hungary and
Austria j he also said he expected that further négociations would
lead the Diet to acknowledge the necessity for a revision of the laws
passed in 1848. The rescript then stated that the 3rd Article of
the Laws of 1848, establishing a separate ministry for Hungary,
could not be maintained consistently with a proper treatment of
common affairs, and that Article 4 of the Laws of 1848, stipulating
that the Diet could not be dissolved by the government before the
budget had been voted, could not be carried out. The rescript
further announced that an immediate re-establishment of the
Comitates was impossible, and finally referred to the laws of the
year just mentioned, relative to the National Guard, in which body
the emperor thought some modifications necessary. In conclusion,
his majesty repeated that the re-establishment of the laws of 1848
was impossible without their previous revision.
This rescript, which left the hopes of the Hungarians unfulfilled,
gave rise to another address of both Houses of the Diet, deploring
�23
not only the rejection of all their requests, but also the suspension,
of those laws which required no modification. It stated that if his
majesty did not intend an absolute government, a constitutional
state of affairs must be practically re-established. The various points
of the imperial rescript were controverted in these addresses, and
the re-establishment of a parliamentary and legal municipal govern
ment again demanded. Hungary, it was stated, required a real
constitutional rule, the establishment of which was by no means a
political impossibility.
This address was unanimously adopted by the Lower House, but
by the Upper House with the very small majority of only 106 against
102 votes. On the 26th of April the address was received by the
emperor, who expressed a hope that the Diet would accelerate the
arrangement of those matters upon which depended the tranquillity,
power, and prosperity of the whole monarchy as well as of Hungary.
This was the position of the constitutional struggle when the war
with Prussia and Italy broke out. With the beginning of the
fighting, June 27th, the Diet of Pesth was prorogued, and Austria,
on this side of the Leitha and on that, was without any parliamentary
activity when the terrible crush of Sadowa fell on her, and Austria’s
difficulty became Hungary’s opportunity.
VL
Whether, and how much, the appearance on the theatre of war
of a Hungarian legion under General Klapka, in the service of
Prussia, and the rumours of a Prussian prince offering himself as a
candidate for the Hungarian crown, had to do with disposing the
Austrian government to large concessions to Hungary, we are not
in a position to decide. . On the whole, we are inclined to think
that the influence of these facts, though not null, was not consider
able. The legion, even on paper, never surpassed 4,000 men j and
it did not get into actual conflict. Whether it would have been in
creased from out of the ranks of the army, and whether there was
any party prepared to accept the offer, never formally made, of the
Prussian prince, remains doubtful. Still, both circumstances might
appear ominous storm-signals, and should not be passed over in
even this succinct account of constitutional struggles in the Austrian
*
monarchy.
But what became of immediate importance, was a conference of
the principal members of the Hungarian Lower House, held at
the house of Baron Kemengi in Pesth, while yet the question was
undecided whether Vienna should be defended against the Prussian
* The author of “ Austria, a Constitutional State,’’ mentions neither circum
stance.
�24
hosts. In the name of his colleagues, M. Deak published on July
17, 1866, their sentiments, which under the force of circumstances,
became, not disloyal, but most grave demands. {i A considerable
part of the country,” said M. Deak, in the Pesti Naplo, “ is inun
dated by hostile armies ; only Hungary is yet free. But Hungary
is dead. If not everything, at least much can be done with Hun
gary. Still, by herself, she can do nothing, for her hands are bound.
What alone can make them free and breathe life into her is a par
liamentary government. If Hungary can yet do anything for the
monarchy, it will be when her liberty of action has been restored to
her, when a government is placed over her which is the emanation
of the national will, in which the nation finds a guarantee of its
territory and its rights.”
.On the next day, July 18, the patriotic leaders were negotiating
with the government at Vienna respecting the concession of a
ministry for Hungary.
During this critical time, the municipalities of Vienna, Salzburg,
Glatz, etc., petitioned the emperor to convoke the Reichsrath and
to put again in force the February Constitution, but, instead of
granting their wishes, martial law was proclaimed at Vienna in order
to prevent discussion of the internal condition of the empire. When
peace was concluded, numerous meetings of deputies from the
German provinces took place, at Aussee, in Styria, and at Vienna
they declared themselves in favour of the system of dualism, with a
joint parliamentary treatment of the common affairs, but against all
federalistic tendencies, as well as against the conclusion of a com
promise with Hungary made by the separate Diets of the different
countries, since such a compromise was only admissible through the
united representation of the countries of the monarchy not linked
with the Hungarian crown.
At length, on October 14, the emperor convoked all the provin
cial Diets for November 16, with the exception of those of Hungary
and Transylvania ; the former of which, however, was likewise con
voked on October 30, to meet on the same day at Pesth.
On the same October 30, an important change took place in the
councils of the emperor. Count Mensdorf resigned the portfolio
of the foreign affairs, which passed into the hands of Baron Beust,
until then minister of Austria’s faithful ally, the King of Saxony.
At the same time, the Hungarian Count Maurice Esterhazy, who
passed as the representative of a reactionary policy, left the cabinet.
The helm of affairs was, however, intrusted to Count Belcredi, who
continued secretary for home affairs, and his tendencies, which wre
have before characterised as Slavophile, to which we might have
added bureaucratic, swayed for a while longer the general course of
the constitutional question, on which as yet Baron Beust could
exercise but little influence.
These changes were considered not sufficiently thorough ; they
awakened not the full measure of confidence required. The Diets
resumed their sessions with discordant recriminations, and, as before,
�25
Centralists, Dualists, and Federalists uttered their watchwords unharmoniously, barrenly.
Even the Hungarian Diet was not satisfied, though much was done
to meet half-way the demands of the nation. The emperor-king,
by a rescript to the Diet, of November 17, declared that in resuming
the thread of negotiations with the Diet, on the basis of the terms
mentioned in the last speech from the throne, the principal object
to be accomplished was the constitutional settlement of the connec
tion of the different parts of the monarchy, and the speedy re
establishment of the autonomous rights of Hungary. The emperor
regretted the prorogation of the Diet just at the time when the Sub
Committee of the Commission of 67 * had drawn up a project with
reference to the discussion and the treatment of common affairs,
which his majesty recognised as a fitting basis for the establishment
of the constitutional compromise.
The rescript also indicated
points as to which it appeared requisite that the special attention
of the representatives should be directed, the maintenance of the
unity of the army with unity of command, its organisation, and also
the rules regulating the terms of service and recruitment. The
regulation, according to uniform principles, of the customs, of the
indirect taxation, of the State monopoly system, and of the public
debt and State credit. “ If,” continued the rescript, “ the delibera
tions of the Diet succeed in removing the obstacles connected with
the unity of the monarchy, which must be upheld, then the con
stitutional wishes and demands of Hungary put forward in the
addresses of the Diet will be fulfilled by the appointment of a re
sponsible ministry, and by the restoration of municipal autonomy.
The system of the responsibility of the government will be intro
duced not only in Hungary but in all parts of the monarchy. The
detailed application and realisation of the principles referring to
common affairs, as well as to modifications to be introduced in the
laws of .1848, will be carried out through responsible ministers, to
be appointed in agreement with the estates and representatives in
Diet assembled.”
. In conclusion, the rescript expressed a hope that the Diet would
give its serious attention to these subjects with due regard to the
requirements of. the day, thereby accelerating the secure establish
ment of a constitutional organisation throughout the whole realm.
Thus, the country, after a struggle of 19 years, stood at last upon
the threshold of the fulfilment of its wishes.
But the Hungarians demanded the full measure of their right, and
an unconditional surrender preceding any requisite modification
of their constitution or the laws of 1848, which modifications they
showed themselves willing to introduce after having gained their
legal point.
On the motion of M. Dedk it was decided in the Lower House,
by 227 against 107 votes, to reply by an address to the royal
* This means not a Committee appointed in 1867, but one consisting of 67
members.
�26
rescript of the 17th of November, which had not been able to allay
the apprehensions entertained by Hungary, notwithstanding the
promises and the acknowledgments of the national rights contained
therein, since the request of the Diet for an immediate and complete
re-establishment of the constitution had not been complied with.
The address, while drawing attention to the dangers arising from
disunion at home and complications abroad, which might happen
by some unforeseen incident, contained a request to his majesty to
grant to the Diet means and opportunities for effecting a satisfactory
compromise, and also the prayer not to render reconciliation impos
sible by postponing the re-establishment of a legal basis for public
affairs. It also promised to consider the question of common
affairs as the committee of 67 should have brought forward their
report, and the Diet were in a position to pass resolutions in refe
rence thereto having the force of law. It also asked that those
persons upon whom penal sentences had been passed, or who were
exiled for political offences, should be amnestied, and expressed
great satisfaction that the emperor intended to introduce in his
other provinces also the principle of ministerial responsibility.
There was then a dead lock; the emperor demanding first the
modification of the laws before their re-establishment, the Hunga
rians requiring first their re-establishment before they could be
modified.
Meanwhile, voices friendly to Hungary were heard from the
German constitutionalists in the Diets of the Crown lands on this
side of the Leitha.
“ The Diet,” says the Carinthian address, “ firmly adheres to the
legal continuity of the Constitution of the 26th of February, 1861,
and has the conviction that it will not be an impediment to an
arrangement with Hungary, because all alterations which do not
affect the existence of the empire as a whole can be effected in a
constitutional manner, and because the interests of the western
countries offer no impediment to the recognition of the autonomy
of Hungary in those points which are not necessarily common to the
whole State. The joint parliamentary settlement of the common
affairs, with a responsible ministry, is not only an indispensable
preliminary condition for the constitutional liberty of the empire,
but also an absolute necessity for its continuance. Without any
further delay a parliamentary government must undertake, with the
support of the constitutional co-operation of the Reichsrath, to call
into life such an organisation and such public institutions as will
secure personal as well as civil and political liberty, and by a
popular and economical government promote and durably establish
the prosperity of the country.”
At last Baron von Beust, accompanied by the Hungarian Court
Chancellor, paid a visit to Pesth, conferring with the leading men
of the country, with a view to an immediate settlement. Personal
contact went far to smooth the way to such consummation. Yet the
step immediately following gave little satisfaction. Baron Beust had
�27
gained an influence over and above that belonging to his department
of foreign affairs, as his chief was still Count Belcredi. A compro
mise of their views seemed to be found in the convocation of an
extraordinary Reichsrath. The government resolved not to summon
the late members, but to proceed to new elections. Consequently,
by an imperial patent, dated 2nd January, 1867, the Diets of the
crown lands on this side of the Leitha were dissolved and new
elections to those Diets ordered; the Diets were severally to
assemble on the nth of February, and the communication of the
imperial patent and the election of members to this extraordinary
assembly of the Reichsrath were to form the only subjects to be
submitted to them. The government, it was stated in the patent,
had initiated negotiations upon the basis of the patent of the 20th
of September, 1865, with the representatives of the countries
belonging to the Hungarian crown for the settlement of opposing
claims with regard to the constitutional institutions of the monarchy.
With the intention of attaining as speedily as possible a complete
solution which should do justice to all parties, the government had
determined to ask the co-operation of the representatives of the
other countries, in order that the rights and claims of the non-Hungarian crown lands might be discussed in a common assembly,
constantly keeping in view the leading idea of securing the existence
of the monarchy as a whole. The extraordinary Reichsrath was to
meet at Vienna on the 25th of February, 1867, the discussion of the
question of the constitution to form the sole subject of its delibera
tions.
This plan caused much dissatisfaction, especially among the
German population, who, under Count Belcredi’s management,
expected to see themselves outvoted by the Slavonians. This dis
satisfaction, increased by an unconstitutional imperial rescript, re
organising the army on anew basis of a general duty of bearing arms,
bore Baron Beust into the highest power.
The difference of opinion between Count Belcredi and Baron von
Beust as to the way of proceeding was, that the count, who was less
favourable to the Hungarian claims, held that the arrangement with
Hungary should be submitted for approval to the non-Hungarian
nationalities, assembled in an extraordinary Diet, before being
adopted by the government, while Baron von Beust maintained that
such a mode would occasion further delays ; also, that the Hunga
rians would not like to see what they considered their rights called
in question. Moreover, the German provinces had to a great extent
abstained from taking part in the elections, so that the extraordinary
Reichsrath would not, after all, possess the commanding influence
which was expected of it. Baron von Beust’s view prevailed. The
empeior accepted the resignation of Count Belcredi, and appointed
Baron von Beust to succeed him as President of the Council.
Events now moved more rapidly, and no longer with an uncertain
step.
The extraordinary Reichsrath was abandoned, and the ordinary
�28
Reichsrath, in accordance with the February constitution, convened
for the 15th of February. Count Andrassy at the same time strongly
urged, on the part of Hungary, the adoption by the government of
the constitutional course of submitting the Hungarian propositions,
in so far as they concerned the empire at large, to an ordinary Cis
Lei than representative assembly.
On the 6th of February, the committee of 67 members of the
Hungarian Diet concluded their labours on the affairs common to
the whole monarchy. On the 18th an imperial rescript ordered the
obnoxious, decree about the army to stand over for parliamentary
consideration. At the same time the Hungarian constitution wras
restored, amid expressions of the unbounded delight of both Houses.
On the . 24th, Count Andrassy announced to the Diet his appointment
as President of the Ministry. On the 18th, also, all the Diets of the
non-Hungarian lands were opened. The emperor’s message an
nounced the repeal of the suspension of the constitution by the
patent of the 20th of September, 1865, the abandonment of the
convocation of the extraordinary Reichsrath, and the return to a
constitutional course ; it contained, at the same time, the assurance
that nothing was further from his majesty’s intentions than to
curtail the rights granted by the decrees of i860 and 1861, and
requested them to proceed at once to the election of members to
the constitutional Reichsrath, which was to meet on the 18th of
March for the ordinary despatch of business. It stated that by so
doing, in correct appreciation of his majesty’s intentions, they would
contribute what lay in their power to put an end to a constitutional
crisis that had already lasted far too long.
The resistance of the Slavonic population of Bohemia, Moravia,
and Carniola, who were unwilling to co-operate with the Germans,
the dissolution of their Diets, followed by a victory of the ministry
in the parliamentary campaign of the newly-elected Bohemian Diet,
delayed the opening of the Reichsrath by the emperor till the 22nd
of May last; and on the 8th of June, 1867, Francis Joseph was
crowned at Pesth, and peace, and a rational prospect of harmony,
re-established throughout the monarchy, a general amnesty also
taking place. Here closes our account of the constitutional travail
of Austria, and we may fitly wind it up with the following words
from one who knows Baron Beust, the author of the brochure on
“ Austria,” which we have repeatedly used and mentioned.
Baron von Beust possesses the liappy talent of allying himself with all those
parliamentary capacities disposed to enter on his own path. He does not think
of going backwards by oppressing nationalities. Nor does he dream of reversing
an august and solemn declaration which its author intends maintaining in its full
entirety—that is to say, the principle of legal equality of all the peoples of
Austria. Baron von Beust aims chiefly at one thing for the present,—an amicable
entente between all the parties concerned ; and he tries to maintain it by promo
ting a common deliberation, which is the first step to be taken by people holding
contrary opinions. The Prime Minister of Austria, in his efforts to arrive at that
result, does not decline the assistance of any one, to whatever party or nationality
he may belong, in order to conciliate all opposing claims and obliterate the
�*9
obstinate hatred of race. Francis Joseph, duly appreciating the eminent talents
of his minister and the services already rendered by him to the State, has just
given him a special mark of his confidence by raising him to the rank of Chancellor
of the Empire, the highest dignity that can be bestowed upon an Austrian states
man, and which has been in abeyance since the late Prince Metternich’s time;
while the people, judging of their sentiments as expressed by the press, seem to
be unanimous in their approval of the emperor’s act.
By placing themselves on the ground of the constitution of February, the
government have acknowledged its obligatory force for everything not expressly
abrogated by the Hungarian compromise. The revision of the constitution will
put an end to the contradictions existing between the Common Law of each of
the two great divisions of the empire. When accomplished, the work will no
doubt be capable of improvement; but an important fact will henceforth be
existent, the consequences of which cannot fail to be felt through the whole
empire : for the first time the whole of Austria will possess a legal basis to develop
her constitutional life. Time and peace, confidence, the force of interest, and,
above all, the goodwill of men, must work the rest.
VII.
And so Austria has settled down, into dualism, and the two rival
schemes of centralisation and federalism have been discarded. The
empire is now virtually divided into two halves, linked together by
having the same sovereign, and an arrangement for settling, in the
somewhat cumbersome form of parliamentary delegations, certain
affairs agreed upon as demanding treatment in common. This latter,
in so far as it is a concession on the side of Hungary, is the result
of the labours of the committee of sixty-seven members mentioned
above.
A look to the map will show that in speaking of the division by
the river Leitha we use rather an artificial term. That river, a small
tributary of the Danube, on its south side, divides but for a short dis
tance the archduchy of Austria from the kingdom of Hungary.
The real and complete line of demarcation between the western
and eastern halves of the monarchy is—with one exception, to be
mentioned immediately—the old boundary of the German Confedera
tion. But the western, or non-Hungarian half, besides the countries
formerly belonging to that confederation, includes now also the very
important provinces of Galicia and the Bukowina,which can hardly,
strictly speaking, be said to be this side of the Leitha, but stretch from
the northernmost part of the old German provinces, Austrian Silesia,
eastward, lying m a vast arch around the northern frontier of
Hungary.
. And now that this solution of dualism, towards which so many
influences tended, has been adopted, we hear-it sometimes sneered
at, the statesman who has carried it out blamed for having effected a
compromise, in which all his part consisted in giving way—which
when we consider the result arrived at by the sixty-seven committee,
�3°
is not correct—and the concessions to Hungary pointed out as so
many retrogressions into the middle ages.
We have not space to discuss the value of such views in detail.
We will, for the sake of argument, admit that dualism is not the best
possible solution that could be conceived. But could a better one
have been carried out ?
At any rate, the governors and people of Austria—and we here
comprise Hungary in this term—may feel again firm ground under
them, instead of the shifting quagmire of contradictory experiments
and plans which have filled the history of these last eighteen years.
And if we look at their actual doings since the early part of last
year, it seems that they are willing, on the whole, to avail them
selves, in order to march forward, of such new bases. The tenden ■
cies both of the Vienna Reichsrath and of the Hungarian Diet lie
in a liberal direction. The Concordate has fallen in Hungary, is
manifestly doomed in Vienna. The reforms in criminal jurisdiction
and in constitutional guarantees voted by the Vienna assembly are
very cheering, and if we are inclined to suspect that the formalism
of a pattern constitutionality does perhaps pre-occupy that assembly
too much, this is an evil which it shares with almost every parlia
mentary body which has sat on the continent for these last forty
years ; and we even see progress in that the desire of producing the
most perfect paper constitution has cost much less time, and interfered
much less with actual current business than it did, for instance, in
the parliament of Frankfort, and of Vienna itself in 1848.
As to the treatment of common affairs, the recent financial settle
ments about the share of the burden to be borne by Hungary
certainly seemed calculated to impress one with a notion that the
Magyars were more willing to accept the profitable portion of their
connection with Austria than a due proportion of the cost of its
existence. But we are willing to admit that, were we, in common
with other writers in the English press, more fully informed of the
details, this affair might present itself in a somewhat different light.
We, for our part, hope that in the course of time the separation
between Hungary and the western half of the monarchy will not
grow wider, but that, on the contrary, the links now uniting the
two parts will be drawn more firmly by the consciousness of pressing
mutual interests and a growing goodwill.
How the Roumane and Slavonic populations in the countries
annexed to Hungary will reconcile themselves to their position,
remains to be seen. We confess that we should have been glad if
the Magyar nation had possessed the magnanimity of not insisting
on retaining or re-grasping their hold on Croatia—a country which
evidently, in the great majority of its inhabitants, is unfavourable
to that special connection which is a necessity neither for Austria
nor for Hungary, while it cannot be said that the Magyar language,
imposed on the Slavonian deputies at Pesth, is, as Latin, the former
official language, was, a neutral ground, or as German would be, a
great link with the civilisation of an extensive part of Europe. The
�Si
day seems yet distant for these countries when the language difficulty
can be solved by that mutual fairness and accommodation which
Switzerland practises, enjoys, and does not boast of.
A similar difficulty exists yet for the western half of the monarchy,
in the local and race feeling of the Czechs in Bohemia and parts of
Moravia. The population of the former kingdom is in its majority,
though not in its most active and enterprising portion, Slavonian,
the Germans forming a strong minority.
*
Now, the Slavo-Bohemians or Czechs are endeavouring, on the strength of historical tradi
tions, to set up a claim to a position for Bohemia, similar to that of
Hungary. On considering whether such claim is allowable, one
important difference strikes us as paramount. The whole of the
Magyar population is contained within the boundaries of Hungary
and Transylvania, and no foreign power has supported their claims,
or can easily use them as part of its diplomatic machinery. The
Czechs, on the other hand, present themselves as part of a whole
which lies outside of Austria ; their tendencies are connected or
identified with Panslavism; they lean upon Russia, f The acropolis
of the Magyars is Buda-Pesth, within the monarchy; but the
Czechs have their kebla in the czar’s dominion—Moscow and St.
Petersburg are their Mecca and Medina. While, therefore, the
local diet should continue to exercise, as it does, its functions ;
while no right belonging to any other subject of the monarchy is
denied to a Bohemian ; and while it is necessary for every Austrian
statesman to show all due regard to the Slavonic populations who
form so large a part of the empire, it is on the other hand perfectly
intelligible that Count Belcredi’s pampering of Czech race feeling
should have been felt a great evil, and that Baron Beust should show
himself firmly decided not to allow Bohemia to be made an Austrian
Ireland,, with its Fenian head-centres in Russia.^ The comparison
into which we have just been drawn, may be applied to one or two
other points. Austria can as little give up Bohemia as England can
* The statements of the Czechs and Germans differ, of course ; three-fifths for
the former and two-fifths for the latter is probably correct.
f Let us remind our readers of the speeches recently delivered by M. Rieger,
and other Czechs, on the occasion of the so-called Ethnographical Congress, or
gathering of Panslavistic agitators, at Moscow. Among the popular poets of the
Czech school, Czelakovsky openly leads towards Russia. “ La Bohême historique,
pittoresque et littéraire.” Paris, 1867. p. 288, etc.
J The following passage from the Daily News, referring to a speech of Baron
Beust’s, is worth quoting
The Austrian chancellor mentions, among the
difficulties with which he has to deal, the disloyal and anti-national spirit of the
Panslavist enthusiasts in Bohemia. With just severity he condemns the infatua
tion of the silly dupes who complain of the destruction of their national traditions,
while they are conspiring to sell their birthright to an alien power. But M. de
Beust consoles himself with the persuasion that this Bohemian fanaticism is but a
passing discontent ; he promises to maintain their rights in common with those of
all their fellow-subjects, under the safeguard of constitutional’liberty and equal law.
It is by the peaceful fruits of liberty, and the harmonious development of the
interests of all the nationalities that acknowledge his sceptre, that the Emperor
Francis Joseph will avenge the defeat of Sadowa. All Liberal Europe will wish
M. de Beust success in his good work.”
\
\
\
�32
give up Ireland. A look on the map proves it, and it is not the
least of the evil consequences of the war of 1866, that a province in
which German influence ought to be beneficially felt, and which
extends so far into Germany, should by the weakening of Austria,
and by the dissolution of the old confederation, be so much more
exposed to the anti-German influences of Russia ; it is not the least
among the wrongs committed by Count Bismarck against the German
nation and Europe that in his unscrupulous efforts for the aggran
disement of Prussia, he has not hesitated to commence in Bohemia
a Czech agitation, and by his incendiary proclamations to try to
induce the Bohemians to set up again the throne of St. Wenceslas.
*
The difficulties under which Austria labours are thus still very
considerable ; and we can, in the scope of our present observations,
but glance at, though we must not omit to mention, her financial
embarrassments, the legacy of the profligate rule of former years
which did not disdain, in the midst of profound peace, to sink deeper
and deeper into public debt, while neglecting to develop the natural
resources of such rich countries as compose the Austrian monarchy.f
But, on the other hand, Austria has a great mission, in the fulfil
ment of which it behoves liberal Europe no longer to impede, but
rather, in the general interest, to favour her. Hers is the task to
preserve and to increase civilisation along the shores of the Danube,
and to see that the great river, from its sources down to the mouth,
from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, belongs to European
civilisation; hers the task to be an arbiter, and, in gentle bonds, a
connecting power between the different nationalities filling that broad
expanse of country, and which cannot evolve out of themselves a
substitute to such power, whilst, unconnected, they must fall a prey
to Russia. Interposed between the steppes of the Euxine, and the
kingdom of Greece which is meant to rise in Russian dependency,
she may yet preserve for Europe the Dardanelles, and prevent the
Christian rajah from being led, by the watchword of their emanci
pation from Turkish yoke, under the yoke of Russia, to their own
and Europe’s great and lasting detriment.
' * Compare on the side of the Bohemian agitators : “ Expose et défense de la
Politique suivie en ce moment par la Diète Bohême.” Paris, Victor Groupy. 1867.
“ Le Royaume de Bohême et l’Etat Autrichien.” Prague, Grégi. 1867. “ La
Bohême Historique, Pittoresque et Littéraire,” par Joseph Friczet Louis Leger.
Paris, Librairie Internationale. 1867.—472 pp. If any set of English democrats
find themselves impelled to espouse the cause of the Czechs, we would request
them not to exclusively dwell on the name of John Huss, whose memory is a
friendly connecting link between the German Protestants and the Czechs, but
also to bear in mind the fact that Czechian Bohemia has furnished to absolutistic
Austria its most numerous and some of its worst satellites. The authors of “La
Bohême Historique ” do not deny it ; they excuse it with the necessity of making a
living—en somme, ilfallait vivre. One feels inclined to reply, with Voltaire—Je
rHen vois pas la nécessité.
+ See, on this characteristic of Prince Metternich’s long administration, some
excellent remarks, not unmixed with prejudice against the Jews, in Wolfgang
Menzel’s “ Geschichte der letzten vierzig Jahre.” 1865. Vol. I. pp. 23-25.
�33
Vili.—CONCLUSION.
If we are to heed a few shortsighted writers, the destruction of the
Austrian monarchy is still, and speedily, required for the re-estab ■
lishment of German unity. Curiously enough they are some of the
same people who habitually designate the disruption of Germany,
by thè war of 1866, as the foundation of its unity. These gentlemen
forget the text from which they are to preach. German unity by
federation existed until the summer of 1866, in a form, indeed, far from
being perfect. Reform was needed, not destruction, and moreover
*
it was in course of progress. But every effort in that direction had
been defeated by Prussia, unless it tended to the subjugation of Ger
many to her. So the last endeavour of Austria, by the Congress of
Frankfort in 1863, which would have led to a real, though not a
radical reform, but for the protests of Prussia, and the intrigues of the
Grand-Duke of Baden, who fancies himself to speak as a pater patrice,
when he plays but the part of a son-in-law of His Prussian Majesty.!'
Germany’s federal consolidation, then, striven for by many
patriots, and latterly by Austria, was destroyed by Prussia and her
* So the patriotic poet Count Platen ;
Wohl that Erneurung unserem Reiche noth,
Doch nicht Zerstörung, tief im Busen
Trug es den edelsten Keim der Freiheit.—Ode xxxiii.
This noble poet has been scurvily treated by M. Julian Schmidt, in that pon
derous pro-Prussian pamphlet, which he calls a history of modern literature.
Was it because it might be foreseen that, had Platen lived to witness, he would
have been certain to oppose the Prussian aggression ?
f The Prussian faction by no means embraces all Prussian liberals, though
many of them have been misled by the glitter of arms and the dizziness of power.
One of the foremost and purest of them, M. Jacoby, said last year to the Prussian
second chamber—“ A united, a politically unified Germany, so hopes the draft of
your address, will be the result of this war. I cannot share this hope. I believe,
rather, that the exclusion of Austria, that is, the expulsion of millions of our
German brothers from the common assembly does not unite Germany, and that
the plan which the policy of the Prussian cabinet has been pursuing for so long a
time, and which now brings two-thirds of the population under Prussian dominion,
leads us farther away from the desired aim of German unity than the late Diet of
Frankfort.” . . . “It is possible that this may respond to the specific
interests of Prussia ; but from the point of view of liberty, I cannot regard as a
strengthening of German unity the strengthening of the dynastic power of Prussia
by the violent acquisition of German territories. If in Prussia the recent system
of government continue—and up to the present time there is hardly anything to
be seen of a change—then your reformation of Germany will be to her former
divisions and powerlessness what death is to disease.”—Diplomatic Review,
October 3, 1866. The same distinguished politician, in a later speech, voting
against that hoax which calls itself the Constitution of the North German Con
federation, says, ‘ ‘ Germany, united in political freedom, is the surest guarantee
for the peace of Europe ; united under Prussian military power, Germany is a
standing danger for neighbouring nations, and we are at the beginning of an epoch
of wars, which threatens to throw us back into the saddest time of the middle
ages, when might was substituted for right.”—English Leader, May 25th, 1867.
D
�34
faction. Let that result, for the present, be accepted. German
unity may perhaps be re-established, and on a sounder basis than
before, but not now. And certainly the means suggested is not
desirable ; that of sowing discontent in the German-Austrian part of
the monarchy, and, by directing the attention of the discontented
towards Berlin, as a North Star, to make the countries on this side
of the Leitha ready to fall by insurrection and intrigue into the lap
of Prussia, as the Two Sicilies fell into that of Sardinia, seven years
ago. Such a plan seemed to have—we do not say it had—some
chance of success, immediately after the war, when discontent was
very rife in most parts of the Austrian monarchy. But the liberal
policy of Baron Beust at home, and the wretched part played in the
north by that friend of the English Reform League, Count Bismarck,
who has already sacrificed Luxemburg, must have obliterated any
such desire where it ever existed in Austrians.
*
Its success, moreover, would be only opening the door to new
difficulties ; it would expose directly all the countries on the other
side of the Leitha, and Galicia, to Russian influence; and granting
that Vienna and Salzburg were contented to be ruled from Berlin—
which is granting a good deal—there would be an immediately
increased striving of the Czechs towards union with Russia. For
after all, they have had many centuries of connexion with Vienna,
while no link, but bare force, devoid of all historical tradition, would
connect Prague with Berlin. Similarly, in the south, Trieste would
be attracted to Italy. Thus while Russia would step into the centre
of Germany and of Europe, for such is the north-western frontier of
Bohemia, Germany would definitively cut herself off from the
Adriatic. Beautiful fruits of a longing for unity !
Peace, no doubt, is very desirable for Austria. But is it, under
the present conditions, possible for any length of time ? Austria is,
during the present peace, continually being undermined, on the
upper and lower, if no longer on the middle, Danube ; on the one
hand by Prussia and the faction of political Unitarians, on the other
by Russia and those Slavonians who are friendly to her.
It thus becomes necessary for her to advance, by alliance or con
quest, to the mouths and to the sources of the Danube.
The Prussian prince in Roumania has been placed there only to
keep the seat warm for Russia. He might well arrive there with his
carpet-bag only ; it was sufficient for his mission. His part is about
played out. The last thing he maybe used for is to create dissatisfaction
among those Roumanes—or Wallachians—which inhabit portions of
Transylvania. Not having always been very well treated by the
* In this connection the writer on “ Dualism in Austria,” in the Westminster
Review of last October, refers to the pamphlet, 44 Der Zerfall Oestreichs, von einem
Deutsch Oestreicher.” One is astonished at a writer so acute not doubting the
authenticity of that anonymous publication. Probably his great pro-Slavonic
tendencies prevented him from seeing the strong probability of this being one
more of the many productions of Count Bismarck’s active literary staff. As such
we shall consider it until the writer chooses to unmask himself.
�35
Magyars, they may be supposed to be open to an application of the
nationality doctrine. This is a nostrum which can well be used
for preparing Russian dominion. To avert this danger, and sub
stituting the better for the worse, knowing herself to be the better,
Austria will have to strive to put her influence in the place of
Russia’s, in that revolution which seems imminent.
An enlightened policy will likewise lead her to attach, in friendly
relations, the principality of Servia to her.
If, without her acting to bring it about, the dissolution of the
Turkish Empire come to pass, the provinces of Bosnia and Herze
govina, the background, so to speak, of Croatia and Dalmatia, ought
to be seen gravitating towards the Austrian monarchy ; and perhaps
such a tendency will also manifest itself in Bulgaria.
On the upper Danube, Austria ought to connect herself in friendly
alliance with the South German States, and thus to strengthen her
German element. Much seems lost there already; notwithstanding
the evident aversion of the immense majority against Prussian rule,
the excellent strategy of Count Bismarck has won a good deal
of ground in that direction. Stirring up patriotic feeling against
France, connecting the renewal of the Zollverein treaties with those of
military alliance, and making the adoption of the latter a conditio
sine qua non of the former, also availing himself of much of the old
leaven of distrust against Austria, Prussia has indubitably gained
advantages in that direction, from which it may be difficult for
Austria to dislodge her. Yet we have abundant evidence before us
that no love for Prussian rule pervades those southern populations,
*
* We may here extract the following from the private letters of an English
military gentleman, formerly an officer in the Austrian service, who is at present
travelling and observing in the lands of the Danube. Writing from Bucharest,
he says :—“I have been doing my best to ascertain the real situation of affairs in
this province. Everything is at a standstill. There exists great discontent
amongst all parties. My firm belief is that the present prince will abdicate in
favour of some other member of his family, and that he was never intended to
last. .A short.time since he told the English consul that he was not the right
man in the right place. Why shoidd a prince say that to a foreign consul ?
Until the country is in the hands of a strong power there will never be any pro
gress. The parties are so numerous and equal in strength that no minister can
count on a majority for any length of time. Every one does his best to cheat the
others. I enclose you a description of a review ; it was first-rate. Very few of
the National Guard have any uniform. They seem to have a good class of
officers ; the greater part, I hear, foreigners. Anybody is to be bought.” . . .
This about Wallachia. From another letter as to Moldavia we extract“ I will
now give you my ideas of the present state of Moldavia, which is worse than that
of Wallachia. All parties are agreed on one point—that they have los-t greatly
by the present government, which has done nothing for them. The Russian party
is the. strongest. That I cannot understand why Russia should work against the
Prussian prince, unless it is an understood thing that Moldavia is at a future
period, to belong to Russia, that is to say, the Moldavians are to revolt against
the prince and demand to be placed under the protection of Russia, with a prince
of their own. This plan would be supported by the majority of the Moldavians.
If the Austrian party in Wallachia was properly supported, the province must fall
into the hands of Austria ; the Hungarians all do their best to get it attached to
the crown of Hungary.”
�3<S
and the Liberal tendency of present Austrian politics may recover
lost ground.
*
When thus the position of Austria is strengthened again, and con
stitutional freedom preserved in the south, the re-establishment of
German unity may be thought of. It will have to be brought about
by a strong Austria, anti-Russian, in alliance with Prussia, freeing
herself from Russia, to which she at present leans.f No doubt the
principle of manifoldness in unity—in which the chief value of
Germany to European civilisation consists—will have to be re
spected, Prussia will have to disgorge some of her ill-gotten gains,
to relax, for instance, her grasp on unwilling Hamburg, to restore
the freedom of that ancient republic of Frankfort, where her parti
sans can well nigh be counted on one’s fingers.
And as her ambition must have some satisfaction, it may, in the
inevitable struggle with Russia, be directed to that power’s Baltic
provinces with their German populations. Let her harp there on
the string of the nationality principle, it will be more than appealing
to a race-feeling; it will be regaining outlying family members to a
higher political existence.
In such a struggle there is a chance, not a slight one, for the re* Vide, among others, the Suddeutsche Presse, published since October ist, at
Munich, by Julius Froebel, an old leader of the German Liberals, himself not
hostile to Prussia. Much evidence in this direction may also be gathered from
the Hermann, a German weekly paper, published in London.
The most Prussianised part of South Germany appears to be Baden. Yet, in the
appeal just made by the government, the people have in the elections for the socalled customs-parliament given unmistakable signs that they do not approve of
the doings of the Grand-Duke and the Prussian faction. In the weekly paper,
Die Vereinigten Staaten von Europa, published at Berne, a correspondent from
Baden says with reference to the appointment of a Prussian officer as Baden war
minister :—“ Our elections for the customs parliament were a protest against govern
ment, and its submissiveness to Prussia. Now they answer by a provocation.
If things continue in this way, the Grand-Duke, who is under the influence of his
consort, stakes his throne, and will lose it even more certainly than were he to
cede it to Prussia. We fear the French government, but we hate Prussia. We
want to be German ; never will we consent to be Prussian. Anything rather than
that.” March Sth, No. io. —Wurtemberg has just elected 17 members for the
Customs Parliament: not one candidate favourable to the Prussification of Ger
many, was successful.
J The Berlin correspondent of the Times says:—“Manyof the Liberal prints
are even so unreasonable as to taunt Count Bismarck with not calling Russia to
account, when a moment’s reflection must tell them that no Prussian Cabinet,
whatever its bearings, -would, in the actual condition of Europe, be rash enough
to quarrel with the Czar.”—Times, December 17th, 1867. This shameful sub
missiveness may indeed be a necessity for Prussia, aggrandized by rending Germany
into pieces and excluding Austria from the Confederation : for a federally united
Germany no such necessity would exist.
I11 this reprint we are enabled to refer the reader to the documents revealing the
remarkable endeavour made by Prussia to re-connect herself, by a federal bond,
with Austria, and to the dignified manner by which it was met by Baron Beust,
vide “The Austrian Redbook.” (Dulau &Co., 1868.) Part I., pp. 3,4, 53, 55,
and 84 to 93.
The liberal admirers and disciples of Count Bismark may still preach the wis
dom of the exclusion of Austria; they now stand rebuked by their half-repentant
master. It is true he wished Russia to join in the league.
�37
establishment of Poland, of which Austria, strengthened in other
quarters, might offer a nucleus.
This federative Germany, strong for defence, too enlightened to
be dangerous to any civilised power, and not by undue centralisa
tion favouring the projects of ambition, would enter into friendly
relations with Scandinavia, and thereby guard for Europe the second
key of her seas, the Sound, now ill-protected in the hands of weak
Denmark. She would, freed from the desire of accumulation,
guarantee to Switzerland and Holland their existence, at present
threatened. She would revert to the principle of respect for the
smaller communities, “these feeble states,” in the words of Sir
James Mackintosh, “these monuments of the justice of Europe, the
asylum of peace, of industry, and of literature, the organs of public
reason, the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth.” *
We have been carried far into a future, perhaps never to be real
ised. Is this a dream ? If so, it seems still better to strive after its
realisation than to pretend to enjoy the horrible nightmare of
Prussian functionarism and barrackdom. It may be, in parts at
least, even more easy to be realised than Kossuth’s dream of a
Danube federation under Magyar Hegembny. At the Danube we
now see only the alternative of accepting Austria or Russia. We
have made our choice.
* The trial of John Peltier, Esq., for a libel against Napoleon Buonaparte.
London, 1803. p. 88.
�EXTRACTS
FROM THE AUSTRIAN RED-BOOK.—CORRESPONDENCE OF
THE IMPERIAL ROYAL MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
On the Prussian Proposal for re-establishing a Federal
Connection with A ustria.
From the introduction :
... In looking back to the relations of Austria towards Germany in the year
following the war of 1866, the fact must not lightly be passed over that, under
the impression of the danger of a European war, many a serious glance was
directed, in Berlin, as well as in Munich, towards that Austria whose connection
with Germany the Treaty of Prague had severed a few months previously.
Intimations followed with respect to new federal arrangement, which, however,
were too vague, and guarded the interest of the one side too partially, to allow of
Austria sacrificing to them that freedom of action she has exchanged for the rights
and duties of the period closed by the dissolution of the Germanic Confédéra
tion.............
BARON BEUST TO COUNT TRAUTTMANNSDORFF AT MUNICH.
Vienna, April 6, 1867.
“ I neither could nor would express any opinion as to the relations between
Prussia and South Germany, by which any degree of responsibility could be
attached to the imperial cabinet for a further infringement of the stipulations of the
Treaty of Prague, already restricted by the August Treaties of Alliance. We do
not wish to influence in any direction the considerations that may be entered into
at Berlin and Munich in this matter. I was forced, on the contrary, to character
ise the question of an alliance of Austria with a new German Bund, under the
direction of Prussia, as a simple question of interest, and one, indeed, of the highest
order. Neither passions, nor feelings, nor historical recollections—whether those
of 1866 or those of a thousand years past—shall influence our future resolutions,
but our consideration will be in the first instance the security, and in the second
the interest, of the Austrian monarchy. Even in favour of its former German
allies, the empire can no longer enter into relations which would impose upon us
obligations and burdens, unless the fullest compensatory returns are made. If
friendship towards Austria, and the wish to be useful to her, can be traced in the
language and the acts of the German governments, such tokens will at all times
find an echo with us, and this may contribute to pave the way for happier relations
in future than at present exist. But we require very solid guarantees against ten
dencies which are not only not friendly but dangerous to us, and no services must
be required from us which would not be fully compensated by counter-services of
equal value. I have not concealed from Count Bray that in the position which
the South-German States have now taken up with regard to Prussia—and with
which position we are far removed from wishing to quarrel—such guarantees and
counter-services could not be offered us in Munich, but only in Berlin; and that
we, therefore, would be compelled mainly to keep our eyes fixed upon Prussia,
should it ever come to pass that we could believe in a serious honestly meant
alliance with Germany, advantageous to both parties, and for which we ought to
sacrifice our present liberty.”
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
�39
BARON BEUST TO COUNT WIMPFFEN IN BERLIN.
Vienna, April 17, 1867.
•
•
•
■
•
•
•
... 111 will not keep from your Excellency the fact that Baron Werther some
days ago mentioned to me the wish, just as Count Bismarck did to you, for the
re-establishment of a grand Germano-Austrian alliance. I heard from him
words even which seemed to imply that Austria ought to regain her lost position in
Germany. But what other answer could I give to this than putting the question
—Whether they intend in Prussia to return to the former Confederation ? They
must doubtless understand in Berlin that this question is of serious bearing, as it is
Prussia s business in this respect to leave unproductive generalities aside, and to
tell us upon what foundation the desired new alliance should rest, sp that Austria
might find therein as good guarantees for her security, her influence, and her
interest, as she had in the former Confederation, and better ones than previously
existed for her peace and concord with Prussia. . . .
BARON BEUST TO COUNT WIMPFFEN IN BERLIN.
Vienna, April 19, 1867.
... “ What Count Tauffkirchen stated further upon this latter point was,
however, not the clearest part of his communications.
“ He spoke of a guarantee of our German possessions. He gave us to under
stand that probably every desirable security against possible dangers would also
be offered temporarily for our non-German provinces. He mentioned Russia as
the third party to the alliance, and was of opinion that security would of itself be
assured by the conclusion of a treaty by the three powers. Finally he pointed
out—as had already been earlier done from Munich—that a friendly alliance of
Prussia with Austria afforded the South-German States the possibility of main
taining a larger measure of independence, and that an international alliance of
Austria with the North-German and South-German Confederations might still
ultimately form the turning-point towards closer treaty relations of a permanent
nature, which might replace the former State-Bund with advantage to Austria as
well as the German nation.”
Count Tauffkirclien was not indeed able to declare himself prepared to reply
to all these questions, or to weaken thq doubts and objections brought under his
notice. He only expressed his regret to be obliged to assume from my words
that Austria declined the proposals he had brought with him from Berlin. Baron
Werther upon his part repeated to me the expression of his opinion in a precisely
similar sense.
I cautioned them, however, strongly against its employment,
begging them at the same time not to speak of Austria as declining Prussian
proposals, as the explanations thereby rendered necessary could not operate
otherwise than disadvantageously ; that it was desirable to keep the future open ;
and that it remained a fact that Austria would always entertain the wish of being
able to offer her hand in order to secure a reconciliation with Prussia and
Germany.
•
•••»..
�40
BARON BEUST TO COUNT TRAUTTMANNSDORFF AT MUNICH.
Vienna, May 15, 1867,
,
s•
,•
•
s•
•
•
In accordance therewith I have once more expressed myself to Count Bray
with all sincerity as to the position in which we stand towards facts, past or
future, incompatible’with the Treaty of Prague. I explained to him that con
siderations of opportuneness might easily for the present determine His Majesty
the Emperor’s government to ignore such facts, and that this government readily
allowed the German sympathies which it has retained to influence its attitude,
so long as it was not compelled to consider the interests of its own country in
danger. The demand, on the other hand, that the imperial cabinet should give
its assent to the Alliance treaties which it has hitherto accepted in silence, and
to still greater violations of the Treaty of Prague, I characterized distinctly as
impossible of fulfilment, and pointed out that, in her present position, Austria,
on the contrary, must carefully guard against forfeiting in any way, either by
word or deed, the right of appealing at a suitable time to the arrangements of
that treaty.
“ Further, I have not concealed from Count Bray that I am unable to under
stand how it could have been believed that we could be induced to change our
attitude by the vague terms of the Munich programme that an alliance with
Austria ought to be concluded or prepared for. If, by the word alliance,
according to the sense generally used in international language, is to be under
stood a provisional covenant for definite aims, it must be objected that such aims
are not stated, and at present probably cannot be stated. But if a permanent
federal relation is thought of, by which the Imperial Government should
abandon its liberty, not for any settled course of action, but indefinitely and for
ever, and which, upon the other hand, was to form one of the main elements of
the political re-organization of Germany, we ought to be in the first place
solemnly released from the obligation not to take part in that re-organization;
and, in the second, it must not be overlooked that one great power cannot
subordinate itself to another, cannot serve foreign interests, and cannot bind
itself in advance to conventions arrived at without its participation. I doubt
whether they have been enabled at Munich to offer us a position of equal
standing with Prussia in a new general German Bund; but if this is not the
case, the men at the helm of the Austrian State are compelled to fall back upon the
complete freedom they have exchanged for their former rights in the Bund.
•
*
•
•
•
-I
=.
Printed at the Victoria Press (for the Employment of Women), S3a., Farringdon Street, E.O.
W. W. Head, Proprietor.
�
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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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Austria in 1868
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Oswald, Eugene
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 40 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references. Reprinted from 'English Leader'. Printed at the Victoria Press (for the Employment of Women). The Victoria Press was founded by Emily Faithfull and arose from the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, a group of Victorian feminists who sought to provide new avenues for women's work in the printing industry.
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Text
THE
LAST TRIAL FOR ATHEISM
IN ENGLAND.
of ^ufobiogrup^g.
&
BY GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
■“I was present in the Court, to witness the Trial of George Jacob Holyoake. I
heard Wooler and Hone defend themselves successfully in 1817; but I would prefer
to be declared guilty with Holyoake to being acquitted on the ground of Wooler and
Hone.”—Riohabd Carlile.
[fourth
EDITION, REVISED.]
/
LONDONi
TRUBNER & Co., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1871.
�TO
WILLIAM JOHN BIRCH, M.A.,
OF NEW INN HALL, OXON,
WHO, IN THE “ EVIL DAVS ” OF FREE DISCUSSION,
WAS
ITS
COURAGEOUS
AND
LIBERAL
DEFENDER,
AND WAS FIRST TO HELP US
WHEN
A
FRIEND
IS
TWICE
A
FRIEND,
WHEN WE WERE UNKNOWN AND STRUGGLING,
THIS HISTORY OF SIX MONTHS’ IMPRISONMENT
Inscribe}),
BY
GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.
�CONTENTS.
PAGE
...
Chap. I.—Before the Imprisonment
9
Chap. II.—The Trial....................................
Chap. IIL—After the Sentence
Chap. IV.—After the Liberation
-
*
-
-
•
-
30
83
-
-
104
�iv.
To the First Edition, 1850, Abridged.
The events narrated in this “ History ” are related from
notes and impressions of the events. All the conversations
did not take place with the brevity with which they are given
here. In the lapse of eight years there is much which I must
have forgotten; but what I have told I distinctly remember,
and the actors living will not, I think, contradict it.
As, by a creditable improvement in English law, the re
commencement of prosecutions for (ir)religious opinion can
originate with the Attorney-General alone, I have ventured to
hope that, if this narrative should fall into the hands of that
officer for the time being, it may present some reasons to him
why this “ Last Trial for Atheism ” should be the last.
These pages are simply a record of bygone events, from
which, at times, I thought I would omit all incidents of feeling;
but I felt that, if I did so, the narrative would not represent
the whole (personal) truth of these proceedings; and, as they
stand, they may at least serve to suggest to some a doubt of
the correctness of the coarse and brutal oft-repeated assertion
of the Rev. Robert Hall, that “Atheism is a bloody and
a ferocious system, which finds nothing above us to excite
awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness.”
Whether these are sufficient reasons for the purpose, I
know not; but this I know—they are the true ones. As I
very much dislike being an object of pity, those will mistake
me who suppose that this narrative has been written to excite
it. In my estimation, imprisonment was a matter of con
science. I neither provoked prosecution nor shrank from it;
and I am now as far from desiring it as I trust I ever shall
be from fearing it. I do not pretend to despise public
approval, but I think it should be regarded as a contingent
�PREFACE.
V.
reward, not as the sole motive of action; for he who only
works while the public (which has constantly new things to
think of) care to remember him, is animated by a very
precarious patriotism. It is sufficient encouragement to me
that others may profit by any public principle I may assist in
maintaining; but my interest in it is personal also. Though
no one else desired freedom, it is enough for me that I desire
it; and I would maintain the conflict for it, as best I could,
though no one else cared about it; and, as I choose to make
the purchase, I do not higgle about the price. Tyranny has
its soldiers, and why not Freedom ? While thousands daily
perish at the shrine of vice, of vanity, and of passion, what is
the pain of a sacrifice now and then for a public principle ?
G. J. H.
Woburn Buildings, Tavistock Square, London,
December, 1850.
�To the Third Edition, 1861.
One legislative point was gained by this Trial in 1842. The
power of trying persons indicted for “ blasphemy ” was taken
away from Quarter Sessions, where local prejudice and
bigotry frequently influenced the sentence of the Court. This
discredit was set at rest by 5 and 6 Viet., cl 38—an Act to
Define the Jurisdiction of Justices, etc. (June 30, 1842), which
says:—
“Whereas it is expedient that the powers of justices, in
general and quarter sessions, of the peace with respect to the
trial of offences be better defined: Be it enacted that after
the passing of this Act, neither the justices of the peace acting
for and in any county, riding, division or liberty, nor the
recorder of any borough, shall, at any session of the peace, or
any adjournment thereof, try any person or persons for any
treason, murder, or capital felony .... or for any of the fol
lowing offences; that is to say—Blasphemy, and offences
against religion. Composing, printing, or publishing blas
phemous, seditious, or defamatory libels.”
The Act was passed after my committal by the Chelten
ham magistrates, and who, save for it, would have been my
judges. I was the first person tried under it. (See p. 27).
The imprisonment of Thomas Pooley, of Liskeard, in
Cornwall, for alleged blasphemy (consisting of some inco
herent words chalked on the field-gate of the Rev. Paul Bush,
of Duloe), occurred in 1857. It was followed by the extra
ordinary sentence of twenty-one months’ imprisonment pro
nounced by Mr. Justice Coleridge * (which called forth the
indignant, generous, and memorable protest by Henry
Thomas Buckle, in Fraser's Magazine); it was discovered
* His son, the present Solicitor-General, was prosecuting Counsel.—
Note, 1871.
�PREFACE.'
vn.
that the arrangement mentioned in the previous Preface,
by which the power of instituting these prosecutions was
transferred to, and restricted to, the Attorney-General, was
never carried into effect. The power of indictment for blas
phemy is still in the hands of any clerical or common informer.
When Mr. Henry Hetherington, acting under the advice
of Mr. Francis Place, indicted Mr. Moxon, Lord Denman, a
judge of dignified liberality, expressed an opinion that this
power of indictment should be abrogated or restricted. Mr.
Justice Talfourd—then Mr. Serjeant Talfourd—was under
stood to be the organ of a promise by the Government of the
day that this should be done. In the case of the Queen v.
Moxon, Mr. Serjeant Talfourd appeared for Mr. Moxon, and
on publishing his speech on the occasion, Mr. Serjeant
Talfourd appended this note:—
“ In the month of April, 1840, an indictment was preferred
against Mr. Henry Hetherington, a bookseller in the Strand,
at the instance of the Attorney-General, for selling certain
numbers of a work, entitled ‘ Haslam’s Letters to the Clergy
of all Denominations,’ sold each at the price of One Penny, and
charging them as libels on the Old Testament. The cause
came on to be tried before Lord Denman, in the Court of
Queen’s Bench, on December 8th, 1840, when the defence
was conducted with great propriety and talent by the
defendant himself, who rested it mainly on a claim of unqua
lified right to publish all matters of opinion, and on the argu
ment that the work charged as blasphemous came fairly
within the operation of that principle. Mr. Hetherington
was, however, convicted, and ultimately received judgment,
under which he underwent an imprisonment of four months in
the Queen’s Bench Prison.
“While this prosecution was pending, Mr. Hetherington
appears to have adopted the design of becoming, in his turn,
the prosecutor of several booksellers for the sale of the com
plete edition of Shelley’s works, which had recently been
issued by Mr. Moxon.
“ The success of such a prosecution, proceeding from such
a quarter, gives rise to very serious considerations; for
although in determining sentences, judges will be able to
diminish the evil by a just discrimination between the publica
tion of the complete works of an author of established fame,
for the use of the studious, and for deposit in libraries, and
the dissemination of cheap irreligion directed to no other
�viii.
PREFACE.
object but to unsettle the belief of the reader, the power of
prosecuting- to conviction every one who may sell, or give, or
lend any work containing passages to which the indictable
character may be applied, is a fearful engine of oppression.
Should such prosecutions be multiplied, and juries should not
feel justified in adopting some principle of distinction, like
that for which I have feebly endeavoured to contend, they
must lead to some alteration of the law, or to some restriction
of the right to set it in action.”
The West End could not be reconciled to the idea of an
aristocratic publisher picking oakum for the crime of sellingEnglish classics, and the amendment of the law was therefore
promised. Since 1842, no prosecution for blasphemy was
instituted until 1857.
The Attorney-General—frequently
applied to by clerical zealots who believed the power of
indictment to be transferred to the chief law officer of the
crown—always refused to undertake this disreputable office.
Bigotry slept fifteen years in England. ■ It never enjoyed so
protracted and creditable a sleep before. It would have
slept on, had not Mr. Justice Coleridge performed the ill
office of arousing it. If another case like that of Thomas
Pooley, or prosecution of any kind, take place, we will do
what Mr. Hetherington did—we will apply the law as it
stands, and indict other Mr. Moxons until the promised
amendment of 1840 is carried out.
In 1858 the Law Amendment Society discussed very
liberally, but uselessly, the best means of amending the law
of blasphemy. Restrict its action to the hands of the
Attorney-General, and it will be practically abolished. No
responsible officer of the Crown will ever lend himself as the
instrument of discreditable intolerance, ignorance, or inca
pacity.
G. J. H.
147, Fleet Street, London, E.C., April
1861.
�ix.
To the Fourth Edition of 1871.
In the completer sense of the term Atheism, as I understand
it now, that for which I was tried was controversial rather
than intrinsic. The indictment of my friend, Mr. Southwell,
had forced my attention to the grounds of Theism, then
current, and I was surprised how inconclusive they seemed.
The bitterness and alacrity with which prosecutions for
hesitancy upon the subject were entered upon by Christians,
gave me the impression that they had no confidence them
selves in their reasons for Theism. I always dissented from
my colleague, Mr. Chilton, who argued the impossibility of
Theism being true. Atheism declaring “ there is no God,”
seemed to me to imply the same logical omniscience as that
assumed by Theism, when it says “ there is.” The search
for God is one to which, sooner or later, every thinker bends
his highest powers; and there is more reverence in the reti
cence which faithfulness to the understanding compels than in
dogmatism on what lies beyond. In the days when the Trial,
recorded in these pages, took place, any hesitation as to
accepting Theism was treated as flagrant Atheism. I had
too little knowledge of the subject then to define clear con
ditions of dissent; and if I had I should not have used it.
When the right of Free Thought was in question, critical
niceness of defence would have seemed like higgling with the
enemy. I therefore accepted the imputation of Atheism in
any sense, that none might say I shrank from any consequence
of honest and relevant Free Thought.
My own actual
Atheism was not the denial that there was a God, but the
denial that we knew there was one.
*
* The phrase imputed to me, “ I do not believe there is such a thing as a
God,” I never used. Before any proceedings were taken, I wrote to the
Oracle of Reason, and denied it. (See Oracle of Reason, vol. i., p. 200).
�X.
PREFACE.
The Court was not sparing itself in imputation which sur
prised me. The judg-e took my evidence against myself and
used it to the jury. He quoted from my report in the Oracle of
Reason (See p. 200, Vol. 1.), the expression, “ I flee the Bible as
a viper.” It was not in evidence before the Court, nor had the
jury ever heard of it. My reference was to the Bible with the
employer, or priest, or judg-e behind it, prepared to dismiss,
or traduce, or sentence any who expressed an unfavourable
opinion of it. But his lordship withheld from the jury this
information.
Considerable clerical criticism has been directed to show
that my acquittal was offered me by the Court. For instance,
where Mr. Justice Erskine said (See p. 59):—“ If I could
convince the jury of that, he would tell them I oug-ht not to be
convicted.” But how was I to know when I had convinced
the jury? It was indispensable that I went on with my
defence, and took my chance. Of another point (See p. 67),.
he said, “ No need of that.” Here, had I been a more expe
rienced, a better informed, or a less suspicious prisoner, I
might have profited by this suggestion.
Silly adversaries, with a craze for imputation, have striven
to represent me as apologizing- for suicide in the remarks
occurring on p. 91; whereas I have always had a contempt
for common self-killers, who are not even decent in their
death, generally leaving a horror behind them, besides
selfishly deserting some duty. Let those who want to die
betake themselves to the dangerous services of humanity and
perish reputably. Only insanity and political generosity (as
when Italian prisoners have killed themselves lest torture
should affect their minds and lead to betrayal of comrades,)
seem to justify suicide. I remember there was a passage in
Plutarch often in my mind during my imprisonment—the one
in which he says, “Eumenes could not avoid his chains, yet
after the indignity of chains he wanted to live; so that he.
could neither escape death nor meet it as he ought to have
done; but, by having recourse to mean applications and
entreaties, put his mind into the power of the man who was
only master of his body.”
The events of this Trial have been subjects of recent refer
ence in the Legislature Assembly of Australia, in discussions
upon the conviction of Mr. William Lorando Jones, a sculptor,
who has been sentenced to two years imprisonment in Dar
linghurst Gaol, and to pay a fine of £100. He was trepanned
�PREFACE.
XI.
into some explicit speaking about the Bible by amateur
preachers, under circumstances very similar to those occurring
in Cheltenham in 1840, as related in these pages.
The two semi-clerical witnesses against Mr. William Lorando Jones were one Winian Melville, Jun., a Domain
preacher, understood to have applied for a preachership from
the Independents, and a Joseph Kingsbury, an elder and inner
light preacher. It was a Mr. Justice Simpson who pronounced
the sentence at the Paramatta Quarter Sessions, February
18th, 1871.
As the candid sculptor was manifestly a sincere and serious
man, the people of Australia have, to their credit, been scan
dalized by a sentence which recals those passed upon Richard
Carlile half a century ago in this country. If we may credit
recent telegrams, the sentence against Mr. Jones has been
cancelled.
The Parliament of Australia may effectually prevent the
recurrence of these scandals upon civilization, by placing the
power of future indictments in the hands of the AttorneyGeneral alone, who, being responsible to Parliament and
liable to interrogation there, would not institute Trials unless
they were defensible to the good sense of the country.
G. J. H.
20, Cockspur Street, S.W.,
June, 1871.
�xii.
FIRST LECTURE IN LONDON.
The Right of Free Discussion.—On Wednesday evening last Mr.
Holyoake delivered a lecture upon this subject to a crowded audience at
the Rotunda, Blackfriars Road. The Lecturer commented upon the treat.ment he had experienced some weeks ago at Cheltenham, and of which
due mention was made in the columns of this journal. The magistrates,
on that occasion, declared that they did not care of what religion he might
be so long as he did not propagate his sectarian doctrines—“which,” as
Mr. Holyoake observed, “ was as much as to tell him to go to hell his own
way, and no one would mind how, provided he did not take others with
him.” He then expatiated very eloquently upon this selfish principle.
Thus a man may see the errors of certain systems, and yet not point out
emendation. Our ideas, argued the Lecturer, are mainly engendered by the
objects around us, and with which we come in immediate contact; and if we
are prosecuted by law for the expression of these ideas, it is just the same
as indicting or prosecuting the external objects which give us our ideas. For
any class of men to take upon themselves to say to the millions, “ If you
think in a manner which militates against our ideas, you must not express
your sentiments,” is degrading. Without that constant interchange of
ideas which freedom of discussion can alone encourage, no new plans of
utility can be introduced; and had not opinions been more or less
freely circulated at different times, humanity would not be characterized
by progressive civilization. Our wealth, our knowledge, our power, are
to be attributed to the Press and to the diffusion of opinions. The Press
has converted the entire world into one large conversational party, whose
views, wishes, and opinions are thereby communicated to each other.
Speculative opinions beget the most important truths, and useful systems
are founded most frequently upon ideas that were at first but wild theories.
If the law describes a magic circle around the radii of men’s ideas, it
naturally forbids the entertainment of progressive measures, and enforces a
stationary and sedentary position, to which the activity of the human mind
and the nature of human interests are both averse. New generations have
new interests, and those can only be defined and settled by legislative
enactment, after due and unchecked discussion. All the learning which
our greatest men have ever possessed would little avail posterity, unless
their assertions might be duly canvassed. It is a very singular fact that we
may discuss astronomy, chemistry, botany, geology, and other sciences, but
our sentiments must be curbed by the law when once we touch upon
politics or religion. Such was the subject of Mr. Holyoake’s lecture, in the
course of which he uttered many striking truths of an original character,
which elicited considerable applause.— Weekly Dispatch^ July, 184.0.
�THE
LAST TRIAL FOR ALLEGED ATHEISM.
CHAPTER I.---- BEFORE THE IMPRISONMENT.
That day is chilled in my memory when I first set out for
Cheltenham. It was in December, 1840. The snow had been
frozen on the ground a fortnight. There w'ere three of us,
my Wife, Madeline (our first child), and myself. I had
been residing in Worcester, which was the first station to which
I had been appointed as a Social Missionary. My salary (16s.
per week) was barely sufficient to keep us alive in summer.
In winter it was inherent obstinacy alone which made us believe
that we existed. I feel now the fierce blast which came in at
the train window from “ the fields of Tewkesbury,” on the day
on whieh we travelled from Worcester to Cheltenham. The
intense cold wrapped us round like a cloak of ice.
The shop lights threw their red glare over the snow-bedded
ground as we entered the town of Cheltenham, and nothing
but the drift and ourselves, moved through the deserted streets.
When at last we found a fire we had to wait to thaw before we
could begin to speak. When tea was over we were escorted
to the house where we were to stay for the night. I was told
it was “a friend’s house.” Cheltenham is a fashionable town,
a watering, visiting place, where everything is genteel and
thin. As the parlours of some prudent house-wives are kept
for show, and not to sit in, so in Cheltenham numerous houses
are kept “to be let,” and not to live in. The people who
belong to the apartments are like the supernumeraries on a
stage, they are employed in walking over them. Their clothes
are decent—but they cannot properly be said to wear them:
they carry them about with them (on their backs of course,
because that mode is most convenient) simply to show that
they have such things. In the same manner eating and drink
ing is partly pantomime, and not a received reality. Such a
house as I have suggested was the “ friend’s house ” to which
we were conducted till lodgings could be found. We were
asked to sit by the kitchen fire on “ the bench in the corner,”
and there we sat from eight till one o’clock, without being
�IO
THE HISTORY OF THE
asked to take anything- to eat. Madeline, deprived of her
usual rest, sucked at the breast till her mother was literally
too exhausted to speak. A neighbouring festivity kept my
“ friends ” up that night till two o’clock—up to which time we
saw no prospect of bed or supper. As we entered the house,
my Wife, with a woman’s prescience, said, “George, you
had better go and buy some food.’’ “ Buy food,” I replied, in
simplicity, “ the people at this fine house will be outraged to
see me bring in food.” Retribution was not far off. I repented
me of my credulity that night. When at last I clearly com
prehended that we were to have nothing to eat, I proceeded
to take affairs into my own hands, and being too well assured
of the insensibility of my host, I did it in a way that I conceived
suited to his capacity, and began as follows:—
“We have talked all night about social progress, and if you
have no objection we will make some. And if eating” I added,
“ be not an irregular thing in your house, we will take some
supper.”
“I am very sorry to say” he answered, “we have nothing
to offer you.”
“Charge me bed and board while we are with you,” I
rejoined, “but let us have both. You have bread, I suppose?”
“ We have some rice bread.”
“ Perhaps you will toast it.”
“ Will you have it toasted ? ”
“I will. Could you not make coffee?”
“ We have no coffee.”
“ Tea ?”
“We have no tea.”
“ Any water ?”
“ No hot water.”
“Any butter?”
“ Yes, we have salt butter.”
“ Then put some on the rice bread,” I added, for he did not
even propose to do that. I had to dispute every inch of hos
pitality with him. My “ friend,” Mr. V., was an instance of
that misplacement of which Plato speaks in his “ Republic.”
What a capital Conservative he would have made! No inno
vation with him—not even into his own loaf 1 I was obliged
to take the initiative into the “ salt ” butter.
After seeing the bread toasted, and buttering it myself, to
make sure that it was buttered, I put on my hat and went into
the streets, in search of material out of which to manufacture
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
II
a cordial, for eight hours had then elapsed since Mrs. Holyoake
had had any sustenance, and my good host’s choice reserve of
cold water did not seem quite adequate to revive her.
When I reached the dark streets, to which I was so absolute
a stranger, not knowing where I stood on the slippery ground,
made so by frozen rain on a bedding of snow, I had not gone
(or rather slipped) far before I was fairly lost. Like the sense
in a Rousseauian love-letter, I neither knew whence I came
nor whither I was going, and when I had succeeded in my er
rand it was at the last place at which I should wish to be found.
During my absence that voluptuous caterer, “ mine host,”
whom I had left behind—whose counterpart Maginn must have
had before him when he drew the portrait of “ Quarantotti,”
—had proceeded so far as to boil some water. The evening
ended without inconsistency, and the bed corresponded with
the supper.
The next day I took lodgings, where, expecting nothing, I
was no longer disappointed. But on this occasion, profiting
by the experience of the preceding night, I went provided with
a small stock of loaves and chocolate. My stay in Cheltenham
was more agreeable than was to be expected after such an in
troduction ; but I remember that I had to pay my expenses
back again, and though they only amounted to 12s., I felt the
want of them for a long time afterwards. Yet Cheltenham was
not without generous partizans, but, as is common in the incipiency of opinion, they were at that time among that class
who had fewest means. The experience here recounted was
a sample of that frequently recurring, but not exactly of the
kind on which vanity is nurtured, as the reader will think as
he reverts (from a speech to be recited) to these incidents. He
who reads thus far will acquit me of any premeditation of dis
turbing the peace of the religious inhabitants of Cheltenham,
for it is certainly the last town I should have selected as the
scene of such an occurrence as the one which I have to narrate.
My next location was in a manufacturing town (Sheffield),
where I was treated like its iron-ware—case hardened. My
salary there, of 30s. per week, was a subj‘ect of frequent discus
sion by the members of the Branch. For this sum I taught a
Day School and lectured on Sunday. And as he who lives
the life of a child all the week (as he must do who teaches
children to any purpose) finds it hard to live that of a man on
Sunday, my duties were wearying and perplexing. Those who
grudged my salary made no sufficient allowance for that ap
�12
THE HISTORY OF THE
plication necessary for the discharge of my duties—an applica
tion which often commenced long before they were up in the
morning, and continued long after their mechanical employ
ment was over at night. Not comprehending myself at the
time, that they who work for the improvement of others must
not calculate on their appreciation as an encouragement, but as
a result, I was thrown into that unpleasant state in which
my pride incited me to stop and my duty to go on. It was not
till subsequent to my return from Glasgow, four years after
wards, that I mastered the problem thus raised which so many
have been ruined in solving. Most freethinkers absurdly ob
ject to the pay of the priest, when the true quarrel is with error,
and not with payment: for if a man has the truth, it is well that
it should be his interest to hold it. But Dissent, objecting to
the pay of others, has been left without pay itself—hence its
teachers have been reduced to fight the lowest battles of animal
wants, when they should have been fighting for the truth. Dis
sent has too often paid its advocates the bad compliment of sup
posing, that if placed within the reach of competence they would
either fall into indolence or hypocrisy. It has acted practically
upon the hypothesis, that the only possible way of ensuring their
zeal and sincerity was to starve them—a policy which leaves
progress to the mercy of accident. For a long period the
operation of this policy chilled me. My initiation into affairs
of progress was m company with men who estimated, above all
other virtues, the virtue which worked for nothing. They would
denounce the patriotism of that man who accepted a shilling
for making a speech, although it had cost him more to compose
it than those who heard it would probably give to save their
country. Nine-tenths of the best public men and women I have
known, have turned back at this point. Not any new convic
tion—not any bribe of the enemy, but the natural, though un
wise revolt. against being considered mendicants, has forced them
back into supineness, indifference, or even into the very ranks
of oppression. True, I felt that he who labours with his brains
is worthy of his hire, as well as he who labours with his hands.
As often as I read a book or heard a lecture, which threw new
light on the paths of life, I found that it not only relieved me
from the dominion of ignorance, but imparted to me the strength
of intelligence.* I felt indebted to the author and speaker, for
I found that knowledge was not only power, but property. I knew
all this, but painful years passed over me before I acquired the
courage to offer any instruction I had to impart, as an article
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
13
of commercial value. Those who have encountered this kind
of experience know that the feeling' it engenders is one of in
difference, and that an unusual speech would arise in a cold
sense of duty, and not in wantonness or wickedness. Thus
much will inform the reader of the circumstances under which
I spoke the alleged blasphemy in Cheltenham.
A fellow-missionary, Mr. Charles Southwell, had in conjunc
tion with Mr. Chilton and Mr. Field, set up an Atheistical
periodical in Bristol, entitled the Oracle of Reason—which the
authorities attempting forcibly to put down, Mr. Southwell was
sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment in Bristol gaol. On
a visit to him I walked ninety miles from Birmingham to Bristol,
and as my way lay through Cheltenham, I staid a night in that
town to deliver a lecture on “ Home Colonisation as a Means of
superseding Poor Laws and Emigration.” At the conclusion of
the lecture I instructed the chairman to make the announce
ment, which I still make after my lectures—viz., that any of the
audience may put relevant questions or offer what objections
they consider useful—whereupon a person stood up of the name
of Maitland, a teetotaller, and sort of local preacher, and com
plained that “ though I had told them their duty to man, I had
not told them their duty to God,” and inquired “ whether we
should have churches and chapels in community ? ”
I answered thus: “ I do not desire to have religion mixed up
with an economical and secular subject, but as Mr. Maitland
has introduced questions in reference to religion I will answer
him frankly. Our national debt already hangs like a millstone
round the poor man’s neck, and our national church and gene
ral religious institutions cost us, upon accredited computation,
about twenty millions annually. Worship thus being expensive,
I appeal to your heads and your pockets whether we are not
too poor to have a God ? If poor men cost the state as much,
they would be put like officers on half-pay, and while our dis
tress lasts I think it would be wise to do the same thing with
deity. Thus far I object, as a matter of political economy, to
build chapels in communities. If others want them, they have
themselves to please, but I cannot propose them. Morality I
regard, but I do not believe there is such a thing as a God.
*
* I do not remember using this phrase, but as the witnesses reported it,
I retain it: but I conclude that it was an expression they fell upon in stating
their impressions of the meeting to their employers, and all working in one
office, they fell into one story, either through inadvertence or from precau
tion. At that time I defended Mr. Southwell’s right to his opinions—I had
not adopted them. The expression was impossible to me.
�14
THE HISTORY OF THE
The pulpit says ‘Search the Scriptures,’ and they who are
thus trepanned get imprisoned in Bristol gaol, like my friend
Mr. Southwell. For myself, “ I flee the Bible as a viper, and
revolt at the touch of a Christian.” [Their touch at that time
meaning imprisonment.]
Perhaps this reply was indecorous, but it was nothing more,
and as it was delivered in a tone of conversational freedom, it
produced only quiet amusement on the meeting. The next day
I continued my journey to Bristol. A day or two afterwards
I received the Cheltenham Chronicle, commonly called the Rev.
Francis Close’s paper, it being the organ of his party, in which
*
I read the following paragraph—written with that exaggerated
virulence which Archdeacon Hare has subsequently deprecated
as the bane of religious journalism, but which at that time was
considered as a holy ornament:—
“ On Tuesday evening last a person named Holyoake, from Sheffield (?) de
livered a lecture on Socialism (or, as it has been more appropriately termed
‘ devilism ’), at the Mechanics’ Institution. After attacking the Church of
England and religion generally for a considerable time, he said he was open
to any question that might be put to him. A teetotaller named Maitland
then got up, and said the lecturer had been talking a good deal about our
duty to man, but he omitted to mention our duty towards God, and he would
be glad to know if there were any chapels in the community ? The Social
ist then replied that he professed no religion at all, and thought they were
too poor to have any. He did not believe there was such a being as a God,+
and impiously remarked that if there wasf. he would have the deity served
the same as government treated the subalterns, by placing him upon half-pay.
* * To their lasting shame, be it spoken, a considerable portion of the
company applauded the miscreant during the time he was giving utterance
to these profane opinions.”
[We have three persons-in our employ who are ready to verify on oath the
correctness of the above statements. We therefore hope those in authority
will not suffer the matter to rest here, but that some steps will immediately
be taken to prevent any further publicity to such diabolical sentiments.—El).
Cheltenham Chroniclei}
Some have censured the openness of my answer to Mr. Mait
land as being inexpedient. It is not impossible to justify it on
that ground, but I have an aversion to do it. A man may keep
silence if he chooses, but if he does speak he has no alternative
but to speak that which is frank and true. But at that time
there were political reasons why I should not evade the question
put to me. The Odd-Fellow of Mr. Hetherington (under the
editorship of W. J. Linton) had shortly before contained an able
article, beginning thus:—
* The present Dean of Carlisle (1870).
t Alluding to the Orthodox Deity.
J This is an interpolation.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
•5
“ The world need not be much frightened at the present race of Socialists.
However heinous their doctrines may be thought, there need be no fear : they
will not act in too close accordance with them. For ourselves, having been
among them at various times, we have never yet been able to discover any
certain marks, whether of manner, of opinion, or of conduct, whereby to dis
tinguish them from the mass of professing Christians. However heterodox
their innermost sentiments, they usually maintain as decent an appear
ance of conformity with custom as the most worldly and orthodox could
desire.”
This was a character which no progressive party could live
with, and as the hypocrisy here charged upon us was generally
believed, and not wholly without reason, it became necessary
either to give up the party or refute the accusation. The attack
on Mr. Owen’s friends, by the Bishop of Exeter in the House of
Lords, had been evaded, not met, and a noble opportunity, such
as bigotry seldom affords to a rising party, had been suffered to
pass away unused. The enemy triumphed. In this very town
of Cheltenham, a young poet named Sperry, who betrayed Freethinking tendencies, had been called upon to recant. He did
so, and then he was treated with contempt by those who intimi
dated him. They first destroyed his moral influence, and then
despised him. I had therefore sufficient public reasons for not
tempting a similar fate. If I had refused to reply, it would have
been said I held opinions too horrible to avow. Had I evaded
the answer, I should have been considered a time-server, and
if I answered frankly there were the legal consequences in
prospect. I was not very much skilled in policy, but I knew
this much, that when a man cannot take care of consequences,
he ought to take care of the credit of his cause. A little antici
pating- this history I may say that the expediency of the course
I took, if the expediency must be defended, was shown in the al
tered tone of the authorities, both in Cheltenham and Glouces
ter, after my trial. Instead of that contempt With which per
sons holding Socialist opinions are treated, there was a some
what respectful recognition of them. However crude might
be considered my defence of my views, nothing escaped me that
-could be distorted into a willingness to avoid any suffering at
the expense of adherence to the principles I had adopted. Many
persons who would not have spoken to me before, came and
expressed regret at what had happened, and I met with many
instances of regard from persons who had formally despised
those with whom I acted.
I was indebted to the Odd-Fellow of July 23, then edited by
Eben. Jones, author of “ Studies of Sensation and Event,” for
�r6
THE HISTORY OF THE
the fairest statement of my conduct and of the point in question
which the press gave. It was thus expressed:—
“We cannot refrain from saying, that under the peculiar circumstances, Mr.
Holyoake (presuming his disbelief in a God to be sincere) could not have said
other than he did say, and at the same time have continued honest. It is true
he was not asked, ‘ Do you believe in a God ? ’ but a question was put to him
which assumed his belief in a God, and had he not testified at once his dis
belief, he would have sanctioned the false assumption : and if not a liar, would
have been at least the permitter of a lie ; between which is no distinction
recognised by an honourable man. In arguing thus, we would not express
any sympathy whatever with Mr. Holyoake’s atheism, we are merely con
cerned to show that it was not Mr. Holyoake’s right alone, but absolutely his
DUTY to say, that ‘ he did not believe in a God.’ * It was his duty, if it be
the duty of man to be honest; he could not have spoken otherwise, unless he
had lied against his heart, and lied towards mankind.”
The next number of the aforesaid Cheltenham Chronicle brought
me this further notice:—
“ In reference to a paragraph which appeared in the last Chronicle regarding
the monster [Holyoake,] the magistrates read the article alluded to, and ex
pressed their opinion that it was a clear case of blasphemy. In order to check
the further progress of his pernicious doctrines, the Superintendent of police
was ordered to use every exeition to bring him to justice ”
On reading this paragraph I lost no time in setting out for
Cheltenham, to hold a public meeting and justify myself to the
town. Foot-sore and weary—for the journey was more than
thirty miles, and the day very hot—I reached Cheltenham on
the ist of June, and proceeded as privately as a ‘ monster ’ could
to my friends the Adamses. The next night I slid like sleep
into the meeting, lest the police should prevent me from ad
dressing it. Mr. Leech, a leading Chartist, presided, and the
meeting was addressed by Messrs. Parker, Jun., Geo. Adams,
W. Bilson, and J. B. Lear. The Chartists of Cheltenham at
that time held possession of the Mechanics’ Institution, and they
were threatened with the loss of it, if they let it to me to speak
in any more. But as I required it in self-defence they gener
ously disregarded the menace, and permitted me the use of it.
My friends in the distant town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne after
wards gracefully acknowledged this fairness by making a col
lection for Mrs. Holberry, the wife of a Sheffield Chartist, who
had perished in prison. Before I had been long in the meeting
Superintendent Russell came in with about a dozen men, who
were arranged on each side the door, and their glazed hats
formed a shining, but a dubious back ground for a meeting on
* Yet the fact was, I did not then assert disbelief, but justified the right of it.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
17
Free-Discussion. I spoke an hour after they came in. So rare
an audience was not to be neglected, and I thought we might
convert some of them. At the conclusion Superintendent Rus
sell, who had the politeness to wait until I had done, intimated
that he had instructions to apprehend me. I asked for his war
rant. He said he had none. It was in vain that I protested
against the irregularity of the proceeding. He replied that his
instructions were imperative upon him—and it was thereupon
arranged that I should walk down to the station with Mr. Hollis,
a well-known gun maker of Cheltenham, and there, the meeting
following, we arrived in procession between eleven and twelve
o’clock.
To tell the truth, it is no great proof a posteriori of extreme
views that any one should be involved in legal proceedings
in Cheltenham, on account of freedom of speech. Owing to
priestly and conventional influences, that town will furnish a
j'ury who would, under direction, bring in any man guilty of
blasphemy, who boiled his tea-kettle on a Sunday. Not long
before the time now spoken of, a Mormon preacher, holding
forth there, happened to say that the Elements of Euclid were
as true as the Bible: and for this he was indicted for blasphemy,
and was only saved from imprisonment by the grand jury (who
must have had Infidel tendencies) throwing out the Bill.
On the morning after my apprehension I was taken before
the Rev. Dr. Newell, R. Capper, and J. Overbury, Esquires,
magistrates of Cheltenham. The Rev. Dr. Newell ought to
have had the pride, if not the decency, to have kept away.
The Cheltenham Chronicle reported that “ George Jacob Holy
oake, who was described as a Socialist Lecturer, and as the
editor of the Oracle of Reason, was charged with delivering athe
istical and blasphemous sentiments at the Mechanics’ Institution,
on the evening of the 24th of May. The prisoner had been ap
prehended last night, after delivering another lecture at the
same place. The affair appeared to have caused great sensa
tion, and several persons attended at the office anxious to hear
the examination. Amongst the number were some individuals
who, without the blush of shame mantling their cheeks, ac
knowledged themselves friends of the accused.”
Mr. Bubb, a local solicitor, a particularly gross and furious
man, then said—“ I attend to prefer the charge of blasphemy,
and I shall take my stand on the common unwritten law of the
land. There have been a variety of statutes passed for punish
ing blasphemy, but these statutes in no way interfere with the
�IS
THE HISTORY OF THE
common unwritten law. (Mr. Capper nodded assent.) Any
*
person who denies the existence or providence of God is guilty
of blasphemy, and the law has annexed to that offence imprison
ment, corporal punishment, and fine. I shall give evidence of
the facts, and I shall ask that he be committed for trial, or re
quired to find bail for his appearance. The offence is much
aggravated by his having put forth a placard, announcing- a
lecture on a subject completely innocent, and having got to
gether a number of persons, has given utterance to those senti
ments which are an insult to God and man.”
The assertion that I had employed duplicity in chosing my
subject was quite gratuitous. Addressing the Bench, I asked
whether it was legal in these cases to apprehend persons with
out the authority of a warrant ?
Mr. Capper replied, “ Any person in the meeting would be
justified in taking you up without the authority of a warrant,”
which showed that the Bench were better read in Bigotry than
in Blackstone. I said it was customary in other towns, where
bigotry existed to a greater degree even than it did there, for
information to be laid and a regular notice served.
Mr. Capper said, “ We refuse to hold an argument with a man
professing the abominable principle of denying the existence of
a Supreme Being.” This was not a very legal way of getting
rid of my objections, but it answered in Cheltenham.
Two witnesses, James Bartram and William Henry Pearce,
both of the Chronicle office, were produced to swear to the words
that formed the ground of the indictment. Neither of them
could recollect anything else but the objectionable words re
ported in their own paper, and to these they did not swear posi
tively, but only to the “ best of their belief.” Mr. Pearce was
not produced at the trial at the Assizes, he having no local repu
tation but that of a dog-fancier and prize-fighter, which did
not render him a creditable authority on matters pertaining to
religion. Bartram’s sister was a Socialist, and she came to me
some years after, in Manchester, to apologise for the disgrace
brought upon her family by the weakness or the ignorance of
her brother.
* Mr. Bubb took his stand on the common law because his object was to
make it a session’s case, and to take it out of the statutary law, which (9 & 10
Will. 3, c. 32,) would have required that information of the words spoken
should be laid before a justice of the peace, within four days from their utter
ance, and would likewise have implied a trial at the assizes.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
19
Mr. Overbury said he considered the case satisfactorily prov
ed, and added, “ Whether you are of no religion is of very little
consequence to us, but your attempt to propagate the infamous sen
timent that there is no God, is calculated to produce disorder
and confusion, and is a breach of the peace.” This was the
remark of an ill-formed politician rather than of a Christian.
Being required to enter into my own recognizances of £ 100,
and find two sureties of £50 each, Mr. Partridge became one,
and Mr. Henry Fry, editor of the Educational Circular, offered
himself as the other. But the Rev. Dr. Newell objected to Mr.
Fry’s bail, on the ground that he did not swear positively that
he was worth £50 when all his debts were paid. He swore
only that “ to the best of his belief” he was so. I reminded the
Bench that they had accepted the evidence of the witnesses
against me on the same ground—namely, “the best of their
belief.” Hereupon the Rev. Dr. Newell, with an air of outraged
morality, exclaimed “Come, come 1 we’ll have no quibbling.”
I answered that I did not propose to quibble, for if that had
been to my taste I might have avoided standing there at that
moment. Mr. Bubb then interjected that he should demand
twenty-four hours’ notice of bail. Another gentleman then of
fered himself, whom I desired to sit down and let the Bench
take their own course. This indifference with regard to the
Bench incensed them very much.
Mr. Capper said, “ Even the heathens acknowledged the exis
tence of a deity. If you entertain the same pernicious opinion
on your death-bed you will be a bold man indeed. But you
are only actuated by a love of notoriety.” I only answered,
“ Why do you address me thus, since you will not allow me to
reply ? ” and I turned away repeating to myself the words of
Sir Thomas Browne—“ There is a rabble amongst the gentry
as well as the commonalty; a sort of plebeian heads, whose
fancy moves with the same wheel as these: men in the same
level with mechanics, though their fortunes do somewhat gild
their infirmities, and their purses compound for their follies.”
But I ought to say that during these proceedings, the people
in the court, of juster feeling than the magistrates, frequently
expressed their disapprobation cf the speeches made to
me.
Mr. Capper’s assertion that I was “ only actuated by a love of
notoriety,” were just the words to do me injury. The respect
able people near, and the intelligent people at a distance, would
believe the magistrate and disbelieve the sceptic, who had no
�20
THE HISTORY OF THE
friends to rebut the imputation. The vulgar bearing of this
brutal old man lingered long in my memory as the most
distinct thing of these proceedings. I should have thought
less of it had it not come from an old man. The aged
always inspire me with reverence, in their kindly aspects.
They are the links which nature perpetuates between old
time and our time—the human chroniclers of an experience
the young can never know. They have followed the hearse
of the old world, and are the legatees of Time, who has
bequeathed to them his secrets and his conquests, which they
in their turn distribute to us. When living at Islington, in
1848, I frequently passed, but not without sadness, nor some
times without tears, an old man who stood near the Merlin;s
Cave to beg. He resembled one whom I cannot name. I
could see on his brow the fresh traces of a struggle still going
on between dignity and destitution. And I often gave him the
price of the biscuit intended for my dinner, in the secret hope
we all have in a kind act that some one else may repeat it to
those we love; and I indulged the hope that others might
approach with the same respectful feelings towards him to
whom I have alluded, if ever, with untamed pride and broken
heart, he should stand in his grey hairs on the highway to
beg—which I had dreaded through so many years.
When taken back to the station-house, Captain Lefroy, who
was at the head of the police, introduced me to Mr. Pinching,
surgeon of the same corps. The captain, in a gentlemanly
way, inquired if I would allow Mr. Pinching to reason with
me on my opinions ? I said, “ Certainly.” Mr. Pinching
asked me the irrelevant question, “Did I believe in Jesus
Christ ? ” and began a dry, historical argument to prove that
there was the same evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ
as for that of Henry the Fourth. I said, “ The argument is
unnecessary with me. I do not care to argue whether he
existed or not. My inquiry is not whether he lived, but what
he said.” Mr. Pinching’s next speech was delivered with an
air of sharp authority, and he began to address me rather
rudely.
He asked me was it not Robert Owen who made me an
atheist ? I replied, Mr. Owen himself was not an atheist. In
truth, my position was rather that of a defender of the right
of Mr. Southwell and others to avow atheism, than that of an
expositor of it. There had been too little time for my views
to acquire definiteness.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
21
Mr. Pinching- now became impatient and abusing, allowing
me no opportunity of replying, and I said, “ Stop ! stop I sir,
you must not treat me as a prisoner if you intend me to hear
you. Unless you converse with me upon equal terms I shall
not answer you.” Lefroy laughed, and said, “ Come ! come!
Pinching, I think you are not quite fair.” After this Mr.
Pinching became more abusive, and I turned away, when he
ended the conversation by saying, “ I am only sorry the day
has gone by when we could send you and Owen of Lanark to
the stake instead of to Gloucester gaol.”
Not allowed to wait twenty-four hours to see if I could
obtain bail, I was soon after sent off to Gloucester, nine miles
away, the same afternoon, where the difficulty of negotiating
my release was so much increased, that it took me a fortnight
to do it.
After my conversation with Mr. Pinching I was shut up in
a very filthy place with a lousy man. I was handcuffed with
small old irons that pinched my wrists, and I begged to have
another pair of handcuffs put on, which was done; then I was
made to walk through Cheltenham town and suburbs, and
afterwards through Gloucester city, with the hand irons on.
As I had walked thirty miles to be apprehended, they had no
reason to suspect me of making my escape ; nor was it cus
tomary to handcuff prisoners conveyed to Gloucester on foot.
In my case it was done to pain and degrade me.
A memorial of a public meeting, sent from the town of
Cheltenham to the House of Commons, on this subject, stated
“ That notwithstanding Mr. Holyoake offered no resistance to
any officer or procedure, and was at the same time in very
indifferent health and much exhausted, yet it was deemed ne
cessary to lock both his hands in irons and make him walk to
Gloucester—a distance of near nine miles—on a most sultry
day, but on the way thither his friends interfered, and obtained
leave for him to ride, on condition only that they should pay
his expenses as well as the expenses of two policemen to
accompany him.” And it may be added, that though I sat an
hour at the station waiting for the train, my hands were not
unlocked.
The same memorial also alleged “ That the conduct of the
magistrates during the proceedings indicated a predisposition
to punish Mr. Holyoake, independently of any evidence which
he might have offered in defence of his own conduct.”
The Member for Bath, to whom this memorial was
�22
THE HISTORY OF THE
entrusted, paid to it the most generous attention, and imme
diately returned the following reply:—
“London, June 23rd, 1842.
“ Sir,—The petition you sent me is of a nature that demands serious
inquiry, and I thought I should best discharge my duty towards the peti
tioners and Mr. Holyoake by at once addressing myself to Sir James
Graham. He has very promptly taken up the inquiry, and I have no
doubt but that substantial justice will be done. If, however, the petitioners
should hereafter deem that justice has not been done, I can present their
petition after the inquiry which has been undertaken by the Home Secretary
has been closed. I have taken this liberty with the petition on my own
responsibility, hoping that the petitioners will here trust to my discretion,
and they for the moment will put confidence in my judgment. I will write
you word so soon as I bear from the Home Secretary, who has now the
petition in his hands for the purpose of immediately instituting a searching
inquiry.
“ I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
“Mr. H. Fry.”
“J. A. Roebuck.
The committal the police bore with them was to the fol
lowing effect:—
“ [Gloucestershire to wit.]-—To all and every of the constables and
other officers of the peace for the said county, and to the keeper of the
gaol at Gloucester in the said county-—
“Whereas, George Jacob Holyoake is now brought before us, three of
Her Majesty’s Justices of the Peace in and for the said county, and
charged, on the oaths of James Bartram and William Henry Pearce, with
having, on the twenty-fourth day of May last, at the parish of Chelten
ham in the said county, "wickedly and profanely uttered, made use of, and
proclaimed, in the presence of a public assembly of men, women, and
children, then and there assembled, certain impious and blasphemous
words against God, and of and concerning the Christian religion, to wit,
‘ That he was of no religion at all,’ and ‘ that he did not believe there
was such a thing as a God,’ and ‘ that if he could have his way he would
place the Deity on half-pay, as the government of this country did the
subaltern officers,’ against the peace of our Lady the Queen, her crown and
dignity. And whereas we, the said justices, have required the said
George Jacob Holyoake to become bound in the sum of one hundred
pounds, and to find two sufficient sureties in the sum of fifty pounds each,
conditioned for the appearance of the said George Jacob Holyoake at the
next Quarter Sessions of the Peace, to be holden at Gloucester, in and for
the said county, and then and there to answer to any bill of indictment
that may be preferred against him for his said offence, which he hath
neglected to do.
* These are therefore in Her Majesty’s name to command you, and every of
you the said constables, forthwith safely to convey and deliver into the
custody of the keeper of the said gaol the body of the said George Jacob
Holyoake.
* And you, the said keeper, are hereby required to receive the said George
Jacob Holyoake into your said custody, and him safely keep until the said
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
23
next general Quarter Sessions of the Peace, to be holden at Gloucester
in and for the said county, or until he become bound and finds such
sureties as aforesaid, or until he shall be thence delivered by due course
of law. And for your so doing this shall be to you and every of you a
sufficient warrant.
* Given under our hands and seals the third day of June, in the year of our
Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-two.
“ Robt. Capper,
“J. B. Newell,
“Joseph Overbury.
“ Twenty-four hours’ notice of bail to be given.”
“ I hereby certify that the above is a true copy of a warrant, by virtue of
which the within-named George Jacob Holyoake was brought into custody
the 3rd day of June, 1842.
“ Witness my hand,
“Thomas Moore,
“ Clerk to the County Gaol of Gloucester.”
Some of the magistrates characterised the speech for which
I was committed as “ Felony,” “ a breach of the peace,” etc.,
and I was told that my committal was made out for “ felony.”
Serious comments were made thereupon by the public. Able
strictures on the subj’ect were made by “ Philo Publicola,” in
the Weekly Dispatch. But the magistrates grew wiser as they
grew cooler, and on the copy of the committal subsequently
furnished to me, the charge of felony did not appear.
A very curious circumstance deserves mentioning here.
The magistrates being censured in the House of Commons for
their “ irregularities ” in my case (as will be explained in my
defence further on), an attempt was made to fix the blame on
Mr. Russell, superintendent of the police. This induced me to
address the following letter to the editor of the Cheltenham
Free Press:—
“ Sir,—Observing an attempt has been made in Parliament by the Hon.
Craven Berkeley to fix the blame of my ‘ harsh treatment ’ on the constables
of your town, and to implicate Superintendent Russell, I beg to say that
after my committal I never saw Mr. Russell, and never once said, or sus
pected, that the harshness exercised towards me, while ostensibly in his
custody, originated with him. His courtesy to me on the night of my
apprehension, of which I retain a lively sense, forbids such a conclusion.
“ I shall be glad if you will insert this in your next number. I can never
consent to purchase public sympathy by a silence which may unjustly
sacrifice any person’s interest. I was justified in making the complaints I
have, but would rather they were for ever unredressed than that an innocent
man should suffer.
“Birmingham, July 30,1842 ”...
“G. Jacob Holyoake.
�24
THE HISTORY OF THE
Soon after Mr. Russell left the corps, and appears to have
been offered up by the magistrates as a sacrifice for the irre
gularities they had committed.
At the County Gaol my pockets were searched, and my
pocket-book and letters taken from me.- This I felt not only
as an indignity, but also as a breach of faith. Before leaving
Cheltenham, and when in communication with my friends,
I inquired if my papers would be taken from me at Glou
cester, and the officers answered “ No ” (but they must have
known differently). Trusting their answer, however, I
brought with me papers I should not otherwise have brought.
Perhaps I was fevered after my walk, but the cell I was put
into gave me a new sense. There had been times when I had
wished for a sixth sense, but this was not the sense I coveted,
for it was a sense of suffocation. The bed was so filthy that I
could not lie down, and sat on the side all night. When
taken into the general room next morning the prisoners
surrounded me, exclaiming, “ What are ye come for ? ” As
I made no reply, another observed, “We always tells one
another.” “ Oh 1 blasphemy,” I replied. “ What’s that ? ”
said one. “ Aren’t you ’ligious ? ” said another.
But as these rustics were happily unacquainted with doc
trinal piety, they said nothing rude; and seeing my loaf
unbroken, and that I could not eat, “ Here,” said four or five
at once, “ will you have some of this tea, zir ? ”—which was
mint-tea, the reward of some extra work, and the nicest thing
they had to offer.
When the chaplain of the gaol, the Rev. Robert Cooper,
came to see me, I told him that before I took anything from him
for my soul I wanted something from him for my defence; and I
demanded my note-book and papers. Mr. Samuel Jones, a
visiting magistrate, brought me a few pencil notes which I
had made during my examination in Cheltenham and some
private papers, but he withheld many others relating to
matters of opinion, saying that he “ did not think them neces
sary to my defence.” The clergyman has a veto on all books
admitted, and of a list which I gave him, which I wanted to
read for my trial, he only allowed me thirteen. He said the
others “ were of an unchristian character,” and he could not
let me have them. I told him I was not going to make an
*
* See Report of Gloucester Trinity Sessions in the county papers of that
period.
�mm
LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
2$
orthodox defence. He would not relax, so I would not have
any spiritual consolation, and we lived on very indifferent terms.
One day Mr. Bransby Cooper and Mr. Samuel Jones (just
mentioned), both old magistrates, came to visit me. Mr.
Jones, I was told, had at one time been a preacher among the
Methodists. He told me he would be kind to me, but all his
kindness was religious kindness—the worst kindness I have
ever experienced. I was then the sole occupant of the Queen’s
evidence side of the prison, a place I had chosen, as I pre
ferred to be alone. I had a large yard and all the cells to
myself. In this solitary place these magistrates visited me.
After teazing me with Leslie for a long time, Mr. Bransby.
Cooper concluded thus—“ Now! Holyoake, you are a Deist,
are you not?” I shook my head. “You cannot be an
atheist,” he continued, “you don’t look like one.” He said
this, I suppose, seeing no horns on my head, and no eyes on
my elbows, as he expected. I answered that I felt very
unpleasantly how much I was in their power, and had there
fore some reason to desire to oblige them. Though sorry to
say what might outrage them or look like obstinacy, yet out
of respect to my own conscience I must say that I was an
*
atheist.
Upon this they both flew into indignant revulsions,
and shouted “ A fool! a fool! ” till the roof rang. Captain
Mason (the governor), who accompanied them, turned away
a few paces, with the air of one not caring to be witness of so
much rudeness.
Before leaving they said of course I should employ counsel
to defend me. I answered, “ No, I should defend myself as
well as I was able. Barristers were not good at stating a
case of conscience.” They urged, they even coaxed me to
abandon the idea of defending myself; but finding me not to
be deterred, they threatened me that it would aggravate my
case—reminded me of Hone and others, and said that the
judge would put me down and not hear me. This menace,
as will be seen hereafter, did me great harm. They reported
my determination at the Trinity Sessions as though it was a
matter desirable to be averted.
Mr. Bransby Cooper was a brother of Sir Astley Cooper.
He was formerly member for Gloucester; and when he sus
pected that I did not regard his dignity sufficiently, he would
slide in some remark about “ his friend ” Sir James Graham,
* I had begun to think I must be an Atheist.
C
�26
THE HISTORY OF THE
who was then Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Bransby Cooper was the senior magistrate at this time—a man
of venerable and commanding aspect, generous to a fault in
matters of humanity, harsh to a fault in matters of religion.
On his way through the city old women would waylay him to
beg. First raising his stick against them—then threatening
to commit them as vagrants—they fled from him in mock
terror; but knowing the generous feelings of the man, they
returned again, and before he reached home he would empty
his pockets among them. One minute he would growl at me
like an unchained tiger—the next he would utter some word
of real sympathy, such as came from no one else, and at the
end of my imprisonment I parted from him with something of
regret. He had the voice of Stentor, and though at first his
savage roar shook me, at last I acquired an artistic liking for
it, and his voice was so grand that I came to the conclusion
that he had a natural right to be a brute. The old gentleman,
after his fashion, laboured very hard for my conversion. His
son Robert was chaplain of the gaol, and had I happily been
brought over, the old man would have given the credit to his
boy. My conversion was thus a sort of family speculation.
Those who sent me to prison in default of bail took care to
make bail impossible to me, by intimidating those who would
have become my sureties, and after two weeks’ anxiety I was
obliged to accept the generous offer of two friends in Worcester
—James Barnes and John Dymond Stevenson—to come from
that city and enter into recognizances for me, and I was indebted
to them for my liberation, after sixteen days’ imprisonment.
So near was my trial upon my release that I had to return
to Gloucester within a fortnight. A great desire of my youth
had been to see London. When I found myself suddenly shut
up in gaol, in prospect of an indefinite term of imprisonment,
which in my then state of health might prove fatal, my sole
remorse was that I had never seen that city of my dreams.
Once again at liberty I made a short visit to my family in
Birmingham, and the next week found me in London.
Chafed and sad, with tremulous heart and irresolute step, it
seems but yesterday that I walked through Woburn Place
into the city in which I now write. Its streets, its pride, its
magnificence enthralled me, and its very poverty fascinated
me because nearer to my destiny. Savage and Johnson had
walked those squares houseless, and why not I ? Chatterton
had perished in a garret, and garrets had something sacred
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
27
in them. Solitary in that two million multitude, I was hardly
known to any one in it; yet when I remembered that I was in
London I felt an enchanted gladness, and in all my vicissitudes
of fortune and chequered struggles there, I have walked
its magical streets with undimmed joy, and it is to me still a
fairy land, whose atmosphere of enchantment feels as if it
would never leave me.
How sweetly, how gratefully to me (as words never read
before) came the notice the Weekly Dispatch gave of my first
lecture in London. All the night before I had sat up with
Ryall, answering correspondence and concerting my defence.
When I reached the Rotunda it was more fitting that I should
have found a bed there than a rostrum, for when I rose to
speak I was weak as well as timid. To succeed in any way
in London was more than I ventured to expect, and the nature
of the report in the Weekly Dispatch inspired me With the hope
of at least being tolerated.
I hastened back to Gloucester. Either a Secretary of
State’s order, or a Bill had come into operation, I was never
correctly informed which, removing my trial from the Sessions
to the Assizes, which gave me an impartial judge to determine
my case. At a Sessions’ trial the parties who had caused my
imprisonment, and the magistrates who had shown themselves
my personal opponents, would have sat on the Bench to try
me. Though unable to proceed with my trial after having
committed me, they put me to the expense of bringing my
bail from Worcester, and charged me £1 9s. for renewing my
sureties.
My arrest caused a demand for atheistical publications in
Cheltenham, which Mr. George Adams, partly as a friend to
the free publication of opinion and partly from personal
friendship to me, undertook to supply. In this he was joined
by his wife, Harriet Adams, a very interesting and courageous
wornanM
On Monday evening, June 13th, at a public meeting called
to consider the grounds of my own apprehension, Mr. George
Adams was arrested for selling No. 25 of the Oracle, and
forthwith conveyed to the station-house. As soon as a know
ledge of the arrest came to the ears of Mrs. Adams, she went
to the station-house to see her husband, when she, likewise,
was served with a warrant for selling No. 4. Mrs. Adams
says (the account cannot be better rendered than in her own
words), “ I went to see my husband at the station-house, when
c 2
�28
THE HISTORY OF THE
I was detained; a policeman was sent home with me to fetch
my infant, and I had to leave four at home in bed. The man
that went with me to the station was a rude fellow; he was
quite abusive to me, telling- me I should be locked up from
my husband, saying it was quite time such thing’s were put a
stop to. When we arrived at the station-house he would
have locked me in a cell with a drunken woman had I not
sat down in the yard and insisted on seeing the superintendent,
who then allowed me to sit up in a kitchen, where policemen
were coming in and out all night. My husband was much
troubled on my account.” The four children were left locked
up in the house alone.
Mr. Bubb’s speech, when Adams was brought up, is so
curious a relic of provincial barbarism that I preserve it, or
those who are told of it in time to come will regard the story
as some malicious fiction. Mr. Bubb opened the charge by
justifying himself and clients—“ It has been said that we are
prosecuting here for the entertaining of opinions merely.
That proposition I deny. The entertaining of opinions is not
opposed to law if people keep them to themselves. If they
step out of the way, and seek to propagate them by under
mining the institutions of the country, by denying the existence
of a God, by robbing others of H the hopes set before them,’
without offering the flimsiest pretext, it is the duty of all to
prevent this. Such is the opinion of those gentlemen who set
on foot these proceedings, and no clamour of persecution will
prevent them from doing what they believe to be their duty.
And if there are any here present disposed to take up this
unfortunate trade, I would assure them that as long as the law
punishes, and the magistrates uphold the law, so long will
they bring offenders to justice. So long as men say there is
no God, or that the religion of the State is a farce and a
fallacy, these gentlemen will not be deterred by any clamour.”
If this threat were carried out the magistrates on every Bench
would have constant employment—especially if they would
undertake, as Mr. Bubb appeared to promise, to ascertain
whether or not we had the “ flimsiest pretext ” to offer in
defence of the course we took.
Adams and his wife were committed to take their trials at
the Sessions—in the wife’s case it was purely vexatious, as
there was no one bound over to prosecute her. Yet Adams,
nearly blind from an inflammation of the eyes, and his wife
with her child in her arms, were kept several days in attend-
�»’Z»t
LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
29
ance at Gloucester—though the same law which prevented the
court proceeding in my case, prevented the court from trying
the Adamses. In further aggravation of loss, £i 17s. 6d.
were demanded for discharge of their bail and entering new
sureties—nor was time allowed to fetch the bail (after they
were demanded) from Cheltenham, the clerk announcing that
they would be estreated at once. Upon this I directed Mr.
and Mrs. Adams to go into court and say they were prepared
to take their trial then, and there was no occasion to estreat
the property of their friends. Time was then allowed.
Mrs. Adams was never tried. Mr. Adams’s trial took
place at Gloucester Assizes, immediately before my own.
The passage from No. 25 of the Oracle, for which Adams
was indicted, was written by my friend Mr. Chilton, who was
outraged at my imprisonment, and ran as follows:—
“ What else could be expected of men who deify a real or imaginary indi
vidual, a compound of ambition and folly, of mock humility and rampant
tyranny; who, though called the ‘ Prince of Peace,’ declared he came to
bring a sword in the world ? This hellish mission he performed to per
fection, for never since his time has blood and misery ceased to flow from
his dogmas and mysteries.”
As I was very anxious to save Adams from consequences
which he incurred through friendship to me, I advised him to
let Mr. Thompson defend him. Ihis gentleman began by
sympathising with all the disgust invented by the counsel who
opened the prosecution, and he ended by expressing Adams’s
sorrow and contrition for what he had done—a contrition
which he did not feel, and would rather have undergone much
imprisonment than have had it said that he did. During the
whole of the trials arising out of the Oracle, Mr. Ralph
Thomas, barrister, was the only counsel who defended us
in court without sacrificing us. Taking warning by Mr.
Thompson’s example, I made it a rule to advise all our
friends to defend themselves, and where unaccustomed to
public speaking to write a brief defence in their own language,
and after some legal friend had revised it, to read it to the
court. We do not want lawyers to defend our opinions,
those opinions not being their own, but we want them simply
to maintain our right to publish what are to us important
convictions. Instead of this they commonly agree with the
crown that we are criminal for having a conscience, and then,
in our name, recant with “ contrition ” the opinions which we
go into court to maintain.
�30
THE HISTORY OE THE
Adams’s sentence was delivered in the following- words by
Mr. Justice Erskine:—“ George Adams, you have been con
victed of the offence of publishing a blasphemous libel, and
the libel which was proved to have been published by you
was one of a most horrid and shocking character. Whatever
a man’s opinions may be, he can have no right to give vent to
them in that language. If there was evidence to prove that
you were the author, or that you were engaged as an active
disseminator, I should have thought it my duty to have
inflicted on you a very serious imprisonment. Although by
the law of this country every man has a right to express his
sentiments in decent language, he has no business to make
use of such shocking language as this. But you have
expressed, through your counsel, contrition; and trusting that
this is the general feeling of your mind, I shall not think it
necessary to pass on you a severe sentence this time. But if
you ever offend again, it will then be known that you are
determined to persevere, and it will be seen whether the law
is not strong enough to prevent it. The sentence of the court
is, that you be imprisoned in the Common Gaol of this county for
one calendar months
I was with Adams during the term of his imprisonment, and
although his losses and the privations of his family were
great, he never uttered a murmuring word. From first to
last he behaved well, and Mrs. Adams, as women usually do,
behaved better.
It is worthy of remark that when a gentleman deposed
that the character of Mr. Adams “ was a pattern of morality,”
Mr. Justice Erskine told the jury that “had Adams committed
a robbery, such a character might have weight, but in extenu
ation of religious offence it was of no service.”
CHAPTER n.-----THE TRIAL.
The Assizes opened on the 6th of August, 1842, but my
case did not come on till the 15th. Mr. Knight Hunt (the
author of the “ Fourth Estate ”) was the gentleman engaged
*
to report my trial. As the judge was informed that I intended
to defend myself he resolved to take my case last. This
* Subsequently Editor of the Daily News.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
31
caused the Assizes to extend into a second week. Saturday
came before the calendar was exhausted, and as there was
no knowing- whether my trial could be gone through in a day,
the fear of trespassing on Sunday led to the court’s being
ordered to open on Monday, to the annoyance of javelin men
kept there unexpectedly, to jurymen who had left tills,
ploughs, and orange-baskets unprotected, and not least to my
prosecutors, who saw with some consternation some £200
added to the county expenses, for in Cheltenham bigotry is
greatly preferred when it is cheap.
If ignorance would look upon its own degradation, let it
spend a few hours in an assize court. One trial I witnessed
was of two men for an offence which indeed arose out of
depravity, but the depravity arose out of bad training and
vicious circumstances. The oldest man, between forty and
fifty, was sentenced to transportation for life to Norfolk
Island, the most ferocious sentence an English judge can
pronounce. When the man heard it he bowed in genuine
and awkward humbleness, and said, as he made a rustic
bow to the bench, “ Thank'ee, my Lord!” Such abject humi
liation of spirit I had never conceived before. Ignorance
never appeared to me so frightful, so slavish, so blind, as
on this occasion. Unable to distinguish a sentence passed
upon him from a service done him, he had been taught
to bow to his pastors and masters, and he bowed alike when
cursed as when blessed. The measured contempt with which
the words were spoken by the judge which blasted the man’s
character for ever—the scorn with which he was thrust out of
the pale of society, never again to know freedom or reputa
tion, made no impression on his dark and servile soul. That
appalling weight of infamy falling on his head and on the
heads of his children—for which he might justly have cursed
society—only elicited from him a “ Thank’ee, my Lord ! ”
If ignorance would see its own degradation, would feel the
incalculable depth of its abjectness, let it sometimes sit for
instruction in an assize court.
The preliminary proceedings at« the trial I shall render as
Mr. Hunt gave them, in the third person—adding what, from
various causes, was omitted at the time.
On the morning of the trial the Court-house at Gloucester
was very crowded. Many ladies were present from all parts
of the county; the wives of clergymen, and some of the
nobility, were among them, attracted by curiosity, and by the
�32
THE HISTORY OE THE
opportunity which might never occur to them again of hearing,
without loss of caste, a little heresy defended in person. The
audience continued undiminished till ten o’clock at night.
As the name of George Jacob Holyoake was called he
advanced and entered the dock. Mr. Ogden, the turnkey in
charge of prisoners, directed him, with the usual air of official
impatience, to take his place at the bar.
Mr. Holyoake.—Do not be in a hurry. First hand me my
books.
Mr. Ogden (looking indignantly at a large corded box
lying outside the dock).—You can’t have that box here. You
must go to the bar and plead.
Mr. Holyoake.—Nonsense. Hand me the box.
It being reluctantly handed up, Mr. Holyoake applied to
the judge, Mr. Justice Erskine, for the use of a table.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—There is one. He referred to some
boarding behind the bar, and there Mr. Holyoake proceeded
to arrange his books and papers, although the situation was
not advantageous, it being lower than the bar where the
prisoners usually stand. Mr. Holyoake employed twenty
minutes in this operation, and when he had done the dock
resembled a young bookseller’s stall. Mr. Holyoake then
advanced to the bar and bowed to the court.
Mr. Justice Erskine (who had waited with-great patience).—
Are you ready ?
Mr. Holyoake replied affirmatively, and the clerk pro
ceeded to read the indictment as follows:—
*• [Gloucester to wit.—The jurors for our lady the Queen, upon their
oath, present that George Jacob Holyoake, late of the parish of Chelten
ham, in the county of Gloucester, labourer, being a wicked, malicious,
*
and evil-disposed person, and disregarding the laws and religion of the
realm, and wickedly and profanely devising and intending to bring
Almighty God, the Holy Scriptures, and the Christian religion, into dis
belief and contempt among the people of this kingdom, on the twenty
fourth day of May, in the fifth year of the reign of our lady the Queen,
with force and arms, at the parish aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, in
the presence and hearing of divers liege subjects of our said lady the
Queen, maliciously, unlawfully, and wickedly did compose, speak, utter,
pronounce, and publish with h loud voice, of and concerning Almighty
, God, the Holy Scriptures, and the Christian religion, these words fol
lowing, that is to say, ‘I (meaning the said George Jacob Holyoake) do
* It was pure invention that described me as a “labourer.” It was a
term of degradation in the county, and therefore employed. My profession
was that of a Mathematical Teacher.
�*<¥&$¥«
•’Al >'•'
LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
33
not believe there is such a thing as a God; I (meaning the said George
Jacob Holyoake) would have the Deity served as they (meaning the
government of this kingdom) serve the subaltern, place him (meaning
Almighty God) on half-pay ’—to the high displeasure of Almighty God,
to the great scandal and reproach of the Christian religion, in open viola
tion of the laws of this kingdom, to the evil example of all others in the
like case offending, and against the peace of our lady the Queen, her
crown and dignity.”
Mr. Holyoake pleaded Not Guilty, and applied to have the
names of the jury called over singly and distinctly.
Mr. Alexander, counsel for the prosecution, said the offence
being only a misdemeanour, the defendant had no right to
challenge.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—Of course not, unless reasons are
given in each case.
Clerk.—The name of John Lovesey is first.
Mr. Holyoake.—I object to Lovesey. He sat on the bench
when I was before the magistrates at Cheltenham, and
approved the proceedings against me. He is not disinterested
in this matter.
Mr. Justice Erskine said that was not sufficient reason for
challenging.
Lovesey declared he “ shuddered at the crime of the
prisoner,” and after some further conversation, the judge
having observed it was “ as well to go,” Lovesey left the box.
Mr. Holyoake.—In the case of Mr. Southwell he was
allowed to challenge.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—I am not bound by the Recorder of
Bristol.
The names of the other jurors having been called over,
Mr. Holyoake objected to one on the ground of his being a
farmer, and from his profession not likely to be acquainted
with the nature of the question at issue.
*
Mr. Justice Erskine said he could not sit there to listen to
such objections. Mr. Holyoake saying he had no objection to
urge which his lordship would allow, “ seven farmers, one
grocer, one poulterer, one miller, one nondescript shopkeeper,
* A poulterer is called upon, under oath, to decide this great theological
and philosophical question that has agitated the world for so many hundred
centuries. . . . To make a poulterer a sovereign judge of theology is
on a par with making the Archbishop of Canterbury a judge of poultry.—
Weekly Dispatch, August 18, 1842. [It has been objected to this that very
likely his Grace of Canterbury is a very good judge of poultry.
�34
THE HISTORY OF THE
and one maltster, were then impannelled to ascertain whether
one George Jacob Holyoake had had a fight with Omni
potence, whether he had done his utmost to bring the Deity
into contempt, whether he had fought Omnipotence with force
of arms, and had spoken against it or him with a loud
*
voice.
The following is a list of the jury:—
Thomas Gardiner, grocer, Chelten
ham, Foreman.
James Reeve, farmer, Chedworth.
William Ellis, farmer, Chedworth.
Avery Trotman. farmer, Chedworth.
William Mathews, poulterer, Chel
tenham.
Simon Vizard, shopkeeper, Oldland.
Isaac Tombs, farmer, Whitcomb.
William Wilson, maltster, Brimpsfield.
Edwin Brown, farmer, Withington.
Bevan Smith, farmer, Harescomb.
William Smith, miller, Barnwood.
Joseph Shipp, farmer, Yate.
Mr. Holyoake.—Can I have a copy of the indictment?
Mr. Justice Erskine.—I had one made for you in conse
quence of your application to the court last week.
Mr. Holyoake.—Yes, my lord, but after I had thanked you
for your courtesy in so doing, I was asked 8s. 6d. for it by
(not being able to call him by his name, Mr. Holyoake said)
that sour-looking gentleman there (pointing to the clerk of
the court, an individual as dusty and as forbidding as an old
penal statute, and who always spoke to Mr. Holyoake like
one. The court laughed, the judge frowned, the clerk looked
indignant, but before censure could fall, Mr. Holyoake
escaped into the next sentence, adding), after the numerous
exactions I was subjected to at the sessions, after being
brought here by the magistrates and then not tried, I did not
think myself justified in paying any more, and the clerk
refused it me.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—I ordered a copy to be made for you,
but did not think it necessary that you should have it on any
other than the usual conditions, t
Mr. Holyoake.—Can I be allowed to read the indictment
against me ?
Mr. Justice Erskine.—Certainly.
The clerk then handed a copy to Mr. Holyoake, who on
* “ Publicola’s ” second letter to Judge Erskine.—Weekly Dispatch, Sept.
18, 1842.
t This copy of Indictment occupied not quite one sheet ofpaper, for which
eight shillings and sixpence were asked !
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY EOR ATHEISM.
35
observing the counsel for the prosecution rise, left the bar,
and placed himself where he could face Mr. Alexander, with
a view to take notes. The judge very courteously asked if
Mr. Holyoake desired note-paper and pens, which he
accepted, and
Mr. Alexander said—Gentlemen of the jury: The defendant
at the bar is indicted, not for writing, but for speaking and
uttering certain wicked and blasphemous words. This person
is not, as in the case previously brought before your atten
*
tion, the vendor, but he is the author of the blasphemy. From
the coincidence of words, he is the Editor—
Mr. Justice Erskine.—You must not proceed in that way.
You must not assume—
Mr. Alexander.—I am aware, my lord, that I may not
assert the identity of the defendant with the work alluded to—
I was only going to draw the attention of the gentlemen of
the jury to the coincidence of the word. But I will proceed
with my case. The defendant, on the 24th of May last,
issued placards for a lecture to be delivered in Cheltenham.
In these placards he announced, not the diabolical, the
dreadful topics which he descanted upon, not anything which
would lead the reader to imagine or expect what really took
place, but he gave out his subject as a lecture upon Home
Colonisation, Emigration, and the Poor Laws. Mark this,
gentlemen of the jury. Had he given in his announcements
any hint of what was to take place, his end might have been
defeated, and no audience attracted to listen to the blas
phemous expressions you have heard set out in the indictment.
But he did obtain an audience, a numerous audience, and then
declared that the people were too poor to have a religion—
that he himself had no religion—that he did not believe in
such a thing as a God, and—though it pains me to repeat the
horrible blasphemy—that he would place the Deity upon
half-pay. I shall call witnesses to prove all this, and then it
will be for you to say if he is guilty. It may be urged to you
that these things were said in answer to a question, that the
inuendoes must be made out. Inuendoes ! I should think it an
insult to the understandings of twelve jurymen—of twelve
intelligent men—to call witnesses to prove inuendoes; but I
shall place the case before you, and leave it in your hands.
* That of George Adams.
�36
THE HISTORY OF THE
I am sure I need not speak, I need not dilate upon the conse
quence of insulting- that Deity we are as much bound as
inclined to reverence. He then called
James Bartram—who said: I am a printer, at Cheltenham,
employed upon the Cheltenham, Chronicle; attended the lecture
of defendant, just after nine o’clock; there were about one
hundred persons present of both sexes; the placard announced
“ Home Colonisation, Emigration, Poor Laws Superseded
heard a man put a question to Mr. Holyoake; he said, “ The
lecturer has been speaking of our duty to man, but he has
said nothing as regards our duty towards God.” Prisoner
replied, “ I am of no religion at all—I do not believe in such
a thing as a God. The people of this country are too poor to
have any religion. I would serve the Deity as the govern
ment does the subaltern—place him on half-pay.” He was
the length of the room off; I heard him distinctly; he spoke
in a distinct voice.
Cross-examined by Mr. Holyoake.—You say I said the
people were too poor to have any religion; will you state
the reasons I gave ?
Witness.—I can give the substance, if not the words; you
said, “ The great expense of religion to the country.”
Mr. Holyoake.—I will thank you to state the other reasons.
Witness.—I don’t recollect any other reason.
Mr Holyoake.—Now, you have sworn the words are blas
phemous—
Mr. Justice Erskine.—No, he has not.
Mr. Holyoake.—Will you state if the words are blas
phemous |
Mr. Justice Erskine said such a question could only be put
through him. He then put the question—Do you consider the
words blasphemous ?
Witness.—I do.
Mr. Holyoake.—Why do you think them blasphemous ?
Witness.—Because they revile the majesty of heaven, and
are calculated to subvert peace, law, and order; and are
punishable by human law, because they attack human autho
rity.
Mr. Holyoake.—Who has instructed you to define blas
phemy thus ?
Witness.—I have not been instructed; it is my own opinion.
Mr. Holyoake.—At Cheltenham, during my examination
before the magistrates, you did not appear to have these
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
37
notions. Will you swear you have not concocted that answer
for this occasion ?
Witness.—I did not expect such a question would be put;
I did not expect to be catechised.
Mr. Holyoake.—Who advised you to attend as a witness ?
Witness.—The magistrates sent for me.
Mr. Holyoake.—Did you not know before the day of my
commitment something of this matter ?
Witness.—There was some “ chaff” in the office about it;
that’s all I heard of it; a policeman was sent from the magis
trates for me to give the names of witnesses who were to
appear. Don’t know why the policeman came to me; don’t
know his name; no clergyman has spoken to me, that I
recollect, upon the subj’ect of this prosecution; not sure of it;
several persons have spoken to me, cannot say they were
clergymen; I do not know the parties who got up the prose
cution or sent the policeman to me; the report was furnished
to the paper I work on by another person; I saw the
reporter’s notes, but not the Editor’s observations till the
galleys were pulled.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—What do you mean by galleys
pulled ?
Witness.—Brass slides, my lord.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—You mean, I suppose, till all the types
were up ?
Witness.—Yes, my lord.
Cross-examination resumed.—Do not know of my own
knowledge who made the report; have been ten years in
employment at Chronicle office; know it was said in that
paper that three witnesses from that office could prove what
had occurred at the lecture; the name of reporter of our
paper is Edward Wills; I heard your lecture, you said
nothing against morality ?
Mr. Holyoake.—Will you state your opinion of morality ?
Mr. Justice Erskine.—The question is irrelevant.
Mr. Holyoake.—Did you think I spoke my honest con
victions ?
3
Witness —I thought you spoke what you meant; you spoke
straightforwardly.
The j'udge here interposed to stop Mr. Holyoake from
asking as to witness’s opinions.
Cross-examination resumed. Witness.—I should not have
lost my situation if I had not come forward in this case; in
�3«
THE HISTORY OE THE
my opinion you spoke wickedly, as stated in indictment; I did
not notice that you spoke contemptuously when using- the
word thing, but you used the word; there were other words
between ■ those used in indictment; they did not, as in that
document, follow one another; I do not remember the words;
you spoke of the enormous sums of money spent upon religion,
and the poverty of the people, and afterwards, and in con
nection with that, said you would place Deity as government
did the subalterns—on half-pay; I have been a preacher.
Re-examined by Mr. Alexander.—-I have been uninter
ruptedly ten years in the same employment; do not give
evidence from fear or reward, but from a sense of duty.
Mr. Alexander.—That is the case for the prosecution, my
lord.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—Now is the time for your defence.
Mr. Holyoake.—I am not a little surprised to hear that the
case for the prosecution is closed. I have heard nothing, not
one word, to prove the charge in the indictment. There has
been adduced no evidence to show that I have uttered words
maliciously and wickedly blasphemous. I submit to your lordship
that there is not sufficient evidence before the Court.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—That is for the jury to decide.
Mr Holyoake.—I thought, my lord, as the evidence is so
manifestly insufficient to prove malice, you would have felt
bound to direct my acquittal.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—It is for the jury to say whether they
are satisfied.
Mr. Holyoake.—Then, Gentlemen of the Jury, it now
becomes my duty to address you on the nature of the charge
preferred against me, and of the evidence, by which it is
attempted to be supported. When I stood in this court a
week ago, and saw the grand jury, with Mr. Grantley
Berkeley at their head as foreman—when I heard his lordship,
surrounded by learned counsel, deliver his charge in the
midst of persons distinguished for learning, for eloquence, for
experience, and for literary attainments—I then thought, as I
now do, that this court could find nobler means than the
employment of brute force to counteract anything I could
attempt—which I never have done—to bring the truly sacred
into contempt. I thought I never should be called upon to
stand in this dock, with all its polluting and disgusting asso
ciations, to answer for mere matters of speculative opinion. I
did think that such persons possessed a sense of the powers of
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
39
the human mind that would have prevented the interposition
of penal judges upon such subjects.
But to Mr. Grantley Berkeley, as foreman of the grand
jury who found a true bill against me, I beg to draw your
attention. Mr. Grantley Berkeley, as you are aware, is
brother to the member, Mr. C. Berkeley, who attempted to
vindicate the conduct of the Cheltenham magistrates from the
allegations against them by Sir James Graham in the House
of Commons. In the recent case of Mr. Mason, who was
takfen from a meeting, as I was at Cheltenham, by a police
man, illegally, without a warrant, the doctrine was laid down
by a cabinet minister, in the House of Commons, that if the
person so arrested was subsequently found guilty by a jury,
the illegal apprehension was justified. See how this applies
to my case. I was taken from a public meeting a week after
the objectionable words were spoken; was taken by a police
man at near midnight, without a warrant. This was justly
deemed illegal. I sat in the gallery of the House of Commons
when the Hon. Member for Bath brought forward my case,
and when Sir James Graham, in reference to the correspond
ence which had taken place with the magistrates, had the
frankness to say “ there had been serious irregularities and
unnecessary harshness used in the case of Holyoake.” In
this country four thousand applications are annually made
to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and out
of that four thousand my case is spoken of as one in which
serious irregularities had occurred, and unnecessary harshness
been employed. And that amid the numerous affairs of this
great empire it should have received this distinct notice is
presumptive evidence that it contained much that should be
corrected. On Thursday, July 2i, the Hon. Mr. C. Berkeley,
addressing the Speaker of the House of Commons, said, “ I
wish to ask the Right Hon. Baronet the Secretary for the
Home Department a question, but in order to make it intelli
gible to the House, it will be necessary for me to refer to
what took place on Tuesday last. It appears that upon that
day the Hon. Member for Bath stated, ‘ that as a person
named Holyoake had been committed to prison, at Chelten
ham, in an improper manner, he wished to know whether the
Right Hon. Secretary for the Home Department had any
objection to produce the correspondence which had taken
place upon that subject ’—to which the Right Hon. Baronet
replied that ‘ he felt called on in the discharge of his duty to
�40
THE HISTORY OF THE
inquire into the circumstances of the commitment in question
—he found that serious irregularities had been committed,
and he expressed his opinion to that effect—but as legal pro
ceedings were likely to result out of what had occurred, he
did not think it would be judicious in the Hon. and learned
Gentleman to press for the production of the correspondence.’
. . . . The Right Hon. Baronet knows, or at least ought
to know, that no such imputation could with propriety be cast
upon the magistrates, for by the 3rd section of the 2nd and
3rd of Victoria, commonly called the County Constabulary
Act, no magistrate or magistrates, in petty sessions assem
bled, can interfere with or control the chief constable, or any
sub-constable, in the discharge of their duties, as the rules
and regulations for these all emanate from the office of the
Right. Hon. Baronet. It therefore was exceedingly unfair that
these imputations should go forth, and I have therefore now
to ask, on behalf of the magistrates, whether the Right Hon.
Baronet objects to the correspondence being printed and circu
lated with the votes of the house, and in case he should object
I shall offer it for the perusal of the Hon. Member for Bath.”
Sir James Graham, in reply, said, “ I had no intention what
ever to cast any imputation on the gentlemen who that day
formed the Petty Sessions. My observations more properly
applied to the capture of Holyoake, and the unnecessary
harshness used in his conveyance from the magistrates’ office.
At the same time I shall object to the printing of the corres
pondence with the votes, as no good result would come from
it. Of course the Hon. Member is at liberty to offer it to the
Hon. Member for Bath if he chooses | but I repeat, that as
legal proceedings were pending, I think such course not
advisable.”
This is a most flagrant attempt at justification. The Act
the Hon. Member quoted related to Petty Session magistrates,
before whom he knew my case had never come, and of whom,
therefore, no complaint could have been made. But Mr.
Berkeley had a friendly purpose to serve. The magistrates
and their friends have the strongest motives for finding a true
bill against me—and they have motives equally powerful for
desiring that your verdict should be “guilty,” inasmuch as
that verdict will justify all these ‘ irregularities ’—all the
‘ unnecessary harshness ’—will remove from their shoulders
all the responsibility which they incurred by the course they
have pursued towards me. Bear in mind, gentlemen of the
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
41
jury, if the rights are to be enjoyed about which we so much
glorify ourselves, cases of this kind must not be allowed to
pass unnoticed. “ Serious irregularities ” demand serious
notice. Arbitrary infraction of the liberty of the subject must
not receive the sanctfon of a jury. Recollect that the same
course may be pursued towards any one of you, and that if it
receives your sanction it will be made a precedent of law—
and pernicious may be its influence.
But I would draw your attention to a printed report of
remarks, made by his lordship, in his charge to the grand
jury upon my case. I do not for a moment believe that his
lordship had other than fair intentions, but, unfortunately, his
remarks will have a contrary effect on those who have to
judge my case. I have in my hand the Cheltenham Chronicle,
of Wednesday last, August 10th, from which I will read.
“These offences,” he said, referring to the cases of blas
phemy, “ lay at the root of all the crime which prevailed, and
a consideration of the causes out of which they sprung pointed
to the only efficient remedy for their removal. In the case of
Holyoake, his lordship observed that a work called the Oracle
of Reason had been printed and circulated containing language
which he did not think it right to repeat; language in which
the writer traced all the evil which existed in the world, not
to the real cause—the evil passions of the human heart—but
to the existence of Christianity itself. This was followed by
the most opprobrious language ”—
Mr. Justice Erskine (interrupting).—I never said anything
of the kind; that printed report is entirely incorrect.
Mr. Holyoake.—I will read some notes of your lordship’s
charge, taken at the time of its delivery by a Reporter; but
whether the report in the Chronicle is correct or incorrect, it
has had its influence in leading the public, and probably this
jury, to a prejudgment of my case.
“ There are other charges which seem at once to lead the
mind to the consideration of the root of all the evil which forms
the subject of our present consideration. I allude to two
charges of blasphemy. In one the accused is said to have
sold and published a paper called the Oracle of Reason, con
taining language which I shall not think it right to read, in
which the writer traces the evils at present existing, not to the
evil passions of man, but to the existence of Christianity, and
follows it up with the most opprobrious language to the
Saviour and his system, charging him with being the occasion
�42
THE HISTORY OE THE
of all the crime and misery which prevail. The second charge
is against a man who gave a lecture, in the course of which
he discussed the proper way of teaching man his duty to his
neighbour. A person suggested that he had said nothing about
teaching man his duty to his God. That led to a statement
which shows the folly of the person ; and he followed it up by
making use of such language that, if you believe it was
intended to have destroyed the reverence for God, he has
subjected himself to punishment. There is another thing—he
does not appear to have intended to discuss this; but if you
are convinced that, by what he has said, he intended to bring
religion into contempt, he is guilty of blasphemy. If such
addresses had been directed to the educated classes, it might
have been thought they would remedy themselves; but when
they are delivered among persons not educated, the greatest
danger might be expected. It is not by the punishment of
those who attempt to mislead the ignorant that we can hope
to cure the evil. If we feel that it is from the ignorance of
those persons to whom the addresses are delivered that the
danger is to be apprehended, it becomes our imperative duty
to teach those persons. Some persons have said, ‘Instruct
the poor in reading and writing, but leave them to learn
religion at home.’ But what would you say to a man who
would manure his land, and leave it to find seed for itself?
It would produce nothing but weeds. I know there is great
difficulty in arranging any national schools; but, as we are
all individually sufferers, I hope we shall join in extending a
national religious education, so that all may learn to do right,
not from a fear of punishment, but from a far nobler motive—
the knowledge that offences against the laws are contrary to
the precepts of the word of God, and hostile to the best
interests of society.”
I fear his lordship may not give me credit for sincerity; but
I do assure you, gentlemen of the jury, no one heard some of.
those sentiments with more pleasure than I did. I did not
expect so much liberality. If such advice had been followed,
I should not now be standing here to defend points of a
speculative nature. Such errors should be corrected by argu
ment, in the arena of public opinion. Where I uttered these
words they should have been refuted. The witness against
me says he is a preacher; had he no word in answer ? could
he say no word for his God ? No; he, and those who employ
and abet him, shrink from the attempt, and seek to punish in
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
43
this dock opinions they cannot refute. Is this a course
becoming1 those who say that they have truth on their
side ?
His lordship said “ emissaries are going about.” I am no
emissary, and the term as applied to me is unjust. I might,
even by the admission of Mr. Bubb, “ undermine ” men’s reli
gion, go about secretly disseminating my opinions, without
danger of standing here. But I spoke openly; and you who
usually have to punish dishonesty are now called upon to punish
its non-committal, for a little lying would have saved me from
this charge. I have infringed no law, injured no man’s repu
tation, taken no man’s property, attacked no man’s person,
broken no promise, violated no oath, encouraged no evil,
taught no immorality—set only an example of free speaking.
I was asked a question, and answered it openly. I am not
even charged with declaring dogmatically, “There is no
God.” I only expressed an opinion. I should hold myself
degraded could I descend to inquire, before uttering my con
victions, if they met the approval of every anonymous man in
the audience. I never forget that other men’s opinions may
be correct—that others may be right as well as myself. I
have put forth my own opinions openly, from a conviction of
their truth; and the sentiments I cannot defend I should scorn
like my prosecutors to invoke an attorney-general to protect.
I seek a public place, where any man may refute me if he
can, and convict me as wilful or ignorant. I should think
myself degraded if I published secretly. What can we think
of the morality of a law which requires secret inquiry, which
prohibits the free publication of opinion ?
Mr. Justice Erskine.—You must have heard me state the law,
that if it be done seriously and decently all men are at liberty
to state opinions.
Mr. Holyoake.—Whatever the law says, if an informer can
carry the words to persons interested in their suppression—if
policemen can be sent to apprehend, without warrants, the
man who publicly expresses his opinions—if he can be hand
cuffed like a felon, and thrust into a gaol—if indictments can
be brought against him, and he be put to ruinous expenses
and harassing anxieties, however honest the expression of
opinion may be—then, I say, this “ liberty law ” is a mockery.
But by the word “ decent ” is meant “ what those in authority
think proper.” There should be no censorship of opinions;
but I am told that, because I spoke to ignorant people, I am
�44
THE HISTORY OF THE
criminal. To educated persons, then, I might have said what
I did with impunity—
Mr. Justice Erskine.—I only, after speaking of education,
said that an honest man, speaking his opinions decently, was
entitled to do so.
Mr. Holyoake.—There is no evidence to show that my
audience were unable to distinguish decency and propriety.
But it must be already clear enough to you, gentlemen of the
jury, who have been employed during the past week deter
mining violations of the law, that I am placed here for having
been more honest than the law happens to allow. I am
unaccustomed to address a jury, and I hope to avoid the
charge of presumption or dogmatism. I have no wish to
offend the prejudices of any man in this court, and have no
interest in so doing, when his lordship is armed with the power
of the law to punish it. But, while I profess respect for your
opinions, I must entertain some for my own. There are those
here who think religion proper, and that it alone can lead to
general happiness: I do not, and I have had the same means
of judging. You say your feelings are insulted—your opinions
outraged; but what of mine ? Mine, however honest, are
rendered liable to punishment. I ask not equality of privi
leges in this respect; I seek not the power of punishing those
who differ from me—nay, I should disdain its use. Christianity
claims what she does not allow, although she says, “ All men
are brothers.”
It is from no disrespect to the bar that I did not give my
case into the hands of counsel, but because they are unable to
enter into my motives. There is a magic circle out of which
they will not step; they will argue only what is orthodox;
and you would have had no opportunity from them of learning
my true motives, or seeing the real bearings of this case.
*
The author of the paragraph which led to this day’s pro
ceedings applied to me the epithets of “ wretch,’’ “ mis
creant,” “ monster ”—represented me as one who discoursed
* From what subsequently appeared in the Cheltenham Free Press, I
learned that some of the bar took offence at these remarks; and one
revenged himself by describing me, in the Morning Chronicle, as “a
wretched-looking creature, scarcely emerging from boyhood, whose wiry
and dishevelled hair, ‘ lip unconscious of the razor’s edge,’ and dingy looks,
gave him the appearance of a low German student,” and concluded by
pronouncing his unsolicited opinion that “ I no doubt courted the present
prosecution for the sake of notoriety.”
�* 'iw***/
LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
45
“ devilism.” The Gloucester Chronicle laboured to prove that
I was a malicious blasphemer. The Cheltenham Examiner—the
Editor of which, I understand, is Mr. Jelinger Symons—draws
a parallel between me and the reputed regicide who has
recently shot at the Queen. These are the words:—“ Akin
to the offence for which Holyoake has been committed is the
crime for which Francis, also a mere stripling, is likely to
forfeit his personal liberty, if not his life. The crimes of blas
phemy and treason have many points of great similarity, and
frequently result from the same causes; and it would not be
an uninstructive task to trace out the progress of those causes
which lead the minds of the unguarded to the extreme points
when they become dangerous to society. Holyoake, the bold
assertor of the non-existence of a God, did not become an
infidel at once; and Francis, the would-be regicide, did not
level his pistol at our beloved Sovereign without his mind
having been acted and prepared by previous circumstances.
. . . . In both cases a morbid imagination, an affectation
of superiority, a contempt for and a disaffection with existing
institutions, and a craving after notoriety, are the primary
incentives to action.” This ungenerous and offensive parallel
was drawn out through a long leading article. The effect, if
not the object, of all this is to prejudge my case, to awaken
all the bitter prejudices which lurk around religion, and to
secure my condemnation before my trial.
Another paper, in which justice was done me in some
*
respects, called me a “ bigot.” I am not a bigot. I do not
assume that I alone am right; nor did I speak of Deity,
declaring dogmatically his non-existence. I spoke only of my
own disbelief in such an existence. Of all isms I think dog
matism the worst. I do not judge other men by the agree
ment of their opinions with my own. I believe you consider
Christianity a benefit. I regret that I feel it is not so, and I
claim the privilege of saying what is true to me. I have eve
**
been ready to acquire correct notions. I have publicly called
upon parties whose duty it was to teach me—and who were
well paid for teaching—to assist me in sifting out the truth.
But they have chosen the strong arm of the law rather than
strong argument. Jean Jacques Rosseau says in his “ Con
fessions,” | Enthusiasm for sublime virtue is of little use in
* The National Association Gazette.
�46
THE HISTORY OE THE
society. In aiming’ too high we are subject to fall; the con
tinuity of little duties, well fulfilled, demands no less strength
than heroic actions, and we find our account in it much better,
both in respect to reputation and happiness. The constant
esteem of mankind is infinitely better than sometimes their
admiration.” As the world goes there is much good sense in
this, and I have read it to show how fully I accord with these
sentiments. I am not aiming at sublime virtue, but rather at
the continuity of little duties well fulfilled. It is enough for
me if I can be true and useful.
I was greatly surprised to find the learned gentleman
engaged as prosecuting counsel had so little to say in reference
to the case entrusted to his charge, but I presume it must be
attributed to the fact that little could be said upon the subject.
All his ingenuity, all his legal skill, could not discover an
argument at all tenable against me. I certainly expected to
hear him attempt to prove to you that these prosecutions
were either useful or necessary, but he could only tell you that
my sentiments were very horrible, without adducing proof
that his assertions were true. He dealt liberally in inuendoes,
particularly in reference to the placards exhibited previous to
the lecture, and the motive for issuing them. But you have
been able to glean from his own witness the truth of the
matter. I had completed my discourse, which was of a
secular character, and was preparing to return home, when
one Maitland questioned me on the subject of my opinions. I
did not get up a meeting under one pretence to use it
for another. I employed no scheme to allure an audience
to listen to what I did not openly avow, although it has been
unfairly insinuated that I did so.
When I was first apprehended my papers were taken from
me. They would not even leave me the papers necessary for
my defence, and I do not know what use was made of them,
or that this day the information thus unfairly obtained may
not be employed against me. I will read the memorial on
this subject, which I forwarded to the Secretary of State.
“ Memorial of the undersigned George Jacob Holyoake, prisoner in Glou
*
cester County Gaol, on the charge of Blasphemy, to Sir James Graham,
Her Majesty's Secretary of State,
“ Sheweth,—That your memorialist was committed to this gaol from
Cheltenham, on the vague charge of blasphemy, on June 3rd.
“That in consequence of representations made to him by the police
authorities in Cheltenham, your memorialist brought with him to the gaol
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
47
some private papers, hastily selected, for his defence, and that, on arriving
here, the said papers were seized, and the visiting magistrate refused to
allow your memorialist the use of them, or to give them up to his friends to
be used for his advantage.
“ That, as these papers were brought in confidence that your memorialist
would have been allowed to consult his own thoughts in his own defence—•
and as they are no man’s property but his own—and, also, as without them
your memorialist will not have a fair chance of defence—he trusts you will
order them to be restored to him without delay.
" The offence with which your memorialist stands charged occurred as he
was journeying homeward, in a town where he was a comparative stranger.
Consequently, and owing to great bigotry on religious subjects, your memo
rialist has been unable to obtain bail, and has suffered fourteen days’
imprisonment, which time he has spent in fruitless applications to the
authorities here for proper books and papers to prepare his defence. Out
of a list of thirty-one books submitted for that purpose only thirteen are
allowed.
“ That, as the trial of your memorialist is to take place at the next
sessions of this county, to be holden on the 28th instant, and he is without
the means of defence or the hope of justice, and otherwise he is placed in
circumstances of peculiar anxiety.
“ Hence your memorialist earnestly hopes that you will direct that his
papers, seized as before mentioned, be immediately restored to him, and also
that he be allowed free access to such works and papers as he may deem
necessary for his defence, and that without further delay.
“[Signed)
George Jacob Holyoake.
“County Gaol, Gloucester, June 14, 1842.”
The papers were afterwards returned; but, had it not been
for friends in the House of Commons and in various parts of
the country, I should have been deprived of the materials for
my defence. Public opinion did for me that which Christian
charity refused.
*
Strong prejudices exist against me as being a Socialist.
Your local newspapers have denounced me on this ground.
To show that I deserve no condemnation on this account, I
shall draw your attention to the nature of Socialism. I have
here a little book, stated to be published by the “ Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge.” If it had been stated to be
a “ society ” for disseminating “ malicious knowledge ” the
title-page would have been correct—for a more gross series
'* At the Gloucester Trinity Sessions, Mr. R. B. Cooper stated, in contra
diction of the prayer of this memorial, that “ as soon as I mentioned that
my papers were necessary for my defence they were returned to me.” Mr.
S. Jones said he “ took my papers home, and every one I wanted for my
trial on the morrow I had given to me.” Both these statements were
untrue, and I stated so at the time in the Cheltenham Free Press, and my
assertion was never impugned.
�48
THE HISTORY OF THE
of misrepresentations were never strung- together. If what it
says of Socialism were true, then I might be abused; but
Socialism, as I have learned or explained it, would never lead
to the injury of peace or the disturbance of public order. The
first paragraph of Godwin’s “ Political Justice ” is an epitome
of Socialism as developed in this country hitherto; it is “ an
investigation concerning that form of political society, that
system of intercourse and reciprocal action extending beyond
the bounds of a single family, which shall be found most con
ducive to the general benefit—how may the peculiar and inde
pendent operation of each individual in the social state most
effectually be preserved—how may the security each man
ought to possess as to his life, and the employments of his
faculties according to the dictates of his own understanding,
be most certainly defended from invasion—how may the indi
viduals of the human species be made to contribute most sub
stantially to general improvement and happiness.” But I
shall not content myself with one authority; and to avoid the
charge of presumption, I have gathered much of my defence
from other men’s writings, and shall make them speak for
me.
Socialists have been declared to have dangerous meta
physical notions. The whole question has been expressed by
the poet-philosopher Goethe in four lines, translated by
Ebenezer Elliott, thus:—
“ How like a stithy is this land I
And we lie on it, like good metal
Long hammer’d by a senseless hand ;
But will such thumping make a kettle ? ”
Meaning that senseless hammering and senseless legislation
could neither make the dull iron into a kettle nor a vicious
people into an enlightened nation. Socialism says all men
have in them the true metal—the elements of goodness, which
all governments are responsible for moulding. Socialism
proposes to substitute other means than punishments for the
prevention of crime; and that you may not think these
chimeras of my own, I will read you the opinion of a Lord
Cardinal to a certain High Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas
More, who, in his “ Utopia,” says, “ When I was in England
the king depended much on his councils. . . . One day
when I was dining with him there happened to be at table one
of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in high
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
49
commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves,
‘ who,’ as he said, ‘ were then hanged so fast that there were
sometimes twenty on one gibbet! ’ and upon that he said ‘ he
could not wonder enough how it came to pass that, since so
few escaped, there were so many thieves left, who were still
robbing in all places.’ Upon this, I (who took the boldness to
speak freely before the cardinal) said, ‘ there was no reason
to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves
was neither just in itselfnor good for the public ; for as the severity
was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft
not being so great a crime that it ought to cost a man his life;
no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain
those from robbing who can find no other way of livelihood.
In this (said I) not only you in England but a great part of
the world, imitate some ill masters, that are readier to chas
tise their scholars than teach them. There are dreadful
punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to
make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a
method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of
stealing, and of dying for it? ” Socialism would try to obtain a
remedy for the evils which judges go round year by year
lamenting; Socialism would suggest a means of affording
employment, and thus mitigate the crime which judges and
juries are called to punish.
Such objects may be declared chimerical, but surely it is
not criminal to hope that they can be carried out, and to feel
that they ought. I could read many other passages to show
that under no circumstances Socialism merits that character
which has been ascribed to it. But I do not deem it necessary,
as I think I have said enough to prove that. Nor do I want
to instil my sentiments, but merely to disabuse your minds of
a prejudice which has been disseminated to my disadvantage.
My assuming the right of free expression inculcated by Mr.
Owen, and when asked a question, refusing to equivocate, are
opposed, it would appear, to the laws of this country. But this
I have learned from Socialism, that there can be no public
or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice
of truth. Passing through Cheltenham to visit a friend in
prison, I delivered a lecture. After which the words were
uttered which are here indicted. When I had read the Chel
tenham Chronicle, in the city of Bristol, I returned to Cheltenham.
If I had been conscious of guilt, should I have returned ? On
the night of my apprehension marks of kindness were shown
�50
THE HISTORY OF THE
me by the people. If I had acted disgracefully, would the
people of Cheltenham have met a stranger, and showed him
marks of esteem and friendship ? I went to the station-house
and remained there all night. When taken before the magis
trates, Mr. Capper told me I was not fit to be reasoned with,
because I did not believe in a God, and that it was from a love
of notoriety that I acted ; but from the love of mere notoriety
I have never uttered any sentiments, for I hold such conduct
in contempt. After I was taken from the magistrates’ office,
I was treated with contumely at the police-station. Surgeon
Pinching, finding me completely in his power, said he was
sorry the days were gone by when I could hold up my head,
and wished the Inquisition could be put in force against such
persons as myself. I was thrust into a filthy cell, and my
hands were bolted together and the skin pinched off. I was
brought to Gloucester on a sultry day, and should have been
made to walk had not some friends interfered and obtained
permission for me to ride, on paying my own fare and that of
two policemen. There was no indication from my manner
that I wished to make my escape, and the company of two
policemen was sufficient to prevent it. It was thought if I was
chained like a felon, and dragged through two towns, it
would wound my feelings. If these are the ways in which
the truths of Christianity are to be taught, I leave you to
judge of them. Two of your magistrates conversed with me,
and shouted with much rudeness that I was a fool for holding
my opinions. I never could have, said this to any man, and
yet such treatment I received from magistrates old enough to
be my grandfathers.
Here Mr. Bransby Cooper, who sat upon the left of the
j-udge, was so moved by this remark, that he rose and ejacu
lated something in court, but the judge peremptorily com
manded him to sit down.
Mr. Holyoake then read the memorial of the public meeting
of the inhabitants of Cheltenham, before quoted, referring to
the conduct, at the examination, of Joseph Overbury, Robert
Capper, and the Rev. T. B. Newell, D.D., magistrates.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—You ought not to read any statement
not authenticated by evidence, which reflects on any person.
Defendant.—This is a petition of a public meeting.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—It is not evidence.
Defendant continued.—I have never been- anxious, under
any circumstances, to obtrude my opinions on the public. I
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
confined myself strictly to the subj’ect on which I lectured, and
should not have introduced my sentiments on religion, should
not have spoken another word after my lecture, if I had not
been publicly questioned. I have held various situations, and
in all secular ones, I have strictly kept religious opinions out of
view. It is known that I have taught that and that only which
I have been employed to teach. In proof of this I may cite
testimonials given me upon the occasion of my applying for
the situation of collector at the Birmingham Botanic Gardens.
They are from magistrates and gentlemen of Birmingham,
and the post was one requiring a person of trust, as consider
able funds would have to pass through his hands in a year.
Mr. Holyoake here quoted from numerous testimonials.
One of them, from a magistrate, F. Lloyd, Esq., stated that
“Mr. Holyoake obtained the first prize at the Mechanics’
Institute, some years ago, for proficiency in mathematics, a
proficiency attained, too, under most discouraging circum
stances.” Another of the testimonials was from the Rev. S.
Bache, one of the ministers of the New Meeting House congre
gation.
Having read these documents, Mr. Holyoake
resumed.
During one of those commercial panics which a few years
ago passed over this country like a pestilence, my parents
were suddenly reduced from a state of comparative affluence
to one of privation. At one of these seasons my little sister
became ill. While she was so the Rev. Mr. Moseley, M.A.,
Rector of St. Martin’s, Birmingham, sent an order to us for his
Easter due of fourpence. On previous occasions this demand
had been cheerfully and promptly paid; but now, small as the
sum was, it was sufficient materially to diminish the few com
forts our house of illness unfortunately afforded; and it was
therefore discussed whether the demand of the clergyman
should be paid, or whether it should be expended in the pur
chase of some little comforts for my sick sister. Humanity
decided; and we all agreed that it should be devoted to this
latter purpose. It was; but, I think, the very next week, a
summons came for the Easter due, and two shillings and six
pence were added, because of the non-payment of the fourpence. The payment of this could now no longer be evaded,
for in a few days a warrant of distraint would have rudely
torn the bed from under her, as had been the case with a near
neighbour. Dreading this, and trembling at the apprehension,
we gathered together all the money we had, and which was
�52
THE HISTORY OF THE
being saved to purchase a little wine to moisten the parched
lips of my dying sister, for at this time her end seemed
approaching. My mother, with a heavy heart, left home to go
to the Public Office. The aisles there were cold and cheerless
like the outside this court, and there, all broken in health and
spirit, worn out with watching, and distracted by that anxiety
for her child a parent, under such circumstances, only could
feel, she was kept from five to six hours waiting to pay the
two shillings and tenpence. It was about this time that my
sister died. Gentlemen, will you wonder if, after this, I
doubted a little the utility of church establishments ? * and if,
after the circumstances I have related, I did not think so
highly of church “ as by law established ” as before, can you
be surprised? Can you punish me for it? [At this point
many ladies wept, and the Court manifested considerable
attention.] I have been told to look around the world for
evidences of the truth of the Christian religion; to look upon
the world and draw different conclusions. It is well for those
who enjoy the smiles of fortune to say so. Bor them all shines
brightly—for them all is fair. But I can see cause of com
plaint, and I am not alone in the feeling. Mr. Capel Lofft
had said, “the sours of life less offend my taste than its
sweets delight it.” On this Kirke White wrote:—
“ Go to the raging sea, and say ‘ Be still! *
Bid the wild lawless winds obey thy will;
Preach to the storm, and reason with despair—
But tell not misery’s son that life is fair.
“ Thou who in plenty’s lavish lap hast roll’d,
And every year with new delight hast told—
Thou who, recumbent on the lacquer’d barge,
Hast dropt down joy’s gay stream of pleasant marge,
Thou may’st extol life’s calm, untroubled sea—
The storms of misery ne’er burst on thee.
Go to the mat where squalid want reclines ;
Go to the shade obscure where merit pines;
Abide with him whom Penury’s charms control,
And bind the rising yearnings of his soul—
Survey his sleepless couch, and, standing there,
Tell the pooj pallid wretch that life is fair!
* I have since learned that Mr. W. J. Fox read this passage in a Sunday
morning lecture on the events of the month, delivered at South Place in the
September following my trial; and I take this opportunity of acknowledg
ing that Mr. Fox was the only occupant of a pulpit from whom I received a
friendly line during my entire imprisonment.
�'fisi > ■
LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
53
“ Lo ! o’er her youthful form, decayed and wan,
The shades of death with gradual steps steal on;;
And the pale mother, pining to decay,
Weeps, for her child, her wretched life away.
“ Go, child of fortune! to his early grave,
Where o’er his head obscure the rank weeds wave ;
Behold the heart-wrung parent lay her head
On the cold turf, and ask to share his bed.
Go, child of fortune, take thy lesson there,
And tell us then that life is wondrous fair.
As I grew up I attended missionary meetings, and my few
pence were given to that cause. When told of heathen kings
who knew not God, and caged their miserable victims, I
shuddered at their barbarity and prayed for their conversion.
O waste of money and prayers that should have been
employed on Christian men ! O infantile fatuity! Do I not
reap the whirlwind for my pains ? I learned the accents of
piety from my mother’s lips. She was and still is a religious
woman. Whatever may be the dissent I entertain, I have
never spoken of her opinions in the language of contempt. I
have always left her (as she, to her honour, has left me mine),
to enjoy her own opinions. In early youth I was religious. I
question whether there is any here who have spent more time
than I did as a Sunday-school teacher. I have given hours,
which I ought to have employed in improving myself, in
improving others. It is not without giving to Christianity
time and attention—without knowing what it was—that I
have given it up. Some lines I contributed to a religious
publication at that time will show the tone of thought which
inquiry has subsequently changed:—
“THE REIGN OF TIME.
“ The proudest earthly buildings show
Time can all things devour;
E’en youth and beauty’s ardent glow,
And manhood’s intellectual brow,
Betray the spoiler’s power :
How soon we sink beneath his sway—
He glances, and our heads turn grey.
“ Though, over all this earthly ball,
Time’s standard is unfurled,
And ruin’s loud to ruins call
Throughout this time-worn world—
Yet from this wreck of earthly things,
See how the soul exulting springs.
�54
THE HISTORY OF THE
“ And after the archangel’s wand
Has wav’d o’er earth and sea,
And Time has stopped at his command,
The soul will flourish and expand
Through all eternity.
Religion—lovely, fair, and free—
Holds forth this immortality.
“By all the glories of the sky,
To mortals yet unknown—
And by the worm that ne’er shall die,
The fires that always bum—
By all that’s awful or sublime,
Ye sons of men, improve your time.”*
It was stated by one of the magistrates that my being of no
religion was no crime.
I may conclude from what I heard
this morning that I am not to be punished for not being reli
gious. It was argued in the Cheltenham. Chronicle that my
expressing my opinions was no crime, and I was at some loss
to know what my crime was. The charge stated I was
guilty of blasphemy. ' In the depositions made against me, it is
stated that I was brought before the Cheltenham magistrates
on a charge of felony. I believe now what I have to answer
is the accusation of uttering certain words offensive to the
Cheltenham Chronicle.
This paper stated that “ three persons were ready to give
evidence on the matter.” And yet the witness says he knew
nothing of it till the policeman came for him. He says they
were “chaffing” about my remarks in the office—that is,
joking upon them. It does not say much for his seriousness—
reporting these “horrid sentiments” at night, and the next
morning “ chaffing” about them. If it was an aggravation of
my crime to have chosen an innocent subject, what would the
learned counsel have said if I had chosen a guilty one? It
has been sworn by the witnesses that I said I did not believe
there was such a thing as a God, and an attempt has been
made to make you believe that I used the term “ thing ” con
temptuously, but the witness admits that I did not use it in a
contemptuous sense. The same word occurs in some lines by
Thomas Moore:—
“ Man, in the sunshine of the world’s new spring,
Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.”
* “ Baptist Tract Magazine,” Vol. ii., p. 341.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
55
I must have used the word “ thing- ” in some such sense as is
used in these lines.
It is laid down by the Common Law that a person denying
the existence of a God is a blasphemer. It has not been
shown that I did this. I merely stated my disbelief—and
disbelief is not included by the law. There is a great differ
ence between denial and disbelief If I had said distinctly
“ there is no God,” it would have been stating that I was quite
sure of it. I could not have said that, because I am not sure
of it. I saw reasons for disbelief, but did not assert denial.
Disbelief is all I profess. Those dogmatise who affirm, rather
than those who deny a proposition. Mr. Southwell put this
point in its proper light:—
“ If God had never been affirmed, he could not have been denied. It is a
rule of logic, and a very sensible rule, that the onus frobandi, that is, the
burthen or weight of proving, rests on those who affirm a proposition.
Priests have affirmed the existence of a God, but who will maintain that
they have complied with the rule of logic ? ” *
We can only, I think, arrive at a conviction of the existence
of a God by the following modes:
1. By the medium of innate ideas, which we are said by some
divines to possess, and which intuitively lead us to entertain
the idea of a God.
2. By the senses, the sole media by which all knowledge is
acquired.
3. By conjecture.—This is employed by those who suppose
there must be a God, from their inability otherwise to account
for the existence of the universe, and are not willing to allow
it to be inexplicable.
4. By analogy.—Comparison is the basis of this argument.
Analogy is the foundation of natural theology.
5. By revelation.—In this country the Bible is said to contain
the revelation of a God.
Of these it may be remarked:—
1. Innate ideas.—With regard to these, very conclusive
reasons have been advanced by eminent philosophers for dis
believing that we have any. And human experience confirms
this conclusion. Some nations, as the people of the Arru
Islands, have no idea of a God. So this source of knowledge
concerning one is, to say the least, dubious.
* Oracle af Reason, No. 31, p. 251.
�56
THE HISTORY OF THE
2. The Senses.—“ No man hath seen God at any time ” is a
sufficient reply to this; for the same may be affirmed of every
other sense, which is here affirmed of sight.
3. Conjecture.-—This defies us. We only prove our own
inability and multiply difficulties. For when we suppose a
God, we cannot suppose how he came, nor how he created
something out of nothing, which is held by the learned to be
plainly impossible.
*
4. Analogy will not inform us. A small pivot or wheel
cannot infallibly indicate to us the mechanism to which it
belongs, nor anything conclusive as to whether the whole had
only one or more makers. So of the universe, no part can
shadow forth the whole of that, nor inform us conclusively
whether it had a creator or creators. And here it is to be
observed the difficulty is greater than with machines—for a
pivot or wheel is a finite part of a finite whole, and both com
prehensible : but with the universe, all we can take cognizance
of is but a very finite part of an infinite whole, and that whole
to all men acknowledgedly incomprehensible. Moreover, creation
can have no analogy; no one ever saw or can conceive of
anything being created. So that this mode of learning the
existence of a God fails. The Rev. Hugh M‘Neile, M.A.,
minister of St. Jude’s Church, Liverpool, in a lecture delivered
to above four hundred of the Irish clergy, at the Rotunda in
Dublin, said in reference to this part of the question, “ I am
convinced, I say, that, from external creation, no right con
clusion can be drawn concerning the moral character of God.
Creation is too deeply and disastrously blotted in consequence
of man’s sin, to admit of any satisfactory result from an
adequate contemplation of nature. The authors of a multitude
of books on this subject have given an inadequate and partial
induction of particulars. Already aware (though perhaps
scarcely recognising how or whence) that ‘ God is love,’ they
have looked on nature for proofs of this conclusion, and taken
what suited their purpose. But they have not taken nature
as a whole, and collected a conclusion fairly from impartial
premises. They expatiate on the blessings and enjoyments
of life, in the countless tribes of earth, air, and sea. But if
* Since this time Mr. Francis William Newman has put this argument
unanswerably in these words : “ A God uncaused and existing from eternity
is to the full as incomprehensible as a world uncaused and existing from
eternity.”—“ The Soul,” p. 36. Second edition.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
57
life be a blessing, death is a curse. Nature presents the
universal triumph of death. Is this the doing of a God of
love ? or are there two Gods—a kind one, giving life; and an
unkind one, taking it away; and the wicked one invariably
the victor ? In external creation, exclusively and adequately
contemplated, there is no escape from Manichseism. It is vain
to say that the death of the inferior creatures is a blessing to
man; for why, in the creation of a God of love, should any
such necessity exist ? And how would this account for the
death of man himself? ” So far the argument of analogy.
5. Revelation.—We have none. If others ever had, we can
only determine it by human reason, and for this purpose
Leslie has furnished his well-known rules. Therefore, as
revelation means something superadded to reason, we cannot
be said to possess it; for reason has to determine what is, and
what is not, revelation, and therefore is superior to it. Also,
it is contended by divines that, but for the Bible, we should
know nothing of a God, which shows the unsatisfactory nature
of the four methods of learning his existence we have gone
through. And Lord Brougham contends that but for natural
theology, or the analogy argument, which has been shown to
be no argument at all, the Bible would have no other basis
than mere tradition.So you see, gentlemen, the philosophical difficulties besetting
the path of a young inquirer into sacred things. These diffi
culties are to me insuperable, and hence I find myself inca
pable of employing language you are more fortunate in being
able to adapt to your conscience.
*
But it has been stated I said I would put the Deity on half
pay. After first stating that I did not believe there was a
Deity, is it likely I should say I would put him on half-pay ?
Would you put a servant on half-pay whom you never hired
or had ? All my expressions went to prove that I referred to
the expenses of religion. I could not suppose that there is a
being capable of governing the world, and consider him good
* The object of this passage was to show the jury the intellectual difficul
ties belonging to this subject, and the passage was an episode among other
issues I raised. A friend of mine asking the late W. J. Fox, at one of
Dr. Elliotson’s seances (who had read the report of the trial), what he
thought of the defence. “ Oh, it turned upon that eternal conundrum, the
existence of God,” was the answer. But I had something more serious in
my defence than the frivolity that employs itself on riddles.
�58
THE HISTORY OF THE
and kind, and yet have any intention of bringing him into con
tempt. I had no personal reference to the Deity. If I made
use of that figure of speech it was because I thought they
would understand it better, and it seems they did understand it.
I said we had many heavy burdens to pay to capitalists and
others, and that I thought they hung like a millstone round us.
Sir R. Peel said, when he introduced the income-tax, that the
poor man could bear no more. I said there were twenty-four
millions taken from us for the support of religion, and that
they would do well to reduce that one-half. Suppose, gen
tlemen, that I did refer to the Deity, was my notion a dis
honourable one ? What man of you who had enough and to
spare, and seeing the people around him in poverty, would
not willingly relinquish part of his income to give them a bare
subsistence ? Who will deny that in England there are
honest, industrious, hard-working men, honourable women,
and beautiful children, who have not the means of obtaining
food ? Did I do him a disgrace if I thought he, who is called
our Father, the Most High, would have dispensed with onehalf of the lip-service he receives in order to give his creatures
necessaries ?
[It being nearly four o’clock, the jury asked leave to retire,
to which Mr. Holyoake consenting, they left the Court for a
short time. Some ladies who represented themselves as wives
of clergymen, came round the dock offering Mr. Holyoake
confections and refreshment, and expressing their regret at
the treatment he had received and the position in which he
was placed.]
Mr. Holyoake, on resuming, said—According to a calcula
tion that has never been disputed, the
“ Catholics, numbering ..
Protestants
„
..
Greek Church „
>■
Total of Christians
..
Pay to their Clergy.
124,672,000 .. £6,106,000
54,046,000 .. 11,906,000
41,000,000 ..
,£760,000
219,718,000
^18,762,000
“ Of which England, for twenty-one millions of people, pays
more than one-half.”* Thus the English pay five times more
according to their numbers. I proposed a reduction of only
one-half.
* “ Cheap Salvation,” By Henry Hetherington.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
59
Mr. W, J. Fox has told us—“ If the government of the
country disposed of the mismanaged funds of the clergy, they
would have sufficient for their annual needful expenditure.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—If you can convince the jury that
your only meaning was that the incomes of the clergy ought
to be reduced, and that you did not intend to insult God, I
should tell the jury you ought not to be convicted. You need
not go into a laboured defence of that.
Mr. Holyoake.—It was stated by one of the witnesses at
Cheltenham that I said Christians are worshippers of Mam
mon. I thought it necessary for me to refer to it.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—There is no evidence of that.
Mr. Holyoake.—Then turn to the question, What is blasphemy ?
In the case of Mr. Southwell, one of the witnesses for the
prosecution stated his opinion that the crime was “ bringing a
scandal on the religion of the magistrates” Perhaps this is as
correct a definition as can be given. It has been said to be
“an injury to God.” Men who could not string six sentences
together grammatically have told me they would defend
God—men whom I should be ashamed to have defending me.
But blasphemy is impossible in the sense of annoyance to
God. Jonathan Edwards says, “The following things may
be laid down as maxims of plain truth and indisputable
evidence:—
“ i. That God is a perfectly happy being, in the most abso
lute and highest sense possible.
“ 2. It will follow from hence that God is free from every
thing that is contrary to happiness: and so that in strict pro
priety of speech there is no such thing as any pain, grief, or
trouble in God.
“ 3. Where any intelligent being is really crossed and dis
appointed, and things are contrary to what he truly desires,
he is less pleased, or has the less pleasure, his pleasure and
happiness are diminished, and he suffers what is disagreeable
to him, or is the subject of something that is of a nature con
trary to joy and happiness, even pain and grief.
“ From this last maxim it follows, that if no distinction is to
be admitted between God’s hatred of sin and his will with
respect to the event and existence of sin, as the all-wise deter
miner of all events, under the view of all consequences through
the whole compass and series of things; I say, then, it cer
tainly follows, that the coming to pass of every individual act
of sin is truly, all things considered, contrary to his will, and
�6o
THE HISTORY OF THE
that his will is really crossed in it, and that in proportion as
he hates it. And as God’s hatred of sin is infinite, by reason
of the infinite contrariety of his holy nature to sin, so his will
is infinitely crossed in every act of sin that happens; which is
as much as to say, he endures that which is infinitely dis
agreeable to him, by means of every act of sin he sees com
mitted—and so he must be infinitely crossed and suffer infinite
pain every day, in millions of millions of instances, which
would be to make him infinitely the most miserable of all
beings.” *
But blasphemy is an antiquated accusation. In a work f by
Col. Peyronnet Thompson, it is remarked—“ what a turmoil,
what a splutter, was in this land, when men first announced
that they would not eat fish, they would not bow down, they
would not confess but when they liked, and this because the
secret had got wind that these things were either not in the
priests’ own rule, or were against it! What threats of hell
flames, what splashing about of fire and brimstone, what
registration of judgments on men choked with a beef-steak
on Friday! Look at one of those simple men in the present
day, who shock themselves with the barouches, the cigars, the
newspapers, and the elephants of a London Sunday, and
occasionally digress to Paris, for the keener excitation of
seeing Punch upon the Boulevards, and wondering where
heaven reserves its thunder. And put the parallel case, that
a good Austrian or Navarrese Catholic came here, and
grieved his heart with our weekly doings on a Friday, to say
nothing of our more wholesale offences for forty days together
in Lent, ‘ Such frying; such barbecuing; in no place did I
see anybody having the smallest notion of a red herring 1 All
are involved in one flood of sin and gravy I How fathomless
the patience of heaven, that such an island is not swallowed
up of the deep ! ’ We have looked into the rule he professes
to go by, and we declare it is not there, but the contrary.
We know we must appear in the next world with all our
mutton on our heads. But we have done our best to look at
the rule with the light that God has given us; and in spite of
* Quoted from “ A Commentary on the Public Discussion on the subjects
of Necessity and Responsibility,” &c. By Jonathan Jonathan, late of the
United States.
t “ The Question of Sabbath Observance, tried by the Church’s own rule,”
&c. By Col. Peyronnet Thompson, F.R.S., of Queen’s College, Cambridge.
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61
Austria or Navarre, we will take the risk of His not beingangry with us, for seeing no prohibition of mutton there.”
Thus we see that mutton-eating was at one period blas
phemous.
Mr. Sergeant Talfourd told the jury, in the case of Hethering
ton v. Moxon, that if the government were consistent in carry
ing out prosecutions for blasphemy, Shakspere, Milton, Byron,
Shelley, Southey, might be prohibited. This, perhaps, would
be an agreeable result to a reverend gentleman well known
in this court and county, who says all science should be
destroyed; but I trust you entertain no such feelings, and
that if I can show that my sentiments cannot be productive of
harm, you will feel called upon to acquit me. I claim no
inherent right of expressing my opinions; I only contend for
liberty of expression because required for the public good.
A doctrine was laid down by Lord John Russell upon the
occasion of the presentation of the Natfoual Petition, which I
will quote as a view of the subject of human rights well
expressed.
“I am aware,” he said, “that it is a doctrine frequently
urged, and I perceive dwelt upon in this petition, that every
male of a certain age has a right, absolute and inalienable, to
elect a representative to take his place among the members
in the Commons’ House of Parliament. Now, sir, I never
could understand that indefeasible right. It appears to me
that that question, like every other in the practical application
of politics, is to be settled by the institutions and the laws of
the country of which the person is a native. I see no more
right that a person twenty-one years of age has to elect a
member of Parliament than he has to be a juryman. I con
ceive that you may just as well say that every adult male has
a right to sit upon a jury to decide the most complicated and
difficult questions of property, or that every man has a right
to exercise the judicial functions, as the people did in some of
the republics of antiquity. These things, as it appears to me,
are not matters of right; but if it be for the good of the people
at large, if it be conducive to the right government of the
state, if it tend to the maintenance of the freedom and welfare
of the people, that a certain number, defined and limited by a
reference to a fixed standard of property, should have the
right of electing members of Parliament, and if it be disad
vantageous to the community at large that the right of suffrage
should be universal, then I say that on such a subject the con
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THE HISTORY OF THE
sideration of the public good should prevail, that legislation
must act upon it as on every other, and that no inalienable
right can be quoted against that which the good of the whole
demands.”
If Lord Russell did not, I do see a difference between the
claim of an elector and the right of a juryman. The elector
is chiefly concerned with his own interests, the juryman with
other people’s—one is simple, the other complex. But with
the measure of right laid down by his lordship in the senti
ments I have quoted, I perfectly accord, and if it could be
shown that freedom of expression produced public harm, then
I would give it up. But I believe such a right would produce
good, and therefore I claim it at your hands upon the ground
of public good.
In what I urge, it is not faith but reason, as far as I under
stand it, that I take for my guide—a rule of argument I trust
you will accept. “Reason contents me” was inscribed as
the motto on the seal of the letter from Sir James Graham,
acknowledging the receipt of the Cheltenham memorial. If
reason “ contents ” the Secretary of State and “ fountain of
justice,” surely it ought to “ content ” the channels through
which such justice is diffused over society. Reason would
always be preferred by us were we not differently instructed.
“Bewildered,” says Diderot, “in an immense forest during
the night, and having only one small torch for my guide, a
stranger approaches, and thus addresses me: 1 Friend, blow
out thy light if thou wouldst make sure of the right path? The
‘forest’ was the world—the ‘light’ was my reason—the
‘ stranger ’ was a priest.”
After several quotations showing the dubious and often per
nicious influences of sacred authority, Mr. Holyoake observed:
Religious sanctions are regarded only by the ignorant, whom
they confirm in folly. The good find their sanction in the
satisfaction of a virtuous act performed. In an address of the
Rev. F. Close, delivered a short time since at the Church of
England Tradesmen and Working Men’s Association of
Cheltenham, he said “ that the more a man is advanced in
human knowledge the more is he opposed to religion, and the
more deadly enemy he is to the truth of God.” If this
Christian minister is to be believed, then may you burn your
books, forsake all mental refinement, and be equal in piety
and ignorance. If Christianity is opposed to human improve
ment, then should all systems of ignorance be patronized by
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Christians. Sentiments like these would lead us to give up
Boyle, Locke, and Newton, and regard them, with the Rev.
Mr. Close, with detestation.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—Let me see the discourse of Mr.
Close from which you are quoting.
The book was handed to his lordship.
Mr. Holyoake.—If the correctness of that report be doubted,
I may state that the sentiments of Mr. Close were replied to
by Mr. Grantley Berkeley.
Permit me now to draw your attention strongly to what
has been said by men in authority of the impolicy of these
prosecutions—that even if you were justified in inflicting
punishment on me, it would not be wise to do so. Lord
Brougham, three or four years ago, said, “I may underrate
the power of truth opposed to error, and I may overrate the
good sense of my fellow-countrymen in rejecting it, but one
thing I do not overrate—the power of persecution to spread
that which persecution only can spread.” When I walk
through any of those ancient places, as I did yesterday
through your beautiful cathedral, I feel the majesty they ever
present, and think of the manner in which our Catholic
ancestors acted on the minds of men. There were sublimity,
and pageantry, and pomp to create awe. We have none now
of that beauty of architecture in our meagre churches and
more meagre chapels. They had a service more imposing
than we ever had. Recollecting all these things, I have won
dered how anything could be found sufficiently powerful to
shake them off. I have wondered how Luther, with his rude
vulgarity, could have effected so much. I can only account
for it in this way—that when the Catholics dragged his fol
lowers to gaol, it was found that human feelings were stronger
than human creeds.
These prosecutions are entirely in opposition to the senti
ments promulgated by yourselves, as appears from a book
given me in gaol called the “ Manual of Devotion.” I
amused myself by contrasting the profession contained in it
with the practice of my opponents. It is published by the
“ Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.” In the “ Dis
course concerning Prayer ” it is laid down that the “ second
qualification for prayer is charity or love. There is nothing
so contrary to the nature of God, nothing so wide of the true
spirit of a Christian, as bitterness and wrath, malice and
envy; and therefore it is vain to think that even our prayers
�64
THE HISTORY OF THE
can be acceptable to God, till we have put on, as the elect of
God, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meek
ness, long-suffering-, forbearing one another, and forgiving
one another, as St. Paul commands.” Gentlemen, where are
these sentiments evinced in this prosecution ?
The “ third qualification is faith. If any of you lack wis
dom, says St. James, let him ask of God, but let him ask in
faith.” My prosecutors have asked, and Mr. Bubb have had,
faith in policemen, and confidence only in the “ common law.”
The “ fourth qualification is—That in all things of a tem
poral concern, we must exercise an entire submission to the
will of God. A good Christian will be sure to leave the issue
in God’s hands.” In my case not the will of God, but the
will of bigots was done, and the “ issue ” left in the turnkey’s
hands.
The “ fifth qualification is—That the person praying hath
a good intention; that he asks for a good end. We must
not pray as the revengeful man when he prays for authority,
that he may have the more power to effect his evil designs.”
What can be more wholly condemnatory of these proceedings
than these instructions of the “ Manual of Devotion ? ”
When the “ Life of Christ,” by Dr. Strauss, appeared in
Berlin, contrary to usages in such matters, the Prussian go
vernment consulted the clergy to ascertain from them whether
it would not be prudent to prohibit this extraordinary pro
duction. The celebrated Bishop Neander was commissioned
by the ecclesiastical body of Berlin to peruse the book and
return an answer. Neander did so, and declared, in reply,
that the work submitted to his examination threatened, it was
true, the demolition of all creeds; nevertheless, he requested
that full liberty should notjae denied to his adversary, in order
that full and free discussion might be the only judges between
truth and error. And when asked whether it should be pro
secuted, said, “ No, I will answer it.”
Mr. Justice Erskine.—That work was temperately written.
Mr. Holyoake.—Neander did reply to it, and Strauss had
the manliness to acknowledge that it had corrected many of
his errors. Would that have been done had he been prose
cuted ? Dr. Strauss’s work on the Scriptures got him a pro
fessor’s chair in Germany. In this country it would have
made him amenable to the common law, and to one, two, or
three years’ imprisonment.
Gentlemen, in the pertinacity of my open reply to Maitland,
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you may find something- objectionable, but I happen to be an
admirer of that sentiment expressed by the honest “ Vicar of
Wakefield”—“In all human institutions a smaller evil is
allowed to procure a greater good; as in politics, a province
may be given away, to secure a kingdom; in medicine, a limb
may be lopt off, to preserve the body; but in religion, the law
is written and inflexible, never to do evil.” Then, gentlemen,
I ought to be tolerated in the truthfulness of my answer.
Milton, in his Prose Works, in reference to an incident in his
*
travels, says:— “ While I was on my way back to Rome, some merchants
informed me that the English Jesuits had formed a plot
against me, if I returned to Rome, because I had spoken too
freely of religion; for it was a rule which I had laid down to
myself in those places, never to be the first to begin any con
versation on religion—but if any questions were put to me
concerning my faith, to declare it without any reserve or fear.”
This is the rule which I myself have followed in this case.
Since his lordship—with more liberality than is customary,
and with more philosophy than I expected on matters of reli
gion (on which I hear his lordship thinks very devoutly)—has
said that any religion may be discussed in temperate lan
guage, it is not necessary for me to prove, as I should have
done, that it would be useless liberty for me to entertain
opinions without permission to publish them. The only ques
tion is whether, in the expression of these opinions, I used a
proper kind of language. I think I have proved that I was
far from having any of those “ malicious ” feelings the indict
ment presupposes. Many figures of speech have been used
in this court from which my feelings revolted as much as those
of any person could from what I said. No allowance is made
for this, and too much importance is attached to what is
assumed to be ridicule. A short time ago it was argued, that
if the political squibs which are seen in shop-windows were
permitted to be published, they would bring government into
contempt, and you would soon have no government. Their
publication has been permitted. Have we no government
now ? I feel the utility of a government, and no force of
ridicule could shake my belief in the importance of good
government. So it is with religion. Nothing that is uttered,
* Milton’s Prose Works, pp. 933-4, 8vo edition.
Edited by Fletcher.
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THE HISTORY OF THE
however contemptuous, can bring it into contempt, if it really
is useful and beneficial. We might defy all the wits and
caricaturists in the world to bring the problems of Euclid into
contempt. No man can bring into contempt that which is
essential and true.
The counsel who opened the case did not state whether the
indictment was at statute or common law.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—Common law.
Mr. Holyoake.—Then, gentlemen of the jury, I shall draw
your attention to that, and I hope I shall be able to explain
the law bearing on my case.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—The jury must take the law from me.
I am responsible for that.
Mr. Holyoake.—I know, my lord; but still I may refer to
it. 'A friend of mine consulted the works bearing upon the
law of this case.
*
I have here the results of his labours, and,
if I am wrong, your lordship will, in summing up, correct
me.
Gentlemen of the jury, the common law is a judge-made
law. A judge laid down, some years ago, that to say any
thing against the Christian religion was an indictable offence.
Another judge followed him and said the sameI and at last it
came not to be doubted. If I show there is no law properly
made in Parliament assembled, you ought to acquit me.
The offence with which I am charged is an offence at
common law. There is no statute which punishes a man
simply for denying the existence of God. There is a statute
(9 and 10 Wm. III., c. 32) directed against those who denied
the Trinity and who renounced Christianity. But the former
part has been repealed, in favour of Unitarians, by the 5 3rd
Geo. III., c. 160; and the words I am charged with having
spoken cannot be brought within the latter. There is a
statute against profane cursing and swearing (19 Geo. II. c.
21), but it takes no cognisance of this offence. Human beings
have also been put to death for witchcraft (33 Hen. VIII.,
c. 8 ; and 1 James I., c. 12), under the merciless statutes
which were enacted in times of the grossest ignorance and
superstition; but those statutes have been repealed (9 Geo. II.,
c. 5). This offence, therefore, is an offence against the com
mon law, if it is an offence at all. It is to be found in the
* I was indebted to Mr. J. Humffreys Parry, barrister, now Mr. Serjeant
Parry, for the revision of the argument I employed.
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■b7
recorded decisions of the judges, if it is to be found anywhere,
and the punishment for it is in their discretion. Had it been
an offence under a statute, it would have been impossible for
me to have denied the authority of the statute; but, as it is an
offence at common law, it is quite competent for me to show
that the authorities which have been supposed to constitute
•the offence do not warrant such a construction. Should your
lordship even declare that you had no doubt upon the subj'ect,
it would still be competent for me to bring before you the
decisions of former judges, to argue upon those decisions, and
to show, if I could, that there was some mistake or error
running throughout the whole of them. Your lordship, I am
sure, will admit that judges are fallible, and that a blind,
unreasoning submission to them no man should give. As
some excuse for presuming to doubt the decision of some of
your lordship’s predecessors, I shall quote the following
passage from the preface to Mr. Watkin’s treatise on Con
veyancing, allowed to be a master-piece of legal sagacity and
method. “ I believe,” writes that gentleman, “ it will be
found, on examination, that an implicit submission to the
assertions of our predecessors, whatever station those prede
cessors may have held, has been one of the most certain
sources of error. Perhaps there is nothing which has so much
shackled the human intellect, nothing which has so greatly
promoted whatever is tyrannic, preposterous, and absurd,
nothing perhaps which has so much degraded the species in
the scale of being as the implicit submission to individual
dicta.” And he then goes on in vigorous terms to reprobate
the practice of allowing “ authority to shoulder out common
sense, or adhering to precedent in defiance of principle.”
Upon the principle contained in this passage I shall act, in
claiming the attention of your lordship, and you, gentlemen of
the jury, whilst I examine the authorities for the doctrine
which brings the offence with which I am charged within the
jurisdiction of the temporal courts. Your lordship will,
perhaps, refer to those books.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—No need of that. If it is not an
offence at common law, this indictment is worth nothing.
You can take it before the fifteen judges on a writ of error.
I sit here, not to correct the law, but merely to administer it.
*
* I have been told by a legal friend of great experience, that at this point
I might have taken the judge at his word, and have carried the case before
the judges for decision; but I was unacquainted with the forms of law in
such cases, and I moreover distrusted the judge.
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THE HISTORY OF THE
Mr. Holyoake resumed.—In the fourth volume of “ Black
stone’s Commentaries,” p. 59, in speaking- of offences against
God and religion, that writer says, “The fourth species of
offences, therefore, more immediately against God and reli
gion, is that of blasphemy against the Almighty, by denying
his being or providence, or by contumelious reproaches of our
Saviour, Christ. Whither also may be preferred all profane
scoffing at the Holy Scripture, or exposing it to contempt and
ridicule. These are offences punishable at common law by
fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporal punish
ment ; for Christianity is part of the laws of England.” Black
stone quotes, in support of the first species, a volume of
“Ventris’ Reports,” p. 298, and the second from the second
volume of “Strange’s Reports,” p. 834. Mr. Christian, the
commentator upon Blackstone, adds, in a note, a passage
from the “Year Book” (34 Henry VI.), folio 43.
The earliest case is that from the “ Year Book,” in the
34th year of Henry VI. (1458). Mr. Christian quotes from
it this passage—“ Scripture est common ley, sur quel toutes
manieres de leis sont fondes ” (i.e., Scripture is common law,
upon which all descriptions of laws are founded). Were this
quotation correct, and did the word Scripture here mean
“ Holy Scripture,” or what is generally understood by the
Bible, then I admit this passage would be a good foundation
to build up Mr. Judge Blackstone’s law. But then it is no
such thing. The case in the “ Year Book ” is a case of quare
impedit, and, in the course of the argument, the question arose
whether, in a matter of induction to a benefice by the ordinary
(i.e., the bishop), the common law would take notice of, or be
bound by, the law or practices of the church. Whereupon,
Chief Justice Prisot says—“ To such laws, which they of the
holy church have in ‘ ancient writing,’ it becomes us to give
credence, for such is common law, upon which all descriptions
of laws are founded. And therefore, sir, we are obliged to
recognise their law of the holy church—likewise they are
obliged to recognise our law. And, sir, if it appears to us
now that the bishop has done as an ordinary should do in
such a case, then we ought to judge it good—if otherwise,
bad.”
In this passage, then, there is not one word about Scripture
in the sense of “ Holy Scripture.’’ Judge Prisot says, “ To
such laws as the church has in ancient scripture {i.e., ancient
writing) we ought to give credence.” And what does he
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mean by “laws which the church has in ancient writing?”
not any laws that are to be found in the Bible, but the canon
or ecclesiastical laws by which the temporal concerns of the
church are guided. And the reason he uses the phrase
“ ancien scripture,” or ancient writing, is that the laws were
not then printed; the only record of them was in writing.
Printing had not been introduced into England, and was only
just discovered on the continent; the laws, therefore, of the
spiritual and temporal courts were only to be seen in writing.
And as though there should be no doubt as to his meaning,
he goes on to say, “ And as we are obliged to recognise their
laws (that is, the ecclesiastical laws, or laws of the spiritual
courts), so they are obliged to recognise our laws (that is, the
laws of the temporal courts).” It must, therefore, be evident
that this quotation of Mr. Christian is a perversion or mistake,
a judicial forgery or a judicial blunder, and in either case its
authority is of no value. It must be dismissed altogether from
our minds in considering what the law is upon this point—
that is, whether Christianity is or is not a part and parcel of
the law of England. Unfortunately, however, we shall find
that this case is actually made the substratum of the law. In
proving, therefore, that it cannot warrant such a law, surely I
prove that at common law, at least to speak against Christ
ianity, is not an offence.
The next case is that in Ventris’ Report, vol. I, p. 293. It
is called Taylor’s case, and Chief Justice Hale certainly
declares explicitly in this case, “ that Christianity is parcel of
the laws of England.’’ But he cites no authority whatever.
In the case analysed from the Year Book, it is expressly
said that the common law is to be found in “ ancient writings,”
and the unsupported dictum of a judge in the middle of the
seventeenth century cannot be.construed as a part of the
ancient writings of the common law. Either the law already
existed or it did not. If it did, the question is—where is it ?
If it did not, Chief Justice Hale could not then make it for the
first time; and this case in Ventris’ cannot be said to lay down
the law. The case in the second volume of Strange is The
King v. Woolston. The defendant had been convicted of
writing four blasphemous discourses against the divinity and
character of Christ; and upon attempting to move in arrest of
judgment, the court declared they would not suffer it to be
debated whether to write against Christianity in general was
an offence punishable in the temporal courts of common law.
�7°
THE HISTORY OF THE
And they cited Taylor’s case, which has been shown to be an
insufficient authority, or rather no authority at all, and The
King v. Hale, in the same volume of Strange, p. 416, but
which was an indictment under the statute (9 & 10 Wm. III.)
for speaking against the Trinity, and therefore cannot in any
way support the common law doctrine.
The first person who called attention to the utter want of
authority in the common law for the dictum “ that Christianity
was part of the common law,” was Jefferson, the second pre
sident of America—himself a profound lawyer, and to his
references I am indebted for the foregoing authorities, which,
however, have been carefully verified. Mr. Jefferson, in a
letter to Major Cartwright, to be found in vol. ii., p. 272, of
his “Memoirs,” exposes the mode in which this law was
created. Alluding to the case of Prisot, he says, “ Finch, in
his first book, c. 3, is the first who afterwards quotes this
case. He misstates it thus; ‘ To such laws of the church as
have warrant in Holy Scripture, our law giveth credence/
and cites Prisot, mistranslating ‘ Ancien Scripture ’ into Holy
Scripture. This was in 1613, a century and a half after the
dictum of Prisot. Wingate, in 1658, erects this false transla
tion into a maxim of the common law, copying the words of
Finch, but citing Prisot. Shephard, title ‘ Religion,’ in 1675,
copies the same mistranslation, quoting the Year Book, Finch,
and Wingate. Hale expresses it in these words: ‘Christ
ianity is parcel of the laws of England,’ but quotes no autho
rity. Wood, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and says,
‘that all blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the
common lawand Blackstone repeats the words of Hale.”
In the case of The King v. Carlile, decided since Mr. Jefferson
wrote this letter, there was no argument as to the commonlaw. The question was as to whether the statute (9 & 10
Wm. III.) had superseded the common law. But the common
law itself was not called in question, which I submit it should
be, and by a wise example superseded.
But let us see what Christianity is according to common
law. We may remark—
1. Its inconsistency.—It calls blasphemy the greatest crime
man can commit. Yet in the case of Hetherington v Moxon,
it permits the respectable blasphemer to go free. Blasphemy in
guinea volumes it allows, but exhibits the holiest horror at it
when in penny pamphlets.
2. Its barbarity, as in Peter Annet’s case.—In Michaelmas
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term, M. 3 G. 3, Peter Annet was convicted on an information
for writing- “ a most blasphemous libel,” in weekly papers
called the Free Inquirer, to which he pleaded guilty; in con
sideration of which, and of his poverty, of his having confessed
his errors in an affidavit, and of his being 74 years old, and
some symptoms of wildness that appeared on his inspection in
court, the court declared they had mitigated his punishment
to the following: To be imprisoned in Newgate for one
month; to stand twice in the pillory with a paper on his
forehead, inscribed Blasphemy; to be sent to the House of
Correction to hard labour for a year; to pay a fine of 6s. 8d.,
and to find security himself in £100, and two sureties in £50
each for his good behaviour during life.
*
3. Its capriciousness.—The common law before the time of
Henry VIII. was one thing, but afterwards it was another.
The language which was blasphemy at the first period was
not so in the other. Those expressions which insulted God
before Henry the Eighth was born did not insult him after
wards. Henry the Eighth’s opinion made the difference.
Lord Commissioner Whitelocke (5 Howell’s State Trials,
p. 826), in Debate whether James Nayler, the Quaker, should
suffer death, remarked, “ I remember a case in our Book H. 7,
where the bishop committed one to prison for a heretic, and
the heresy was denying * that tythes were due to the parson.’
This at that time was a very great heresy.”
4. Its disregard of equal justice.—A British subject would
be punished for firing into a Turkish vessel, but he is not
punishable for attacking- the captain and sailors with Bibles
and tracts, which, if they read and believe, will make them
apostates from the faith of Mahomet, and blasphemers of the
Koran. While on terms of amity with the Sublime Porte,
the laws of England restrain us from despoiling them of their
property, but not from despoiling them of their religion.-^
5. It debases religion as best set forth.—“Religion (says
Miss Martineau) is, in its widest sense, ‘the tendency of
human nature to the infinite;’ and its principle is manifested
in the pursuit of perfection in any direction whatever. It is in
this widest sense that some speculative atheists have been
religious men—religious in their efforts after self-perfection,
* Blackstone’s Reports, p. 395.
t Vide Freethinker's Information for the People.
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THE HISTORY OF THE
though unable to personify their conception of the infinite. In
a somewhat narrower sense, religion is the relation which the
highest human sentiments bear towards an infinitely perfect
being. There can be no further narrowing than this. Any
account of religion which restricts it within the boundaries of
any system, which connects it with any mode of belief, which
implicates it with hope of reward or fear of punishment, is low
and injurious, and debases religion into superstition.” How
much more is religion degraded that is made the subject of
reward and punishment here ?
Thus speaks the common law upon these points; and thus,
as part of the common law, speaks Christianity. Will you,
by a verdict of guilty this day, send forth to the world this
card of credentials of the religion of Jesus ?
The intention of a libel constitutes its criminality. It is for
you, gentlemen, to say whether I knowingly, wickedly, and
maliciously offended the law ? Malice is necessary to a libel
—conscientious words are allowable.
“Contumely and contempt are what no establishment can
tolerate; but, on the other hand, it would not be proper to
lay any restraint upon rational and dispassionate discussions
of the rectitude and propriety of the established mode of wor
ship.” 4 Bia. Com. 51; I Pmp. 219. And Mr. Starkie, on the
subject, says “ that it may not be going too far from the prin
ciples and decisions, that no author or preacher who fairly and
conscientiously promulgates the opinions with whose truth he
is impressed for the benefit of others, is for so doing amenable
as a criminal, that a malicious and mischievous intention is in
such case the broad boundary between right and wrong; and
that if it can be collected from the offensive levity with which
so serious a subject is treated, or from other circumstances,
that the act of the party was malicious, then, since the law
has no means of distinguishing between different degrees of
evil tendency, if the matter published contain any such ten
dency, the publisher becomes amenable to justice.” *
As to the duty of the jury, I have Lord Chief Justice
Abbott’s opinion, in his charge to the jury in summing up the
evidence against Mr. Joseph Russell, at the Warwick Summer
Assizes, on Friday, August 13,1819, for a political libel, being
Mr. Hone’s “ Parody on the Litany.”« Mr. Russell argued
that as Hone had been acquitted for publishing, it, he also
* Starkie on Libel, pp. 496-7.
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.ought to be. “ No one,” says his lordship, “ is more inclined
than myself to speak reverently of the decision of j'uries. But,
gentlemen, you cannot, under the sanction of an oath, take the
verdict of those j’ uries either directly or indirectly as your guide
in the verdict you are called upon to give in this case. Those
juries, no doubt, returned their verdicts honestly and con
scientiously according to the evidence that was laid before
them. What that evidence was you can know nothing of.
You are to try the question by your own consciences and by
your own reason. They might have been right in their deci
sion, and you should be careful that you are right in yours.”
After this, you will see it is clear that though a jury had
before found a person guilty of the offence I am charged with,
it will be no justification of your doing so too. [Here Mr.
Holyoake, perceiving that he would be heard fairly, and that
no attempts to put him down were practised, laid aside a
handful of notes, and said]—I have to thank your lordship,
and you, gentlemen of the jury, for the courtesy and attention
with which I have been heard. Gentlemen, if I have occupied
you long you will find my apology in the circumstance that
your verdict against me will occupy me longer. I could wish
that justice to me and your convenience had permitted brevity.
The length of my defence has originated with the charge
against me, and not with myself.
It is said that when Southey was asked if he were not
ashamed of having written Wat Tyler, he answered, “ No more
ashamed than I am of having been young.” Meaning, any
man may err in youth. So I erred in being religious in my
early days. If I am not religious now, deem me not criminal.
Religion never did me a service, how then should I love it ?
But it assailed my youth with gloomy dogmas, now it assails
my liberty.
Gentlemen, if during my address to you I have offended by
the frankness of my avowals, it has not proceeded from a dis
regard of your feelings, but from the belief that, as men, you
would prefer independence to servility of speech.
Of the nature of the charge against me I add no further
word. My only crime has been the discharge of what I con
sidered a duty. For my difference in opinion with you upon
the question of Deity, I offer no apology. * I have made no
contract to think as you do, and I owe you no obligation to do
it. If I commanded you to abjure your belief, you would dis
regard it as impertinence, and if you punish me for not
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THE HISTORY OF THE
abjuring- mine, how will you reconcile it with “doing as you
would wish to be done unto ? ”
Had I said that there is no God, still I should not deserve
the penalties of the law. If I point to the wrong I see in
this Christian country, and ask “ Is this Christianity ? ” you
would reply “ No ; what you refer to results from men who
live without God in the world.” Then, gentlemen, would you
punish me for simply saying that which other men, unpunished,,
are every day doing ?
If I have said that religious revenues should be reduced
one-half, I spoke only the dictates of humanity at this season
of national suffering. Surely it is not blasphemous to argue
that human misery should be alleviated at the expense of
spiritual pride.
I ask not equal rights with yourselves. You, as Christians,
can imprison those who differ from you. I do not offend
your pride by asking to be admitted your equals here. I
desire not such privileges. I claim merely the right to speak
my convictions—to show a man, if I can, the right path when
I think he takes the wrong one.
It is a melancholy maxim in these courts of law, that the
greater the truth the greater the libel; and so it would be
with me this day could I demonstrate to you that there is no
Deity. The more correct I am the severer would be my
punishment, because the law regards the belief in a God to
be the foundation of obedience among men. But I trust I
have convinced you that my views of this question are com
patible with the practice of all our duties to our fellow-men,
borne out by eminent authority and long experience.
Setting aside the reprobation of persecution by Middleton,
by Clarke, by Latimer, and other divines I have quoted;
Leslie, Reid, and Bulwer have contended that the objections
of the sceptic merely strengthen the fabric of piety he
pretends to assail. Gentlemen, which is to be believed,
divines and philosophers, or the common law ? These persons
speak as though they believed Christianity to be true; the
common law punishes as though it knew it to be false.
If the State religion be true, my opinion can never overcome
it; and by convicting me you publish your consciousness of
error in the cause you are placed there to defend as truth.
If God be truth, you libel him and his power, and publish the
omnipotence of error.
When in gaol I one day opened the rules drawn up by the
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75
judges. The 167th opens thus: “No prisoner shall lie.”
Now, gentlemen, how is a man to act under these circum
stances in which I am placed ? If you find me guilty upon
the indictment before you, my case stands in this manner—
if I do not lie you imprison me, and if I do you punish me.
Turning back to the morality of ancient days, and meditating
with delight on their noble sincerity and love of truth, am I to
count it a misfortune to live in modern times and among a
Christian people ?
In your churches, as I have read to you, you implore that
truth and justice may descend among men, and the supplica
tion is a noble one. Gentlemen, will you pray for truth in
your churches and brand it in your courts ?
The atmosphere of your gaols as little assimilates with my
taste as their punishments will accord with my constitution.
I seek not these things, I assure you, but when they lie in the
path of duty, I trust I shall ever prefer them to a dereliction
from it.
But, gentlemen, supposing that they are my sentiments that
you are requested to punish; you should first do yourselves
justice to reflect what has been said about them and insinu
ated in this court. Learned divines, and sage writers on
Atheism, agree that it is too absurd to need refutation—too
barren to satisfy, too monstrous to attract, too fearful to
allure, too feeble to speak, and too deathly not to appal its
own votaries. It is styled too grave to entertain youth, and
too devoid of consolation for the trembling wants of age—too
abstract for the comprehension of the ignorant, and too
unreasonable to gain the admiration of the intelligent. That
it is alarming to the timid and disquieting to the brave—that
it negatives everything, and sets up nothing, and is so purely
speculative, that it can never have a practical bearing on the
business of life. Gentlemen, will you disturb the harmony of
these conclusions by a verdict against me, and attack that
which never existed, and place upon the grave records of this
court a slaying of the self-slain ? Will you thus draw atten
tion to a subject you perhaps think had better be forgotten,
and create a conviction that it must be a greatly important
one, since you erect it into public notice by directing the
thunders of the law at a young and comparatively inexpe
rienced believer in its principles ?
Would you test my opinions by my emotions on the bed of
death ? Let me assure you, that if men can expect to die in
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THE HISTORY OF THE
peace who can send their fellow-men to a gaol because of
honest differences of opinion, I have nothing to fear.
I am told I may hold opinions, but must keep them to
myself—which means, I may know and feel what is right, but
must never do it. I must see my fellow-men in error, but
never put them right. Must live every day below the standard
of right my sense of duty and conscience sets up, and all my
life long “prove all things,” and never “hold fast to the
good.”
The indictment charges me with having “wickedly, mali
ciously, and with evil design,” against the peace of the Queen,
uttered certain words. What shadow of evidence has been
adduced to substantiate this extravagant charge ?
Will you suffer this court to proclaim the sacred nature of
an oath, and openly violate it in the same hour and under the
same roof ? I might ask in the spirit of that Christianity you
sit there to administer, how do you propose to answer to your
God in that day when the secrets of all hearts are to be
opened, when all dissembling is to be exposed, and all perjury
punished—how do you propose to answer for having invoked
the name of God in this assembly only to disregard it, on the
poor plea of precedent, that others have done so before?
For, gentlemen, there is nothing else that even the subtlest
sophistry can conjure up to justify you. But I best prefer
appealing to you, as honest men, in the spirit of my own
reasoning and thinking—as men with an eye to the improve
ment of mankind, who would break the unjust shackles that
bind them, who would discard prejudice in order to be just,
who will not condemn me because I am not rich, and who will
listen to humanity rather than to bigotry, and respect truth
fulness wherever you may find it. I believe that in every
honest heart there is a sense of rectitude that rises superior to
creeds, that respects all virtue and protects all truth, that asks
for no names and seeks no precedents before resolving- to do
rightly, that fears no man’s frowns, and dares to be just
without custom’s permit. To this feeling, gentlemen, only do
I appeal, and by its verdict I am willing to abide.
Mr. Justice Erskine.—Gentlemen of the jury, although the
lengthened address of the defendant has demanded from you
so long endurance, in this vitiated atmosphere, I still trust we
shall have enough of power left to direct our minds to the
parts of this case which are important. The greater part of
the time has been wasted on subjects with which you have
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77
nothing1 to do. We are not sitting here as a deliberate
assembly to consider whether in respect of such cases as this
it is politic or wise to imprison for opinions—whether men
ought to be punished for uttering such sentiments—and I shall
have nothing to say to you on that point. We have to decide
on the law as we find it. I shall make no law—the judges
made no law, but have handed it down from the earliest ages.
I should have no more power to alter this than to say the
eldest son is not the heir of his father. Allusion has been
made to some expressions of mine, when in the course of my
duty I directed the attention of the grand jury to these cases.
Certainly the printed report was highly incorrect. I said
nothing to prejudice them. Inasmuch as this offence directly
tended to take away that foundation on which real morality
can alone be safely based, I told them what I feel, that with
out religion there is no morality. I recommended that that
foundation may be made by early education and habits of
thought, but in so doing I did not mean to prejudge, nor do I
seem to have been considered as doing so. I am not going
to lay down as law that no man has a right to entertain
opinions opposed to the religion of the State, nor to express
them. Man is only responsible for his opinions to God, because
God only can judge of his motives, and we arrogate his duties
if we judge of men’s sentiments. If men will entertain senti
ments opposed to the religion of the State, we require that
they shall express them reverently, and philosophers who
have discussed this subject all agree that this is right. Mr.
Archdeacon Paley has stated this in language so plain, far
better than any words I could supply myself. “ Serious
arguments are fair on all sides. Christianity is but illdefended by refusing audience or toleration to the objections
of unbelievers. But whilst we would have freedom of inquiry
restrained by no laws but those of decency, we are entitled to
demand, on behalf of a religion which holds forth to mankind
assurances of immortality, that its credit be assailed by no
other weapons than those of sober discussion and legitimate
reasoning.” Our law has adopted that as its rule, and men
are not permitted to make use of indecent language in refer
ence to God and the Christian religion, without rendering
themselves liable to punishment. You have had a great
number of books read to you, arguing whether it was politic
to prosecute in such cases. One of the sentiments was a dig
nitary’s reply, “I will answer it.” That points out the
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THE HISTORY OF THE
difference in these cases. Sober argument you may answer,
but indecent reviling you cannot, and therefore the law steps
in and punishes it. You have been told you have to consider
what is blasphemy. Defendant asked the witness what he con
sidered blasphemy, and he gave him a very sensible answer.
What you have to try is, whether the defendant wickedly and
devisedly did intend to bring the Christian religion into con
tempt amongst the people, by uttering words of and con
cerning Almighty God, the Holy Scriptures, and the Christian
religion. The charge is, that he uttered these words with the
intention of bringing Almighty God, the Christian religion,
and the Holy Scriptures into contempt. You are not called
upon to say whether, in your judgment, the opinions of the
defendant are right or wrong—whether it is right or wrong
that words like these should be punished, but whether he
uttered these words with the intent charged in the indictment.
These words were proved by a witness who admits that others
were used, that they did not follow consecutively, and that
other words were interspersed. It is right that you should
have the whole set before you, for a man is not to be judged
for what is partly set before you, and therefore it was neces
sary you should have the whole of what was said. The way
in which the witness related the statements made by defendant
was this: He said he had been lecturing on “ Home Colonisa
tion, Emigration, and Poor Laws Superseded.” After the
lecture had been closed, some man whose name he did not
then know, said the lecturer had been speaking of our duty to
our fellow-men, but he had not spoken of our duty to our
God, and it is important that you should notice that the words
were not the subject of the lecture, but uttered in answer to a
question put to him. There is no evidence that he intended
to have said anything—there is no evidence that this person is
a friend of the other person, or that this question was asked
so as to give him an opportunity of uttering these sentiments.
*
If that had been the case it would have made it worse than if
he had introduced it. This challenge having been made by
this person, whoever it was, the defendant said, “ I am of no
religion at all I I do not believe in such a thing as a God.”
There is nothing in the introduction of the word “ thing ” to
* The artifice which Mr. Justice Erskine here suggested to the jury never
entered into my imagination. The evidence could not have given the jury
any such idea, and I was pained and astonished to hear the judge employ it.
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show that he intended to treat the subj’ect with levity and
contempt. You might take it that he said he did not believe
there is such a being as a God. The witness went on: “ He
said the people of this country are too poor to have any reli
gion, he would serve the Deity as the government did the
subaltern officers—place him on half-pay; I was near the
door; you said the reason was the expense of religion. And
then he was asked as to his opinion of blasphemy. He is then
cross-examined as to his knowledge of some report made by
another person. “ You did not lay any emphasis on the word
thing; you said the word in the ordinary tone of voice.”
There is something which defendant has alleged himself to
have stated * which gives a stronger sting than that which was
given by the witness—“ I flee the Bible as a viper.” The
question is whether these words were uttered with the inten
tion of bringing God and the Christian religion into contempt.
Then the charge is made out, for I tell you that it is an
offence at common law. If it is not an offence, the indictment
is not worth the parchment it is written upon—if there is no
such authority as that which I have laid down. Any man
who treats with contempt the Christian religion is guilty of an
indictable misdemeanour. You have to consider the language
and a passage read to you from a charge of a learned j’udge.
“It may not be going too far to state, that no author or
preacher is forbidden stating his opinions sincerely. By
maliciously is not meant malice against any particular indi
vidual, but a mischievous intent. This is the criterion, and it
is a fair criterion, if it can be collected from the offensive
levity in which the subj’ect is treated, if the matter in the
indictment contains any such tendency.” If the words had
appeared in the course of a written paper, you would have
entertained no doubt that the person who had uttered these
words had uttered them with levity. The only thing in his
favour is, that it was not a written answer. The solution
given by the defendant is, that although his opinions are,
unhappily, such that he has no belief in a God, he had no
intention of bringing religion into contempt. He went on to
state that he considered it the duty of the clergymen of the
establishment to have reduced their incomes one-half. If he
had meant this, he ought to have made use of other language.
* In the report of my original speech to Maitland, which I read to the
court from the Oracle.
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THE HISTORY OF THE
You will dismiss from your minds all statements in newspapers,
or other statements made out of court, and consider it in
reference to the evidence. If you are convinced that he
uttered it with levity, for the purpose of treating with con
tempt the majesty of Almighty God, he is guilty of the offence.
If you think he made use of these words in the heat of argu
ment without any such intent, you will give him the benefit of
the doubt. If you are convinced that he did it with that
object, you must find him guilty, despite of all that has been
addressed to you. If you entertain a reasonable doubt of his
intention, you will give him the benefit of it.
The jury, after a very brief deliberation, returned a verdict
of Guilty.
[One of the jury was a Deist, a professed friend of free
speech, and who had said that he never could convict me, but
he wanted courage when the hour of the verdict came, and
gave in against me. For myself, I never for a moment
expected an acquittal. During the few moments of the jury’s
consultation, I took my watch from my neck, and gave it, with
my keys, to my friend, Mr. Knight Hunt. My papers I con
signed to my friend, Mr. W. B. Smith, as, for all I knew, they
might the next moment become the property of the court by
virtue of the sentence.]
Mr. Justice Erskine.—George Jacob Holyoake, if you had
been convicted as the author of that paper which Adams has
been convicted of publishing, my sentence must have been
very severe. But, although the name is the same, there is no
evidence of it. You have been convicted of uttering language,
*
and although you have been adducing long arguments to
show the impolicy of these prosecutions, you are convicted of
having uttered these words with improper levity. The arm
of the law is not stretched out to protect the character of the
Almighty; we do not assume to be the protectors of our God,
but to protect the people from such indecent language. And
if these words had been written for deliberate circulation, I
should have passed on you a severer sentence. You uttered
* This is another of those unwarranted suppositions in which the judge
ought not to have indulged. “ That paper ” was written by my friend Mr.
Chilton, Editor of the Oracle in my absence, and signed with his initials.
The judge might have known that I was in Gloucester Gaol when it was
written and published. I should have stopped the judge and corrected him,
but I feared by seeming to separate myself from Adams, to be thought
capable of saving myself at his expense, or exposing him to new rigour.
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81
them in consequence of a question—I have no evidence that
this question was put to draw out these words. Proceeding1
on the evidence that has been given, trusting that these words
have been uttered in the heat of the moment, I shall think it
sufficient to sentence you to be imprisoned in the Common Gaol
for six calendar months.
Mr. Holyoake.—My lord, am I to be classed with thieves and
felons ?
Mr. Justice Erskine.—No; thieves and felons are sentenced
to the Penitentiary, you to the Common Gaol.
The Court adjourned at ten o’clock.
What was advanced by the counsel and the judge has been
rendered in full in the foregoing report, but I have contented
myself with an abstract of what I urged myself. The Times
said I quoted from more than thirty authors, which is very
likely; but it was not because I was not sensible of the good
taste of brevity that I occupied the bench so long. I was
standing that day in court fourteen hours, and, including the
cross-examinations, I was speaking more than eleven hours.
I prepared notes to last me two days; and after the first six
hours, my voice, usually shrill and weak, became full and
somewhat sonorous. I could have spoken all night, and I
should have done it had the judge attempted to put me down.
But I willingly acknowledge that, on the whole, the conduct
of the judge was fair to me, and patient to a degree that
inspired me with great respect for the dignity of the bench, and
I dedicated my “ Short and Easy Method with the Saints ” to
Mr. Justice Erskine, as an actual expression of my respect.
The governor of the gaol one day said to me that I ought not
to regret six months’ imprisonment after occupying the court
and public for so many hours. I did not regret it. Indeed, I
more deserved the sentence for the length of my defence than
for the words for which I was indicted. But it was the menace
of the magistrates (before recounted) that I should not be
heard, that did me the harm, and exposed me to the imputa
tion of wanting good sense, which is a worse imputation than
that of wanting orthodoxy. This came of inexperience in
imprisonment. The menaces of magistrates will not so mis
lead me another time.
When I now read the notices of these proceedings which I
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THE HISTORY OF THE
furnished to the Oracle at the time, I smile at the juvenility of
comment in which I indulged. When similarly worded
reports reach me for the Reasoner, my practice is to extract the
simple facts—and, of course, the writers remonstrate with me;
but how grateful should I be now if some one had done the
same by me then. The principle on which we proceeded
with our Oracle was that every man should express himself in
his own words and in his own way, and we thought it a crime
against freedom to distinguish between weak comment and
the report of essential facts, or the expression of vital principle.
The report of the proceedings rendered in these pages is
given, in some measure, upon the rule of discrimination which
I have described. But, in this, I have been impartial to others,
and have omitted many things on the part of my opponents
which I believe they would not repeat, and which I, therefore,
have no wish to perpetuate. The remaining variations
between this report and that which formerly appeared will be
found to be partly on the side of greater accuracy in some
respects, and more fulness in others. The original report
presented most of the quotations, calling them a string of
pearls, but left in a very unravelled state the string which tied
them—and hence they read like abrupt interpolations. I
have now given the connecting observations, the spirit of the
extracts, and, in cases where the extracts have not, since that
time, grown familiar to the public ear, I have given them
also.
The influence of my defence upon the public at Gloucester
and Cheltenham, notwithstanding the difficulties under which
I laboured, was in my favour beyond my expectation. The
newspapers stated that “ the court and jury were attentive
throughout, and the numbers who thronged the court behaved
in the most decorous manner, testifying their interest in the
proceedings by a uniform silence, manifesting neither appro
bation nor disapprobation.” Several newspapers gave nine
or ten columns of the proceedings, which was valuable propagandism. And it is due to the Cheltenham Examiner (whose
parallel between me and Francis, the regicide, the reader
will not have forgotten,) to state that it gave an effective
rendering of my defence, and added these compensatory
words to its report: tl The defendant spoke throughout in a
temperate manner, and his defence appeared to tell in his
favour, so far as regarded the honesty of his motives.”
Let me say here that my grateful acknowledgments are
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due to the Editor of the Cheltenham Free Press. That paper
reported whatever concerned my liberty, my conscience, or my
character. It risked much in defending-, alone among its local
contemporaries, the freedom of speech violated in my perSon.
It opened its columns to Mr. Goodwyn Barmby’s proclamations,
to Mrs. Catherine Barmby’s letters, to Richard Carlile’s
defences, and to the numerous communications of my friends
on my behalf.
My acknowledgments are also due to the Weekly Dispatch.
On my visiting London, “ Publicola,” then Captain Williams,
invited me to call upon him, and inform him of my position with
respect to the pending trial; and his able Letters to Justice
Erskine, after my conviction, produced great uneasiness at the
gaol, and each number of the Dispatch was awaited for some
weeks by the authorities around me, as I learned from the
gaolers, with anxiety.
My defence, considered as a defence of the wide and
momentous question of Atheism, was crude enough. No one
can be more sensible of that than I am. On the moral
aspects of Atheism and its relation to public policy I feared to
enter, lest in my own newness to the study of so large a sub
ject I should compromise it by unskilfulness of statement; I
therefore confined myself to pleading that the right of public
expression was the sequence of the right of private judgment
—that the right of expression was consonant to the common
law as well as to reason, and that the right of expression
being necessary to private morality, it could not be incom
patible with the public peace.
CHAPTER III.—AFTER THE SENTENCE.
As soon as the sentence was pronounced I was taken to the
cells under the court. Captain Mason, the governor, said
there was another prisoner to go down besides me and
Adams. It was a case of felony. He said, “ Would I go with
him?” I replied, “I would not.” He then asked if I
“ objected to go with Adams.” That I cheerfully agreed to,
and, handcuffed with Adams, I walked down to the gaol.
Having taken nothing since morning but a little raspberry
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THE HISTORY OF THE
vinegar, with which Mr. Carlile supplied me, I began to feel
weak, but nothing was offered me except a little warm water,
for which I asked, and this, with a very hard and bitter apple,
constituted my supper. The transition from the excitement of
the court to the darkness and coolness of the night-cell, made
me feel as if going into a well, and my supper not serving to
compose me, I continued restless till the morning.
Next day I felt so weak that I could scarcely stand upright.
About twelve o’clock Mr. Bransby Cooper and the Rev.
Samuel Jones came round. When Mr. Cooper saw me, he
said, “ Why, Holyoake, I did not know you yesterday.”
“ Why, sir ? ”
“You did not seem to be the same person you were
before.”
“In what respect was I different? ”
“ Before you were so gentle and submissive, but yesterday
there was so much hauteur about you.”
I answered, “ Here I had to endure your authority; in
court I had to defend my character and liberty. It was my
turn yesterday, it is yours again to-day.”
About the middle of the first day’s imprisonment I was
startled by the sonorous voice of a street-crier, passing near
the walls of the gaol, crying with a loud voice, “ Howitt’s
correct list of all the cast, quit, and condemned and speci
fying, with marked emphasis, far above that bestowed on
two cases of wilful murder, the case of ‘ George Jacob Holy
oake, for uttering certain blasphemous words against God,
and of and concerning the Christian Religion.” The above
words and specifications are to be found in the said “ Correct
List,” which a turnkey bought for me at my request, and
which I still have. On the second morning after my sentence,
I was sitting by the (very little) fire in the common room,
contemplating, with very critical air, a can of somewhat
indifferent gruel, which I had not the slightest disposition to
eat, when the prayer bell rang, which did not all improve my
temper. Where the gaol was situated, I enjoyed such a pro
pinquity to dock bells, basin bells, cathedral bells, and gaol
bells, that had I been inclined to rebel, it would have chimed
in with the others. Upon the aforesaid prayer bell ringing,
all my fellow-prisoners made a rapid escape. I could not tell
what had become of them. Over my head was a large
grating, for the convenience of gaolers overlooking the room.
Down this grating there came a tremendous voice, shouting,
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“ Holyoake! Holyoake ! Holyoake! ” The voice belonged to
Ogden, a man whom Carlyle would have delighted to honour.
Nature made him for a gaoler. Looking up, I said, “ What
do you want ? ”
“ Did you not hear that bell ? ”
“ Yes,” I said; “ what of that ? ”
“ All the other prisoners are gone to prayers.”
“Well, let the poor devils go, if they like it.”
“ I can’t be talked to in this way,” he roared out, in his sur
liest tones; “ you must go.”
“ I am afraid that is a mistake of yours.”
“ Don’t you know where you are ? ”
“ Yes; I’m in Gloucester Gaol, sitting over a can of very
bad gruel.”
“ Don’t you know you are a prisoner ? ”
“Oh, yes ! I am quite sensible of it.”
“ Well, you must do as the others do, and you must go to
prayers.”
“ Then you must carry me.”
“I’ll report you to the clergyman.”
“Give the clergyman my compliments, and say I’m not
coming to prayers.”
He stalked away with the air of one whose dignity was
greatly outraged. During the time of this colloquy prayers
were suspended, and the clergyman was waiting my arrival
in order to begin. As soon as prayers were well over, an
. order came for me—“ The clergyman wanted me”
“Well, Mr. Holyoake,” he said, when I met him, “how is
it you did not come to prayers? ”
I answered. “ You cannot expect me to come to prayers;
you imprison me here on the ground that I do not believe in a
God, and then you would take me to chapel to pray to one.
I cannot prevent your imprisoning me, but I can prevent your
making me a hypocrite, and must.”
“ But if you attended the ordinances of grace, it might lead
you to believe in the Christian religion.”
“ I should be very sorry for that.”
“ Really me—how can you say so, sir ? ”
“ Because I should be very sorry to treat those who differ
from me as you treat me.”
“ You do not understand us. It is not you we persecute—
it is your opinions.”
“ Then I wish you would imprison my opinions, and not me.”
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THE HISTORY OF THE
Here he turned to refresh himself by looking at the rules
for the regulation of prisoners in Gloucester Gaol. He
resumed—
“ But you must attend prayers—it’s the rule of the gaol.”
° I must do what I must do, I know; but, if I do that, I
must be carried into chapel every morning, and that will not
edify the remainder of your congregation. What can I do if
I go ? I could not say, ‘ O Lord, I have erred and strayed
like a lost sheep.’ You see yonder gratings ? I’m not likely
to err and stray, for the next six months, beyond those bars.”
“ Ah ! that is not what we mean.”
“ Then what do you mean ? Can I join with those men in
saying, ‘ O Lord, who hath given us grace with one accord
to make our common supplications unto thee,’ when I shall
make no supplications, unless I am forced to it ? You know
the prisoners mostly go because the turnkey is behind them ?’’
Then I showed him the passage, ‘ We have done those things
which we ought not to have done,” etc., and asked him what
I had done, or had the chance of doing, wrong, since I came
there? At this he was puzzled a little, and he at last
answered—
“ Ah I but we think there is a divine influence in prayer,
which might operate upon you.”
“ Not in this place,” I answered, “ where it is so much con
tradicted by your practice. I will agree to this, that when
on Sundays you preach, and I may hear something new, I
will come.”
He ended the colloquy after a very Christian manner, by
saying, “ Well, if you don’t come to prayers, you shall be
locked up.”
I answered, “ Well, sir, give your orders.” I need scarcely
say this was done, in one form or other, to the end of my
imprisonment. Sometimes I was locked in my sleeping cell,
but generally in the day room; but I found it more agreeable
than the litany, and I never asked for any alteration. I went
to chapel only on Sunday (the preaching day), but never to
the week-day prayers.
Offensive regulations were often sought to be applied to
me. One was an attempt to make me wear the prison dress.
I said I preferred my own clothes. The answer was, the
rules were imperative, and they must enforce them. I inquired
whether they had any spare time on their hands, for it would
be necessary to dress me every morning. My answer was
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reported to the magistrates, and I heard no more of the
project.
Out of doors much is said against passive resistance, but in
prison it is the only resistance possible, and is often very
effective. If you speak or act, you are at the mercy of those
in whose power you are. Take any aggressive step, and
your gaoler knocks you down, or locks you up in a moment.
But if you simply will not do a thing, if without bluster or
bravado you leave it to them to make you do it, or to do it
themselv.es, they often find it of rather awkward accom
plishment. To carry me to prayers or to dress me every
morning was far more offensive and troublesome to them than
breaking my head, so they left me alone.
Old Mr. Jones, the magistrate, paid me frequent visits. One
day he took me to the door, and pointing upwards, asked,
“ did I not see there proofs sufficient of the existence of a
God ? ” I answered, that “ when the boundless expanse of
the skies had been before me I had been unable to think so,
and now the few square feet, which the high walls of the gaol
permitted me to see, were still less likely to inspire me with
that conviction.”
A little reflection ought to have shown these gentlemen,
who made these appeals to me, that the time and place were
both inauspicious in which to address to me such interroga
tories. Indeed it was offensive, and on more than one occa
sion I told them, that having undertaken to compel my
acquiescence with them by imprisonment, I could never divest
myself of the conviction that it was superfluous to pretend to
win me by argument.
The last visit Mr. Jones paid was to read me a psalm. As
on my trial I had complained of the discourtesy of their calling
me a fool, the old man was particularly anxious to justify
himself. He found what seemed to him a favourable oppor
tunity in the circumstance that a German scholar had at this
time published a new translation of the Psalms of David. As
I had spoken favourably of German theologians, he concluded
that this one would have weight with me. He brought down
the book, summoned the whole class of prisoners, and we
stood twelve or eighteen in a row. Proclaiming attention, he
said he wished to read to us, and particularly to me, the 14th
Psalm. Reading aloud the first verse, where David observes,
“ the fool hath said in his heart there is no God,” Mr. Jones
said, “ Now, Holyoake, you complained that we called you a
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THE HISTORY OF THE
fool; you see David says you are a fool.” The old man
looked round with an air of triumph, which was considerably
moderated when I gently but distinctly observed that “ I no
more liked rudeness in the mouth of David than in the mouth
of a magistrate.” My fellow-prisoners glanced around in
consternation at my audacity, and expected to hear me
ordered into the dark cell, but old Mr. Jones turned round,
shut up his book, and walked away without saying a word,
and I never saw him afterwards.
The next day I wrote to the Board of Magistrates to say
that “ if visiting magistrates continued to question me before
other prisoners, where the discipline of the gaol forbade
adequate reply, I should refuse to answer.” In future I was
always called out by myself and spoken with alone.
Before my trial the same Mr. Jones told me that my friend,
Mr. Richard Carlile, had died in London a very horrible
death, recanting all his principles before he expired, and urged
me to take warning by his example and do the same. Shortly
after Mr. Jones was surprised to meet Mr. Carlile in the cor
ridor of the gaol bringing me refreshments, which his expe
rience assured him I needed. And it was not the least part
of my pride on the day of my trial that he sat near me from
morning till night, encouraging me by his presence and
assisting me by his wisdom. After my conviction he vindi
cated me assiduously through the press, addressed to me
public letters, and wrote to Justice Erskine and Sir Robert
Peel, threatening to renew his former war against the Church
if my situation was not ameliorated—a very curious species of
recantation, it must be confessed, but a fair sample of the
usual death-bed “ scenes ” which the pulpits relate.
My company as a prisoner was not of a very agreeable
kind. I had to listen to recitals of depravity such as I never
heard before, and do not wish to hear again. But this was
not all. Sometimes a companion was filthy as well as
wicked. One man sent in among us had the itch, and before
I found it out he had held me by the wrists in some accidental
wrestle, which misfortune might have subjected me to a taste
of prison discipline which few will be able to imagine •
When the surgeon finds that a prisoner has this disease he
makes no remark, but shortly after the man is called out by
the turnkey, whom he has to follow through various corridors
to remote cells at the top of the gaol, near the gallows.
Upon entering one, he is told to take off his clothes. As soon
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as he is in a state of nudity his clothes are taken away, and
locked up. He is then shown a cask filled with brimstone,
grease, and other mixture, of the consistence of pitch, and
quite as offensive to the sight. With this he is made to smear
his entire person over ; when this is done he is left locked up
in the place. All he finds about him is a bed, on which are
two blankets, in which hundreds, smeared as he is, have lain
before. When no longer able to endure the cold, he may
lie in this place. Thick and chilly, these disgusting coverings
adjust themselves to the body when softened by the warmth,
where, without caution, the liquid will run into the eyes and
mouth. Here he remains some days, and eats the uncut food
which is brought to him as well as he can with his filthy
fingers.
Such is the description of a process of cure (as I gathered
from several whose experience I heard narrated), to which I
might have been subjected, if, when I discovered indications on
my wrists similar to those on the infected man, I had not kept
them from the observation of the surgeon while they remained.
My habit of daily ablution, and some medicine I procured,
saved me from more than temporary discomfort. I need
scarcely add, that had such a cure been attempted on me, I
should have had to be carried to the place, and the applica
tion must have been effected by force.
After some weeks’ imprisonment, and when I had had
sufficient opportunity of noticing the disposition of the autho
rities, and estimating the treatment to which I was to be
subjected, I addressed the following, slightly abridged:—
“ Memorial of George Jacob Holyoake, prisonerfor Blasphemy * in Gloucester
County Gaol, to Sir fames Graham, Her Majesty's Secretary of State.
“ Sir, — At the recent Gloucester Assizes your memorialist was sentenced
by Mr. Justice Erskine to six months’ imprisonment for the alleged offence
of blasphemy.
“ Since that period he has been confiued in the common gaol and fed on
convict gruel, bread, rice, and potatoes. It is true your memorialist is
allowed the privilege of purchasing, to some extent, better food, but his
imprisonment renders this privilege valueless, without the assistance of
friends, upon whom are the claims of his family left dependent by his
incarceration.
* I always said “ Prisoner for Blasphemy ” in all my communications,
and directed my friends so to address me, to which the magistrates objected.
But' if I was to be written to at a gaol, I preferred to be known as a pri
soner for opinion rather than as a prisoner for crime.
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THE HISTORY OF THE
“ Under these circumstances your memorialist applied to the surgeon of
the gaol for other diet; by the surgeon he was referred to the governor ;
by the governor to the visiting magistrates, and by the visiting magistrates
back to the surgeon, who subsequently has recommended, though not pre
scribed, better diet; but from the recommendation of it, your memorialist
concludes that in that gentleman’s opinion it is necessary. Two other
surgeons whom your memorialist consulted on entering his prison warned
him that a generous diet was absolutely requisite, and the decay of your
memorialist’s health is a testimony of its truth.
“ He prays for other regulations than those under which he sees VISITORS.
They have always to stand, sometimes to talk through the bars of a gate,
and are permitted to stay but a few minutes. As your memorialist is far
from his friends, these rules continually prevent him seeing them, and
receiving those attentions to his wants he otherwise would.
“ He wishes permission to remain up in an evening until the hour of the
debtors’ retiring (9 o’clock), or at least to be allowed the use of a light in
his cell, in which he is confined from twelve to fourteen hours, and during
the winter he will be so shut up sixteen hours and a half. Thus much time
will be lost, your memorialist could employ upon a little mathematical
*
speculation, which would afford him the gratification of contributing him
self to the support of his family.
“ As every newspaper sent your memorialist is retained by the governor,
your memorialist prays the liberty of reading them.
“ The visiting magistrates have said they should have no objection to
grant what your memorialist asks, had they the power; and hence he prays
the exercise of your authority on his behalf.
“ As custom attaches little weight to the opinion of a prisoner, it becomes
not your memorialist to speak of his own case, but trusts he may with pro
priety refer to it as one in which he believes will be found little that is
aggravated. Seduced in the warmth of debate to express his honest
opinion on a religious question, young and inexperienced, he took not
the hypocrite’s crooked path nor the dissembler’s hidden way, but unwarily
uttered language disingenuousness would have concealed or art have
polished, and became in consequence the ready victim of Christianity.
Criminal without intention, punishment brings with it no consciousness of
guilt, and hence that which in other circumstances, would be light, is, in
his, a bitter infliction.
“George Jacob Holyoake.”
Sir James gave me permission to remain up till nine o’clock
after I had been three months in prison. But for the con
cession it required an effort to be grateful, for it was a per
mission to remain up without fire and without light. For
unless I could pay for fire and light, I had to go without.
Whether Sir James Graham intended this I have no means of
knowing; he probably expected that the magistrates would
* Mentioned to prevent the supposition on the part of Sir James that
the time would be employed in writing blasphemy, which would be fatal to
the application.
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not interpret his order as a privilege to sit up in the cold and
in the dark, which would be a greater punishment than going
to bed. But they did put this construction upon it. As Sir
James did not mention fire and light they refused to supply them.
Mathematical studies were impossible, for the authorities
also refused to allow me my instruments, lest I should commit
suicide with them; but I had provided for that, as every man
should who goes to gaol. There was j'ust width enough in
my cell to admit of the heavy iron bed-frame being raised on
one end. By marking a circle round one of the legs, which
I did with a fragment of stone, I determined the place on
which the leg would fall when the frame was pulled down.
My head once placed on that spot, the great weight of the
frame would have sent the narrow leg through the brain, and
death must have been instantaneous. I am no friend of
suicide, and had a thousand reasons for living; but I had not
been long in gaol before I saw many things to which none
but the degraded or the weak would submit—and lest they
should come to my turn, I provided against them.
A bout this time an event occurred in my family which con
verted my imprisonment into an unexpected bitterness.
Against that “ love abroad which means spite (or indifference)
at home,” I early set my face. At home, as a matter of
j’ustice, there always existed an understanding as to the risks
I ran in my free speaking. Whatever consequences fell upon
my own head alone, I had myself only to please in incurring;
but those which affected others I had no right to invoke,
without their consent—and this consent I always sought from
my wife, in any special case which arose. At our marriage,
therefore, it was understood that my life somewhat resembled
a soldier’s, and that it would often include duties and dangers
not compatible with perennial fireside comfort. Nor did she
obj’ect to this, and I have had the sweet fortune always to be
left to do whatever I should have done had I been single and
childless. On my saying, on the imprisonment of Mr.
Southwell, first Editor of the Oracle, that it was my duty to
take his place, my wife replied—“ Do what it seems your
duty to do, and I and the children will take care of ourselves
as well as we can. When they grow up, I trust they will
contemplate with little satisfaction any advantage they might
have enj’oyed at the expense of their father’s duty. We can
leave them no riches, but we may at least leave them a good
example and an unsoiled name.”
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THE HISTORY OF THE
It was therefore that when I came to leave home, to go to
my trial, all was calm and cheerful as usual, though there was
much around to cause uneven thoughts. On that day no
one came to accompany me or to spend an hour of solace
with those from whom I parted. Had there been a single
friend present to have made up the appearance of society
after I was gone, the loneliness would have been less bitter.
As I left the house I heard that cry break forth which had
been suppressed that it might not sadden my departure.
Before I had proceeded far up Windsor Street, Ashted, I was
arrested by Madeline’s silvery voice calling “ Good bye,
dada,” and turning round I saw her large, bright, black
eyes (which everybody praised,) peering like two stars round
the lintel of the door. I am glad I did not then know that I
should never hear that voice again nor see those bright eyes
any more.
To turn the attention of mankind in an atheistical direction
may do harm to some. The propagation of all new views
does harm, more or less. As in commercial speculations
much capital is sunk before any returns come in, so in the
improvement of the people, you sacrifice some old feeling
which is good, before the new opinion, which is better, can
be created. But all the new opinions I have at any time
imbibed never produced so much harm in me as the prudential
doctrines of Political Economy. The doctrine that it is dis
reputable in the poor to have children is salutary, no doubt,
but it requires to be enforced under limitation. To regard
the existence of little ones as an expense, and the gentle
love of children as a luxury in which you cannot indulge
without reproach, is, beyond all doubt, bad for those whose
tender years should be passed in a perpetual smile of joy.
To look into the face of your child and feel that the hand
of death, which shall hush that gentle voice, pale those rosy
cheeks, and quench those animated eyes, is a political
blessing, is calamitous. I look back with mute terror
on the days when I was under the influence of those
feelings. I would burn all the books of Political Economy
I ever read (and I think it the science of many blessings)
if I could feel once more on my knee the gentle hand of
my child from whom I parted that day, too stoical to shed
a tear.
After a few weeks of my imprisonment had passed away,
hint words came of Madeline’s failing health. Out of some
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money sent by my private friends, John Fowler and Paul
Rodgers, of Sheffield, to buy better food than the gaol
afforded, I saved a guinea, and sent it to Birmingham, to
purchase Madeline a winter cloak—it was spent in buying her
a coffin. Though of perfect health and agility, she was one
of those children who require entire preservation from expo
sure, want, or fatigue. On ten shillings per week, which was
all that the Anti-Persecution Union could provide, obviously
this could not be done, and all those descending and inevitable
vicissitudes succeeded, producing a state of ill health, which,
alas! had a fatal issue.
Mr. Chilton sent me several intimations to prepare for the
worst, should it happen. But I could not believe in the
worst happening, and indeed I had yet to realise what the
worst implied. At length, one morning, the heavy corridor
door grated on its hinges, and the morose turnkey — fit
messenger of misery—put a letter into my hand. As it had
been, as usual, broken open—for there is no feeling, not even
that of affection and death, respected in a gaol—Ogden knew
its contents, and in justice to him I must say he endeavoured,
as well as one whose ability lay in his moroseness could, to
speak a word of apology and sympathy. The strangeness
and awkwardness of the attempt drew my attention to the
fatal black border, which gave me sensations such as I never
received before and never shall again, for the first death of
one dear to you, like that of the first love, brings with it
a feeling which is never repeated. I remember that some
prisoner came and covered me with a coat, for I had walked
into the yard without one. Captain Mason and two friends
came round, but I could not speak to them. He addressed a
few words to me, but I turned away.
Then Madeline had perished among the people whose tra
ditions include so many despairs, so many sorrows—a pledge
that I shall never forsake those with whose sad destiny one so
dear to me is linked. Though in the death of poverty there is
nothing remarkable, though hundreds of children are daily
killed off in the same way, yet parents unused to this form of
calamity find in it, the first time, a bitterness which can never
be told. The limited income of the family in my absence was
made up by small subscriptions by some who knew me, and
by a few outside who happened to think useful the course I had
taken. One or two friends whose professions had beforetime
been profuse, the mother met. They were cold, or to her they
�94
THE HISTORY OE THE
seemed so. She thought they feared a continued acquaintance
might lay them under some tax to contribute to her support.
An instinctive apprehension. Offering her hand to one who
did not take it, she went home, and nothing induced her to
subject herself to such suspicion any more. A quick and
enduring sense of independence, which no privation could
disturb, was an attribute in her character I had always
admired, and this dreadful form of its operation I have never
been able to censure. The Roman mother put the armour of
her son on him as he went out, and saw him brought home
dead from the fight without weakness; but in that case, the
strife of arms, the glory of victory, the sublimity of duty, and
the applause of the senate, were so many supports to the
mother’s heroism; but harder far is it for a mother to bend
over her child day by day and night after night, and see
relentless death eat like a canker in the damask cheek of
beauty, and be too poor to snatch it from the tomb—and this
with no trumpet note, no clang of arms to drown the dying
scream, no incense of glory to raise the sinking heart, no
applause to reward the sacrifice—without even those near
who could penetrate to the depth of that desolation, and utter
those words of sympathy which is all which humanity can
do to soothe in the face of death.
“ There are homesteads that have witnessed deeds
That battle-fields, with all their bannered pomp,
Have little to compare with. Life’s great play
May, so it have an actor great enough,
Be well performed upon a humble stage.”
** My dada’s coming to see me,” Madeline exclaimed on the
night of her death, with that full, pure, and thrilling tone
which marked her when in health. “ I am sure he is coming
to-night, mammaand then remembering that that could not
be, she said, “ Write to him, mamma, he will come to see me
and these words were the last words she uttered—and all that
remains now is the desolate memory of the midnight rever
beration of that plaintive voice which I would give a new
world to hear again.
For her father, he was debating in incoherence the vain
proposition as to whether he could prevail on the Governor
to let him go home for one night to soothe and watch over the
dying pillow, and he would cheerfully and gratefully have
expiated the privilege by six or twelve months’ additional
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imprisonment. Of course this was impossible. Everything
was relentless there. Had there been the consciousness of
crime to be expiated, the sense of detention would have been
mitigated. But this was the penalty of the just pride of dis
charging the common duty of frank speech.
O liberty! whom the nations welcome with triumphant
shouts, whom all to whom the world owes its progress have
worshipped — over how many graves hast thou walked!
Rising like the morning dawn, making all people radiant
with thy presence, the poet thrills as he sees thy chariot borne
on the sun’s golden beams, he hails thee as a goddess, he
blesses thee as a bride, and sings of thy triumphs and bene
factions ! But those who serve thee—who make their lives a
sad and desert waste that thy pathway through the world
may be unobstructed—who kneel to thee in their dungeon
churches and pour out the incense of their young life at
gibbet-altars: they know thee by thy gory garments dripping
with the blood of the father, the tears of the orphan, and
the desolation which precedes thy progress. The anthems of
thy march are hollow voices from Siberia’s mines, and Vin
cennes’ cells—the wail of women under the Russian knout,
the groans of Konarski and the whistle of bullets which slay
the Bandiera and Blum—thy trophies are the fresh graves of
Hungary and Rome, thy throne is on a hecatomb of earth’s
noblest and bravest sons. Yet art thou still sacred in the
eyes of man. Queen of Genius and Progress! emblem of that
suffering through which Humanity is purified and developed !
Thou hast trodden on the grave of my child, and I worship
thee still, although thou mayst yet tread on my own.
Yes, though I neither hope—for that would be presumptuous
—nor expect it, seeing no foundation, I shall be pleased to
find a life after this. Not a life where those are punished
who were unable to believe without evidence, and unwilling to
act in spite of reason—for the prospect of annihilation is
pleasanter and more profitable to contemplate: not a life
where an easy faith is regarded as “ easy virtue ” is regarded
among some men—but a life where those we have loved and
lost here are restored to us again—for there, in that Hall
where those may meet who have been sacrificed in the cause
of duty—where no gross, or blind, or selfish, or cruel nature
mingles, where none sit but those whom human service and
endurance have purified and entitled to that high company,
Madeline will be a Hebe. Yes, a future life bringing with it
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THE HISTORY OF THE
the admission to such companionship, would be a noble joy to
contemplate. But Christianity has no such dream as this.
On making- arrangements for the burial, at the Birmingham
Cemetery, the clerk asked whether they should provide a
Minister, or whether the friends of the deceased would do so ?
The answer was—“ A minister was not desired.” “ Then I
presume,” the clerk observed, “ you mean that you will pro
vide one yourselves?” The answer again was—“We do not
require one at all. Please send the beadle merely.”
On the day of the interment the beadle attended as re
quested. He was instructed to conduct the burial party direct
to the grave, and not into the chapel, which he did without
remark: and when the coffin, plain but pretty, without tinsel
or angels, was lowered, each threw a bouquet of flowers in,
and when the grave was made up they returned home. Thus
Madeline was buried, as became her innocence and her fate,
without parade, without priest, or priestly ceremony. Had
hesitation been displayed, or previous inquiries been made as
to whether what was done could have heen permitted, no
question but that a priest would have been inflicted, as at the
grave of Carlile and others—for Christianity, always officious
and rude to the dissentient, is never more so than when oppo
sition is paralysed by agony on the bed of death, or hushed in
speechless sadness by the side of the grave.
As it would only be painful to my wife, I never wished
her to visit me; but after what had occurred she desired
it; and arrangements made to that effect of course became
known, all letters passing through the Governor’s hands.
On this occasion Mr. Bransby Cooper sent to say that
the Magistrates’ Committee-room, a furnished and cheerful
apartment, should be at my service at Mrs. Holyoake’s visit.
Mr. Cooper was the first of the magistrates to send a message
of condolence on the death of Madeline, and in this instance
his kindness was delicate and generous. As on the day Mrs.
Holyoake came the magistrates happened to hold a meeting
in it, an apology was sent me, and the Lodge placed at my
service. No turnkey was sent in, and I was permitted to see
my friends with an air of perfect freedom. A near relative
who was one of the party, brought me a present of wine and
cigars. As both were forbidden by the rules of the gaol, I
declined to touch them. As I was trusted without restraint,
I was doubly anxious to respect a liberty generously con
ceded. Had they set a watch over me, I should have had less
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scruple, and perhaps have thought it a merit to defeat their
suspicions.
Captain Mason, the governor, was a study—a type of the
gentleman, official and conventional, whose qualities were
instructive. Bland, imperturbable, civil, and firm, he was
never weak and never rude. Among the uneducated, all
decisive action is announced in commotion or bluster. The
gentleman is never in a hurry, never in a contention. If you
annoy him, are rude to him, impose upon him, or menace him,
perhaps he quietly indicates his opinion of the impropriety,
perhaps his resolution is taken without. He avoids you. His
defence is prevention. Renewal of offence, renewal of inter
course, chance of altercation or repetition, is simply impossible.
Such was Captain Mason. I watched his manners with plea
sure—he governed the gaol like a drawing-room, excepting
that the desserts were not quite the same. I saw rude men
baffled, they could not make out how. Possibly he had nerves
and sensibility, but these articles were not in common use.
They were kept under lock and key, and never brought out
in the routine of official duties. As blandly and courteously
as he wished me good morning, he would have conducted me
to the gallows, had instruction to that effect reached him.
He would have apologised for the inconvenience, but he would
have hung me while I was saying “ pray don’t mention it.”
Excepting in one transaction our intercourse was unruffled.
When I left the gaol, a prisoner (the Master of a Post Office)
the only gentleman on my side of the prison, addressed to me
a letter of accusation against the governor—an act which
made me a participator in his sentiments. As it passed through
the governor’s hands, he wrote under the name the crime and
sentence of the writer—a brief and bitter retort. I re-enclosed
the letter to the writer with a note to Captain Mason, ob
serving that on leaving the gaol I had expressed to him the
only opinion I entertained of him, and I should regard it as
unmanly to be a party to reproaches which I did not see rea
son to address to him in person. He wrote me back, with a
soldier’s pleasant frankness, that “I had always behaved
honourably in my intercourse with him, and he did not believe
I would do an unmanly thing.”
The exceptional transaction with the Captain referred to
was this. One of my fellow-prisoners was an epileptic man,
whose ignorance and irritability, more than any crime, had
led to his imprisonment. As I kept a sort of school in our
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THE HISTORY OF THE
common room, and taught a few things to those about me
who were disposed to learn, I had become interested in Upton,
a humble and unhappy man, who learned at grammar
anxiously. Some nights he would fall out of bed in an epi
leptic fit, and lie groaning on the stone floor for an hour or
more together. It was in vain that we shouted to the turn
keys. They who can hear a man think of escaping, cannot
hear when he breaks his neck. Upton representing that a
little tobacco, to which he had been accustomed, would save
him from the frequency of these fits, I procured him some.
Smoking it one day in a corner, in a paper pipe made for the
purpose out of one of my letters, the governor came upon
him through a side door. Upon being asked how he pro
cured it, he answered, “ From a man who had just come in
from the Sessions.” This the governor did not believe. At
night Ogden made an immense speech at me, in which that
luminous functionary inserted several elephantine hints, to the
effect that he knew the source whence the aforesaid tobacco
came. It was a treat to hear Ogden hint; it was like a hip
popotamus putting his paw out, or kicking a man down stairs.
As soon as I could get to speak to Upton, I prevailed upon
him to allow me to write to the governor, tell him the truth,
and take the blame upon myself, reminding Upton that a good
man might be surprised into a lie, but only a bad man would
persist in one. The retaliation of the governor was refined
and vindictive. Instead of ordering me into a dark cell on
bread and water for two or three days, which was the
authorised punishment, he ordered two gates to be locked
between me and my visitors, so that those who spoke were
obliged to shout to me. This he continued, with slight varia
tion, to the end of my imprisonment. This deprived me of
the pleasure of seeing ladies who called, as I would never
consent to see them under circumstances of so much humilia
tion.
Captain Mason had had previous proof that my professions
might be trusted. When first imprisoned, the reader
perhaps remembers I was kept a fortnight while the magis
trates played at bail. When at length they signified their
intention of accepting it, Captain Mason took me, through
the city, to Bransby Cooper’s house, where the bail-deed
was to be completed.
On our way I asked him if it
would be necessary for me to take an oath, before my own
bond could be accepted, as I should object to take an
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oath ? He turned round and replied — “ Why, Holyoake,
as you- don’t believe in any of the Gods, you could have
no objection to swear by them all.” I explained to him that
if the Magistrate would regard my oath as a mere cere
mony, by which I rendered myself liable to penalties in case
of violated truth, or failure in my bond, I would take the oath
readily, if all the Gods of the Pantheon were in it: but if it
were regarded as a profession of my religious faith, I would
not take it. It was better that I should go back to gaol, than
to make a profession of belief which would mislead others.
I told Mr. Cooper the same when we reached his house. He,
however, said my signature would do,
One day I concluded a dialogue with my chaplain upon the
principle of reciprocation, i. e., of retorting his language upon
himself, and, I think, not without utility, for he never after-wards fell into that insensible arrogance of speech so common
among pastors. On the occasion referred to, he began—“Are you really an atheist, Mr. Holyoake?’’
“Have not you assumed that in placing me here?”
“You deny that there is a God?”
“ No; I deny that there is sufficient reason to believe that
there is one.”
“ I am very glad to find that you have not the temerity to
say that there is no God.”
“ And I am very sorry to find that you have the temerity to
say there is one. If it be absurd in me to deny what I can
not demonstrate, is it not improper for you to assert so dog
matically what you cannot prove ? ”
“Then where would you leave the question of atheism?”
“ Just where it leaves us both. It is a question of pro
bability.”
“ Ah I the probabilities in favour of atheism are very few.”
“ How know you that ? Did you ever examine the question
without prejudice, or read that written in its favour without
fear? Those who dare not look at all never see far.”
“ But if the atheist has so much on his side, why does he
not make it known ? We do not keep back our evidences.”
“Has the atheist an equal opportunity with you? Is it
generous in you to taunt him with lack of evidence, when you
are prepared to punish its production ? ”
“ The reason is that your principles are so horrible; as
Robert Hall has said, ‘Atheism is a bloody and ferocious
system.’ ”
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THE HISTORY OF THE
“Permit me, sir, to return that gentle speech—to tell you
that your principles are horrible, and that Christianity is a
bloody and ferocious system.”
“ Really I am shocked to hear you speak so dreadfully of
Christianity.”
“ Why should you be shocked to hear what you are not
shocked to say ? ”
“But atheism is so revolting.”
“ But Christianity is so revolting.”
“ How dangerous is it for atheism to corrupt the minds of
children.”
“ How pernicious it is for Christian doctrines to corrupt the
thoughts of infancy.”
“ But you are only asserting.”
“ Are you doing otherwise ? I sometimes think that Chris
tians would be more respectful in their speech if the same
language could be applied to them with impunity which they
apply to others.”
“ But, my dear sir, the language of the atheist is so shock
ing to Christian feeling.”
“ And, my dear sir, has it never occurred to you that the
language of the Christian is shocking to atheistical feeling ? ”
“ Atheists have a right to their opinions, I allow, but not to
publish them.”
“ I shall think you speak reasonably when you permit the
same rule to be applied to the Christian.”
“But you really cannot be an atheist?”
“ And you say this who have been a party to imprisoning
me here for being one I If you believe yourself, go and de
mand my liberation.”
“ Ah! when you come to die you will wish that you were
a Christian.”
“ Can it be that I shall wish to hold a creed that I distrust—
one that leads me to deny another the liberty I claim for
myself ? If to be capable of looking back with satisfaction on
conduct like this is to be a Christian, may I never die the
death of the righteous, and may my last end never be like
his.”
As the general treatment pursued towards me did not work
any satisfactory conversion, some attempts were made by
gentler means. Taken one day into a sleeping cell for pri
vacy, one who had the power to fulfil his promises passed in
review the casualties of a life like mine, and asked whether I
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IOI
had not better change it. Thinking I was seduced by some
attraction which belonged to my position, he suggested how
fickle a thing was popularity, and how soon the applause of
friends might die away, or change with the growth or refine
ment of my conviction, into suspicion or even hate. Had I
not better accept the editorship of a paper, where I should
not be required to contradict, but merely to avoid advocating
my views ? Had I not better accept a school in a retired part
of the country—a girls’ school also might be given to Mrs.
Holyoake, and our joint incomes would insure competence,
respectability, and usefulness ? I answered, “ I think you have
mistaken me. The opinions I defended are also my con
victions ; and thinking them useful, it seems my duty to propa
gate them, and the discharge of this duty is more serious in
my eyes than you suppose; nor do the inducements you pic
ture exist. Do you not see that I am nearly friendless ? I am
without even the attentions of those from whom I have some
right to expect it. Except Mr. Farn, Mr. Watts, and Mr.
Campbell, none of my colleagues among the Social Mis
sionaries have written me a friendly word. The editor of the
New Moral World, upon whose protection I have some claim,
has written no word in my favour. The only public defence
for which I am indebted has come from strange papers, and
unknown men.
Even Mr. Owen, the advocacy of whose
opinions involved me in this prosecution, he who occupied the
largest share of my veneration, has not even recognised my
existence by a single line. This affair may have made some
noise, but I am not so young as to mistake noise for popu
larity, nor so weak as to think popularity the one thing need
ful. Popularity is to be won by those who can flatter the
public, but that estimation which is alone worth having is only
to be won by the service of the people, and that is not the
work of youth but of life. That which you call my cause is
yet in an infantine state. It has no attractions but the rude
ones of daring and truth. It requires to be divested of an
tagonism, and developed in its relations to political and social
interests and personal character. This must be the work of
time, and judging from the present, it will be a work of dif
ficult and precarious effort. At present we number no public
friends of wealth or influence. We have every thing to gain
—yet the. comparative affluence you offer would be a canker
to my peace, while it was the price of duty evaded. My self
chosen path, presumptuous and thorny, will be sweeter to
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THE HISTORY OF THE
walk. It is enough that you see I am not misled by its
attractions. Now 1 tread these floors with a proud step, and
meet your eye with unblenched brow, because it is necessary
to show you that in defence of my opinions I feel neither fear
nor guilt—but when I walk from this place into the wilder
ness of the world, my steps will falter and my face will pale,
because my path will lie over the grave of my child.”
All I remember farther is that my tempter made a few not
unfeeling remarks, and led me back in silence to my usual
cell.
The final efforts for my conversion were on this wise. The
Rev. Mr. Cooper sent for me, a few days before my liberation,
and asked me to follow him to the chapel. Arrived there, he
ascended the pulpit, motioning me to a prisoner’s pew without
even asking me to be seated. My neck was stiff with a
severe cold, and I was as ill able as ill disposed to be cate
chised. I stood leaning on the spikes—not inapt emblems of
such Christian love as I had there been made acquainted with.
The good Chaplain prayed—I did not move. He looked at
me to catch my eye—I kept mine fixed on the spikes. He
addressed me—I made no sign. He spoke some minutes—
still I remained motionless. He paused and asked what I
thought of his representations—I answered no word. He
seemed to think he was making a favourable impression. He
resumed, and came to another peroration, and again besought
me to answer—still no motion, no word from me. He began
a third time, and touched all serious topics which he could
command, and came again to an elaborate peroration on
death-beds; and as I remained still silent and immovable, he
said, somewhat perplexed this time, “Holyoake, won’t you
speak?” I then answered “Not while we occupy these
places. Do you not preach to me and place me here where
prisoners stand? I take this to be a ceremony, and not a
conversation.” He walked down from his pulpit and asked
me to accompany him, when he took me into several cells till
he found one warmed with hot air, and asked would I speak
with him there on friendly terms ? I answered, “ with plea
sure;” and there we conversed for the last time. I troubled
him to repeat his arguments, as I would not admit that I had
attended to a word. When he had done, I briefly assured
him that my experience there had not created in me any de
sire to be a Christian: he had brought before me no new
evidences, and as it had been found necessary to enforce those
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I knew before by penal reasons, the operation had rather
diminished their weight in my estimation.
He professed himself anxious to “ present me with a Bible ”
•—a fact which I knew was destined to make a figure in the
next Gaol Report to the County Magistrates; I therefore re
solved to have one worth acceptance, or not one at all. When
he brought to me the usual prison copy, I respectfully declined
it. I said, a thin copy bound in calf, in pearl type, with mar
ginal references, would be interesting to me, but the dumpling
shaped book he offered, I could never endure in my library.
He deliberated—the trade price of the Bible he offered me
was about tenpence, that I desiderated would cost him half a
guinea. The reflection was fatal. The Bible never came,
and the evangelical fact that “The prisoner, George Jacob
Holyoake, was presented with a copy of the Holy Scriptures
before leaving the gaol, which it is hoped, under the Divine
blessing, will be the means of bringing him to the knowledge
of the truth ”—was never recorded.
About this period I saw the magistrates for the last time.
There seemed to be a full Board of them, and Mr. Bransby
Cooper wras in the chair. Before withdrawing I addressed
Mr. Cooper, and said—“ As in a short time I shall leave this
place, I wish, before doing so, to express to you my sense of
the kindness and consideration shown me by you when Mrs.
Holyoake visited me here. It is one of the few things I shall
remember with pleasure when again at liberty. You will
not, I fear, believe in the possibility of one of my opinions
feeling gratitude, but I will at least assure you of it.” The
answer he made was a compensation for much that I had
experienced. In that loud voice in which he usually spoke, he
exclaimed—“Yes, I will say this, that I believe you, Holyoake,
I don’t believe that you could be a hypocrite.”
One day a magistrate, described to me as the Hon. and
Rev. Andrew Sayer, sent me a copy of Paley’s works, re
questing my particular attention to his Natural Theology.
“ Did I put into your hands,” I said, addressing that gentle
man, “ an atheistic work, you would tell me of the contamina
tion you dread; and may I not plead the same risk in perusing
your theistical book ? But, as all in the search after truth must
venture through phases of error, I shall not hesitate to comply
with your request; and that you may' be certain that I do
so, you may, when I have ended, put to me any question upon
the contents you please.” It happened that my examination
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THE HISTORY OF THE
resulted in my writing “ Paley Refuted in his Own Words.’*
When Mr. Sayer came to ask me what conclusions I had
come to on the books he had lent me, I made this answer to
him—“Sir, I am surprised at your asking me this question.
Does it become you, a clergyman and a magistrate, to ask
me to commit crime ? ”
“ What do you mean ? ” he inquired.
“ I mean this,” I replied, “ that in having punished my last
expression of opinion as a crime, by bringing me here, it
does not become you to put religious inquiries to me again.”
He seemed confounded; and on this occasion I showed him,
that while Christianity punished as crime the expression of
dissentient opinions, Christians were disqualified from seeking
the state of any man’s thoughts with respect to religion.
Unless one volunteers explanations, Christians have plainly no
right to demand them. They put themselves out of the pale
of ordinary privilege.
Writing “ Paley Refuted ” and the “ Short and Easy
Method with the Saints ”—a title suggested by “ Leslie’s
Short and Easy Method with the Deists,” another book put
into my hands by the authorities—occupied me till the end of
my imprisonment. On the 6th of February, 1843, I was.
liberated; and three days after (having paid visits of acknow
ledgment to my friends in Gloucester, Cheltenham, and Wor
cester,) I rejoined (what I might then term the remains of)■
my family in Birmingham.
CHAPTER IV.---- AFTER THE LIBERATION.
On rejoining my colleagues of the Oracle of Reason, I pro
ceeded to issue an address to our readers. The substance of
it, which was as follows, comprises some additional facts of my
prison experience:—
“ My Friends,—It is now six months since cut and hacked,
* I fell,’ not merely in the language of the parable, but lite
rally, ‘ among thieves.’ Of those who caused that contact, I
am afraid I must say, as William Hutton said of an untoward
sweetheart—‘ There was little love between us at first, and
heaven has been pleased to decrease it on a further acquaint
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105
ance.’ Christians profess to draw men to Jesus with ‘ cords
of love,’ but were it not for their judicious foresight in telling
us that they are ‘ cords of love,’ few would find it out.
“To friends in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Birmingham,
*
London,f and other places, I owe many thanks for what has
been contributed for my support, and for that of my family,
during my imprisonment. For their attentions I believe no
thanks were asked and none are wished. Yet I am concerned
to make acknowledgments, because a man always values
highly the kindness he does not expect. When the words
were spoken which led to my prosecution, I expected that the
cautious would think that I had gone ‘ too far ’—that the
prudent would think that I had been too rash—that my friends
would be afraid for me, and that the timid would be afraid
for themselves. But I held, with Polydamus, that
‘To speak his thoughts is every freeman’s right
in peace and war, in council and in fight.’
“ And, what I regarded as greater than my right, I felt it
to be my duty. Besides, my honour was concerned. I could
not descend to that disingenuousness I had often counselled
others against. Hence, in the course I took, I did not think
it necessary to calculate consequences; a man’s true concern
is with his principles, and not with his fate. I pretended to
no public virtue, and I laid claim to no praise—I did no more
than every man ought to do. That doing so little has been
so rewarded by the exertions of many friends for my pro
tection, I must be pleased; but had nothing been done, I
trust I should have found pride in penury and satisfaction
* To Gloucester two special acknowledgments are due. First to a young
lady, the niece of the innkeeper in whose house I resided when awaiting
trial, both at the sessions and assizes. With no other knowledge of me than
these occasions afforded, and with no prepossession in favour of my opinions,
but simply from that generous sympathy women often display, she fre
quently brought me refreshments to the gaol, and was a medium of com
munication with my friends, and often answered inquiries of my family
which the restrictions of the gaol sometimes rendered it impossible for me
even to know. In the romance of incident, she afterwards became the wife
of my friend Mr. Chilton. The other instance was that of Mrs. Price, a
woman in humble circumstances, who, during the latter part of my impri
sonment, brought me dinner every Sunday. Both Mrs. Price and her
husband were utterly unknown to me.
+ At the time of the death of Madeline, Mrs. Ralph Thomas, of Lon
don, sent to Mrs. Holvoake ^3, subscribed by herself and personal friends.
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THE HISTORY OF THE
under neglect, in the reflection that I had respected duty
and consistency.
“ When my memorial to Sir James Graham was returned
to the magistrates for their opinion, they came to me, and
Mr. Bransby Cooper stormed out with great violence, ‘ You
were sent here, sir, for punishment, and you have nothing else
to expect. I consider you worse than the greatest felon in
the gaol; you have been guilty of the most atrocious crime
a man can possibly commit. I have told Sir James Graham
what you deserve.’ I knew that these magistrates were
Christians. I was told they were gentlemen, but I thought
them furies.
*
“ The prison diet was bread, gruel, and potatoes. On two
days in each week boiled rice was substituted for potatoes;
and after I had been in prison nine weeks I was, by the rules,
allowed a small portion of salt beef on Thursdays and
Sundays. As this fare is deemed in Gloucestershire a famous
specific for the cure of Atheism, it may not be out of place to
explain its virtues. The gruel was little remarkable for its
delicate flavour and little celebrated for its nutritious qualities,
and known by the luxurious cognomen of ‘ skilly.’ The rice
had a blue cast, a saline taste, and a slimy look. The beef I
could not often taste, seldom chew, and never digest; I should
say it was rather leather mode than a la mode. The whole of
the food could only be taken by a ploughman’s appetite, and
only be digested by a navigator’s stomach.
“ The indirect occasion of my prosecution was the editor
ship of the Oracle. When Mr. Southwell was apprehended
no Social Missionary came forward to continue his paper,
although many of them were better qualified to do so than
myself. Socialism had always attached great importance to
freedom of expression, and Socialism’s advocates had been
styled ‘ apostles of freethought.’ Knowing this, I felt that it
would be a dishonourable reflection should any one refuse
personally to support what he was known publicly to approve.
Had Mr. Fleming been placed in Mr. Southwell’s situation,
* Yet such is the inconsistency of the Christian character when allied to
a generous nature, that Mr. Bransby Cooper, who, as a Christian, behaved
with so much rudeness, had just before given instruction to the turnkeys to
treat me with respect, with a view to save me from less harshness from other
officials than that which, in other moods he so plentifully inflicted on me
himself.
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and had he been of opinion that I could have defended his
violated liberty by taking- his place, I should have edited
the New Moral World as cheerfully as I did the Oracle of
Reason. When I speak of ‘ freedom of speech ’ and ‘ liberty
for all,’ I know of no distinction between myself and those
who differ from me; I see with an equal eye the Atheist and
the Christian, the violent and the gentle, the dogmatic and
the modest.
“That is true of Christianity which has been said of
Catholicism—1 Humane individuals may express their abhor
rence of the sentiments of persecution—bodies of men, sections
of the church itself, nay, many of the dignitaries may abjure
them, and protest that they have never acted upon them, nor
ever will enforce them—yet all this will not avail to give a
discerning- man the smallest security for his liberty, his pro
perty, or his life; for as long as those intolerant decrees
remain upon the statute-book, they can at any time be revived.’
It therefore behoves every one to set a guard over that
liberty, for the loss of which no religion will ever compensate.
The conviction should be permanent that Christianity is a
fearful thing. But bad men may laud it—mistaken men may
contend that there is some good in it—unthinking men may
give currency to its terms—and weak men may connive at its
delusions, but we ought to regard with different sentiments a
system which tramples upon the feelings of humanity and the
principles of liberty. Let us, then, secure the antidote—free
expression of opposite opinion. Shall it be said that we are
content to wear mental fetters ? When Protestants, who
dare never think without the Bible and Prayer Book, have
shaken off the iron despotism of Catholicism—when Methodists
and even Ranters have refused to submit their thoughts to be
cut down to the Procrustean bed of conventional opinion—let
not Christians mock at Freethinking pusillanimity, and deride
us as holders of craven principles. Not only for ourselves but
for others are our exertions demanded. What patrimony has
the poor man but his free thoughts ? Industry will not save
him from chill penury’s grip, nor virtue from the poor-house
grave. Let us,, then, preserve and perfect the humble inhe
ritance of those who have no other.” *
In prison it is not safe to make complaints. You are too
* Abridged from the Oracle oj Reason.
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THE HISTORY OF THE
much in the power of those around you to escape reprisals of
a serious kind, but this did not deter me from attempting
what I conceived might make the future easier for others who
might follow me in the same way. Besides the endeavours
I had made within the prison, with a view to tolerable treat
ment, I addressed, on my release, the following letter to the.
Editor of the Cheltenham Free Press: —
“ Mr. Editor,—As prisons and prison discipline have lately
occupied much public attention, I am induced to offer to your
notice a little recent experience in such matters. What I
have written I intended to have stated to a public meeting,
but suffering from debility, which makes me glad to avoid
excitement, I seek the calmer medium of your paper.
“ I speak of Gloucester County Gaol. I believe the prison
inspector is of opinion that the rules of that place are ‘ harsh
and cruel? Now, should a prisoner seek a partial exemption
from their operation, the process he goes through is very
curious. He applies to a turnkey: the turnkey answers, ‘ My
duty is determinate and my province clear; I cannot do it.’
Probably he refers the prisoner to the surgeon. The surgeon
is seen j he refers him to the governor, the governor refers
him to the visiting magistrates; they reply, ‘ We have no
power to grant the request, Sir James Graham only can do
that.’ Sir James Graham is memorialised, who, as is usual,
answers, ‘ The visiting magistrates best know what is proper;
I only grant what they recommend.’ Any further application
to them would be construed into a wilful annoyance, and the
prisoner is fortunate who can sit down like Sterne’s happy
man, pleased he knows not why, and contented he knows not
wherefore. Of course I blame no one, for there is no one to
blame, and this constitutes the beauty of the system. Should
*
* It seemed to me useful to make applications for what I wanted in
writing. It prevented mistakes, and afterwards admitted of proof. The
governor used to come to me and say, “ Now, Holyoake, it is of no use
sending this memorial; it is sure not to be attended to,” and he would so
obligingly bestow upon me the treasures of his experience on the futility of
the course I was pursuing, that at times it really did seem not only useless
but uncivil to persist. But I used to say, “ Captain Mason, I suppose you
are right as to the result. - That makes no difference, however, as to my
duty. You may put my memorials in the fire, if you like, as soon as I have
written them ; still I will make the proper application to every officer and
every authority, and deliver them to your care, as in duty bound.” I knew
the Captain would not burn them—I knew more, I knew he dare not burn
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I individualise, it would only be to say that the governor is a
gentleman of some excellent qualities and some unintelligible
conduct; that the surgeon possesses the suaviter in modo with
out the fortiter in re ; and that the magistrates are little gods,
who, like Jupiter, thunder oftener than they smile.
“ What of health I have I owe to my friends, who supplied
me with such food as my constitution required, for had I been
compelled to subsist on the diet of the prison, my health, by
this time, would have been quite broken. With the direction
of my own medical adviser, I made this representation to the
proper authorities at the gaol; I made them to the commis
sioners who were lately there, and I made them to Sir James
*
Graham. I therefore conceive that I am j'ustified in repeating
them here. The surgeon admitted the necessity of better diet,
but referred me to the governor, and he sent me the fruitless
round I have described. Now the province of the governor
was the care of my person, and the province of the surgeon
the care of my health. The governor ought not to have
permitted the reference to him, and the surgeon ought not to
have made it. Either the surgeon should have refused my
application with decision, or have allowed it with inde
pendence. Upon this subj’ect the commissioners reminded
me ‘ that if the surgeon did not order what was necessary for
my health, he was responsible for it.’ I replied ‘ that I knew
this, and that they also knew, that a prisoner, like Beale of
Northleach, must die before he could avail himself of such
them. I knew, also, that each would be duly delivered to the proper party.
Further, I knew this, that if his dissuasions had deterred me from sending
in my complaints, that when I left the prison the authorities would destroy
every representation I might make, by saying, “ If there had been anything
wrong Holyoake would have complained, but as he has not done so, the
aggravation he points out could not have existed, or could not have been
grievous.” Foreseeing this, I provided against it, and, disregarding the
refusal of my applications, I addressed them all round with scrupulous
formality. The result was, that on my liberation I found myself in a
position to defy contradiction in any allegations I had to advance; and
though I published this letter immediately under the eyes of the magistrates,
it was never contradicted.
* In consequence of these representations some medical gentlemen of the
city were brought in to examine me, who pronounced my life to be in no
danger, and therefore (so it seemed) my health was not regarded as worth
improving by better food. Provided I did not make a case for the Coroner
or House of Commons, that was enough. They appeared to consider
themselves as bound to keep me alive and no more.
�IIO
THE HISTORY OE THE
responsibility, and that this was but grave consolation. But of
the surgeon I wish to speak impartially, and I gladly admit
that his manner was always very kind, but I complain that his
answers were always very indecisive. What he recommended
he seldom prescribed, and professed that he must consult the
governor, when he should have consulted only himself. This
fault may seem little, but its effects are great. In a gaol, the
surgeon is the only person who stands between a prisoner
and the grave, and it is indispensable that to the quality of
humanity those of independence and decision should be joined.
The kind of answers to which I have alluded were given to
me more than once, and given to others as well as to me.
And I again repeat, that had I been without friends, I should
have left my prison without health.
“ Akin to the want of better food was the want of exercise,
and no want of damp. The yard in which I walked was so
small that I always became giddy, through the frequent
turnings, before I became refreshed. The governor some
times permitted the ‘ Fines-Class,’ in which I was, to walk in
his garden; but the occasions came seldom, and lasted not
long; and I was previously so enervated by confinement, that
the unusual exercise thus taken threw me into a slight fever.
Generally speaking, the place in which I was confined was
miserably humid, and, although I took perpetual care, I had
almost a perpetual cold.
“An application for a trivial favour often brought down
upon me ruthless treatment. The visiting magistrates would
come, and before the other prisoners denounce me as the
‘ worst felon in the gaol, and the most atrocious of criminals.’
I was directed to ascribe this to the petulance of age and the
rancour of orthodoxy; but I thought it proceeded from bad
taste and worse feeling.
“ From first to last every newspaper sent me was detained;
every letter from me was perused, and every one io me was
broken open and read—and the very seals, if they happened
to be heterodox, were interdicted. Thus the privacy of
affection and friendship were violated, and mind as well as
body laid under one restraint.
“ When I saw friends it was but for a few minutes, and then
through the bars of a gate; to shake hands was a privilege,
and to converse unheard impossible. To me it was a
momentary satisfaction made an enduring mortification. To
the public it may seem a light matter that nothing can be
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
I 11
spoken to a visitor unheard by officers, but it is no light
matter to a prisoner. The commissioners inquired, ‘ Can you
make no communication to your friends without its passing
under the eyes of the governor or through the ears of the
turnkey ? ’ I answered, ‘ None ; and that it was not prudent
for a prisoner to mention openly what affected persons in
whose power he was put—that no prisoner must calculate on
gaolers being generous, for they owned few virtues not written
in their rules.’ I spoke from experience, and gave them cases
in point.
*
“ During the latter portion of my time all my friends were
denied access to me,f which, though it interfered with the
supply of my wants, I did not, for the reasons stated, much
regret. But this I did regret—all my letters were detained,
*
and I was refused the privilege of writing a single letter to
my family. The reason assigned by the governor for this
was the enforcement of new rules, but I know that they were
enforced without proper authority, and I believe applied only
to me.J
“Those are happy who are for ever preserved from the
reception-cells of Gloucester Gaol. Of the one in which I was
put the floor was filthy, the bed was filthier, and the window
was filthier still, for in the window was—what I sicken at
while I write—a rag full of human excrement. And of the
bed, a prisoner assured me that when he lay in it the lice
crept up his throat off the corners of the blanket which
* One case I allude to was this. Mr. Bransby Cooper and Mr. Jones had
called me out to state that an application I had made for better dietary
would not be acceded to- Mr. Cooper said the surgeon did not prescribe
any other diet. I said, “It appears to me, sir, that the surgeon dare not
prescribe any other diet, unless he was first assured you would approve of
it.” The answer of Mr. Cooper was loud, harsh, brief, and decisive. “Of
course, sir, he dare not.” Thus the fierce candour of this man broke through
the web-work of cautiousness which surrounded prisoners there, and spoke
the truth for once.
11 have since been told that Mr. Alcott, of America, was among the
number, who, being a visitor in England, had but one opportunity of calling
upon me.
+ On one occasion Richard Carlile brought me a present of a handsome
pair of large razors, which were sent back, lest I should cut my throat with
them. The rules of the gaol forbid the entrance of such articles, but this
reason for their rejection was not in the rules, but added as suitable to mv
case.
�IT2
THE HISTORY OF THE
covered him. This statement, on my direction, he made to
the commissioners.
*•' The gaol chapel is a cold place. Often, on entering it,
I have exclaimed, with Jugurtha, on entering his Roman
dungeon, ‘ Heavens ! how cold is this bath of yours! ’ Yet
in this place, during this inclement season, the prisoners are
assembled every morning to hear prayers, on empty stomachs,
after sixteen hours’ confinement in their night cells. On the
‘ long prayer ’ mornings they are detained in chapel threequarters of an hour, and the penitentiary men, on their return
to their cells, find their gruel on the stone floor, gone cold in
their absence. I mention this matter with reluctance, as some
may suppose that I notice it only from want of religion ; but
perhaps a little reflection will convince them that believers, as
well as unbelievers, can appreciate a warm breakfast on a
cold morning!—and that an asthmatical man, however sound
his faith, will have his affection painfully increased by enerva
tion, inanition, and sudden cold. This practice I do not say
is contrary to the rules, for it would be difficult to say what
is, or what is not, contrary to them—and I never met with any
one at the gaol who could tell. But the practice is contrary
to the act of the 4th of Geo. IV., chap. 64, sec. 30, which is
professed to regulate it.
“ A circumstance of a different nature from any of the fore
going I think it my duty to notice. After a considerable
portion of my term of imprisonment had elapsed, and after I
had memorialised Sir James Graham, I was permitted to
remain up in an evening with my books. To this I owe what
of pleasure I can be said to have experienced in gaol, and
with pleasure I acknowledge it.
*
“ I prefer leaving these statements without comment, and
* Before this privilege was conceded I whiled away the long nights by
writing on the cover of a book, on which I had adjusted threads at equal
intervals ; under these threads I slipped paper, and thus wrote on the lines
made by the threads, which kept, in the dark, the words from running into
each other. When a boy I learned to write with my eyes shut, and my
playful acquirement now became of service to me. In this way I wrote
some letters for the Oracle, and much of my correspondence. Scattered by
force, our little party at that time, and for some years after, had to be kept
together by letters, and, incredible as it will sound, I wrote during my
imprisonment from first to last nearly 2000 letters. The governor did not
see them all, but he saw so many that one day he said I sent out more
letters than usually went through a local post office.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
iB
content myself with saying that I can abundantly substantiate
every one of them. On Saturday last they were partly
examined at the gaol by the magistrates, but I heard nothing
that impugned their correctness or affected the propriety of
their appearing before the public. If I have made any mis
representations I shall be sorry; and what is -proved to be
wrong I will cheerfully retract. I have written from no
malevolence, for I feel none; and as what I have related
affects me no longer, my only motive is the hope of benefitting
the unfortunate beings whom I have left behind me. My
object is not, as some may suspect, to excite commiseration on
my part; to do this have no wish, and no expectation, for
I
*
in Cheltenham it seems to be a received maxim, that they
who have little faith have no feelings—certainly none are
respected.
“ How my imprisonment is supposed to affect me toward
religion I cannot tell; I only know that I have no change of
sentiment to own. During six months I have been ‘shut
out from the common light and common air’—from those
whom the bonds of friendship connected, and the ties of
affection endeared; and some of these ties are broken for ever.
After this, I can only say that I have greater difficulty than
ever in believing that humanity is the associate of piety; and
if Christianity has no expounders more attractive than those I
have fallen in with, the day of my conversion is still distant.
“ It was taught to me that the religion of Jesus cherished
kindness, that it promoted our best affections, and reclaimed
the erring in love. But how is this accomplished in gaol ?
The man who goes there must leave his affections, his
feelings, and his sensibilities behind him—for in gaol all are
blighted, deadened, and destroyed. There no appeals are
made but to coward fears, and no antidote applied to error
but misery. Indeed, I cannot dwell upon Christianity’s treat
ment of what she considers my errors, without wishing, with
Themistocles, that I could learn the art of forgetting. With
regard to the cause of my prosecution, I admit that I might be
wrong in the sentiments which I held, but I could not be
wrong in frankly avowing them. And I may answer to
Christians, as did Aristides to the tyrant Dionysius—‘I am
sorry for what you have done, but I am not sorry for what I
have said.’ Despite all that has succeeded, I still prefer
integrity to liberty. My resolution has long been taken, to
speak nothing or to speak what I think; for
�I I4
THE HISTORY OF THE
* Who dares think one thing and another tell,
My heart detests him as the gates of helL’
“Christians speak what they think useful, and the same
privilege ought to be conceded to me. A difference in faith
ought not to make a difference in right. But while it does so,
those who cannot pronounce the required Shibboleth must
arm themselves to bear. Those are poor principles for which
a man is unwilling to suffer when they are in danger. It is
an encouraging reflection, that though a man’s fate may be at
others’ disposal, his character is ever at his own—and that
no enemy can dishonour him who will not dishonour himself.
“ Yours respectfully,
“ G. J. Holyoake.
“Gloucester, Feb. 7, 1843.”
The commissioners referred to in this letter asked me, when
I was first taken before them, whether I had any complaint
to make?
I said I had.
Did I wish to give it as evidence ?
I said I did.
In the evening of the next day, between nine and ten
o’clock, I was called up and taken into their presence again.
The governor of the gaol, Captain Mason, and the surgeon,
Mr. Hicks, were present.
“Take a seat, Mr. Holyoake,” said the speaker of the
Board—Dr. Blisset Hawkins, I believe.
I did so.
“ Now, Mr. Holyoake, what have you to complain of ? ”
said the speaking Commissioner.
“ Nothing, sir.”
“ Nothing ! Why, what do you mean ? ”
“ What I say, sir.”
“ But did you not say that you had evidence that you
wished to give ? ”
“ I did.”
“ Has it not been at your request that you have been
brought before us for that purpose ? ”
“ It has.”
“ Then what are we to understand by your present state
ment ? ”
•
“ Why, sir, what you hardly need me to explain. I cannot
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
IT5
give evidence before these gentlemen,” looking towards the
governor and the surgeon.
“ True,” said the questioner. “ Captain Mason, Mr. Hicks,
you will please to withdraw.”
When they were gone, “ Now, Mr. Holyoake, you can
speak freely,” said the chairman.
“ But first I must have your guarantee that I shall suffer no
inconvenience in consequence.”
“ Why, what danger do you run ? ” was asked me.
“ This. Am I not in the power of governor and surgeon ?
Can they not retaliate in your absence ? No prisoner is safe
in any gaol, as you ought to know, if the authorities come to
regard him as reporting them. If you decline to give me this
guarantee I shall not make any communication to you, and
when I am at liberty again I shall have a right to publish
that your commission did not learn the whole truth at this
gaol—that it did not even put itself in a condition to learn
it.”
“ Well,” the chairman said, “ we guarantee that you shall
suffer no inconvenience in consequence of any evidence you
may give to us.”
Then, and not till then, did I proceed to explain what in the
last letter and notes is recounted. The commissioners kept
their word. The severity of the discipline, instituted by the
governor when a visitor came, was somewhat relaxed; and
once or twice, when I was suffering from cold (before
unnoticed) a can of mutton broth was ordered me by the
surgeon, in which I found a very sensible looking piece of
mutton.
Nothing more of importance remains to be narrated. Con
cluding, let me solicit consideration to the moral aspects of
Christianity, as set forth in this narrative, and to what I con
sider the political moral of these pages. Many persons whose
candour and general intelligence I do not distrust, tell me that
the persecution here recounted is not to be ascribed to
Christianity. To this I make the answer made on this subj'ect
(the imprisonment of myself, Adams, and others) by my late
friend Maltus Questell Ryall. “ Christians set a watch upon
them—Christians informed against them—Christians pre
judiced the public against them : by Christian pay were hire
,
*
ling lawyers retained—by Christian witnesses confronted—by
the Christian Press misrepresented—by Christian juries found
guilty, by Christian judges condemned.” It is necessary to
�11(5
THE HISTORY OF THE
put the argument in this cumulative form to satisfy some
understandings; but a well-informed and candid Christian
can hardly be supposed.to need formal proof on this head.
A careful study of the Evangelists some time after this
imprisonment, satisfied me that the religion of Jesus involves
persecution. A man who believes that men need saving, that
there is only one way whereby they can be saved, that his
way is that way, and that it is better for a man to lose the
whole world than to lose his own soul by missing that way,
such a believer will inevitably coerce all he can into it. If he
is not a persecutor he ought, in moral consistency, to be one.
Having the fear of the philanthropists and of the humanitarians
before his eyes, he may modify his practice, but it will be at
the expense of his penetration or of his religious duty. I have
no difficulty whatever in understanding that the conscientious
among the old inquisitors might be men of benevolence—•
spiritual physicians, who amputated existence with a view to
save the eternal life of the patient. It is now many years
since I wrote or spoke against them on religious grounds, and
for a long period I have ceased to speak of persecution
as being either unscriptural or unchristian.
It will not do to say that what we have seen of persecution
has been but the abuse of Christianity. It is in itself a con
demnation of Christianity to be obliged to repudiate the
conduct of all Christian churches. It will not do to say that
Christians have not been wise enough to see, nor good enough
to image, the divine gentleness of Christ. The Christian
churches have been presided over by pastors who have pos
sessed both penetration and purity in the highest degree—
who were able to see what there was to be seen, and devout
enough to render it in their lives. Try the question even in
our day. If Christ be the symbol of love and gentleness to all
who believe in his name, how is it that in every part of the
world the Freethinker should fear to fall into the hands of the
Christian? How is it that he must set a watch upon his
words in every town and hamlet in our own land, lest the free
expression of his deepest convictions should cost him his posi
tion, his employment, and his character ? Branded, outcast,
and friendless, the Christian’s door is the last at which he
would knock—the Christian’s fireside is the last at which he
would find a welcome—and the average Christian pastor,
who in knowledge, duty, and example, most nearly resembles
the Christ whom he preaches, is the last man whose path the
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
II7
Freethinker would wish to cross, or into whose ear he would
venture to pour the tale of his expatriations.
In one passage of my defence I represent persecution, as
Lord Brougham and others have done, as a power which
spreads opinion. I believed so then, but believe it no longer.
I have lived to watch the effects of persecution, and have seen
it put down the truth so often, as no longer to doubt its bad
efficacy. The ignorant, the timid, the opulent, and the con
ventional (and these make up the mass of mankind), are all
deterred by danger or opprobrium. The resolute and the
reckless, the only parties who persist, labour under accumu
lated disadvantages. Condemned to spend their time in selfdefence, development of doctrine—the legitimate and only
source of permanent influence—is nearly impossible to them ;
and it is well for them if they escape acquiring an antagonistic
spirit, which disfigures their advocacy and misrepresents their
character. Their only proselytes are those who come to
them out of spite or out of sympathy, and who, of course,
miss the intellectual ground of conviction, and can be of little
real service until they have been re-educated.
If, as I admit, persecution will put down opinion, what
objection is there to its employment when it puts down error?
I answer, “ Beware of its use, because it may put down the
truth also.” Persecution is not an ordeal. Free discussion is
the only test capable of distinguishing and establishing the
truth. The proper condemnation of persecution is, that it is
an illegitimate opposition which is sure to be discountenanced
as men become manly and refined. The armies of a civilised
people observe, even in the deadly strife of battle, some rules
of honourable warfare, and do not descend to the arts of
treachery or tactics of savages. We may surely hope that
in the battle for religious truth a sense of honour will prevent
the dominant party from taking against its opponents the
undue advantage of persecution. Montaigne relates that when
Polyperchon advised Alexander to take advantage of the
night for attacking Darius, “ By no means,” answered the
noble general; “ it is not for such a man as I am to steal such
an advantage; I had rather repent me of my fortune than be
ashamed of my victory?’ It is not too much to expect that
Christianity will always be less refined than War.
Persecution, always a disaster, was not, however, with us a
defeat. We were not put down by persecution; we continued
the Oracle a hundred and four weeks, then the Movement,
�118
THE HISTORY OF THE
sixty-eight weeks, and the Reasoner has since completed thirty
volumes. Besides having written in these publications, I
have, in almost all the principal cities and towns in the
kingdom, spoken, since the trial at Gloucester, with the
utmost explicitness. The imprisonment has at least been of
this service—and this is all—it has enabled me to speak
accredited by the sincerity which otherwise could not have
been so satisfactorily manifest to the multitude. To have
spent, without shrinking, some portion of life in prison in
defence of public liberty, gives the same authority among the
people as having graduated at a university does among
*
scholars,
The fact is a sad illustration of the brutal manner
in which the people are condemned to win the enlargement of
their liberties. In cases where clergymen have menaced me
with renewed imprisonment, I have always answered—“I
consider myself as having taken out a license to speak freely.
The Government made a charge to me of six months’ impri
sonment for that privilege, and I paid the price. If you have
renewed demands upon me, let me know them, and I will
endeavour to meet them ; but do not interrupt me.”
In the present structure of English political society, to pre
serve the ability to be imprisoned is necessary to usefulness.
When the associations of home have twined themselves
around the feelings—after long industry and patient frugality
have surrounded a man with some comforts unknown to his
youth—few have the temper which will part from them and
walk into a gaol at the call of duty. I should think this
state the death of progress. When, in 1847, insuring my
life in the Equity Law Insurance Office, I asked, before I
took out my policy, whether it would be forfeited if my death
was occasioned by imprisonment or transportation. The
Directors naturally asked whether I was liable to those
casualties. I said, “ Not particularly liable, I hoped; but to
* When the Prizes were awarded me for writing the Literary Lectures of
the Manchester Unity, an attempt was made to cancel the award on the
ground of my having been imprisoned, but it was immediately quashed.
When the legislation of the Order was before the House of Lords, the then
Bishop of Oxford (in Committee) made an objection to the Lectures on
account of the Authorship, but the Unity refused to withdraw them, and
they were continued in use. The objections of this nature made in some
instances by the Press have been inoperative where the people have been
concerned.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
119
be able to be imprisoned, if it seemed a duty, I valued as a
great privilege, and I would not barter my right to be
imprisoned.” I am afraid they smiled at my eccentricity, but
they assured me that that accident would not involve the
forfeiture of my policy, which I then took out.
No one who reads thus far will, I hope, consider me as a
candidate for either imprisonment or transportation. I have
too keen an insight into their misery for that. But he who
pretends to take the side of the people ought to see his way
all through, and not incur a danger he has not weighed, and
not suffer any to ascribe to him a virtue he does not mean to
maintain.
If any, from what I have just expressed, or from the trans
actions of this narrative, shall conclude that I am disposed to
regard law-breaking lightly, they will mistake me. Respect
for the law is an intelligent virtue—a sign of fitness for
freedom so important, that none but an enemy would obscure
the duty or weaken the sentiment. If accused, in the matter
which led to my trial, of breaking the law, I might plead that
there was no law to break, and therefore I could not break
one. What is called the common law relating to blasphemy
is a mere caprice, an opinion interpreted by ignorance or
sectarian prejudice, and enforced at the call of bigotry—male
volent to the humble while neutral towards the rich. Against
this tyranny one is obliged to rebel. It is disastrous that
we should have to set up the standard of resistance even in a
case of this kind, and the chiefjustification was that a democratic
government was denied us. When the people have a voice in
making the laws, the breaking of any law requires grave justi
fication. Men have two lives—a private and a public one.
Conscience is the guide of all that relates to private duty, but
law is the conscience of society, and it is best when private
conscience can be subordinate to the public conscience. Pri
vate conscience may be the child of selfishness, fanaticism, or
vanity, as well as of the greatest purity and intelligence. A
man, therefore, should be careful how he places so uncertain
a thing above the law. If private conscience be more just
and intelligent than the public conscience, a democratic form
of government affords peaceful facilities whereby it can come
into the ascendant. But where these modes are denied, no
alternative remains but that of rebellion or unconditional and
indefinite submission. Resistance to the law, however, or to
what is tacitly accepted by the majority as law, is, under any
�120
THE HISTORY OF THE
form of government, so pernicious an example, is so liable to
be abused, so liable to unfit the people who learn the lesson
for submission to legitimate authority, that these cases demand
the strictest surveillance before they receive the sanction of a
friend of the people. In all instances in which conscience is
the ground of resistance, the wrong done to conscience ought
to be clear, deep, and momentous, and the necessity which
obliges the claims of private conscience to be put above the
laws ought to be made so evident that the sentiment of free
dom shall not deteriorate that of legitimate and honourable
allegiance.
If the political moral of this narrative be therefore drawn
with discrimination, we may do little harm even if mistaken
in the belief that the prevalence of our views of life may
be a public good; and if this belief prove to be right in
the main, we do what reformers are said often to forget—we
make a past to which the future may refer for authority and
instruction.
“ Then not ‘ in vain ! ’ Even obscurest weedsNourish the roots of fruitfulest fair trees.
So from our Fortune-loathed Hope proceeds
The experience that may base high victories.” *
What “our views” are this is not the place to state; as to
some it would seem that under the pretext of a plea for Free
Utterance, sentiments were obtruded upon the reader he was
not forewarned to expect. I therefore limit myself to saying
(and that only for the sake of others who will decline to
concede free utterance until they know what has to be
uttered) that whoever sees in Atheism simply the development
of a negation, sees but half the truth. Even in this respect
(supposing existing theological systems to be erroneous)
Atheism has the merit of clearing the way for pure Moral ism,
which is the other half or positive ground of Atheism. The
latest writers on the Philosophy of Religion resolve religion
into Dependence; by which its modern theory at length coin
cides with its ancient practice. We venture to think that this
is not salutary teaching. Life should be self-reliant. It seems
to me that the light of Nature and the experience of man are
anterior to the dogmas of priests, and are the sources whence
* W. J. Linton.
�LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.
121
guidance and duty independently spring. The priest breaks
in upon the integrity of life, and diverts its course. He says
he makes an addition to our knowledge—we do not find it so.
He professes to show us the hidden mysteries of the future—
. we fail to see them. He simply encumbers us, and we pray
him to stand aside. The responsibility of our course is our
own and not his, and we have a right to be left free.
Rejecting his advices, he proclaims that we reject truth,
honour, justice, love. This is his error, or the retaliation of
his disappointment. We appeal to the candid and the
impartial to judge between us. We respect Theology as the
science of man’s destiny, and regret that it bears no fruits for
us; but this is not our fault, and we therefore attempt to
solve the problem of life for ourselves. Our progress already
counts some distinct steps. We have recast the practice of
controversy; we forbid to ourselves to suspect evil motives,
or to impute insincerity to others; the doubtful act we propose
to judge by evidence alone, and to put the best construction
on the dubious word. Thus we annihilate Antagonism, the
eldest foe of Progress, by imposing laws on impulse. Our
search in every system is directed after moral truth ; and, less
exacting than the Christian, we accept it, whether given by
Inspiration, confirmed by Miracle, attested by Prophecy or
not. Probity of word and act may be securely based on the
intelligence and refinement of mankind—and this we labour
to enforce. To restrict human expectation to that which is
ascertainable by reason must have the effect of concentrating
attention on humanity, and intensifying interest in human
exertions. In Solidarity we find the encouragement to public
endeavour, and we sum up private duty in Honour, which is
respecting the Truth; in Morality, which is acting the Truth ;
and in Love, which is serving the Truth.
THE END.
�INDEX.
PAGE
Abjectness of Ignorance, The .. 31
*
Acquittal, its Chances Estimated x.
Adams, George, his Arrest ... 27
--------------- , Sentence upon him 30
----------- -—, his Conduct and
Character ...
...
... 30
Adams, Mrs. Harriet, her Ap
prehension and Courage ... 27
Address on Liberation
... 104
Alcott, Mr.
............................ in
Alexander, Mr., his Speech for
the Crown.............................. 35
----------------- , his Offensive Inuendoes
.............................. 35
Among the “Cast, Quit, and
Condemned”
...
... 84
Answer Indicted, The...
... 13
Anti-Persecution Union, its
Slender Provision ...
... 93
Apprehension, The
...
... 17
Arms of the Free-thought Party 120
Artifice invented by the Judge 78
Assumption by the Judge
... 80
Atheism, the Controversial
Species
.............................. ix.
--------, its Limit of Proof ... ix.
-------- , its Conditions
... ix.
-------- not a mere Negative... 120
Attorney-General, the Proposed
Prosecutor.............................. iv.
Barclay, the Hon. Mr. C., his
Defence of the Magistrates... 39
Barnes, James, one of the Bail 26
Barristers, Reason for Distrust
ing them in 1841 ...
... 25
Bartram, James, his Evidence . 36
Betrayal by Barristers
29, 44
Bigotry, its Fifteen Years’ Sleep viii.
Birch, W. J., Dedication to him ii.
Blasphemy, Definition of by the
Judge
.......................... 42
-------------- , Definition of by a
Witness
...
...
... 59
Bubb, Mr., on the Rampage
again...
...
...
... 28
Bubbism
...
...
17, 19
Buckle, H. Thomas, his Famous
Protest against Mr. Justice
Coleridge ...
...
... vi.
Burial of Madeline ...
... 96
Bush, Rev. Paul, the Prosecutor
of Pooley ..............
vi.
PAGE
Capper,
Mr.,
Magisterial
Speeches of ...
•••
••• 5°
------------------- , his Doctrine
of “ Notoriety ” ...
22,23
Carlile, Richard, his Estimate
of the Trial.......................... i.
-------------------- , his Friendship
and Attention
...
88,111
Charge to the Jury ...
...76
Chartists of Cheltenham, The . 16
Cheltenham Defined ...
... 9
Cheltenham Free Press, its Cou
rageous Services
... 83
Chilton, William, his Writing
imputed to Adams ...
... 29
-------- , Mrs., Incidents of Im
prisonment ....................... ;. 105
Christians, their Resistance • to
Established Opinion •
... 107
Circumlocution in Prison
... 108
Clergymen’s, The, Final Dia
logue in Chapel and Cell 102,103
-------------- Offer of a Fat Bible 103
Close, the Rev. Francis
... 14
---------------------------- on the
Deadliness of Science
... 62
Coleridge, Justice, his Savage
Sentence of Pooley ...
... vi.
Commission, Special Evidence
before it
...
...
... 114
Committal, Copy of ...
22, 23
Common Law, History of its
Relation to Blasphemy
70, 71
------------- , its Five Defects 76, 119
Conversion, Dialogue with the
Chaplain
...
...
... iol
Cooper, Bransby, his First Con
versation
...
...
... 25
------------------- , his Ferocity
and Tenderness
... 26,106, ill
------------------- , Ejaculates in
Court......................................... 59
------------------- , his Surprise
after the Trial
...
... 84
-------------------- ■, his Generous
Thoughtfulness
...
... 96
Correspondence of Six Months Il2
Defence, Commencement of ... 38
----------- Conclusion of
... 76
Desertion by Colleagues
... iol
Dialogue with a Cheltenham
Host..................................... 10
�123
INDEX.
PAGE
Diderot, his famous Fable
...
62
Easter Dues, a Story of ... 51, 52
Edwards, Jonathan, on the Im
possibility of Paining God. 59,60
Equity Law Life Insurance and
Imprisonment
...
... 118
Erskine, Mr. Justice, his Cour
tesy ..........................
... 35
------------------- - , his Opinion
—
of Strauss’s Life of Jesus ... 67
----- ----------------- , Tribute to
his Fairness and Patience ... 81
Explicitness in Advocacy, its
Justification in 1841
... 15
First Experience of Gloucester
Gaol..............
24
First Visit to London.............. 26
Fox, W. J. (afterwards M.P. for
Oldham), Letter from
... 52
----------- , his Curious Opinion
of Theism ...
...
... 57
Future Life
.............
... 95
Gaol Reading, the “ Manual of
Devotion”..............
63, 64
Gloucester Gaol, the Journey
there.........................
20, 21
Government Price of Freedom. 118
Graham, Sir James, his Frank
ness and Fairness ...
39, 40
---------------- ------ , his Motto . 62
----------------- —-—, his Conces
sions ------------------90, 112
PAGE
Itch Room, The
..............
89
Jones, Charles Lorando, his
Trial in Australia..............
x.
----- ■, Eben., on the Duty of
Atheists
...
...
... 16
----- , Samuel, Visiting Magis
trate
...
...
24, hi
----------------- ■, Reads a Psalm
in the Common Room
... 88
----------------- , Relies on the
Rudeness of David
... 88
----------------- } his Fabrication
concerning Richard Carlisle. 88
Jury, their Verdict
...
... 80
Jurisdiction of Justice Act of
1842......................................... vi.
Hall, Rev. Robert, his Coarse
and Brutal Phrases.............. iv.
Hawkins, Dr. Blissett...
... 114
Hetherington, Henry, his Trial
in 1840
.......................... vii.
—- -------------------- , his OddFellow
...
...
... 14
Hicks, Mr.
............................ 115
Holberry, Mrs., Subscription
for her
...
...
... 16
House of Commons, Discussion
in
..........................
39,4°
Hunt’s (Knight) Report of the
Trial......................................... 30
Last Days in Birmingham ... 92
Last Interview with the Board
of Magistrates
...
... 103
Law-breaking, Gravity and
Danger of it.......................... 119
Law of Speech and Silence ... 14
Liberty of Statement Defined... 43
Limitation of Families
... 92
Linton, W. J..................
15, 120
Lovesey “ Shudders ”............... 33
Mathematical Blasphemy
... 17
Memorial to Sir James Graham 46,
Midnight Excursion, A
... 11
Moxon, Mr., Indicted by Mr.
Hetherington
................. vii.
47
McNeile, Rev. Hugh.............. 56
Madeline, News of her Death . 93
Mason, Captain, his Character
and Courtesy ...
97, 109, 115
----------------- ', his Doctrine
—
of Oaths
.......................... 99
Milton, his Rule of Controversy 65
Narrowness of Old Free-think
ing Policy.......................... 12
Newell, Rev. Dr., much Out
raged...
...
...
... 19
Newman, Francis William, on
an Uncaused Deity ...
... 56
Night Writing..............
... 112
Imprisonment, Personal Theory
of it
...”
.............. v.
Inaccurate Magisterial State
ments......................................... 47
Odd Fellows’ Prize Lectures ... 118
Ogden on the Prayer Bell ... 85
-------- on the Introduction of
Tobacco
.............................. 98
�INDEX.
PAGE
Oracle of Reason, Indiscrimi
nating Editorship............... 82
.......
..............-, Quoted by
the Judge .......................... x.
Overbury, Mr., Delivers his
Opinion
..............
... 19
Passive Resistance in Gaol ... 87
Persecution a Sequence of
Christianity ...
...
... 116
----- , its Power to Put
Down Truth...
...
... 117
Pinching, Mr., the Theological
Police Surgeon
...
20, 21
Place, Francis, his Advice ... vii.
Plutarch on Suicide ...
... x.
Policy of Prison Complaints ... 108,
109
Pooley, Thomas, his Trial in
1857
.......................... vi.
Price, Mrs., of Gloucester
... 105
Price of Liberty
...
... 95
Priest, The, Interrupting and
Irrelevant ...
...
. 121
Prison Books: “Paley Refuted ”
and “ Short and EasygMethod
with the Saints” ...
... 104
-------- Christianity
101,2,3,113
-------- Companions ...
... 88
Proposal by the Chaplain ... 101
124
PAGE
Schoolmastership in Sheffield . 11
Search for God, The.............. ix.
Sentence, the .v
...
... 80
Socialists, Estimates of them
in 1841
.......................... 15
Southwell, Charles, his Impri
sonment
.......................... 13
Sperry, Treatment of the Young
Poet..................................... 15
Spitefulness to Mrs. Adams . 28, 29
Stevenson, John Diamond, the
other Bail ...
...
... 26
Suicide, its General Want of
Decency or Necessity
... x.
-------- , Possibilities of it in
Prison
..............................91
Surgeon of the Prison, a Terri
fied Instrument
... 110,111
Symons, Mr. Jellinger, his Re
gicide Parallel
...
... 45
-------------------------- , his Com
pensatory Report .............. 82
Talfourd, Mr. Serjeant, on Re
stricting the Right of Indict
ment ........................................ vii.
Theism, its Pretension to Lo
gical Omniscience ...
... ix.
-------- , Sources of its Proofs... 55,
56,57
Question of Maitland, The ... 13 Thomas, Mr. Serjeant, Obliga
tion to him.............................. 29
-------- , Mrs................................. 105
Reciprocal Arguments with the
Chaplain ..................
99,100 Treatment in Gaol, 89,90,109 —113
Trial, The, its Commencement. 32
Refusal to Wear the Prison
Dress...
...
...
... 86
Results of the Imprisonment... 113 Upton, the Epileptic Prisoner... 97
Reverence
...
...
... ix.
Visit to Cheltenham, First ... 9
Robert Owen, his Silence during
the Imprisonment ...
IOI
Walk with Adams after the
Roebuck, J. A., M.P., Letter
Trial......................................... 83
from ...
...
...
... 22
Wanted by the Clergyman ... 85
Russell, Joseph, his Indictment
at Warwick ...
...
... 72 Weekly Dispatch, Notice of
First Lecture
...
xii., 27
-------- •, Lord John, on the
Measure of Rights ...
61,62 -----------------------•, on Qualifi
cations of the Jury ...
... 33
-------- , Superintendant, De
fence of
...
...
... 23 I ---------------------- , its Influ
ences at the Gaol ...
... 83
Ryall, Maltus Questell, Facts
of Christian Persecution ... 115 : Williams, Captain, his Defence
of Free Speech
...
... 83
Sayer, the Hon. and Rev.
Witnesses against Mr. Lorando
Andrew
............................ 103 I
Jones
............. ,
... xi.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The history of the last trial by jury for atheism in England: a fragment of autobiography
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Edition: 4th ed. rev.
Place of publication: London
Collation: xii, 9-124 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Contains prefaces to first ed. (1850, abridged); third ed. (1861) and fourth ed. (1871). Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Holyoake, George Jacob
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Trubner & Co.
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1871
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Atheism
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Atheism
Trials (Atheism)
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THE
NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH.
“ I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, com
plicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterise their articles of belief and con
fessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its alt^^as its sole qualification for
membership, the Saviour’s condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel,
‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thvall thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself,’ that church will I join with all
my heart and all my soul.”—President Lincoln.
LONDON:
TEUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1867.
[price
sixpence.]
�London:
Printed by J. Kenny, 40 Parker Street, Little Queen Street, W.C.
�THE
NEW CATHOLIC CHURCH.
“I have found difficulty in giving nay assent, without mental reservation, to the
long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterise their articles
of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as
its sole qualification for membership, the Saviour’s condensed statement of the
substance of both law and gospel, ‘ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and
thy neighbour as thyself,’ that church will I join with all my heart and all my
soul.”—President Lincoln.
A Church is not a mechanics’ institute, a philosophical
society, nor a political association. Its supreme purpose is the
public ancl associated worship of God. With this it may, and
should, connect instruction, and works of benevolence. Worship,
Doctrine, Work, are three forms in which man’s nature
expresses itself under the conditions of what we call Church
Fellowship. There are a thousand ways of useful activity in
the world, and in a certain wide sense, all men and women who
are working for the good of mankind (their own included), are
members of one great church and holy brotherhood, though
they may never have articulated the fact to themselves, and
may be unaware of each other’s existence. So, too, the Press
makes the whole ‘nation into a school, acts as a public censor
morum, sparing not the proudest delinquent, and uttering a voice
potential for justice to the humblest member of society—the
press, that out-preaches the bishops, erects a sort of common
pulpit for all who have anything worth communicating to
the people. But neither the press, with its myriad voices, nor
benevolent societies, in then’ thousand modes of activity, include
all that man needs and desires under the idea of a church.
The primary want is some common centre where men may
meet to worship the great Invisible, feel those spiritual ties
that bind them in a common brotherhood, and receive impulse
and inspiration to the practice of a pure and elevated
morality. Men feel—at least, the nobler minds among them
feel—that they need to be led to those fountains of spiritual
�4
light and strength, which are requisite to prepare them for every
needed work, brace them for all trial, give them tranquillity amid
turmoil, and sustain them to do their duty as under the eye of
the Great Work-master. Now, all this is not to be obtained in
philosophical disquisitions, however correct and profound; much
less in clamorous appeals to the feelings, or in pictures addressed
to the imagination, or in the exciting machinery of public
meetings, nor is it found even in “ the enthusiasm of humanity,”
however wide and earnest, if it does not arise from a Arise and
holy love of man as a child of God, with great powers to be
cultivated, and a great career to run. Mechanics’ institutes,
halls of science, “ churches of justice,” and other well-meant
institutions, have gone but a very little way in supplying this
deep-felt want of the human heart.
2. A feeling is growing in many quarters that the existing
religious organisations do not completely supply what is needed.
The feeling is that they are mostly miserable failures, and that
something far superior should be devised to quietly take their
place. Taking the largest religious body in this country, who can
doubt that the formularies and services of the Church, as by law
established, fail to meet the intellectual and moral wants of its
most cultivated and devout members? Probably the same thing
may be said of the leading Nonconformist denominations. And,
if our information is reliable, a like state of things exists outside,
as well as within, the pale of professing Christendom. Moham
medanism and modern Judaism are passing through a similar
phase. Apparently, too, the Brahminism of India has not escaped
the wide-spread influence which seems to be taking possession
of many foremost minds all the world over. We can report
nothing respecting the Confucianism of the countless millions
of China—a system which has never risen to the dignity of a
religion, but has always reposed on the lower level of a mere
ethical preceptory,—many of its principles, however, reaching a
high order of excellence. Taking an extended survey of the
held of the world, and noting its great religious systems, we
should be disposed to say that ancient traditions are losing their
hold, old repetitions grow stale upon the ear, and men in many
lands, and of many creeds, are dimly groping after something
better. Doubtless in due time this grand aspiration will, as
heretofore, seek to realise itself in some new embodiment.
3. The religious condition of our own country is anything but
�5
encouraging. The Church of England is not what its name
imports—the religious home of the people. Great public move
ments advance without much reference to the teachings of the
pulpit. A considerable proportion of the intelligent working
people in large towns attend no place of Ayor ship; and many of
our most profound thinkers and ablest philosophical writers, our
Carpenters, Darwins, Faradays, Huxleys, Lyells, Mills, Owens,
Spencers, Tyndals, &c., are connected with none of the popular
churches. The Dissenting denominations have no greater reasons
to boast than the Establishment. Confessions and bewailments of
inefficiency are rife among all the sects. They no longer hold the
common mind, as in days of yore. Ideas and usages, we know,
may be quite suitable to one age of the world, oi' one condition
of society, which are found totally unfitted for another. Hoav
shall we account for the decline of clerical influence ? Is it that
in the march of improvement, the Church has fallen behind the
world? Why, for instance, should the chief shepherds of the
flock be distinguished by odd dresses, shovel hats, and knee
breeches, that may have been the mode in the days of our great
grandfathers ? The laying-on of hands has lost much of its
mystic significance to us. Ordinary people will feel that robes,
and ruffles, and gowns, “black, white, and grey, with all their
trumpery,” are not vital parts of religionjwhatever the Ritualists
may say to the contrary. An unhealthy sewrance, for six days
of the week, of a certain order of men from the free air that
visits then' fellow-citizens, is not favourable to genuineness or
strength of character. Neither is there any reason that when
they address us, their discourses should contrast but poorly
with the “ leaders ” of the daily and weekly press, or the
articles in our Quarterlies, and be set off by an unnatural sing
song, which has been somewhat irreverently termed the “ Bible
twang.” If we had a really free and national Church, what should
hinder our calling in the aid of the sister arts—music, architec
ture, eloquence, poetry, sculpture, and painting ? Our devotional
feelings are fostered as we listen to the solemn tones of the
organ, pealing through the arches of the magnificent Cathedral,
and join in those sublime harmonies, in the production of which
genius has spent its highest energies! There seems, neither
justice nor wisdom in restricting a National Church to certain
prescriptive creeds, mutually conflicting, and to a few types of
mind, which are not a full and fair representation of the
�6
nation’s many-sidedness. In a Church meant for the whole
people, and to include the whole nation, all forms of free, earnest,
and devout thought should find their representatives. Lord
Amberley, in a highly suggestive and original article that
recently appeared in the Fortnightly Review, writes :—•“ A body
of educated men, not bound to one special cast of religious
faith, nor each insisting upon his own creed as the one thing
needful; a clergy not purely sectarian, but containing men
of opposite modes of thought, yet all contributing to the
grand object of instructing, improving, civilising the people;
diversity, rather than unity, recognised as the true ideal;
above all, individual speculation not forbidden, but sanctioned
by the laws. All this is so contrary to ordinary notions of a
church, that it is not surprising if many are unwilling to
regard it as either possible or desirable...............................................
That venerable dogmas and old supernatural beliefs are every
where examined, shaken, and overthrown, appears to be generally
admitted. . . . The articles remain as they were in the
time of Elizabeth, but men’s minds are not such as they were
then. Thus it happens that the clergy, the representatives
among us of the Elizabethan stage in our intellectual progress,
are becoming more and more alienated from, and opposed to,
the educated opinion of the country.
.... No National
Church could thoroughly fulfil the duties entrusted to it, if
such men as Theodore Parker, Emerson, or Francis (William)
Newman were excluded from its Ministry.
Such a Church,
though it might contain many excellent and distinguished
ministers, would still remain partial and defective.”
But, without attempting to forestall the future or fix the
progressive, we ask ourselves whether the principles of a
religious organisation may not be indicated, with sufficient breadth
and clearness to form a nucleus for many earnest and devout
men ?
4. It is clear that a long creed, made up of obscure and
disputed points of theology, could never form the basis of a
grand comprehensive spiritual community.
The experiment
has been tried in a hundred forms, and has failed in all—ending
only in little sectarian bigotry, disunion, and denunciation, and
when opportunity served, not stopping short of persecution.
The entire notion of dictating a creed as the exposition of all
possible truth, the summary of all attainable religious know
�7
ledge, the ne plus ultra beyond which we must not advance, has
now become obsolete. It is needless thrice to slay the slain.
A Church must be based on something better and broader than
any mere string of theological articles, however correct. We
must try to find some basis that shall be certain enough, broad
enough, and important enough, to unite a vast majority of
religious men. If there is to be any union and co-operation at
all, there must be some principles held in common; similar
views, purposes, and aspirations, are needed to fuse men into a
Church. But evidently this fusion is not to be sought through
the obscure, the trivial, the controverted, the mystical, the un
determinable. Principles held in common, and felt to be grand,
true, and important, must lie at the foundation of a Church.
Such points as are debated between Calvinists and Arminians
could not enter into the creed of a Universal Church. We say
the same of controversies touching sacraments and forms of
church government. A Catholic Church can make no declara
tion of preference for Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, or Congre
gationalism. Men, equally good and sincere, espouse opposite
views on such questions as these, which, therefore, do not belong
to the essence of religion; nor are theylintimately connected
with the formation of human character: they are properly left
open questions. The whole Ritual controversy, which at this
moment so agitates the Church of England, would be untouched
by our contemplated new Catholic Church; that is, in so far
as this is a mere dispute about forms and dresses, and the charmed
efficacy of sacraments, it remains a shred of antiquarianism, and
cannot prove its title to link itself with spiritual religion.
The acceptance of two simple, practical, but most compre
hensive, principles would seem to be enough. All who accept
with loving heart the worship of God and the service of man,
may be members of one church. They are of one Church, even
if they own it not—know it not. This is enough to constitute
them of one spiritual brotherhood, how much so ever they may
differ in all other matters, important and unimportant. This
exactly coincides with the teaching of Jesus, wherein he makes
the love of God and of our neighbour the sum of all the com
mandments, the fountain-head and centre of all religion. The
teaching of Jesus seems conclusive here. Every one holding
and acting on these principles he would have recognised as
a disciple, and admitted to his Church. We have his express
�8
authority for saying, “ By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples, if ye love one another.”
By what authority then,
have the sects prescribed more than Jesus himself has made
essential?
We adhere to the Master.
Our new Catholic
Church shall be co-extensivd with Christ’s description of re
ligion ; its creed shall be simply the love of God and the love of
man. Simple, but surely sufficient; practical, as leading directly
to worship and work; spiritual, because detached from all ritual
and doctrinal matter of disputed theology. Here would be a
Chiu’ch open to all religious minds of. every degree of culture.
Theists of every clime and name, who accept a benevolent God
and a pure morality, might worship together, if not in the same
temples, yet with like spirit, One who is the Maker and Bene
factor of them all. There is reason to believe that many of the
best spirits of all denominations, are verging toward the stand
point we are indicating. Would not this be the very euthanasia
of sectarianism ?—a consummation to be devoutly wished for.
5. Other truths, principles, and doctrines might be held, and
would be held, in connexion with the grand and simple basis oil
which the Church is founded, but this alone would be funda
mental and essential. And if thoroughly and heartily accepted
and acted on, this would bind men together into a spiritual
organisation, such as no mere dogmas or traditional opinions
could ever achieve. Instead of being zealous for some excluding
creed or ism, which is at best but a fragment broken off from
the great sphere of truth, men thus minded would cherish the
love of truth itself, and in due course would come to prize God’s
truth, more than their own petty version of it.
The study of
all God’s laws and will, whether written or unwritten, would
constitute the delightful and inspiring pursuit of the Church
Universal. And a mind aspiring after unison with the Great
Mind that animates the universe, would find worship in work,
and would be constantly advancing to grander views of
creation and of God; and self-culture, and service to man, our
brother, would be the embodiment of our love to God, our
Father. Does any one fear that these principles would be too
vague and too feeble ?
We believe on the contrary, that when
duly nurtured and unfolded they would become the most power
ful influences that sway the human heart; for they have the
whole universe for their sphere, and for them inspiration the
two grandest objects that can be presented to the mind of man
�9
—God, the mysterious and uncomprehended life of the universe,
and man himself, with all the high capacious powers that lie
folded up within him.
6. We wish to combat the idea, that by leaving open ques
tions we detract anything from Truth, or oppose any obstacle to
its progress. Truth claims only an open field and no favour.
But, in this our Catholic Church, men might aim at definite
convictions, and the clearest and fullest attainable knowledge
on all subjects of human thought.
No arrest would be
attempted upon the fullest and the freest thought, because
(even were this desirable, which we hold it is not) no effectual
arrest ’is ultimately possible. But all those other beliefs and
doctrines would be distinct from the creed and practice of
the Church Universal.
A man might believe in plenary
inspiration of Scripture, in miracles, prophecies, water-baptism,
original sin, a personal devil, and endless tortures; and he
might declare, defend, and diffuse them, if he felt them to be
important; but he would hold these opinions as his individual con
victions only, and not as the faith of the Universal Church. In
point of fact, there is no general agreement on such matters as
these, but all are agreed on the love of God .and our neighbour.
In affirming that the obscure and the dubious ought not to enter
into the creed of the Universal Church, we are but stating the
fact as it is. Religious men do not agree, never have agreed,
on creeds of thirty-nine or more articles1^ on dogmas implying
hundreds of propositions, which may be viewed differently by
minds differently educated, and at differing stages of culture.
We must not then look in this direction for abasis of union.
Even if there were agreement on these points,, such agreement
could minister no spiritual power, could supply no moral strength
that is, not contained in the feeling, the consciousness, of a
living and loving God and Father, a Holy Spirit nigh to all
devout hearts that are open to that holy influence. The faith,
the trust, in one pure and benevolent God, is the alpha and
omega of religion. Special religious doctrines are but deduc
tions from k this. A Divine Government of the world,
divine forgiveness, the inspirations of conscience, the future
life,
and every other noble, elevating, and comforting
hope of religion, are all deductions from this one principle,
amplifications of this one truth, streams from this one
fountain,—the heart’s repose on the moral character of God.
�10
Let this be our trust, and what need we more, in the way of
doctrine, creed, theology ? The theological field is cleared of
the lumber of a thousand years, and with open eye and un
quailing heart we set out on our great quest after the truth of
God, to apply it for healing the woes of human kind.
7. In treating all other questions as open ones, we make no
attempt to ignore or shelve them; we merely assign to them a
subordinate place. But we must lay the rock foundation of our
Church Catholic on the love of God and man. This is the
force that binds us to God and to each other. Shall we exclude
from our Church a virtuous and devout man, who may have
historical or critical doubts of the recorded miracles*of the
past, or who may not have attained to an unquestioning
belief in a future life ? This would be to repeat the errors of
the old manufacturers of creeds. In truth, there are tender
and beautiful natures that would not desire a future fife for
themselves, under the dread condition that millions of the
human race, or even that one human being, should personally
experience the endless and aimless tortures of the Calvinistic hell.
Our Free Church must be dwarfed by no little final and authori
tative creed, but shall be open to all loving and devout hearts,
though they may be in different stages of intellectual and spiritual
development, and have as yet taken in unequal portions of the truth
of God. We see but in part, and we prophecy but in part. Our
Church then shall include men of full-grown faith like St. Paul,
who appears to have had no doubts of the immortal fife ; and it
shall also comprehend babes in Christ, who cannot see afar off, and
cannot walk alone. Men, indeed, are not to be admitted, because
of their doubts on these matters of high and disputed doctrine ;
but they are to be recognised as members of the New Catholic
Church, because they have accepted the grand principles that
constitute the Catholic faith, the Fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man. But on all other points their doubts shall
not exclude them. If in any there be darkness and blankness, this
is rather a reason for admission into the Church, that, like the
ancient catechumens, they may be instructed, not anathematised;
that if there is any fight within, they may have the benefit of it;
and, if there is no light, that they may at least learn where their
knowledge ends and their ignorance begins. It must be frankly
and completely understood and acknowledged, that our Church
is not an agreement in some stereotyped creed, which has been
�11
embalmed and bequeathed to us from the past, but an
association of free and earnest souls, who have banded them
selves together to listen to the voice of God, to study the order
of His universe, thence to collect His will, and proclaim
it, and apply it for the service and blessing of man.
Some earnest enquirer of blameless life presents himself for
admission to the Church, but he has not been able to form to
himself any satisfactory ideas respecting the authority of the
Bible, inspiration, miracles, and a future life. He does not
utter himself confidently, as do the ignorant and the presump
tuous : he is at least aware of the depth and difficulty of the
themes, and he is trying to keep his mind open to the light of
heaven, from whatever quarter it may stream upon him. Shall
this man be excluded, because he has become aware of the per
plexities that have beset the greatest minds that have searched
into these high topics? or shall he not rather be welcomed,
because he has accepted the grand Catholic faith (grander,
nobler, and truer than all disputed theological creeds), the faith
which makes us all one in the love of God and our neighbour ?
8. The New Catholic Church, the basis of which we have
sketched, could never be at war with science, as many of our churches
are ; would never dread the advance of knowledge, as most of our
churches do ; but it would foster everything that conduces to
the world’s improvement,—the most extended good of the human
race. For no advance of science could ever render doubtful or
secondary, the two primal duties of loving God and loving man.
Holding communion with a living and loving God now and here,
we could afford to keep the peace upon the records of the past,
whose interpretation is often difficult, hardly ever certain, and
which, at the best, must be interpreted through our own experi
ence. We can know other hearts and consciences only through
our own. Even our conception of the Divine Being is formed
by analogy with our own minds ; and kindred minds understand
each other best. But if we have the living and present experi
ence of the holy conscience, what boots it to wrangle respecting
the phenomena of the past, which for us can have no reality and
value except in so far as they are repeated or illustrated in our
own consciousness. The Church of the Future will not waste its
time and temper in disputes about the past manifestations of
God, ordinary or extraordinary, natural or miraculous, but
standing upon the present realised truth, drinking in the present
�12
actual and efficient inspiration of God, it will go on from truth,
to truth, and from glory to glory. Accepting religion at first
hand, it will generously construe the past; and affirming all
truth to he divine, it will be strenuous to take truth itself for
authority, rather than, childishly, be running hither and thither to
seek authority for its truth. Whatever of true or good exists in
any of the sacred books, or sacred literature of the world, could
be appropriated and assimilated. We need not ignore any
truths that have been reached by the sages of India or Egypt,
of Greece or Rome, any more than the grand lessons and prin
ciples that come to us through Hebrew bards or Christian
apostles. In honouring the Bible, we need not dishonour the
Koran. We may generalise the idea of inspiration, and receive
the true and divine, if even it visit us from outside the circle of
Hebrew prophets, or beyond the limits of the Christian con
sciousness. In ancient times, the tenets of those called heretics
were not always the least elevated or the least Christian. But,
it would be the glory of our Catholic Church to recognise
the freedom of conscience and the inspiration of God, wherever
we find the noble and the true. Each member of our broad
Church would freely appropriate, according to his capacity,
the spiritual nourishment fitted to his own special wants
wherever found.
As there would be no authoritative
hierarchy, no act of uniformity, no vain attempts to plane
all minds down to the same dead level, each section, congrega
tion, or cluster of congregations, would be able to make rules
and articles for its own particular guidance; and all would be
growing into a grand community, a glorious fellowship of free
minds, gladly accepting the accumulating facts of science, which
are the permanent revelation of God by which he is ever speak
ing to all people.
9. An inevitable outcome of oui' principles is the right, nay,
the duty of free thought and the sacredness of the indi
vidual conscience. Yet this is a duty which is seldom volun
tarily undertaken. Uncultured minds are averse to the labour
of thinking, and the weak and superstitious dread the very idea
of thinking for themselves in matters of religion. They call it
heresy, pride of intellect, carnal reason, while all the time they
are themselves employing this same carnal weapon to recommend
and defend their own favourite dogmas. In the last result,
every man that thinks must depend on his own individual reason,
�13
for guidance toward the true light, just as he follows his own
eyes in walking the streets. If he cannot or does not think for
himself, at the very least it is by by his own judgment that he
selects the authorities he shall trust. To talk of carnal ears and
pride of eyesight would be just as logical as the talk about pride of
reason. It is inevitable that we should see by our own eyes, hear
by our own ears, think through our own brain, judge by our
own reason, worship according to our own conscience. When
we call in the helping counsel of those we deem wiser than
ourselves, reason must still decide: we cannot shift the
responsibility upon others. Individual reason is the universal
starting point, and it is the terminus.
10. Those who understand the principles we are endeavouring
to set forth will see that our proposed Church cannot, as a church,
descend to regulate and pronounce upon many details that inert
and feeble minds might desire to have settled for them without
trouble, in order that they might possess them as they take pos
session of their paternal estates J Whether we are to have prayers
written or printed, prepared or extemporised, what are to be the
vestments of the clergy, whether our places of meeting shall be in
style Grecian or Gothic;—such questions as these, and a whole
host besides, must be left for arrangement according to the
discretion, taste, convenience, and conscience, of the members
in each locality. The Church, as a community, has no judgment
to pronounce upon them, because it keeps itself to higher
concerns.
11. Work, not less than worship and instruction, will hold a
first place in the Church of the Future. Its mission will be to
do good, its prayer will be work.
Kind and good hearts
will find their mission in bringing comfort to the afflicted,
health to the sick, relief to the oppressed, food to the hungry,
freedom to the captive, knowledge to the ignorant, and
reformation to the sinner. For a long time to come the best
spirits of the Church may find ample employment in training
the young, especially the most neglected, and inducing the habits
that lead toindustry, order, cleanliness, and economy. The existing
condition of the dwellings of the poor of London, and of all our
great towns, could not endure in presence of a church animated
by the genuine enthusiasm of humanity. Their continuance is a
standing reproach to our wealth, our intelligence, and our Christi
anity. To promote public health and education, to forward every
�14
thing that conduces to the peace and prosperity of nations; perhaps
to send out to foreign lands its trained missionaries, not to spread
a doubtful theology, but to convey the arts of peace and civilisa
tion to tribes less civilised; and exemplify, by deeds of kindness,
the goodwill that man owes to man all the world over: these,
and such services as these, will be the chosen work of the Church
of the Future. Nor will the great vital questions of the time be
deemed too secular for the spirituality of religion. Pure religion
and undefiled, established in men’s hearts and lives, and not on
Acts of Parliament, would be felt as a moral power in the state,
—promoting peace, justice, and goodwill to all, rendering legisla
tion wise and humane, and sending the sweet waters of concord
over all the earth for the healing of the nations.
12. There is nothing revolutionary or subversive in the idea
of the Church which we present in outline. All noble
institutions might be linked with it; all earnest workers for
human improvement might be included in it, and draw their
inspiration from it, and it could never be outgrown by any
advance of society.
Those whose thoughts run in the old
grooves, will take exception mainly to the shortness of its creed,
and the breadth of its platform. “ It does not affirm enough,”
it will be said, “ it does not dogmatise enough-; its materials
would be too heterogeneous; there is needed a common and
binding creed.”
And is not the love of God and of our
neighbour, a common and binding creed ? We challenge the pro
duction of any better, broader, or higher.
Surely if there were
a community animated by such principles, it would be a
blessing in the earth! Let the two grand principles—the
Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of Man—take
root in the mind, and all other truths might follow; only those
other truths would not be prescribed by Church enactment, but
would prevail by their own evidence, weight, and authority.
Whatever is true in them would be taught not less effectually, but
more effectually, than if it were set forth in an authoritative creed
or symbol. Such attempts have proved the failiu'e, the weakness,
and the ignominy of the old sects and creedmakers. The Church
of the Future will adopt no such retrograde policy. The whole
range of truth must be left open to the searching, advancing,
aspiring mind of man; as the whole starry heavens are open to
the sweep of his telescopes. The fear to leave the soul of man
face to face with the facts of the universe, betrays a scepticism
�15
respecting truth itself, respecting its reality and safety, which is
far worse than any critical doubts regarding ancient documents.
Holding absolute faith in Truth and God, the new Catholic
Church would close no avenue of knowledge, and bar no
approach to God. We have entire confidence that faith, good
ness, and right, will gain the final victory over all forms of error,
evil, and wrong.
13. Finally, this Church would harmonise with the spirit
of pure Christianity. It would worship the Father that Jesus
worshipped; it would recognise the human brotherhood which
He preached and practised.
The principles that supported
the virtue of Christ himself would be the pillars of
the New Catholic Church.
On the disputed points which
have divided the Christian world, our Church would
leave opinion, criticism, and advancing knowledge, free;
the religion which all accept, it would regard as alone
essential.
This is a doctrine of charity, a ground of
liberality, and a condition of progress.
While men lay
the foundation of their churches in disputable and secondary
matters of mere speculative opinion, they find no agree
ment, no repose, no orderly progress—but suspicion, ill-will,*
secessions, and an indefinite dread of the advance of new ideas.
Taught by past mistakes, let us lay the foundation broad and
deep, on principles which all religious men acknowledge to be
true, important, and catholics and we shall, however feebly,
be building on a foundation which future ages will not desert,
but will continue to honour and to crown with new and evergrowing evidences and monuments of man’s restless aspiring
spirit; amid all his errors, ever seeking the true; and even amid
his vices and crimes never falsifying the ancient testimony that
man was made in the image of God, and that of one blood are
all nations of men.
Amicus.
�;■
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Dublin Core
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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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Dublin Core
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Title
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The new Catholic Church
Creator
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Crawford, J.G.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 15 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Author given as Amicus. Attribution by the Dr Williams Library. Printed by J. Kenny, Parker Street, Little Queen Street, W.C.
Publisher
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Trubner & Co.
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1867
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G5254
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Catholic Church
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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 new Catholic Church), 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
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Text
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English
Catholic Church
Conway Tracts
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/9854d2068209be0a60cb9064c42c7e53.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=LFIhW4CME5at8uP4GwR5w4WX4OXcGF%7EziAy1jmWxWAKgDSs2SPTHOroGT%7EtuHA0tYmRGHAPlcDcO1r-KbKuW9R9c4rCauswEAA7msSm7OE9zw2xlVwsNxIwchr5KvF2SlRBqeech9yG8BWleqDosB-Ur%7Ei%7En3q5JNuNac8sp1XPfTcYPreef1Ob2k8q34Hs3tyNtLZLaP46Vfac-ycAG2fsxewc94D%7Ez5cso0B-SejNA2ge1eeszM%7EXSpL5IYvY%7EWiUayFFXs-fFtYkiXa0Js3XplQfOGH6IOYDHTktteW2I8VU6lwtYeyUp6g%7EjYsMJcLRRaWMT%7EHFfDe3htY6nlQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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PDF Text
Text
REPORT
BP
OF A
^GENERAL CONFERENCE
OF
M■
LIBERAL THINKERS,
NR
-JM
E
FOB THE
■ “DISCUSSION OF MATTERS PERTAINING TO THE
RELIGIOUS NEEDS OF OUR TIME, AND THE METHODS
OF MEETING THEM.”
<
HELD JUNE 13TH AND 14TH, 1878,
AT
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL,
FINSBURY, LONDON.
PUBLISHED BY
TEUBNER & CO., 57
<fc 59, LUDGATE HILL, E.C.
1878.
PRICE ONE SHILLING.
�LONDON:
WATEBLOW AND SONS LIMITED, PBINTEB
LONDON WALL.
�THE CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
At the Annual Meeting of the Members of South Place Chapel, on January
27, 1878, it was suggested that further use might be made of the Society and
its organization, by inviting to a General Conference all those liberal thinkers
in this country who could unite for unsectarian work, and assist in the promotion of truth wherever it might be found.
f The following Resolution, proposed by Mr. Moncure D. Conway, and
seconded by Mr. Alexander J. Ellis, was carried unanimously :—
y *£ That the Minister and Committee of the Society be authorised (if on consultation
they find it expedient) to hold a Conference of advanced Thinkers,, at any time and place
thought convenient.”
In the month of April the following circular of invitation was issued :
“ South Place Chapel,
“11, South Place, Finsbury,
“London, E.C.
“The Minister and Committee of the Religious Society meeting at South Place solicit
your attendance at a General Conference of Liberal Thinkers, to be held here on June 13th
and 14th, 1878, from 12 to 5 p.m., each day, for the discussion of matters pertaining to the
religious needs of our time, and the method of meeting them.
“In assuming the initiative in thia matter, our Society has no disposition to commit any
one who may accept this invitation to any opinions held by its minister or members. It
is actuated by a desire to promote the unsectarian and liberal religion of the age, now too
xauch impeded by isolation and by misunderstandings among those really devoted to com
mon aims, and to utilise its building and organisation for that purpose.
“ At the proposed Conference it is hoped that persons may be gathered who, though
working in connection with particular organisations, yet, acknowledge no authority above
Tr0h, and are interested in the tendency to that universal religion which would break
down all partition-walls raised by Dogma and Superstition between race and race, man
and man.
“ It is believed that light and strength may be gained for each and all by earnest and
frank consultation concerning such subjects as the relation of liberal thinkers to the sectarian divisions of the world ; their duties of negation and affirmation; and the practical
methods of advancing their principles.
“ The proposed meeting will be informal in its constitution, no regular representation
being at present in view, the assembly being thus left free to adopt any practical course for
the future that shall appear desirable.
“ A careful report of the proceedings will be printed.
“Your reply, which it is hoped will be favourable, together with the names and addresses
of such persons as you believe would be interested in the proposed Conference, may be
sent to Mr. Moncure D. Conway, Hamlet House, Hammersmith, London, W.”
F. The response to this circular was on the whole satisfactory, and about
dOOjpgrsons attended the sessions, many different parts of the kingdom being
�4
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
represented. The Conference met on Thursday, June 13, at welve o’clock,
and the following is the official report of what took place :—
Mr. Moncure D. Conway : On behalf of our Committee, I have great
pleasure in welcoming you all to this meeting ; we trust that you will con
sider yourselves quite at home here, and we hope that you will forget entirely
that this building is for the present other than any building in your own
town, or belonging to your own society. We meet for frank and kindly con
sultation as to the great cause of liberal thought and progress in the world 1
and on our part, as our circular says, we have simply utilised our machinery^
and our building for what we hope will bring about a better understanding
and a larger co-operation among liberal elements. We bid you all, therefore,
cordial welcome, and if any of you have not received a formal invitation,
and it has almost been impossible to know just where to send them, there are
some on hand, and we shall be glad to distribute them. For the facilitation
of our work, we have requested certain gentlemen to act as chairmen. I
have no doubt the cordial assent and satisfaction of those who are here will
go with our Committee in having secured the kind services of Dr. George
J. Wyld for this morning. I will therefore request Dr. Wyld, without any
further ceremony or formality, to take the chair.
The Chairman : Ladies and Gentlemen—I am very gratified at the
honour you have done me in electing me to the chair, and I can only wish
that some person of more social importance had been chosen to fill this
position. I am always very glad to do all I can in aid of any cause of this
description, and I most heartily congratulate Mr. Conway and the Committee
of South Place Chapel having inaugurated such a movement as this.
When they come to look back upon it in future years it may be that then
will be the first step in a movement from which great things may grow, and
they will then have cause to be very proud of what they have done. In any
case, I am sure we all of us have cause to be very grateful indeed to them
for having started such a movement as this. As you know, speakers, without
a very great degree of practice, are apt to be diffuse, and therefore I have
prepared a few notes, which, if you will excuse me, I will now read.
I have long felt that the great want among liberal religionists at the
present time is unity and visible combination. More markedly among them
than among any other body of thinkers, everyone has hitherto seemed to be
playing for his own bat, to be beating his own drum, and intent onl^uon
calling attention to his own favourite point of view.
It is not at all surprising that it should be so when we consider how
recent is their development, and from what widely divergent sources sympa
thisers with free thought have originated—from various Nonconformist
churches, from the Established Church, from the ancient Jewish religion, and
even, to a larger extent than is sometimes thought, from the carefully-fenced
Boman fold.
It certainly, however, seems to me that this state of disintegration has
lasted long enough, and that it is time this very loose order should be someM’hat consolidated. And all, I think, must at any rate so far agree, that it is*
at least desirable that the various bodies of freethinkers, and individual free
thinkers, should be brought more within hailing distance of each other, and
should have some common means of communication, so as to be able easibato
combine in case either individual or general interests are threatened.
Upon the general benefits of combination it would be trite to remark.
But more and more at the present day everything shows that co-operation
�keTort—13tiT june, 187’&
5
and organisation are the secrets of success, and that through these the weakest
and wemfegpy1 most unlikely causes often gain their ends. As a recent
remarkable trial shows, even the veriest, and one would think most trans
parent, Swindle, if really well organised, will hardly fail to succeed, and may
keep going for years.
But on the other hand the best causes, through the want of organisation,
have often never got beyond their first start, or after a little success have
to nothing.
In our own special case, the amount of discouragement caused by this
want among nascent freethinkers is very large. I have good grounds from
personal knowledge for saying that it is very considerable. Many personsl
whose sympathies have been awakened in the direction of rational religion, are
chilled and driven back. And sometimes those, who thus go back, become
more zealous on the side of the traditionalists than ever before. For they
think, however mistakenly, that they have found by experience, that outside
the old order of things there is nothing but a dreary waste, without shelter, or
sympathy, or a warm hearth to take refuge by, where no friendly hands join
in hearty grasp, where is nothing to be heard but hollow echoes of uncertain
sound, and nothing to be seen but melancholy ghosts, each wandering his
own way with only too much speculation in those eyes that he doth glare
with.
If free religion is ever to attain any great development, and do any per
manent good in the world, it must be by attracting and holding the younger
generation: I do not mean mere children, but those who are entering active
life. Now the mere aspect of energetic organisation is very attractive to
most minds at this age, and the want of it awakens hesitation and distrust.
Indeed nearly all have a bias to what looks like a winning side, and has
some spirit and life in it. Few can take a stand quite alone, and study the
abstract merit of things in a dry light: they must have some party to take
sides with, some sympathetic comradeship to cheer them along. We should
not, I think, leave it to the traditional churches to reap all the advantage of
this natural esprit de corps. It would be foolish to count among our depend
able recruits that large number of young persons who are merely indifferent
about serious matters. So long as thoughtlessness and ease last, such may be
classed and may even class themselves as freethinkers; but they are not free
in any true sense of the term, they have never thought out their own emanci
pation. What seriousness there is left in them, is still connected with the old
order of things; the power of superstition has not been broken in them,—and
When at last, through misfortune or other cause, their grave time comes,
Hgay revert at once to the old delusions which soothed their mothers and
grandmothers. A better organisation among rational religionists might, I
think, surround some of this floating class with strengthening associations,
and attach them permanently to the body. And really everything nowa
days depends so much upon the popular vote, or may have to fear so
much from an ugly popular rush, that it is all important that freethinkers
should increase their dependable members as well as their means of con
solidation.
For it is not at all impossible, if we do not increase our force, before the
next generation, that a great season of reaction may set in. Many signs seem
to me to point this way. All the lovers of traditional faiths, those who
tremble for the security of property and rank, and all those who are for quiet
at any price, have to a great extent learnt to tolerate one another, and under
the influence of mutual fright are ready to combine for the purpose of—if
�6
GENERAL »W®'ERENCE OF ETEERAL THINKERS.
pot absolutely crushing—yet very inconveniently compressing their common
foe; as they foolishly imagine their best friend, the rational thinker, to be.
Their emissaries and wire-pullers have been working very quietlythese few
past years, and not without effect either in the political or religious world.
They have immense organizations ready to their hand, and they have begun
to learn more how to use them and keep up their vitality.
It is important to recollect too, that all the apparent advances tmft are
made towards freethought in the old churches, are not real advances, or
made from true sympathy or with a view to conciliation; but are simply
temporary shifts to better their logical position, to throw dust in the wor&’s
eyes, and enable them better to bring weak freethinkers within their net.
There are many points in the orthodox creeds which their professional
defenders would be glad to slip out of or explain away, could they do so
while preserving any character for consistency.
There is nothing I would venture to caution our younger associates more
against than being put off by that loose make-shift rationalism in which some
of the qua si-orthodox are beginning largely to deal, and with which they
think as the comm on phrase is, to take the wind out of the genuine free
thinker’s sails. For these gentlemen the most appalling difficulties that can
be proposed are perfectly easy of explanation, by the aid of some of the
modern ingenious methods of accommodation ; either the case has been mis
conceived through a mistranslation, or it is an allegory, or there has been a mis
take or transposition of transcribers, or there is a figurative or spiritual meaning,
or it is an instance of the aTgumcntum ad hoYtiincni. or an oriental idiom, or some
other ingenious solution is resorted to, till at last the mystified hearers can
hardly make . out whether these expounders really believe the supernatural
origin of their religion jn the main, or whether they are simply anxious to
show that notwithstanding they have subscribed creeds and formularies they
are men of learning and acuteness. They remind one of nothing so much
as the accommodating spirit of the excellent peep-show proprietor, ii Well
ington or Blucher, whichever you please, my dears;” so long as you only
enter the show and pay the showman. By the really honest enquirer this
method of trying to put new wine into old bottles will assuredly in the long
run be found illusory, and satisfy neither the mind nor the heart.
Some people, however, who have abandoned fixed beliefs, say that there is
no ground for combination among. those who have no specified system of
doctrine. They conceive, and practically assert, that when you deny a super
natural revelation, and reject the authority of churches, that there is
nothing which can be properly called religion to be maintained or observed.
I believe this notion to be altogether mistaken ; though I can quite under
stand the feeling, out of which it often arises.
■^-5 myself, am one of those who believe that science is the only revelation
understanding by this not only physical science, but the study of man’s past
history, his social development, and the growth of the human mind. Men of
the ancient world found in these things some ground-work of religion “ The
heavens declare the glory of God,” said the Psalmist. And whether we of
modern times call that invisible and mysterious something which is behind!
phenomena, “God,” or “ Force,” or “ Spirit,” or “the Power without us,”
or by what other name you will, it is a mere matter of fact that we can detect
the workmg of a system, and an irreversible law, which it is our highest
interest reverently to learn and implicitly to obey.
t uS?6-*1?
y°U k?ve amPk scope for a life of reverent observation and
faithful obedience; what more do you want on which to base a religion ?
�REPORT---- 13t’H JUNE, 1878.
7
-And it may be a religion whffih will not oi)!J| furnish Ri field for the
r reverent exerciseMof the intellect,' but supply nourishment to the heart,
being fruitful of motives calculated to quicken our highest aspirations and
emotions.
W
• For when we consider that this mysterious law, within which we are
3 I all bound, not only regulates the stars in their courses, and makes to spring
l blossom and fruit for all creatures’ sustenance, but also that it binds man to
man with the chords of sympathy—it is the source of that fire which makes
our hearts glow at the sight of noble and unselfish deeds, it animates the
.lover’s sigh, the mother’s kiss, the poet’s longing, the scholar’s brain-toil,
as well as the hard-handed work of craftsmen and labourers, “ For all these
fel;
worketh one and the self-same spirit; ” when we consider the manifold relations which are thus only shadowed, who shall say that in tracing their
wlj
connections and development there are no lessons to be found to kindled
hope, to inspire the struggle for good, to purify the affections ?
Hi;
B I cannot allow, then, that there is no room for a very high and real
m;
religion, after we have rejected all supernatural revelation and the authority
of all churches. &
But surely this very rejection of supernaturalism and authority is of itself
a;
a very good argument for co-operation among the different classes of liberal
I thinkers.
For we have rejected them not lightly, but for solid reasons and
through weary study, and many of us, by painful experience, have become
5
convinced of their baselessness and their evil effects. We know that in the
't
past, and by means of the sacerdotalism which has been, and is still, built
i
upon them, they have been the great obstacles to human improvement, the
standing bulwarks and excuse of every kind of tyranny and unfair privilege,
and the fruitful parents of superstition, ignorance and misery.
We are not only anxious, therefore, as much as in us lies, to shorten their
remaining reign, and weaken their still predominant influence,—but the
necessity of combination is forced upon us, in order to prevent their return in
full power, to hinder the fresh development of those ruinous principles
which have hitherto been only slightly checked.
And here we think we have a fair ground of appeal to those who consider
themselves pure scientists, and who dislike to concern themselves with anything
having any connection with religion. I said above that I could very well
understand that feeling. I can readily sympathise with their impatience of j
theology as a pseudo-science, which after years of study discloses nothing except
its own nullity—and their repugnance to that delusive religion which has filled
the world with strife and folly, and fully deserved the well-known objurga;tion of the poet Lucretius. It is a mistake to confound religion founded on
the laws of the universe and man’s life with the superstitions and theologies
which usurp its name. It is rather to preserve and extend this emancipated
'•truth that the efforts of wise men should be directed. I quite agree with Professor Muller and others that the mass of men must have some religion, and
therefore it is the interest of all to make it as good as possible : since corrupt
’religion involves the continual hazard of the recrudescence of superstition, find
the return of arbitrary government or anarchy. Corrupt religion puts power
into the hands of those the least fit to use it. This power is secret in its action,
and it is difficult to trace its extent. It may be mining the ground under our feet
when we least expect it, and suddenly bring the wheels of State to a deadlock
when all looks smiling. It is the tendency of all the religious bodies of the pre^effj; day Who cleave to the old supernaturalism, to become more and more
�8
~ENER^ CONFERENCE OF LIBER AL aBBMKERS
subject to ecclesiastical ideas, and more imbued with the priestly spirit. And
as long as priests of any sort remain in the world they will never cease to
strive for power, and aid directly or indirectly the cause of retf^on th^B
theory pledges them to endeavour to subject men to a false standan^of appeal,
and an unwarrantable species of authority, thereby as far as possible mysti
fying men’s intellects, stopping the progress of sound education, and. filling,
the world with bugbears.
I cannot but think, therefore, that it is the duty of every enlightened man
to aid, as far as he can, those organisations which aim at counteracting their
widespread influence. There is scope for combined action in many directions I
but I would especially indicate vigilance as to the insidious moves of the cleri
cal party at school boards. Of middle class education, too, a great deal might
be said, and I hope some speakers may touch upon the subject. But, above
all, I think enlightened men should aid organisations which strive to propagate
purer views of religion, for nothing will ever exorcise the false religions of the
world, but the genuine article. And as long as false religions retain such
immense preponderance, it is certain that neither science, nor philosophy, nor
free government are absolutely secure.
Calm philosophers in the cool suburbs of the Metropolis or in rural shades
may persuade themselves that they will for ever pursue their lucubrations
unmolested out of the reach of general warrants or howling mobs; and it,may seem
a long time since crowds paraded the streets and smashed windows to the cry
of “ High Church and Dr. Sacheverell for ever! ”—or when a band of piously
disposed roughs gutted the house of Dr. Priestley—but what has happened
before may happen again, and supine indifference on the part of thinking
men is the way to court attack and defeat.
There must be yet for a long time a residuum of rowdyism and stupidity
in every nation, and political and ecclesiastical gentlemen of reactionary
tendencies are showing that they know how to manipulate them for their own
ends. Ten thousand men were marshalled by priests in Hyde Park on
Monday last, though then I confess for a good object; but it is an ominous
sign of the power they might come to wield. In short, all the signs of the
times point to the necessity of watchfulness and combination, and a disposition^
to sink minor differences among liberal thinkers of all sorts, and I can only
sincerely trust that the organisation, the inauguration of which is now desired
by Mr. Conway and his friends, may effectually contribute thereto.
Mr. Conway said ; I have received a considerable number of letters from
distinguished persons who, for various reasons, cannot be with us, most of
them, however, sympathising with the objects which have brought us to
gether. Some have indeed, though in a kindly way, expressed misgiving^
as to the utility of a Conference of this kind. Dr. James Martineau, who
regrets that he is prevented from being with us by absence in Scotland, adds,
however, his belief that “ Negation supplies no bond. It has its work to do—
a legitimate work, which I am far from depreciating—but, in my opinion,
this work must be individually done; and, beyond it, a good deal must happen
before religious combination becomes possible.” Mr. Matthew Arnold says,
“ I am strongly of opinion that the errors of popular religion in this country!
are to be dispersed by the spread of a better and wider culture, far more than
by direct antagonism and religious counter-movements.” The Duke of
Somerset and Lord Houghton 'write somewhat in the same tone. I must
remark, however, that these misgivings or hesitancies have been very few..
About 200 letters have been received, representing a great variety of minds.
l^flbam. Rossetti, who, from the first, has taken great interest in this meet-
�REPORT—13th JUNE, 1878.
9
ing, iBpeves the time has come for protest of literary men against being sup
posed to have any sympathy with orthodox dogmas. [Mr, Rossetti was present
a^
^on^er®rice,J Professor Max Muller, who took an interest in it, writes
that he finds. himself with so little strength since his Hibbert Lectures, that Ills
attendance is doubtful. From Oxford, also, I have letters indicating in
terest in our movement, from Professors Sayce, Rolleston, Pater, &c.
The
Rev. Silas Farrington, of Manchester, writes : <c Perhaps nothing concerM
me more ^han the loosening of the bonds of human sympathy and co-operation
which, it has seemed to me, has attended the vanishing of the old creeds out
our bberal congregations,” and he welcomes this Conference as a sign that
the Liberal particles are not to remain for ever in solution. John Cunnington
sends us a message, which he calls that of a “dying man,” in which he says,
.Let everything be done in a spirit of love ! ” I can, of course, at present
give but a sentence or two from these letters. There are some absences which
84/1 unexPecte(L Professor Andrew Wilson, of Edinburgh, who was to have
addressed.us, has, at the last moment, been prevented by an alteration in the
time of his college examinations; the Rev. Frank Walters, who meant to
help us, has been unable to leave Glasgow j and Mr. J. Allanson Picton cannot give us the address we hoped for, having left London by doctor’s orders.
He writes . “ I wish you would say how much I wished to be present, and
how much disappointed I am to be out of the way.” Several cordial letters
come from liberal clergymen, among others, one from the Rev. J. Shortt,
. Hoghton. Vicarage, Preston, Lancashire, who says : ee I cordially sympathise
with the objects of the Conference, and heartily wish it every success. No
one can be more interested than I am in the cause of freedom of thought.”
No doubt we might have hoped for a larger number of Unitarian ministers,
been tor an unfortunate collision, in our day of assembling, with
one of the anniversaries of the Unitarian Association—a collision which, on
our part, we took pains to avoid.
From The Knoll, ’ Ambleside, Mr. AV. "W. Hills writes —
.
heaitily sympathise with any movement which is likely to draw men of liberal
°n re^1S^on.’
closer union and more active co-operation in promoting the welfare
of the race. . It is the latter object, I think, which can alone find men in permanent
religious union—mere agreement in opinion, whether ignorant or enlightened, being
almost no bond at all, and tending to divide men into narrow and ever-narrowing
BcCbS.
Mr. Karl Blind regrets that be is prevented by his engagements from
being with us.
AS r°
-0Wn v^ews>” he says, “ philosophically speaking, I am so much imbued with
a seyse ot phe impenetrability of what will for ever remain the unknowable, that I must
neecLs refrain from taking part in any organization. At the same time I fully appreciate
the desire of thinking men to draw together for the discussion of such subjects; and I am
convinced that, as regards general emancipation, your conference will do a right good
If, unfortunately, we should not have Professor Huxley among us, it will
beca?se
any -lack of interest or sympathy on his part, but because
■Hf~e Per^stent and dangerous illness by which his family has just been
a icted. Compelled to leave his attendance an open question, he has been
careful to write me on the subject, and says this “ Conference is sure to be
3WiBDg’ and 1 think is likel‘v to be usefu1-” Not the least grateful to
myself for one, and no doubt to many among you it will prove the same, has
w_arni word of encouragement and sympathy from the veteran general
of liberal thought Thomas Scott. It is much to feel that he is with us in
�ttO
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERATjjjHI'NKERS?
spirit. His best co-worker, Mrs. Scott, writes thatb^ reason of loss of power
in both hands his response must come through her, and. that we may rest
assured of his and her “ hearty sympathy with our efforts in endeavouring
to free man and womankind from the unhealthy superstitions with which
they are at present surrounded, and which tend, to bar enlightenment and
progress.”
Some of the letters express, the hope that this Conference may lead to some
practical result, perhaps to the formation of something like the Free Religious
Association in America, one of whose founders we are fortunate enough to
have with us. Whether as the eloquent defender of Theodore Parked in
Boston, or the gallant defender of the liberties of the negro race on the field
of battle, Colonel Wentworth Higginson will meet with honour wherevejthea
principles of physical, intellectual, and religious freedom are honoured. Ona
letter I must read in full, a wise word from a wise man, the venerable* and
learned Jewish scholar and author, Dr. M. Kalisch. He writes
i
“ The state of my health will unfortunately not allow me to attend the proposed Con
ference of Liberal Thinkers, but I will not omit assuring you that I shall follow its proceed-!
ings with the keenest interest, and express my earnest wishes for its success. It ought!
not to be impossible to find a common ground on which the various liberal societies may
meet, in order, on the one hand, to counteract with united force the persevering eflforts of
traditionalists, and, on the other hand, to call into life the many latent germs of religious
liberalism, which are scattered everywhere beneath a surface of perplexity or hesitation!
It ought to be possible to establish such a centre without the least approach to any fixed^
formula which might imperil absolute freedom of thought, or bearing the remotest re-J
semblance to, or involving the slightest tendency towards an unalterable dogma. Trusting
that the timely step you have taken will prove fruitful of the best results,
“ I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully,
“ M. Kalisch.”
With which cheering note, whose significance coming from such a quarter/
will not, I am sure, be lost on this audience, I close a summary from whichj
time compels me to leave out many interesting and satisfactory messages,
which are carefully filed and will be remembered.
The Rev. C. Voysey : The promoters of this Conference may be well
congratulated on the selection of the subject to which our attention is now
invited. Every thoughtful person must be aware how intimately this ques-4
tion of religion is bound up, not only with each man’s individual happiness
and well-being, but with the safety of society and the welfare of the comJ
munity at large. Religion is scarcely less of social importance than of
individual interest. In speaking of “ Religious needs,” it is implied that in
matters of religion we are in a state more or less unsatisfactory : that some
thing is wanted which we have not got; that what we already have is
deficient, if not pernicious. And nothing can be more true ; and they have
done wisely who have made a practical effort to bring these “ Religious needs”
into open discussion. In venturing to bring before the Conference my owm
views as to those needs and how to meet them, I disavow entirely the
dogmatic spirit, or any unwillingness to have my views corrected and im-i
proved by others. But inasmuch as this Conference will depend for its use
fulness almost entirely on the clearness, reasonableness, and absolute sincerity!
of the various readers and speakers, I will do my best to say exactly what I
mean, however much or little it may be approved.
The religious needs of our time are extremely various; all attempts at;
generalization must be qualified by a mental reservation that there are
varieties of condition which cannot be included in our categories, and cannot
be met by our suggestions of treatment.
�repor^T3iTiTtVn^’1878.
11
These needs may be roughly divided into the intellectual, the emotional^
and^the rabstteticf Time was when so long as the emotional and aesthetic
needs were satisfiedjthe intellectual needs of religion—so far from being sup
plied—did ribt even exist. Men and women were content with their faith
■ and |heir*worship, without any demand on the part of their reason for a share
MMhe control of religious thought. Now, to a large extent, all this gs
changed. Vast numbers of really religious souls either demand some rational
foundation on which to rest their faith, or at least demand that the terms
.©i their Creed, and the forms of their worship shall not do outrage to their
intellectual convictions. Theology to exist at all must be of the nature of
science, based on induction and ruled by logic. Religion, as distinct from
Theology, must be in harmony with already known facts, or it will rapidly
cea®e Ito occupy the hearts of people of common sense. All this, you will
say, is mere truism; and to most of us here it may be so. It is, however,
still to be widely learnt out of doors by the religious world at large. The
growing demand is for a reasonable creed, and because it is not generally
forthcoming, because that which is glaringly unreasonable, if not also incredible and revolting, is still insisted on by orthodox churches and sects,
still stands on our statute books as the only creed recognised by Crown and
Parhament, thousands have become secretly atheistical, and tens of thousands
arc. utterly unsettled in their religious convictions. It is to be borne in
mind that this is not purely a State Church question, but one which
goes down into the roots of our common humanity. The Church, it is true,
has for the present its Act of Uniformity and its stereotyped Prayer Book
andlLiturgies; and these contain the obnoxious dogmas against which the
religious instinct and religious intellect of modern thinkers revolt. But we
also find the very same dogmas maintained with an equally obstinate
pertinacity among the Free Nonconformist Churches and sects outside the
pale of the Establishment. Wesleyans, Congregationalists and Baptists, with
a hundred sects behind them, are not one whit better, or more enlightened, or
’more^free from irrational dogmas, for being emancipated from State control.
I allude to this in order to show that the separation of Church and State
would not be of the slightest value in meeting the intellectual religious needs
ofBour time. In all probability it would aggravate present dogmatism
and put off the day of enlightenment further than ever. What
is really wanted is the disestablishment of the Creeds and Articles,
and the repeal of the Act of Uniformity, so as to leave all clergymen
free to speak their honest minds; and a similar freedom must be given to
the Nonconformist ministers. This, indeed, seems to me the great need of
the hour—to give free speech to those who have something really reasonable
to say about religion. There is an abject dread of new truth abroad, not
from any native dislike to it so much as from a terror of social or pecuniary
pains and penalties, which, indeed, more closely threaten the Nonconformist
minister than the clergyman of the Established Church. The laity, who, as
a rule, look up to and confide in their religious teachers, would, with few
excewions, heartily greet the endowment of the pulpit with absolute liberty.
Sfirply the right-minded amongst them would infinitely prefer that their
preacher should proclaim his real conviction rather than that he should lie, as
he now lies, under suspicion of dissimulation and insincerity. In brief, intellectual religion can only come by calm and perfectly independent thought;
independent, i.e., from all interference by dictation, by threats, by fear of
consequences, or by dread of the conclusions to which it may lead. The chief
religigps need of our time is intellectual correction, the getting rid of what is
�12
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
unreasonable, and the getting hold oFwhat is reasonable : and thiW^maintain
can only be met by endowing the professed teachers of
freedom and independence, that they may give free play to their own thoughts
and free speech to their tongues. Till we secure this liberty, the hftigry
souls will be sent empty away, only stones will they have given RMm
bread, and the insincerity and moral cowardice of their teachers wil|pMIIJi
upon the people, and wrap them in hypocrisy and dishonesty. I wonder
they do not see this. I wonder that it is not perceived that the decay in
morals, the lowering of the standard of truth and equity in common dealings,
the abject lack of moral courage and public spirit which the Juvenals of this
age deplore, are not entirely and distinctly traceable to dishonesty in vdraonB
If a man can dissemble before God, he will not scruple much to disseMjM
before his fellow-men. If a man can go and solemnly pretend to believe
things which his whole soul denies—at the hour and in the place of «what*
men have by common consent called Divine worship, the integrity of his
whole life is thereby undermined, and he may thank the grace of mramM
stances, and not his own virtue, if he do not become, in the ordinary affairs of
life, a liar and a rogue.
Turning from this, the greatest and most widespread of our religious
needs, we come to that class who are dissatisfied with the creed and worships
in which they have been brought up, and whose minds are nearly a tabuta
rasa, ready for the inscription of any faith or conviction which the reason
will admit. Very many, having given up orthodoxy as quite effete, are never
theless still uncertain as to what to believe or what to put in the place of the
religion they have cast away. With them the intellectual is not forgo wen,
but somewhat in abeyance; it is the emotional part of their religious natuJP
which needs satisfaction.
And here I know I am treading on delicate ground, inasmuch as there are
at least two great divisions of that large body which has escaped from ortho
doxy—one believing in God, and holding on even more vividly than ever to
convictions of His relations with mankind which they had always more or
less cherished, the other not believing in God, not feeling any emotions of I
trust towards Him, or able to understand the religious emotions of those who
practise prayer and praise. Now whether a religion with prayer, or a religion
without prayer is destined to be the religion of the future, I will not be so I
arrogant as to predict; my sole object in alluding to these divisions of the
unorthodox world is, that I may fulfil my promise, and tell you my honest
opinion about the religious needs of our time.
It is my conviction that in the present break-up of ancient creeds, there 1
lies the gravest danger of a total loss of all religious belief, of conscious trust
in the living God, as a source of strength, purity, consolation, and hope. The
old husks of falsehood have been swept away, and along with them the grains
of pure and life-giving truth on which the faithful in all times have nurtured^
and enriched their souls. Some minds are so hasty that they impatiently re
nounce every idea once seen to be tainted with error, and will have nothing
to do with emotions once proved to be capable of perversion. Thus it comes
to pass that No God takes the place of the False God, that silence reigns
where foolish or impious prayers were once offered, that an ungrateful negHM
takes the place of selfish and childish praises. It is better, they say, to have
no God than a false one ; better, not to pray at all than to have the old
notions of prayer; better never to sing a psalm of praise than seem to en
courage the false ideas of God on which popular worship too often rests. I
do not altogether condemn this feeling, but to me it seems somewhat extreme
�REPORT---- 13t1I JUNE,
1878.
13
rand mowidMyefcMrrefflSL^^eat
"omeHoon is poisonous, and to
| drink
to excess.
Tbe l°ss
wbat I must call, for want of a better term, personal conscious
relations to God, is a dire loss deeply to be deplored. No intellectual accuracy
—even
were any more possible to the unbeliever than to the believer—
I could compensate for the shutting out of that Light from above which illumines
the souls of all who trust in God.
Lord Amberley touchingly describes the barrenness, the emptiness of soul
which often follows the relinquishment of orthodox creeds; by all earnest,
life an(3, *evout persons this loss is deeply felt, and if it be not somehow
supplied before the feelings are fatally numbed, the mental and spiritual
injury becomes life-long, often deteriorating to both the character and the
* e^.duct. If the revolt in religious minds against orthodoxy arose out of a
I higher .and intenser religious feeling, out of more exalted conceptions of the
EBwersal love, of God, out of more natural trust in His good purposes, surely
the only religion that can satisfy them must be one that will bring them into
, nearer and closer relations with God, and not leave or drive them further off
than before. It must be a religion of prayer and praise, of more prayer and
not. less; of more praise, and not less than before. If the old childish
QEfrwl
prayer have been wisely put away, it is only that a more
rational and manly conception of prayer should take its place, not that
the soul should be dumb before God, and all communion with the
Father of our spirits given up as senseless and impossible. Progress in re
ligion, as in other things, surely means going forward not going backwards ;
it may indeed involve casting off burdens which impeded our march, and the
removal
obstacles out of cur path, but all the more that we may advance
and come nearer to God, and not that we should turn round and deliberately
retrace our steps, turning our back on the Light which, however overclouded,
has been, luring on the millions and myriads of our race since the birth of
the religious instinct.
.The religious emotions, as they have hitherto generally existed, have been
*-|elt as a thirsting of the soul after G od, a longing to see Him, so to speak,
and to be assured of His entire friendliness. In spite of modern scepticism,
we see n0 ^race as yefc
any decline of this longing after God. If some
men are weary of a fruitless search in wrong directions or by ineffective means
and for a time feel numbed and paralysed by their discouragements, sooner
the appetite revives, and the heart yearns after the Living God more
fervently than ever. The mass of people, however, whose faith is unsettled,
who are no longer satisfied with orthodoxy, still retain their religious emotions,
| and look and long for a cultus in which they can find for these emotions a
reasonable satisfaction. Mere metaphysics will not do, philosophy fails to
warm their hearts, and the more they pursue intellectual enquiries as to the
nature and being of God, the less and less satisfaction they get for their
religious feelings and aspirations. .
Hence.it seems to me that one of the chief duties devolving on religious
is to combine with their intellectual strictures on the popular
mythology, the best expressions they can find for their own religious faith
and hope.. What is wanted is to show men what we believe, and why we
believe; in language better still, Whom we trust, and why we trust Him,
We must, bring the warmth of pure religious emotion into our worship and
our teaching, if we can ever hope to attract or to benefit those thousands of
religious souls now outcasts from their old churches and creeds. Without
this, we may be able, perhaps, to enlighten their, understanding, to quicken
�14
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS?
within them the sceptical, even the scornful, faculty; we may even
do some good in rousing their dormant interest in social questions,
and kindling within them a noble philanthropy; but when we have
done our best we shall not have helped them by one straw to become
religious, or to preserve from extinction the dying spark of religious
faith. I will not here excite needless controversy on the use of the term
“ religion.” I will grant there may be a prayerless religion, as well as a
religion of prayer—and by prayer of course I mean communion with God.i
But I will say, with the utmost emphasis, that these two things are diame
trically opposed, and therefore neither has the right to bear the name of the
other.
If I am told that there is no sense in prayer and praise because there is
no one in Heaven or earth, or in the solitude of our souls, who can hear or
heed our signs and songs ; I admit the logic, but I deny the assumption. If there
be no one to hear, or to heed, or to answer by spiritual grace, I will not be such
a fool as to let my soul wear itself out in vain aspirations to Nothing. But
if there be a God, called by whatever name, who is the correlative to the
human soul, and who knows and loves us, surely then the instincts of reli
gious emotion are explained, and actual communion between me and Him is
not only possible, but indispensable to my soul’s life. We have then to preach
a God who will draw all hearts unto Himself, and not repel them or terrify
them as the God of Christendom.
Far be it from me arrogantly to declare that I must be right, and those
who differ from me must be wrong ; far be it from me to desire to silence those
who cannot speak of God as I do, even were I able to silence them 4 I con
demn no one, so long as each and all are sincere, and speaking from their
hearts what they believe to be true. All I have had in view is to make clear
and unmistakable the difference between these two ways of regarding God
and religion—to show that whichever of them may be right, they cannot both
be right; they are mutually contradictory, and that to attempt to ignore this
contrast would only add fresh difficulty to our perplexities, and effectually
bar the approach towards liberty of thought, of those who are falling out of
the orthodox ranks.
I have only time to say a few words on the aesthetic side of religion. The
movement called Ritualism, which has had its dim reflection among Noncon
formists, and even in the stern Puritan worship of the Scots, owes its success,
not to the vile sacerdotalism which was its origin, but to the innate love of
artistic beauty which Ritualism gratifies. The old repulsive services of our
youth were so wearisome, that we cannot recall them without a sigh of relief.The Ritualists, wiser in their generation, soon saw that if they were ever to
get congregations at all, or to attract the young, the services must be made
more or less beautiful and interesting. We all know how this feelinggran
into excesses, and how even beauty has been sacrificed to superstitious
punctilios. Yet, on the whole, the embellishments are artistic and greatly
appreciated. It is possible to go to church now without weariness and
without disgust.
If we, in our turn, hope to gain the ear of the free-thinking religious
people, we must have an engaging service. The music must be of the best,
and the forms as free from dulness as we can possibly invent. This matter,
though trifling when compared with the intellectual and emotional questions,
is still worthy of due recognition in treating of the subject which has brought
us together.
I conclude by thanking the promoters of this Conference for inviting
�■REPORT—131H JUNE, 1878.
15
discussion on these topics of supreme intent f!and will only throw out one
more hint for your consideration: If the subjects I have broached lead, as
they possibly may, to the expression of widely divergent opinion, let it be
borne in mind that the sole cause of any differences in opinion is, that on one
side or on the other, or on both, the full truth is not yet known; that all our
ideas ef religion, and how it should be fostered, are rooted in the far deeper
question—-What do we mean by God? And as no one, surely, in this
thoughtfill assembly would venture to say more than that his own view is
at best but an approximation to the actual truth, it will not give pain or
offence to each other to listen to opinions however adverse to our own. If
we have found any truth, and surely all have found some, we owe its discovery
to the clashing of thought with thought, and to the centuries of intellectual
strife which have cleared the ground on which we stand.
The Chairman then invited discussion on the paper, observing that they
did not expect to involve every one in a long speech, but it was perhaps just
as well that the paper just read should be dissected and digested by discussion
and comment, and therefore they would be very glad to hear anything calcu
lated to illustrate what had been said by Mr. Voysey, and to listen to
l^ections to the arguments he had brought.
Mr, Joachim Kaspar y said he had taken a very great interest during the
last twelve years in the freethought movement, and he heartily hoped that
Mr. Conway, of whom he was a very great admirer, might succeed in forming
an organisation of liberal thinkers, whether atheists or deists. For himself, he
presumed not only to believe in the existence of a God, but he was also able
to know and to prove it. He heartily agreed with most of the sentiments of
the paper, but he would like to know whether Mr. Voysey by prayer meant
begging prayer or religious prayer.
What freethinkers wanted was a
basis for their freethought. All superstition arose because men had not
hitherto had a basis for their ideas; supernatural religions were merely
Religions built by men upon their own opinions. He thought religion ouo-ht
to be built upon an infallible criterion, upon a criterion now which knowledge
was derived. All men differed, and who should decide between them, if there
were no infallible invariable criterion by which they could be judged as to
right and to wrong. There was but one infallible criterion by which they
•could judge of opinions and thought, and that, if he might use an expression
was what all knew to be the natural laws. According to these laws matter was
changed; and, according to thought, sentient beings were either rewarded
or (degraded whether they knew it or not, or whether they liked it or not. In
the universe there was nothing unchangeable except the mode by which
changes took place, and therefore he thought religion ought to be built upon
Nature’s laws. These natural laws he called the laws of God. Within the
last twelve years he had made great discoveries which he wanted to publish,
.hut that he had not the time or the means to do so, by which he could prove
>hepce men came and where they would go. Although they might smile he
hoped every one would see what he would be able to prove. He would not
further, except to say that he wished it great success.
Miss Downing said she had listened with great interest to the paper.
Mr« Voysey remarked that thousands were becoming atheists, and tens of
thousands were without religious affections altogether. It struck her as accu-J
rate, and very true. What she wanted to ask was, Could anyone there at
that meeting. give them, some certainty and show them some path to follow ?
bhe was not in the position of those who doubt all religous doctrines, and took
W a negative position. Indeed she was brought up in the strictest of all
�11
GENERJSlOJONFEREN’CE^MI liberal thinkers.
churches of orthodox CathoHc religion. ' MrJV’o^^^hTm^W had formerly
belonged to the Established Church, and probably other gentlemen there had
come out from their sects. It had always been a puzzle to her to understand
how people could give up their convictions, their thoughts, their beliefs, their
truths, if she might call them so, and accept others without any doubly*dill
ference. She had gone to hear nearly every Liberal speaker upon fflffiffilon.
She had come constantly to that place, where she always heard M-SElmiwCT
with the greatest delight, and she was still as unconvinced as ever of the pathito
follow or how she was to choose. It seemed to her that they must either give
up all belief in supernatural religion, the belief in a God, of any agent, just as
much as the Trinity, the Incarnation, Transubstantiation, and Confession I or
they must, if logical, become members of the Roman Catholic Church. She
spoke with some difficulty, for she was extremely nervous, and besides, a state
of doubt was not a pleasant condition to be in. She would be glad if anyone
there would point out how it was possible to hold by one belief any more than
another. She often came to South Place. She heard Mr. Conway’s admir
able lecture, she enjoyed the anthems and the hymns, and she always went
back with her mind elevated, and with a feeling that she would like to do
something, not for God, but something more for humanity. With regard to
religion, the belief in God brought them at once to a stand, and she did noil
see how they were to agree upon that point at all; they could not define the
meaning of the term. If Mr. Voysey had contented himself with den ling with
the Almighty as an emotional thing, or as an ecstatic thing, she could underJ
stand it; but when he went further, and asked for some intellectual belief, the
question arose, was there a bit more intellectual truth in the belief in the
Divinity than there was in the belief in any creed or dogma of the Church
whatever? John Henry Newman was an instance of one great thinks who
had felt these difficulties, and had ended them by going to the one church
which did claim to be divinely founded, and to have infallible truth. His
deductions carried him to that church, and she could not understand how any
ladies and gentlemen who held one single belief in the Divinity at all, did not
go there at once also. It was not one whit more difficult, as an intellectual
problem, to swallow the whole camel than to swallow one portion of it. She
was speaking on this subject to one of the ablest men in Oxford, and she said
what good had he done by his long life ? “ You have upset the old land
marks, you have given us nothing in their place.” He replied that, after
sixty years’ experience of human life, the knowledge he had gained taught
him to believe what he saw, to believe what came home to his own reason, and
not to go one step beyond that. He added “Nobody knows anything about it
you cannot say that it is or it is not; you cannot take the absolute denial of
the atheist or the theory of the Deist. You must simply make the best you
can of this life, and take the chance of living ; all the rest is insoluble as it
was left to us all before.”
Captain Price said he was a great admirer of Mr. Voysey and of his
teachings, and as Miss Downing seemed anxious to know his opinions as
to a personal Deity he was bound to say a word on the subject. He
would not be standing there at all if he for one instant believed or thought
that any of them imagined he had the slightest feeling or wish for the
continuance of the old orthodox religion. He was a pure Deist, and believed
that there was one Supreme Being; how he was constituted he knew not,
and nobody had been able to describe in the smallest way. The constitution
of the world alone would almost convince him that there must be some
Supreme Being, call him what they would, who governed and ruled the
�REPORT—13tH JUNE, 1878.
17
universe, and who brought the world out of what they knew not what,
f He believed that there was this supreme nature in everything, rnlyrig
< everything. As to prayer he looked with wonder and astonishment on
those who Begged for favours from Him, and he did not for a moment
believe that praytrs or praises could in any way detract from or add to his
grandeur or importance. More than that he did not believe, and Mr. Voysey
■ did not believe.
«
• fl ThepHairman next called upon Mr. S. Teetgen, whose card had been
I handed to him, and had some difficulty in pronouncing the •name.
Mr. S. Teetgen : Mine is a very peculiar name, I cannot pronounce it
properly myself unless I make a very ugly face. (A laugh.) Our German
friend would give it to you very nicely. I do not happen to be a German,
| but I am of German descent. I came here through seeing an announcement
in a public paper that there was to be such a meeting as this, and I thought
I wopad like to come. I think of free thought, religious free thought; and
since I have been sitting here I have seen the outcome of free thought. One
does not know one thing, another does not know another (a laugh) ; how
you will be able to make a combination you don’t know, and the difficulties
will be so great that there will be no coming together. You want to know
how io come together, but there is the difficulty: I have seen that all along,
had to do with free thought in all directions. When I take the
B jK never allow anyone to dictate to me, but I take it as an authoritv
frmGod for my guidance and instruction; what is the outcome of it? I
look back on the past and see this England of ours, this noble country, in a
st|te of wretchedness, misery, and pollution, but there are no religious
^at have done it any good. Your presence, your congregations, have
re^ wrong, so I have been told this morning; one reader made some
remarks about letting all be done in love, and when I listened to
■®Chairman’s address, 1 thought, now, there is want of love there. He con
demns everybody, and all the ministers and congregations are condemned
together. Of course, John Wesley was amongst those condemned. He spent
>M1000 among the people, and only allowed himself £28 per year for
■W)ing< him. He thought he was selfish and intended to do wrong; and
also he has been condemned very wrongly. I take Whitfield, a man going
out with his life in his hand, as it were, who might be stabbed
at any moment among the thousands of roughs that he goes amongst,
and what is he doing ? Seeking to help those men and women,
to bring them from drunkenness, from dissipation, to bring them from
their ^tendency to murder, to bring those poor and degraded ones upon
a purer level with himself, if they will only seek to reach it,—but he
was wrong (a cry of “ Question ”). I thought the Chairman dwelt upon the
point, and if I am dwelling upon what the Chairman said, I cannot do wrong ;
if h^says I am wrong I will accept it. These men, whatever they were"
men wbo ba<l the well-being of their species at heart—(hear, hear)_ and
prepared to give up life, if necessary, that they might bring them up
from their low condition and raise them to a higher platform. I am not going
to ^ell you that all their views are correct, but I tell you that they were seeking
the interests of their fellow men, and when you tell me that these ministers
thus borpd together, and working together, have for their object only the
wrong, and that it was selfishness, I say you are wrong. (Cries of
n0t say so~y°u are wrong.”) I am waiting for- the chairman to put
mjmynd when he says he sba11 put me down 1 wil1 obey- Of course he
is a free thinker—I am a free thinker; he says he has a right—I say, I have
2
�18
GE NEKAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
to say—(a voice : “ We are not bound to listen ”)—not at all; then walk chit.
I have come to occupy the platform—you are not bounajto listen, and it is not
for me to direct you. [The speaker, while taking a glass of Eafef, remarked
that his throat sometimes required water.]
The Chairman : One remark—I think it is necessary that all speakers
should confine themselves to the argument; I think a great deaWou I have
said was not strictly to the argument.
Mr. Teetgen: Very well, I shall be guided by you, but not by the
meeting. I maintain that the preachers of the Gospel have gone forth
struggled against all kinds of difficulties, have gone to the lowest dregsH
society, have brought them out from their positions, and have changed them.
Does that deserve respect ? (Hear, hear.) Then you ought to speak of them
in a respectful manner, especially when you remember that the free thinkers
were not the men to do it. They sat by their firesides and enjoyed themselves
on their sofas, and left these men to struggle with these difficulties without
coming to their help, but now they find fault with them, and say that it is
simple selfishness. That is a very great wrong done to them. I think free
thought to be altogether misnamed, I think and will think for myselfUjJ
shall cling to the old books.
Mr. Moncure Conway rose to order, and asked the Chairman whether
the speaker was not wasting the time of the meeting. He had told them
details about his name, and the state of his throat, and other things entirely
irrelevant and uninteresting to them, and was trying to occupy their time and
to interfere with the purpose for which they were gathered; he thereicmM
moved that the meeting should not hear this gentleman farther. The speaker
evidently came there simply to insult the meeting, and had no thought oil
concern with the serious subject which occupied them. If this were a serious
speech and meant anything genuine whatever, he would be the last to inter
fere, but it was unfortunately not so, and they could not allow any man to
defeat the purpose for which they were gathered.
A Gentleman in the body of the meeting said he was not a member of
South Place, but he fully sympathised with the remarks of Mr. Conway, and
he heartily seconded the resolution.
The Chairman put the question and it was carried unanimously.
As Mr. Teetgen was leaving the platform an Indian gentleman in the body
of the hall rose and said he was an atheist and a freethinker, but he pro
tested against the way in which the speaker had been treated. If he had not
been interrupted he would have gone on, probably, and he felt an injustice had
been done him. He had no sympathy with his views, but he thought he
should be properly treated and allowed free scope.
The Kev. William Binns (Birkenhead) : I hardly expected I should
be able to attend, and I had no intention of speaking but I heard a portion
of the able address of Miss Downing, and I could not help feeling that some
thing should be said from another standpoint. Looking over the circular, by
which the meeting was convened, I see you will include in the deliberations
anyone who may choose to come, for you dwell on the fact that your desire is
to promote an unsectarian liberal religion. And you propose to consider
affirmations and negations which men may make. Miss Downing seemed to
imply that there was no medium between the absolute authority of the Boman
Catholic Church on the one hand and what she understood from an Oxford
Professor to be a belief only in what was revealed to us directly through our
senses. She herself, therefore, was not able on purely rational grounds to
agree to the moderate affirmations made by Mr. Voysey, or to the still more' -
�REPORT—13th JUNE, 1878.
19
moderate affirmation made by Mr. Conway. For my own part, I feel at liberty
to^iake all the affirmations that Mr. Voysey makes, and a few moretoo.Kd
5 consequently all file affirmations that Mr. Conway makes, and rathe® more.
I must therefore try to meet the difficulty which Miss Downing experiences, for
I cannot accept either of her alternatives. I would put in a negative towards
these various conceptions of religion which militate against the development
°f the higher nature of man and tell against the desire we have for illimit
able progress. I should not feel at all inclined to put any negation on those
Wfh^pvhfch it is not possible for us clearly to explain and adequately to define,
because I know by experience, and suppose that most of the people here know,
IW h> many °f our highest religious ideas and emotions cannot be accurately and
adequately defined. I have preached from this platform when the platform was a*
I pulpit, and have said something of that kind, and W. J. Fox for whom this place
was built, and who exercised such a healthy and, I may say, such a divine
influence in the development of religious life in London, would often say
much in ,^e same spirit. First of all, as to the affirmations which we are
justified
making m religious matters. Are we justified in venturing on
the affirmations, I will not say of God, because in one way or another, except
the atheistic gentleman who just rose, and two or three more, all would be
inclined to admit Gfod in some general and undefined way. It is when the
definition comes. that the difficulty crops up. Are we justified in making
an affirmation of God as a personal being ? I call to mind what a very clever
and argumentative and liberal man, Mr. Matthew Arnold, has written upon
this subject, and how he has tried to make out that the whole thing is nnintelligible and undeclarable. And I remember too how I have often heard my
!
Holyoake say that these ideas of Grod are beyond our power of
sight and knowledge. But I say we can venture to affirm the personality of
| god. What, however, do we mean by that ? I will give a definition which
is rather a leaning towards the truth than an exact statement of the truth.
I would say we mean that the personal power in ourselves is after all
J but a very small portion of the boundless intellectual and moral energy to
which creation testifies. We mean that the moral sense that there is in
■Hjgives falls very much below the moral force that there is at work in the
universe, and which moral force we find and feel as an imperfect echo in our own
conscience. Conscience is the deputy of Grod dwelling in man. We feel, too,
as Descartes points out, the idea of perfection that inhabits every man’s soul;
how it gets there we do not know, and it differs in different men. It differs
in Mr, Holyoake s mind in the form which it takes from the form which it
own. And yet there is one characteristic which always belongs
to this idea of perfection that we have j it is an idea of something higher
than ourselves, and that will continue to be higher and better than ourselves
*
everlastingly, however high we ourselves may ascend. In the presence
of this idea of perfection
r
“ The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes.
Hills peep o’er hills and Alps on Alps arise; ”
And so far as the personality of God is concerned, I affirm that it follows as
^ne^gsary explanation of the facts of consciousness. It alone explains this
auth°rity, ^bis universal feeling of dependence and aspiration
and this idea of a perfection ever more before us, which we all possess’
f be personality of God is the infinitude of intelligence and will; all ideas are 1
centred in HimJ the unity is there, we say there are there multi! •
tangus majgfe|ations, more indeed- than we can describe or we can
�20
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
know. I don’t think that I could venture to define the j^nsonalit^l of
God more closely. When we say God is a personal being, we meaa that God
knows what he is doing. If there be any whom this does not satisfy, if
people say they want to have the personality of God put into some more,
definite form, then I should be inclined not exactly to say no, but simply in
clined to say, well, I personally must stop there, so far as I am concerned.
If Mr. Voysey or Mr. Conway ventures on a more or less detailed defffifiB
than that which I have given, why, you are at liberty to accept it. I re
member I was discussing the subject with some Scotch Presbyterian^ good
friends of mine, sometime ago, and one of them said, we “ must believe in
the personality of God.” I said,(i How ?” He said, “ God is a person in the same
way in which I am a person.” “ Well,” but I said, “ I see the way in which you
are a person; you are a middle-aged Scotchman, 5 feet 6 inches high, with
grey hair and a sandy complexion, and you wear spectacles. Do you mean
God is a person in that way ?” Of course, that would not do, and thus a very
definite definition could not be given. Still endeavouring to meet Miss
Downing’s difficulties, I venture to say also that we may affirm immortality!
Immortality, some of you think, is beyond experience, and that it is not and
cannot be verified. I would not say that it is beyond experience, but only
present experience has not attained to it. I certainly would not say that
because it is not yet verified, it never can be verified. For the fact is, when
you come to examine what your knowledge really amounts to, you find that
it is very limited. If you study John Stuart Mill, and people of that kind,
you would not venture to be dogmatic on any subject. You would be sceptical
about yourselves sitting there, and my speaking here. The whole external
universe on grounds of pure reason is doubtful, and matter is moonshine.
Let us look at the subject then in another wav.
I say that im
mortality is the affirmation of a legitimate belief and a natural and justifiable
faith. But we only really know and are sure and certain of the present
moment, and the facts that are present to our immediate consciousness. What
I know and I feel here and now that I am certain of. It is part of my present
experience. Beyond what I know and feel here and now as contents of my
present consciousness, all belongs to the region of speculation and inference!
So far as the past is concerned, that is all a matter of memory, and memory
is belief and inference and speculation. Very few people’s memories can be
trusted, and when you go back historically for hundreds of years, great un
certainties creep in. So far as the future is concerned, how are we situated ?
Why, to-morrow is a speculation ; we believe in it, we take it for granted, and
confidently expect that it will come, but experience has not attained to it, it is not
verified as yet, it is possible that it never may be verified. However, one hopes for
it and thinks it will come. Then we affirm immortality on the strength of this
natural tendency of reason to believe that conscious personal life continues in
definitely. We all believe in to-morrow, and we who affirm immortality, believe
still further in the prolongation of to-morrow, and of to-morrow’s to-morrow.
If one to-morrow comes, or two, or three, I see no reason in the world, either
of sense or thought, why. constantly fresh to-morrows should not come. Of
course I do not know even about the very next to-morrow, but I like tlial|
sentiment Mrs. Barbauld expresses in the words—
“ Life, we’ve been long together,
Through pleasant and through stormy weather ;
’Tis hard to part when friends are dear,
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear.
�report—T^^|junO1878.
21
Choose thine own time,
Say not 1 Good night,’ but in some brighter clime
ipffBsa ine4 Good morning.’ ”
I like that everlasting good morning which has to he given us. I may be
told this is simply agnosticism in another form, but I think it is belief, and
rational belief also. I would say further, that the way in which ideas of this
kind prove their truth is not so much that we can satisfactorily demonstrate
them to the intellect and adequately define them, but when they are
uttered out of the depths of trust and love in the mind and heart, somehow
they exercise an enormous power in quickening our own intellectual and
lOrar nature, and the intellectual and moral nature of all who are able to any
extent to sympathise with them. If they be true, and I maintain they prove
their truth by the influence they exercise, we have a boundless horizon, a
horizon so wide that we cannot fix its limits, a limitless horizon of the boundless love and infinite perfection of God working on the side of our own finite
intellects and aspirations. We have also the looking out towards an eternal
future, conscious that there is something in us that will go on growing and
flourishing and working for ever, and the more it grows and flourishes and
works the richer will be the joy it gives to us and the more powerful it will
make us as efficient agents in the amelioration of the social condition of our
fellow men. Passing through Fleet Street yesterday morning, and smoking
a cigar after breakfast—just before preaching the annual sermon to the
British and Foreign Association in Essex Street, Strand,—I passed a window
where the Secular Review was exhibited for sale, and I noticed in an article
on the first page a quotation from Tennyson’s In Memoriam, that seems
to me to fairly and substantially represent the affirmations that we may venture
EoE&uke. It was this—
“ Thou wilt not leave us in the dust;
Thou madest man; he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And Thou hast made him. Thou art just.”
^ellj sustained by the logic of the moral sentiment, I make these affirmations.,
I [At this point the Congress adjourned for refreshments.]
On resuming—
Rev. J. C, Street (of Belfast) said: I regret very much that the debate
of this morning was not kept within the limits of the very interesting question
raised by Mr. Voysey. We are summoned here to consider whether it is
possible to establish a union of liberal thinkers in which every kind of
thought shall have expression and shall have a respectful hearing and conside ration. Now I live in one of the most bigoted places in Christendom,
an(l I am surrounded by the most dense orthodoxy that the world has ever
seen. . I have to fight a very uphill battle for the cause of what I consider
liberalism in religion, and I am impressed with the feeling that there is great
®I|Sjficance in the words that fell from our Chairman, when he said that
though we know that to-day the liberal thinker need not be afraid to utter
yet that we cannot tell how soon the day may come when freethought may be placed under such a ban as he has described. I am painfully
conscious of that fact, and I want to see if it is possible to organize some
movement by which there shall be an aggregation of these scattered elements
^reeth°ught, a consolidation of the atoms, of men who are working
t*or the maintenance of it. Our platform this morning has been
�22
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
most comprehensive, and with one single exception we have heard with
respectful attention all who have spoken ; I should have been prepared under
other circumstances to give careful attention even to that speaker, but, as
he seemed to be playing with us, there was not time for him. The question
is, is it possible so to form an organization, that here and throughout tBie
country there shall be a body of men who will stand by the liberal thinker
when he is trying to utter himself in the most remote part of the empire a
Most interesting questions have been raised by Mr. Voysey in his paper as to
what are the religious needs of the age. Passing from the question as to
whether it is the disestablishment of the Church we want, he said we wanted
the disestablishment of the creeds of the Church. Then he came to the direct
questions which we have to consider. He said that there were thrown off from
the orthodoxy of the churches a large body of freethinkers, divided into two
sections—those who are represented by the ladies. and gentlemen, who, by
their very presence here, raised a protest this morning against the dominant
orthodoxy, but who cling to tbe essence of religion while yet they do not
recognize the personality of God or the need of prayer; and the otheri
section, also thrown off orthodoxy, who recognize the personality of God and
the necessity of prayer. Mr. Voysey raised the question as to whether it is
possible to have a free religious association which will include those various
sections of the great heterodox party. I think it is possible, and it is our
business to reduce it to actuality to-day. I would much rather then have
heard speakers rising to tell us how to do it than that they should have
wandered into the abstruse metaphysical questions that have been raised. I
think it is quite clear the basis of the association must be utterly undogmatic,
must recognize the largest liberty to every man amongst us—must take care
that atheism as well as theism shall have a standpoint; it is necessary also
that we should not only have a platform on which these two can stand, but
there must be a clear understanding that this undogmatic basis shall recognize
not merely the right of the atheist or the deist to speak here, but shall en
force upon him the duty of utterance. We want to get at the thought of the
atheist, the thought of the deist, in order that it may be fully and fearlessly
expressed, in order that it may be canvassed, and not merely canvassed
but dealt with, amongst those problems of nature and of men which
we should constantly have under consideration.
I would respectfully
urge upon this meeting that the problem suggested by Mr. Voysey’s paper
is—Can we have such an organization ? Remember, there are a number of
men, some here, some in other and various parts of the world, who are bearing
the burden of a great weight put upon them by the orthodox churches.
There are some men who still stand within the limits of the church, who are
fighting for liberal Christianity: there are some of us who are fighting for
liberal religion, whether within or outside of Christianity, but we are very few,
scattered and almost isolated, and it would cheer us immensely if we could
find gathered here in the metropolis of the world an organization which would
throw its great shield of strength over the isolated workers, and make them
feel they were not working alone, but that brave, earnest, true men were
banded together ready to sustain and afford these isolated fighters their help.
I hope to have the pleasure of being present at the meeting to-morrow, and
I hope if to-day there is not submitted a basis of some organization, that at |
least to-morrow we shall have such a basis laid down, that we may not go back
feeling that we have been here in vain. I heartily wish success to the move
ment, and express my own personal thanks to Mr. Conway and his congregation
for having summoned us from all parts of the country to attend this meeting.
�REPORT—13TH JUNE, 1878.
23l
Mr. Holyoake : I had no ambitioJnoflHtennon whatever*of taking part
in a conference of this description, and had I not been seduced by the blandish
ments of my mend Mr. vonway to come, I certainly should not have been
here. I understand that what you want is some brief, explicit statement of
opiEiW*bn the part of as many persons as care, I suppose, for unity of action.
—I care nothing for unity of action. There were two phrases in the circular
which seem to me hopeful—one was that which deplored the isolation of
which Mr. Street has just been speaking, and another expressing a hope that
wefee was some universal state of things that it was possible to realise. Now,
I suppose that a few facts will be of as much relevance as many theoretical
arguments. I can say that all my own experience shows that men are arriving
at greater unity of action than I ever expected to see attained in my lifetime.
This is so marked that this seems like a new world to me. I can testify that
for the past twenty-five years it has not been possible to get upon any platform
in England any responsible minister of religion who would discuss any of the.
■questions which before that time they would discuss without ceasing. It is
because the old orthodox questions, which agitated me when I was a youth
and acted on my compeers of that time, are now dead in men’s minds, dead
as the cities of the Zuyder Zee. Nobody cares to revive them, nor is it
possible to have a discussion upon them. We used to agitate about eternity,
perdition, and about the advisability of their being such a place: everybody is
now agreed about this—that the eternity of the perdition shall be quite
dropped out. Most persons remain still of the opinion that there is some
use^or this place, with this mitigation, that there are a great many
people who certainly ought to be there. I never cared much about it
my|elf, but the personality of the devil was often discussed about me, and we
were told what an active agent he was; but everybody now sees that there is no
business so badly managed as the devil’s, for we know the people who ought
to have been in his hands long ago—It is apparent to everybody, so that one
might imagine there is some satanic trade union in existence, and that the per
sons whom he employs have struck, and don’t do their work. I used to debate
with my friend Thomas Cooper about the doctrine of the resurrection; but now
there are a few persons who are so foolish or so insensible to the privileges they
now enjoy, which were purchased for them by the sacrifices of their forefathers,
and which they don’t care to question, that when they die, if they were to be
raised again, it would bring resurrection itself into discredit. Upon all these
points the opinion of the public has so widely changed that there are cer
tainly greater grounds than ever for hope that some day there may be
practical unanimity of opinion about theology. I suppose it is no use
going about the world looking for what you want; it is much better to
open your eyes and see what you find there. Therefore it seems to me
that a conference which seeks to reconcile opinion is perfectly delusive.
What you want is a congress which shall seek to recognize opinion
It is much too soon to attempt to reconcile it. Why, you have not got half
the contrary opinions you will have in a few years in this country. What is
the good of beginning to reconcile when you have not got all the projects
before you? We may expect almost infinite diversity of opinion. Well, I
am in favour of that. At a meeting of the Congregational clergy the other
day* I said I was a friend to sects and to diffusion of opinion. I heard my
friend, Mr. Voysey, speak very eloquently about his conception of Theism,
and I listened to him with great interest. I find many people speak earnestly
on behalf of their own particular opinions, and instead of effacing individuality
of thought Ewould rather it were increased. The effacement will come by
�24
EggN^RAL ■CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS?!
time and by argument; it will nev"r come by logical reconcilement of
innate differences. Therefore, I like this controversy, this individuality of
religious opinion. Why, is not the world full of people of the most divers
kind of opinion ? As to these opinions that I have called secular, I never
pretended that I was an apostle of them, only a propagandist of them,
addressing myself to hundreds of people whom I knew, who were to be
impelled in right paths by secular inspiration, and could be impelled by no
other way. All the world is full of this diversity of opinion, and you want
every form of opinion to impel men into the right path. With respect to
theology, the question was often referred to this morning. There arejltwo
kinds of minds in men, the emotional and the intellectual. There are people
who wish to believe, who believe what they wish, and who wish to believe
what they like. There are also people who simply want to know what they
ought to believe, and these people are perfectly different. You never can
connect them or reconcile them, and the best thing you can do is to give each
fair play, and endeavour to see whether it is not possible there should be
some small connection between them on which they could agree. Tiiwle.tually they will never agree. There are people whose minds are like
water. They refract, and if you put the plainest statement of logic and']
mathematics into such minds they would immediately seem bent. There are
people whose minds are inverted, and the millenium will never come to these]
people until the world is turned topsy-turvy, and then things will seem
straight to them. This diversity of mind you cannot extinguish. These
people never vary : you cannot alter them, and all you can do is to recognize
them, and to give the freest play to their individuality of conscience and
views. I have no doubt the nursery rhymes are quite true which say,
slightly altered,
“ For all disunion under the sun
There is an agreement, or there is none.
If there be one, you will easily find it.
But if there be not—why never mind it.”
There is another unity which is possible, and that is the unity of action.
I am sure that in all the schools of free thought I know, and of practical
thought with which I have become acquainted, the moral aims of their mem
bers are very nearly the same. You might propound objects of attainment 1
of a moral nature, objects such as the advancement and the recognition of indi
viduality of thought, and of religious thought. I do not myself believe in
the multiplication of atheists to which some speakers have referred. The
atheist is a creature of very slow growth, and requires as much discipline and
understanding as science itself. These persons are very few, and do not increase
so fast as you imagine. It is one of the easy and absolute opinions of theology
to imagine that people are created continually of the most advanced type. I
am sure of this, that there are very few who are atheistical from necessity,
but the name covers the most extreme forms of opinion. There is a community
of moral aims and endeavours, and the only possible ground of unity which we
can have for the present is a conference of persons recognizing differences—
not asking people to come to explain them and reconcile them—but recognizing
them and seeing how much common work they can do, how far they will
act together, and how far they can contribute to the perfection of each other,
and to the maintenance of the right of conscience and free thought, upon
which all progress depends. What Mr. Street spoke of is exactly the thing
that is possible. It is possible, I am sure, to have a conference and to get
unity of action for objects of a moral nature upon which we are all
�repor^iSth june,
1878.
25
agreed, leaving out entirely the religious opinions—leaving persons to
have their own way about that and to accept them if possible, That I would do
all my life. Ever since I was what the world calls a heretic I never refused
to subgcl’ibe to a Methodist or a Catholic chapel if I found my neighbdufa
'wished to worship God in that way, and had no other way of expressing their
convictions. I would just as readily assist them as persons of my opinion,
because I know that this world is a great well, and truth is very low down in
it, and I do not believe in any one sect drawing it all up. It wants the com
bination of good will of the whole. I have no doubt that that is where the
line of unity lies. I am sorry I have spoken at such length, but I thought
it wftuld be unfair to accept the invitation and not tell you my opinions oil
this subject. Your line of unity will not lie in endeavouring to recon
cile opinion. That will reconcile itself if you will encourage this individuality
of action and give free play and fair play to all, irrespective of their views.
If you summon a congress in which all opinion every where shall be recognized
you will find that when the members come to act together, they will lessen
their differences by contact, and by knowing one another they will discover
with surprise how people they thought the most diverse in opinion from them
have really all along meant the same thing. I know that unity will come
oneway. It will not come by giving up your opinion, but by advising and
forming a corporation shall recognize all, and shall give strength to all who
care for the truth and who desire to act together for the common ends of
humanity about which wre are all agreed.
Mr. Mark H. Judge : I should not have ventured to send up my name
but for the fact that before the adjournment the Conference appeared to me
to be taking a direction which was not really desirable. The Conference was
not called together, as it seems to me, to take up particular religious questions,
to discuss abstruse problems as to the personality of God, or matters of that
kind; but we are here to endeavour to meet the religious needs of our time
which are felt by liberal thinkers. It seems to me that, for this purpose, we
have nothing to do with the particular opinions which may be held by us
as thinkers. The discussion before the adjournment was what we might
have expected at a meeting of perplexed thinkers, rather than at a meeting
called for the definite purpose of strengthening our position in the country.
What we want to aim at, I think, is not to attempt to define true religion,
but to get free religion. If we attempt to define true religion, we ought to
stand by our definition, and then we become sectarian at once. If I under
stand the meaning of the Committee who issued the circular convening this
(Conference, they wish to found some such body as the Free Religious Association in America, and I do hope some such organization will result from
this Conference. What we want is an association not an agreement. We
need not be agreed upon particular problems. For instance, I think the
Chairman was somewhat illiberal in his opening address—unintentionally so,
I am sure ; for while we might agree with the views he expressed, the address
seemed to me to be more sectarian than it should hive been under the circum*J
Rances. I may have misunderstood him but I thought he assumed that this
was a meeting opposed to revealed religion, and that he would not include in
the community of freethinkers those who believed in the Bible or in the
orthodox theology. Now, the Free Religious Association is not so constituted.
I, ipyself, do not believe in the Bible in the sense in which the gentleman
dotes who unfortunately failed to obtain a hearing; but I think that, if this
Conference is to be of any utility in creating a broader feeling on religious
subjects, it should not be limited to such a basis. What we want to do is to
�26
GENERAL CONFERENCE1 OF KIBERAL THINKERS.
get together a number of men prepared to listen to each other, whatever their
diversity of opinion; and to me it is very illiberal as well as unwise to refuse
to receive those orthodox people who are prepared to come and asso
ciate and exchange opinions with us. Recently I have had an opportunity
of seeing a practical application of this principle in a club in a provincial
town formed of both political parties. It was organised by the liberal agent,
but he refused to limit it to party purposes. It seems to me that spirit ought
to animate us—that we should have freedom of thought, whatever it may be.
I don’t at all share the view of the Chairman that the time may perhaps
co.me when we shall be in the position we were some ages back. I have more
faith in my principles, and believe that they have a stronger hold on the
public mind, and that they only want a free platform to make greater pro
gress. If orthodox people do come into an association of this kind we need
not fear that our principles will be overruled, we should rather expecSfco
leaven those who come amongst us.
Mrs. Rose . Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be with
you to-day. When Mr. Conway kindly sent me the invitation, I was very glad
to see that a conference was to be held in which an interchange of opinion or
discussion would take place, for free discussion is like the air we breathe, if we
have it not we die. Particularly so is this true of a discussion on the subjects
made known in that circular. In thanking Mr. Conway and the Commit,fp.e
tor sending me the circular I informed them precisely of my opinion—namely,
that I belong to no religious sect; I profess no religion; and I have long
ago discarded even the name. It is too indefinite and misleading, and is only
calculated to divide the human, family instead of uniting it. Well may we
exclaim “ Ok' re^S^on what crimes have been perpetrated in thy name.’M
We have been told, by some of the speakers that Grod cannot be defined. Nor
can the term religion be defined. The orthodox church gives it one meaning,
the heterodox church, if I may call it so, another. The liberal church gives
it another, entirely different. Now, if you want to form a society for
practice, you must give it apractical name. (Hear, hear.) I would take the
liberty of suggesting a practical name. I know we have a society in the
United States under the title of “ Free Religion.” Free is all right. But
what is Religion ? That term is indefinite and undefinable. If you mean by
it morality, say morality. If justice, say justice. If wisdom, say wisdom.
But if you want to have a term that shall unite all, no matter of what sect
or to what branch he belongs, then adopt a name that shall be definite
and strong. Do you want unity, not upon speculative matters, but where
all could be practically interested in working for the benefit of human
race then take the name of the “ Friends of Progress.” You ask to
what would it lead? Io everything that is grand and noble in society—
progress in the arts, progress in the sciences, progress in social reform,
progress in the social sciences. That would elevate man from the lowest
to the highest as far as human nature is capable of being elevated. Any
individual might belong to this association, and yet have anv opinion he
iked with regard to all speculative notions of God. I am a free thinker
to the very fullest extent.. I . have never yet heard a definition of God
that comes up to my conscientious conviction. In none of the gods that
have been proclaimed can I conscientiously believe. If there are any
others I will . examine them and see whether they come up to my
highest conviction, and then say whether I can assent to or dissent from
them. C)ur beliefs and disbeliefs don’t depend upon our will, but upon
our convictions, and even if we wish it we cannot believe that of which
�REPORT—13TH JUNE, 1878.
27
we are not TOnvuomi}* ButWe could all believe in progress, in progress of
thought and of action. But we can have no progress without liberty of
thought, and liberty of th ought is not enough. The liberty to think exists
Rome, for the Pope cannot prevent any one from thinking, but we want
fmore g^GpRome gives, we want liberty not only to think, but a libertwto
Bexp^^s our thoughts. That is a part of progress irrespective of opinions.
Let us then unite in a Society of Friends of Progress, aiming not onlylti
jmfflkjjut jco express our thoughts. The Christian, the Mahometan, the Jew,
the Deist, and the Atheist—for the Atheist has the same right to his opinion
that the Methodist has to his—all have an equal right to their opiniorB.
There, my friends, you see a wide field open for union—a union to
reform the laws so as to have perfect freedom of conscience, the right to think
and fco express our thoughts on all subjects.
Progress opens as wide a field as
the human race—it endeavours to remove the obstacles that prevent our
growth. We have remained as pigmies in our thoughts, because we have not
|fed the right to express them, even if we had any thoughts, and we must work
for the right to teach what we believe to be true, the right to work for and
to allow a more rational, consistent, liberal and more glorious state of society
||han. we now have. In all these things we could join hands. The Rev. Mr.
E^^ey and the Rev. Mr. anybody else, unless they are too fixed in their
bigotry, or too much impeded in their religious views, as well as the more
rational and liberal Christians, could all unite with us to form a union which
should give us strength, strength not to injure any one, not even to prevent
Kmtedfrational views that some of the religionists have of their god, but a
strength to take care that as long as they have them they should have a perfect right to express them:—a strength that shall enable us to assist each
other to improve the world, to obtain rational and consistent laws, laws that
will not deprive a mother of her child—(loud and continued applause)—as
has been done to Mrs. Besant, simply because she thinks differently from the
judge; laws that will not incarcerate an innocent, respectable man, simply
because he sold something that he conscientiously thought beneficial to society.
We should work to get rid of irrational laws based upon sectarian opinions,
and to replace them by laws standing upon rational knowledge. We ask
only the right to investigate everything, to throw it free and open, and to see
if after examination we can arrive at something we can say we know. Now,
[Christians acknowledge they don’t know what God is, except that everybody
ought to believe as they do. I say every person has a perfect right to believe
as he or she is forced to; and among the laws that ought to be altered, and
altered by rational and consistent means, are the laws that are based upon
sex instead of upon right, In my heresy, if I liked, I might call it my religion,
all I want is that woman should have the same rights as a human being.
I may be wrong, but I have a conviction and really believe that worn mJ
is ja human being. If I am in error, Mr. Chairman, please to correct
me. As a human being, I want her to have precisely the same rights as a
Iman. Now, when a judge says that if this woman had been the father
instead of the mother, the child might have been left with her; I
think that is one of the laws which should be altered. In all practical views,
then, I think we can agree, and it is not astonishing that while we can agree
upon: practical subjects we cannot agree at all on theories based upon specula
tive opinions about some man in the moon.
Colonel Higginson : I have sat with profound interest during this
session. Of corpse, having a good deal of human nature, I have felt the same
great desire to come upon this platform and put my little questions, that so
�28
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
many others have felt to come up and propound theirs, but I have been
restrained up to this time by a sense of that becoming humility whTch is so
L especially characteristic of an American. Perhaps I should not have alluded
to that beautiful trait, but that my dear old friend Mrs. Pose, whom we used
to be proud for so many years to claim as an American, while her sonorous
eloquence filled our halls, and whom you, I suppose, now try to claim as an
J^nglishwoman, though she is not^ has spoken. AVhen she came forward I felt
the result was that the Atlantic was, so to speak, crossed, and that the other
side might venture to put in a claim to be heard. I suppose we have felt that
somehow or other, from the moment of the adjournment, whether it was from
the interval of meditation, or the remarkably good flavour of the sand'Wches
with which our benevolent friends here have supplied us, that the whole dis-’
cussion has taken a new impulse and concentrated itself upon more definite
purposes, and that in short, the real work of the meeting has begun. This
morning s discussion was of the greatest value, for it was unavoidable. I
speak from a good deal of experience of just such efforts, for, as my friend
said this morning, I have been long connected with the Free Religious
Association of the United States. I have found you always have to begin in
that way, always to blow off a certain amount of steam, always to listen to
a certain amount of persons who come here thrilling with something they
want to say,, or some question they want to ask, or some objection to make
or some objection that somebody else has made, to answer. There musfl
be that, and that has to pass off before the real serious work begins. X
don’t know whether any native-born Briton felt impelled, in addition to the
sandwiches, to imbibe a glass of the national fluid with his luncheon—it
is a practice I deprecate, and I introduce it here only for the purpose of
scientific illustration. If he did, he unquestionably watched with pleased
interest the incipient foam which marked the rising of the beer; but it was
not for the sake of the foam that he ordered the drink—he drank the
beer of whose excellence and strength the foam was the symbol. In any
liberal movement, even in a movement for union, there must be in the early
stages the foam. It is only after the foam has disappeared that you
come to the actual flavour, and if the actual flavour of the beverage—the
liberalism—seems bitter, why it is the bitter of the beer that is considered
by Englishmen wholesome after all. We have come now, this afternoon, to
the solid stage of the proceedings, and if I rise to speak it is partly
that 1 know there are those here now who will not be here to-morrow. The
Free Religious Society of America, whatever its faults and shortcomings,
did at last come together in precisely such meetings as this, it met
just the same variety of opinion, had to withstand just such ob
stacles, and even down to the last eloquent appeal of Mrs. Rose
0I" a
scope than the founders of the movement aimed at or
succeeded in establishing, the exact counterpart of the earlier stages of
e movement. I think it altogether likely, in view of the different circum
stances, the different elements, the different prejudices, the different ways of
±roIB those t
Preva^ amongst us, that your movement may-take some
different form. I must say I think that, in some respects, and in some details,
a c ange might be desirable amongst us, but I do think we can claim this
one thing—that a great many of the doubts expressed to-day we have solved
by actual practice, and a good deal that is here stated in the form of a vague
yearning, stands with us in the form of a definite association, which, if it has
done nothing else, has at least lived eight years, and is certainly no weaker
than when it began. I should say, in reference to the demand put forth by a
�REPORT—13tH JUNE,
1878.
29
gentleman this morning, that the most important thing was to have a place
where persons of different opinions could stand, that so far he has stated some
thing perfectly reasonable and perfectly practical. It is one thing, however,
to find a platform where persons of a dozen different opinions can stand, and quite
another to find one large enough for all to walk upon, especially if it is to
include the doing of everything that ought to be done. If our experience
has proved anything, it has been this, that when you come to put a thing in
wbmng order, it is absolutely necessary to limit your aims a little, and not fo
expect to do everything at once, and with one organization. It is on this
point, and almost on this point alone, that I should dissent from the position
taken by my old friend Mrs. Rose; and not only should I dissent from it, but
I am absolutely sure that if, under the influence of her noble aim and generous
■Maryyou planned your organization upon the vast basis she recognised, that
if in five years your organisation lived to bring you together, it would be to
Efpent that you were not content with a smaller and therefore more definite
Kfeu In saying this, I am not impeaching her object, but accepting it. I am
only raising a mere question of how you are to do a certain thing. In the old
novel of “ Ten Thousand a-Year,” which used to be very much read when I was
young,
first great English Reform Bill was always spoken of as “the great
bill fpr giving everybody everything.” Now I am not saying that her views were
as wide as that, though her heart is wide enough for it; but I do say this, howoV®r, that if, after forming an organisation in which persons of different religious
opinions may meet and compare notes—about that there is considerable
difficulty—you are also to attempt an organisation which shall carry out in
all the details of practical action all those sublime purposes which all
these different persons aim at, you will have an effort with, which Englishare not able, any more than Americans, or Europeans, or men and
women anywhere, to cope.
You will be endeavouring to embrace in
one organization all the work of reforming all the evils, changing all the
laws, and obtaining all the wise improvements that dozens of societies in
London are separately trying to produce. When I first came to London, I
went on successive days to the Sunday Closing Society, the Prison Reform
Society, and Woman’s Suffrage Society, and they began to accumulate so
fast, that I finally leceived a letter urging me to attend a meeting of a society
which it was said was, to many people, carrying on as great a moyement as
the great anti-slavery movement. It turned out to be a society to oppose
compulsory vaccination. Now, if these societies which merely represent
Em infinitesimal portion of the immense philanthropic work of London
have all to be embraced in one organization, well you will have an
organization in one body, and in one limited hall, and consisting of
merely a few. remarkable and able minds, which undertakes to accomplish
wh§it all the judges and all the lawyers, and all the bench of bishops, and
the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and Lord Beaconsfield’ and
all the army of Indian troops he has brought to Malta together, would not be
able to decide, and would not be able to settle. Friends and fellow-citizens__
I will not say, my lords and gentlemen, which I have noticed in public meetings to fie the way here—whatever we undertake in this organization let it
be very calmly planned and very fully slated in our own minds, so that if we
err we shall at least err on the side of undertaking rather too little, for other
wise we s^a^
an(^ the thing will have to be done over again by those of more
paoderglii^expectations. This is what I have been impelled to say, and if my
old friend has heard it with reluctance, as I know she has, and her smile of
dissent only convinces me to the contrary, she must thank for that her own
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GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
eloquence which has displayed the defects of the plan and made me try to
guard the meeting against a programme so magnificent as the sublime—
but I think, impracticable—aim which she laid before us. Now just briefly to
say what has actually been done in America, and what I think might be done,
and better done, here. We had to meet at the outset this question of the
word religion and the objection to it. I am glad to say we found amongst the
atheists of America no such reluctance to the actual word religion as might
have been feared, and none such as I think has existed here. The organiza
tion had from the very outset the hearty co-operation and very early help of
Mr. Seaver, the editor of the Investigator, who should be well known to all old
radicals as one of the most faithful and heroic of men, who never compromises,
however acceptable the compromise. He came to the early meetings and has
taken part in it since. We had the actual co-operation of Mr. Underwood,
who is one of the most eloquent as he is one of the most able materialists of the
United States. Both these men, and men and women like them, have
accepted the organization in America,' although it called itself religious,
partly because a great deal of attention had been directed to the definition
of religion given by a prominent member of the movement at a very early
period, a little before we began—Mr. Francis E. Abbot, of The Boston In Jell
At the very beginning, in his fifty affirmations, which were in a mannenlthe
groundwork of his faith, he defined religion as simply meaning the effort
of man to perfect himself. Whether the definition holds water or not, it
unquestionably furnished a basis on which any atheist as well as any Deist
might stand. With this meaning given in the beginning to the word
religion it was easy to see that the word religion produced no great
antagonism as part of the title of the proposed society. On the other
hand the word Theism which was persistently put forward by our rational]
friend Chunder Sen, and which was the basis of his great movement,
was always definitely objected to. We always took the ground that it
might do for them; it was not the thing for us. It was found that
the Anglo-Saxon mind tends to the practical, and that the word re
ligion furnished a platform wide enough to satisfy all we had to deal
with, and no narrower word would have come in. I think, therefore,
we saved ourselves by the use of the word. Then when we came
to the question of organization, it was plain enough that the secret of our
success there must be to attempt very little, not to attempt any wide
action, any very systematic propagandism, and to bring about those by way
of a modification of what our Jew friend said to-day so well, by which you
can furnish a platform on which persons of very widely different views can
meet. It is essential to your success that the platform should contain but
very few planks, and you should use it for but very few things. You can
have annual meetings and speeches—brave, heroic speeches;—you can, within
certain limits, issue publications, but these should urge rather the necessity of
union and religious freedom than anything more definite. When it comes to
action in other forms you cannot make such a society the medium of a very great
deal of definite action, for the reason that when we come to the actual we come
to the difficulties which Mr. Voysey described. When you come to the differ- i
ence between those who on the one hand believe and think they have ground
for belief in God and a personal immortality, and those who disbelieve, or thinkthey do, between those two you not only cannot form a creed, but they cannot
co-operate with one another—cannot sustain one another beyond the very
moderate and definite point of getting freedom of action, and getting reforms
in the laws so far as religious liberty is concerned. For all that concerns the
�REEORT—IBtH
JUNE, 1878.
31
principle "ifeoertyi'yo^^ffleorm such, an assodi^lbn, but when you go further
and grafflKke any system of religious propagandism, when you take Mr.
E^mev as one of your active members, and help to circulate his views,
and when you take Mr. Conway, Mrs. Rose, and others—when you come to
the details, then you come upon difficulties, and then you find that the aims of
an association like this must be limited. In short it all comes back to this!
With a very plain illustration of what I mean I will close what I
have to' say, it comes back very much to this.
Reformers have
Jh^j^trength and heroism and self devotion to witness to the truth of
their extreme views.
Organization on the other hand belongs to the
conservative side, belongs to the region where men suppress themselves
End. become, as they are in the Jesuitical organization, each man perinde
like a corpse. You never get such an organization as that out of
radicals. What is the strength of radicals ? The individuality, the enthusiasm,
EheBoftb, the ardour, the willingness for self-sacrifice, that throws itself upon
the bayonets, the prosecution of a belief with a strength compared to which
the mere negative martyrdom of the Roman Catholic seems only as a childish
thing. (Applause.) That is the enthusiasm that is got from the radicals.
To get that you must drive a radical with a very loose rein and leave him
much untied. The simple illustration that conveys it is drawn from our
northern regions and the way in which the Esquimaux harnesses his dogs.
EjWimaux dogs are sagacious. Each dog has its place and has a fair chance
for action, but experiments have told us that if too closely harnessed they!
will turn against each other and eat each other up. Twenty-five dogs are
nttachcdsledge, each by a separate thong, and there is no more trouble,!
So with radicalism, it is not like the Roman Catholic Church, it has its own
organization and its own strength, and so in no way in exerting its own
strength ought it to be disturbed, but it should pull by a long pull, a strong
pull, and a pull altogether.
Mrs. Ernestine Rose : I am not a Radical dog in the least, but it is just
as well to know, in the cause of freedom and expression of opinion, that “ we
may$iim at the sun and at least hit the moon.”
Col, Higginson : That was quite what I was afraid of.
Mr. Leslie Stephen apologised for not reading a paper which he had
prepared. He thought that it was calculated to promote discussions upon
abstract questions, upon which there had already been enough, instead of
K^fllng to any practical result. He wished to know more distinctly what was
contemplated by the proposed association, and what interests it was intended
to protect, Debates upon general principles only distracted the attention of
the meeting from this important question. It had been suggested that the
|Bg>q|miion was needed to protect freedom of discussion. For his own part, he
had not the least desire to be protected by anybody ; he had always said what
and
published the most heterodox opinions without incurring
the gjnallest inconvenience. He therefore wanted no association for his own
protection. If other persons were less fortunately situated, it was most desirable
case should be known, and any measures adopted which might
secure freedom of discussion. Let the dangers be distinctly pointed out, and
the nature of the proposed remedy set forth. He would have been glad to
have. a fuller account from Colonel Higginson -of the association already
mthe United States. He might supply useful hints for action in this
country. Hoping that the attention of the meeting might be directed to such
practical ends, he would not distract it by reading a paper upon different
topics.
�32
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL- THINKERS.
Mr. Conway : I move that a committee be appointed which could lay
before this meeting something like a practical suggestion as to whether they
think it possible or feasible that any kind of result may come, or an association
be formed, from our deliberations. We are all desirous to seek the truth,
and we are anxious to know what the truth really is. There is nothing in
this world more worthy of being cherished, cultivated, and fostered, than
knowledge of what is true and what it is right to do. We do not want
a cut-and-dried scheme ; and if the Society is to grow it cannot be
maintained by one or two people ; there are many interesting features
and aspects in it, and there must be, if possible, a general help. It is my
desire that a committee should be appointed, and you may nominate it as you
please.
Mr. Stuart Glennie seconded the motion; which having been
unanimously carried, the following gentlemen were appointed by the
Conference : Messrs. Conway, Higginson, Ellis, Stuait Glennie, Russell,
J. C. Street, Wyld, and Miss Downing.
Professor Garrison (of Chicago) : I must thank you kindly for the
opportunity afforded me of expressing my sentiments. I come from the!
United States, from the exemplary City of Chicago, a city that never .does
anything by halves, and I have formed my opinions very largely from the
general spirit that pervades that metropolis. Within the past thirty years
there has been a wonderful change of opinion in the part of the United States
with which I am familiar—namely, the Western States. Up to a time I did
not know a single “ infidel ” there. I call you all“ infidels,” because you do
not believe the whole of the Bible; I think that everyone who picks out! a
passage here and part there, and says, “ I cannot believe that,” is an “ infidel,”
and so nearly the entire church are infidels. In my early boyhood I did not'
know a boy who did not swallow that pill; and it would hardly have been
safe for him to declare himself an “ infidel.” They believed what they were
taught, that God could punish sinners eternally, and perhaps if onet
of them could have heard Mr. Conway preach, if they could have
got a good chance at him they would burn him eternally. If that
were the case he should bo scorched a little bit here. A little >
while ago the negroes killed a man on account of his infidelity; they
thought he was not fit to live. But now a change has come over the
American people, and I scarcely know an intelligent person who professes to
believe all the Bible. Some of them in a certain sense make the profession by
going to church and supporting the church, but they do not understand
anything about belief. I think it is worth while to enquire what has brought
about the great change which we recognise in America, and which yflju.
recognize here. In the first place we have a free press, perhaps the most
wonderful development in the world. In Chicago alone we have half-a-dozen
morning dailies of sixteen pages each, as large as your London Times, and I
have seen articles in our very best papers worse than Thomas Paine ever
wrote. Another thing, we have now free schools and good ones. In the
days of our forefathers, only reading, writing and arithmetic were taught in the
common schools, and in the colleges little else besides the classics. Now,
you have branches of education that will make a philosopher of a boy; you
include chemistry, philosophy, geography, and geology. You make philo
sophers. The pupils begin to think for themselves at once, and as soon as
they begin to think they become “infidels,” especially when they study
astronomy. These sciences are now taught in every part of the United
States, and any preacher would do well not to tackle such students without
�REPORT—13lH JUNE, 1878.
33
due consideration. But there have been some drawbacks to the spirit of free
though tOKlneThe fear of hell has been one of the main,
props of the church. If I was afraid that after death I should go to
hell unless I did certain things before death, I would be quite certain
^^u*thiQlmings, if it were possible. But as soon as you take that fear away
from me I become very lazy and very indifferent, as folks generally do;, and
that is one reason why Unitarian and Secularist churches have not succeeded!
Our Bftrotestant churches have got “ hell ” very nearly knocked out of them now!
decided to discountenance hell, and his utterances have very much
Succeeded in tempering theology throughout the world. We have a great
many others that are very prominent, such as David Swing, Robert Collier,
Euqrl)r. Thomas. All these men preach religion without hell in it, and yet
LDrrZxhomas is a Methodist of high standing. Methodism is gradually
falling away from the idea of hell, whilst free thought, liberalism, and infidelity
gaining ground. Hell is too hot a place for us to swallow, and slowly
^fflPsurely we go on until we become fully liberal. There is a vast amount
of superstition called religion. Some people believe that the world was
peopled after the flood from descendants of Noah, but when America was dis«Ma|ged and later on Australia, Noah had not sons enough to go round. You
have in South Kensington Museum a map, drawn some centuries ago; Jerusalem
is represented as the centre and apex of the world, and it has Damascus and
other model cities located around it. God Almighty is seated a little above
the world, just as this organ here is placed above the church, and he is lassooing
t sinners and taking them down to hell. Now let me remind you that the map
I refer to was purchased thirteen hundred years after Christ! When the telescope was invented we began to see how insignificant we are, and how a little
drop of dew is to our globe something like what we know ourselves to be to the
universe. Chemistry has shown us that we have not the compositions stated by
the Bible. We are not made of dust; our bodies contain a great many things
not found in dust. It shows us also that the resurrection of the body is an utter
impossibility. Chemistry has shown us that this world cannot come to an end;
that the earth is a cinder. Science has'shown us the impossibility of a flood.
There is no place in the atmosphere for such an amount of water to come
from; and, on the other hand, there is no place for it to go to. “ Providence ”
has been a hobby of man, and it has been a great friend of the doctors ; it
helps them out of many a scrape. A great many people still believe you
may try to avert the wrath of God here, and may perhaps succeed, but
depend upon it you will catch it in the next world. Divine Providence is
simply the working of natural laws. The prayer test has never been brought
to a trial, and it never will. Before man was dissected, it was believed he
had one less rib than a woman, and millions have gone into their graves
|klli|||ng that. The world must be infinitely older than anybody supposes it
to be—at least six hundred millions of years; and the deposition of strata is
very different from what possibly can be inferred from revelation. The
science of evolution is beginning to be studied more generally, and, to my
mind, it will annihilate modern Christianity. “ What will you. give us for
the faith which you destroy V’ That is considered to be the poser. “We
will give you the truth, as far as we know it, in the place of a lie.” Suppose
|flBWi*vere to begin to dig through your Silurian rocks for coal, spending all
his money and time, and bothering his family, and a geologist should come
^yng^and say, “ You need not dig there; there is no coal below those rocks.”
That is precisely the position Christians are in ; and we are under no obligation to giffpjthem anything but the truth. Let everybody go on digging for
3
�31
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
coal where there is none, if they enjoy the pursuit" but I only ask that they
shall not compel me to dig for it whore there is none* *
The Congress then adjourned for the day.
FRIDAY, 14th JUNE, 1878.
(Mr. ALEXANDER J. ELLIS, F.R.S., in the Chair.)
The Chairman, after observing that the Committee of the Chapel had
considered it advisable that one of the elder seat-holders should preside at
this day’s meeting, and had requested him to undertake the duties, proceeded
to read the following remarks :—
It has often been thrown in the teeth of rationalism that it is many, whereas
truth is one. In certain attempts at religious conversion, this very remark
has often been made the basis on which the most effective arguments have
been raised. But it is entirely delusive. So long as we have not got to the
bottom of things ; so long, therefore, as we only see in part, and from that
part, as is inevitable, speculate on. the whole, there must be diversities of
opinion, there must be words which are misunderstood, because they un*
consciously cover different areas within different minds; there must be
arguments, good in themselves, but actually fallacious from the want of some
unanticipated, and hence unallowed, but important factor, and nothing seems
more likely to supply the want so well as discussion. A word, nay a tone of
voice, may often lead us to reconsider a whole line of argument, and very
considerably modify our former opinions. We thus advance towards a goal
which we are ever dimly forefeeling, though we are unable to shape it
distinctly to our intellect. To disallow this, to erect one form of words into
an obligatory expression of opinion and call that uniformity, agreement!
oneness, is the most melancholy farce which can be enacted. It is, indeed
“ To make a solitude and call it peace.”
We hope and trust, then, in such meetings as the present, and the experience
of yesterday confirmed such a hope, to hear conscientious diversities of
opinion from conscientious thinkers, who feel themselves indeed, like
Horace, to be
“ Not bound to swear in any master’s word,”
but at the same time know themselves to be
“ Bees of one hive, bound to one common weal.”
We meet here to-day in the full belief that the laws of England condemn
ing heresy, and rendering penal any expression of thought which is contrary
to that of not only the Established Church, but even of Christianity or any
acknowledged religion, will not be put in force. We consider them as actually
dead. But are they so ? Are they not rather merely asleep, capable of being
awakened to sting by some Suppression of Heresy Society, such as the Church
of England itself must be considered ? Let me take an instance alluded to
yesterday by Mrs. Rose, but so striking that it will bear further consideration.
We have seen quite recently a judge, himself the member of a religious
�HEPOKT---- 14th JUNE, .1878.
35
society which but a few years ago was most unjustly excluded, from all parti
cipation in government^ deblare that it was not only reprehensible but
detestable ^ior a mother who professed to have no religion, to endeavour to
bring up her own daughter without any teachings commonly called religious,
until the child had sense to comprehend the nature of such instruction, and
the same judge judicially alleged that this was in itself sufficient reason to
cause him to make out an order to remove that child from her mother’s care.
He alleged indeed a second sufficient reason, with which we have no special
relM^n at this moment, except in so far as it was based upon the publication
of a book in which practices were advocated that in the writer’s opinion were
calculated greatly to promote the happiness and morality of mankind, but
that clashed with the judge’s own limited views of the great question of
social morality. With the particular opinions advocated we have nothing to
do now. though we may admire the moral courage which led to their publica
tion, but with the principle of silencing the expression of opinions on matters
which are vital to social existence, merely because they are opposed to the
adews of any one section of society, we have much to do. Our own Milton
wrote once on the liberty of “ unlicensed ” printing. We still want his pen,
as recent trials and present imprisonment shew. We cannot advance
morally and religiously, while the conscientious expression of opinion on
moral and religious subjects can be forbidden or rendered penal, while a
judge can shut up an elderly orderly bookseller with common criminals for
selling a book written with the strictest moral intent by an American Senator,
and more than thirty years before the world, or legally tear a child from its
mother, because she avows atheistical opinions. There was a third ground
alleged by the judge which is still more pertinent to ourselves. He deemed it
to the worldly interest of the child to give her to her father, a clergyman of
the Church of England, and take her from her mother, to whom the father
bad assigned her by legal deed. He founded his opinion on the supposition
[that the mother would be sent to Coventry for her opinions, would be a leper
in society, avoided by all those of good repute, and that the child would
share in that exclusion. Now this, on which it so happened in this case that
the judge’s sole legal authority was founded, forms the tyranny of society
upon opinion. When I was young it was enormous, and even now we see that it
is enough to influence a judge. More than this, in Ireland and England it has
quite recently led to the excommunication of the French Freemasons from
the British Lodges, owing to the withdrawal of a clause recognising the
existence of God and the immortality of the soul from the constitution of
the Grand Orient of France. To the isolated thinker this tyranny might
prove crushing. To the thinker who is aware of large numbers that also think
freely, and are banded together into an association, where liberal thinking is
the principle, this tyranny would cease to have any moral power. It might,
however, still tell greatly in respect to their worldly interests, as in election and
appointments, where speculative opinions, instead of moral and active efficiency,
too often guide the electors and appointers. To this all here are still liable,
and from this the sole hope of escape is in enlightened education. Never
theless we are present to-day, as we were yesterday, for the free expression of
thought on religious and connected social subjects. As the established forms
of religion throughout the world, with wonderful minuteness of detail, enter
iq.to all social subjects and especially into marriages, births, and deaths, it is
difficult to say what part of social economy is not religious, while not an in
considerable section of thinkers claim that there is no religion apart from
sociology, But with the view of dividing up a great subject we generally
�36
GENERAL CONFERENCE’ OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
agree to defer the consideration, of particular social subjects to
especial bodies, at the Social Science Association, and fsuch was
yesterday unmistakably the view of this Conference. Some subjects are,
however, so intimately connected with views of religion that they should be
ventilated freely, more especially that one on which I have already quoted
Sir George Jessel’s most subversive opinion. It is a problem which must
have occurred to every one who entertains liberal views and has a family,
how far children can or should be educated without any instruction or educa
tion which can be called religious in the usual acceptation of the term. God
less and irreligious are terms readily used, and, like all dyslogisms^hey are
apt to stagger and frighten. It was something, however, that last month
within the walls of Westminster Abbey a voice was raisedin glorification of
Atheism. “ In the opinion of the Brahmins, Buddha was an atheist. In
the opinion of the Pharisees, Paul was an atheist. In the opinion of the
Athenians, Socrates was an atheist. Atheism is the denial of the gods that
be, in obedience to nobler aspirations.” Such was the upshot of the conclu
sion of one of Prof. Max Muller’s most striking Hibbert lectures. In the last
of these lectures he showed a curious state of society in India, where three
generations may be living under one roof, the lad still learning the sacred
books of the Vedas by heart, his father carrying out the Brahmin system of
sacrifices to the most minute detail, and the grandfather released from all the
trammels that bind the other two, aware that their gods are but names, and
given over to philosophic contemplation. This is a solution of the problem
we can none of us desire. Why should a man up to my age live through a
state which a man who is past my age knows to be transitional, and doomed
to disappear? Are we to be merely insects in thought, passing a long
apprenticeship of creeping caterpillar and sleeping grub, before our wings of
freedom grow ? And are we finally to use our wings of freedom merely to
roam idly over the fields of philosophy like any other “ painted butterfly ” ?
A thousand times, no I Prom first to last we must bear our part in the great
drama of life. We must learn to be, to do, and to suffer. That is, we must
be taught from the first those social relations of each to all, which my revered
namesake, William Ellis, so successfully shewed could be impressed upon the
youngest school children, and which, let us hope, in time to come mothers
will learn to impress upon their offspring in the little world of the nursery.
The society of brothers and sisters is the first practical lesson in the laws of
social existence; the society of schoolmates the second; the society of fellow
workers the last. There is here nothing dry and abstruse, and nothing
frightful, if the horrors which common religion conjures up be left out of
consideration. Children can be taught morality in relation to fellow-children
of all ages without impressing on them that there is a constant spy on
their conduct in heaven—a veritable evil eye, such as used to be drawn in old
prints—belonging to a God, who would have sent them to everlasting fire—a
fire always burning but never consuming—if the blood of a lamb had not been
shed, and who will nevertheless send them there, if they are not very sorry for all
the bad and wicked thoughts which they are told are rising up in their minds,
although the little innocents cannot make out what they are. To teach this
—not to omit it—might much more reasonably be termed “ not merely
reprehensible, but detestable,” and has certainly the worst effects upon
children’s minds,whether they accept such fearful doctrines,and with infantine
simplicity act up to them according to their lights, or simply pass them by as
a lesson to be learned and neglected. To realise or to neglect such things,
when solemnly told, is equally pernicious.
�REPORT—14TH JUNE, 1878.
37
Beyond moral education of” children without direct reference to MT
religious notions, we have to consider intellectual, and especially physical
education. , The latter forms a large part of many religious systems. Cer
tainly it ought to form a part of all liberal religion. We should learn how
much neglect of physical life partakes of the nature of moral delinquency.
We, as members of the body common, should do our uttermost to be ready]
when called upon, and the call always comes at the most unexpected times. I
merely hint at these things. Time would fail me if I attempted to enlarge
upon them, but I hint at them with a view to giving a partial answer to the
question with which Professor Max Muller opened his lectures, and which
was often asked in this room yesterday :—“ What is religion ?” Or, to put it
hnOTe definitely as respects ourselves, “What is liberal religion?” I reply :
“ A profound sense of duty; that is, a profound sense of the relations of
ourselves to every part of the universe which comes within our. ken, animate
or inanimate, mundane or extramundane, and of every part of the universe
to ourselves, together with an invincible determination consciously to act in
harmony with these relations so far as we are able to perceive them.” To
carry cut to its full extent such a religion requires numerous theories, some
of which I have endeavoured to indicate in several printed discourses de
livered in this room, and in some pieces bearing my name in the hymn book
of this Chapel, which it would be waste of time to recapitulate. But such a
religion does not need the preservation of the old imperfect and exploded
theories—exploded by philosophers at any rate, though more or less living
among priests of all nations. Such a religion in its highest form is the acme
of thought reached by the greatest minds after the greatest struggles through
many generations. But in its simplest form it can be accepted and felt and
acted on by the child that begins to move consciously, even before it can
speak intelligibly. It may be objected, that such a religion is no religion at
all, as it contains no mention of God, personal or impersonal, of the efficacy
ofprayer, or immortality. But in so far as these are known to exist, or known
to be unknowable, they are certainly included within those parts of the uni
verse, mundane or extramundane, and our relations to them, which enter into
the above definition of liberal religion. In so far as they are mere conjecturo they can enter into nothing but dreams, with which mankind in general
is too busy to. have any concern, or are at best but those subjective theories
which lead thought to subsequent objective results. Among the latter I
would class the “ affirmations ” made yesterday by our distinguished visitors,
Mr. Voysey and Mr. William Binns, “affirmations” for which, as they
Admitted, there is no proof. On the contrary, another speaker conceived that
ffie had a means of proof, which, if examined, might probably be found to rest
ultimately on another affirmation, for in all argument we are led to some
ultimate principle which must be simply affirmed, and can be at most
“ verified ” by contrasting conclusions with observations. To this class, how
ever, the “affirmations” alluded to were admitted by the two speakers whom.
I have mentioned, not to belong.
Towards such a liberal religion as I have indicated, which is essentially
^growing and progressive, all can and should contribute by word and deed.
And to this end we must all think, and express what we think, and not be
afraid of doubt. The man who is certain is generally ignorant. He sees but
he. very surface of his subject, and is unaware of all the difficulties which
grubbing below the surface would reveal. We doubt in order to know.
And we trace out our doubts in words, in order to render precise what would
otherwise be vague. And we discuss these matters with our fellows in
�B8
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF
LIBERATIthTnkERS.
orderRo gather hints beyond the circle of our own experience We are
satisfied if we help on the train, of thought ever so little.
‘1 Thought unexpressed is thought but half thought out;
The first step made towards certainty is doubt.”
A working engineer told me lately that while driving a tube for a so-called
Abyssinian well, into hard concreted gravel, in the neighbourhood of Hackney J
three hundred blows with a monkey of eighty pounds weight, only sufficed
to make it penetrate a quarter of an inch. But he persevered; and after?
passing through six feet of such unpromising material he came to the water
stratum, into which the tube descended freely, and whence gallons on gallons
of water were readily pumped up. We are a long way from the living
waters yet, and many blows are still required to drive our intellectual tube
through the unpromising soil of actual life around us. But we have no
reason to despair. If not ourselves, at least, through us, our successors may
quaff the glorious stream, and certainly will quaff it, if every liberal thinker
does his duty by liberal thought. And one way of doing that duty will be to
form part of that Association of Liberal Thinkers which I hope that the
Committee appointed yesterday will enable us to organise to-day.
Mr. Conway introduced the following communications : Professor Clifford,
who from the first took a warm interest in this Conference, writes to me from
the steamship “ Morocco,” en route from Fiume to Malta, May 23rd, that he
had hoped, since the failure of his health prevented his taking part personally
with us, that he would find strength and opportunity to write a paper for us.
But a relapse at Venice, from which he is just recovering, prevented that
also. He sends me the notes he had made of the points on which he meant
to write, and no doubt these will be interesting as indicating the view which
that vigorous and learned thinker takes of the subjects we have met to
consider. I therefore quote them.
Catholics^ha-says* are fond of saying that an age of atheism is approaching^ .in
which we shall throw over all moral obligations, and society will go to ruin. Then we shall
see what is the true effect of all our liberal and scientific teaching. As a matter of fact,
however, even themselves admit that the public conscience is growing in strength and
straightness, while the catholic dogmas and organisation are more and more repudiated.
We may see reason to believe that the former of those facts is the cause of the latter.
Part of modern unbelief is no doubt due to the wider knowledge of criticism of the socalled “ evidence of Christianity,” but in all ages sensible men have seen through that flimsy
structure. Intellectual scepticism is not really more rife than it has been in many past
periods. The main ground of hope for the masses is the moral basis of scepticism,—1, its
revolt against mythology; 2, its revolt against the priestly organisation of churches.
As to the mythology, the dogma of eternal damnation is being quietly dropped, as not
in the Jewish part of the New Testament; but it has been practically taught by the
Christian organisation for sixteen centuries. Therefore the Christian organisation ought
to be thrown over with it, for it is not “ an opinion like another,” but a wicked thing to
believe.
As to the priestly organisation, Pi^essor—Clifford meant to contend —that-*the
practical effect of the Christian organisation, “ the church,” has always been adverse to
morality, and is now. The clergy is everywhere making more pronounced its revolt from
the great principles which underlie the modern social structure. There is a strong
antagonism between the Christian organisation and the Jewish ethical literature, which
our moral sense approves. And, in conclusion, Professor Clifford believes that so far as
the Christian organisation is concerned, the time has come for heeding again the ancient
warning—“ Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye
receive not of her plagues.”
Although no attempt was made to give our Conference an International
character, some invitations were sent to the Continent and cordial responses
were received from M. Litre, Prof. Hugenholtz (of Holland) and others. From
�REPORT—14th JUNE, 1878.
39
M. Fix (who has come from Belgfflm io be presen" with us) I have received
the following paper with reference to a liberal movement in France and
Belgium and its new review, “ La Religion Laique ” :—
We have neither founded a church nor invented a religion: we have created
a review (La Religion Laique) of which the object is :—1. To open the eyes of
those whose vision is obscured by ignorance or superstition; 2. To encourage hearts
that really love humanity, and minds convinced that the progress of civilisation lies
in the moral improvement of individuals ; 3. To unite men of good-will who, in this
world of struggle, are seeking after their sister-souls, who, though distributed in different
nations, continents, or degrees of existence, are yet in the bosom of the same humanity.
1. We believe in an only God: truth, goodness, justice. We believe in immortality of
the soul. This soul, born imperfect but free, must, as a duty, always improve itself; so it
is necessary it should live, that it may approach without ceasing nearer God : Perfection.
Happiness we must all hope is there—in that perfection—not elsewhere. Di'd all men
consider as certain that which we believe, humanity would adore one God. The children of
this father would really have for their first duty, chief advantage, and greatest happiness :
to love him and love each other. One religion should exist. The grand aim of religion is
not only to bind us to ourself, to our family, mother-country, and to humanity, but also to
attach our own being to terrestrial nature, to the universal life; to all beings known and
unknown, visible or invisible; to all which is, was, or shall be. The historic world
opens with war. The testimony of history is that religions have invariably divided
^mankind. They have sundered families, classes and states. The reason is that men,
families, classes and nations, have always been aroused and agitated, not by the
tolerant religion which unites, but by the intolerant religions which divide. The
first religious duty is brotherly love to our neighbour. If I see a man about to be
downed, shall I save him, or inquire from him what his faith is ? Why then those fratricidal wars provoked by fanaticism ? Why those human sacrifices ordered by rough priests ?
Why such miracles praised by miserable speculators ? Is God greedy of blood, domina
tion and money ? Let us not confound these words—Belief and Religion. A belief may
be a faith particular to a people; religion includes the belief common to all men and all
nations. A belief may kindle the faggots of inquisition; religion proclaims all men
brothers. -A belief leads to the triumph of an idea, of a man or of a party; religion wishes
only the triumph of truth. A belief raises a caste to rule over a country.; religion requires
free consciences and men equal by their right. A belief tries to establish some kind of
hierarchy over humanity ; religion dreams only of the universal fraternity. A belief lasts
only by egotism; religion means universal solidarity. Such are the reasons why our review
is called La Religion Laique ; though our religion is nothing else but the universal reli
gion. Such is its true name, till it is called Religion, one word for one thing. In calling
“our review La Religion Laique, we mean the religion which is for the people (Xaos),
whose basis is the people, and whose plane is above the interests and passions of sects. In
the past, religious revolutions have been marked by numerous and terrible sacrifices of
men; we hope that the religious renovation which we who gather here contemplate, will
.be and can be only peaceful. It will be peaceful, because it relies on the goodwill of free
meEp Good-will prepares for those future ages of which Goethe used to call himself a
citizen, the universal religion of which each of us is meditating. Sacerdotal intolerance
has built between individuals and nations separating walls. Human reason will cause
these divisions to cease, will make brothers of enemies, will prevent international injustices,
will end religious persecutions, will kill war. Such is the religion we recommend—a
religion we must all love, hope for, encourage, fraternally working for its triumph.
II. What is to be done ? 1.—Conceive and practice religion without miracles, without
sacerdotal body, without confession of faith. 2.—Govern ourselves and walk on towards
perfection, while helping others to get all we have acquired : comfort, instruction, and
morality. Those principles involve instruction, education, liberty, responsibility, moral
improvement, tolerance, duty, fraternity, reciprocity, helpfulness, self-help, solidarity, and
that intimate and deep conviction on which lies human dignity. Religion, as we under
stand it, is a general bond which unites all, excludes none. It is therefore necessary that
the religion of each man shall depend on his conscience entirely, allowing him to have his
own aspirations, opinions, and belief; progress made in each of us will cause our union
to last. Admitting a confession of faith to be imposed on the members of the same asso
ciation or religious congregation, we would stay intolerant, and deserving not the advantages
of union. We must then place the Religious bond in the will; not in the law as under
the regime of the Old Testament, nor in faith, as during the reign of the evangelical
system according to St. Paul’s dream. It becomes useless to demand of religious men —
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GENERAL CONFERENCE OF* LIBERAL THINKERS.
united by worship, teaching, or charity—if they believe such and such dogma ; but we
may ask if they are willing to work together for their own and'for human improvement.
Among free and thinking men there no longer exists any question about orthodoxy or
heterodoxy, and so there can be no exclusiveness or intolerance. Our detractors say a
religion of that sort is but a dream or a negative. Nothing, on the contrary, is more posi
tive and of an easier realisation : good-will only is necessary. We declare, as a principle,
religious doctrines to be matters of learning as much as the theories of science and
philosophy. In religion, as in any other branch of the human inquiry, there will
always be things we know, things we believe, and things we know not; but after
having put aside miracle, and all idea of a supernatural revelation, we learn and
teach facts, ideas, theories belonging to the religious kingdom, as we learn and
teach phenomena, laws and theories of other branches of knowledge. At the summit
of science, God is. Going to God through science, is going there when knowing what we
are doing. Is not the scientific revelation as good as the one they praise in their temples,
and before which our spirits cannot but doubt—the so-called revelation that makes fanatics,
religious parties, which has invented this monstrosity—the God who revenges, the God.
of armies ? We judge ourselves according to our actions, the good accomplished; our
degradation or our improvement resulting from our efforts and struggles. Our free will
imposes that duty on us, in an existence where human pride as well as injustice
and personal interest are no more. There God’s justice reigns according to the
eternal law of continuity. Prayer leads us nearer to God; it obliges us to conform our
thoughts, aspirations, moral needs and the discipline of our existence, to that law of con
tinuity which is the same for all. Otherwise, what would God’s justice be ? We cannot
admit he uses two kinds of weightsand measures. We then may say, like Jesus, we do
not wish to destroy the law, but to confirm it by working for its triumph. The kingdom
of our dearest aspirations is not of this world, for life has not for object any paradise
where the satisfactions of this world are to be continued. Sensuous religions have inven
ted those fables, in which absurdity joins materialism. We do not aim at a place of rest,
for we know the soul always progresses. We do not look for looming splendours. Happi-I
ness, according to us, is in the midst of the divine light, plenitude of existence—that is to
say, in entire knowledge of goodness and the conscience to deserve it. Why should identity,
so dear to us during our life, be lost ? God is goodness, God is justice. He cannot deprive
us of the benefits acquired by our merits, perseverance in virtue. We trust that, beyond
the grave, we do not abstract ourselves in contemplation, according to the Buddhist faith;
we think we are not absorbed in the supreme unity, according to the Christian .mysticism.
Our conviction is, that the aim of life is to multiply more and more our relations with the
universe, without losing anything of our identity. Our God has neither created the tor?
ments of purgatory, nor kindled the furnaces of hell; no more has he invented the pleasures
of the Moslem or the Catholic paradise. He causes suffering to lie in imperfection, and
happiness in moral perfection. To suppose something else would be to lower God; for a
pure spirit cannot find eternal felicity in an ideal which ceases to be the ideal even of
human beings in the proportion of their culture. I sum up by quoting a few lines of our
director and friend, Ch. Fauvety :—‘ It is in the family that the human “ I ” finds the first
degree of its religious faculty. In fact, family appears to us, in history, as the cradle, and,
in some way, the first step of religion. Mother-country, humanity, universality only come
after. Thus, living with one’s family in a sweet communion of interest, thought and
feeling, is already being religious. We become more religious if we identify our interests
with those of our native country, loving her, serving her, alwajs ready to die for her. A
man becomes religious in a yet higher degree when he feels himself living within
humanity; so that he suffers in its pains, vices, barbarisms, ignorance, miseries, and works
constantly at its delivery from them : when he neither desires nor seeks for himself any
good, any progress, any enlargement of his being, without wishing to make others profit by
them. At last, we elevate our religious ideal to excellency, when conceiving it adequate to
universalism; when hoping for plenitude of existence, endeavouring to live for all that
exists, and setting as the aim of our life the supreme perfection, we impose on our“ I ” the
obligation of realising that aim.’ This general conference will stay as a very important
fact in'the history of religion. At the outset, it shows what priceless liberty enjoys that
beautiful and grand country, England. At the same time, it points out the good we are
deprived of, in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia and Turkey. Nowhere
on the continent do they value the power of that liberty which is the safe-guard cf
peoples, that liberty which is the precious promise of future times.”
Professor Th.. Bost, of Verviers, writes :—
“ Many of our old ways of thinking, many of our ancient forms of worship, are gone
�re"ortS-14Th’j‘une
•r87'8.
41
for ever; left’WEfiid by the onward march of mankind. To attempt to revive them is
a
and seems to me to go against the clearest indications of the
Spiri't^flGod. Why should we distrust His guidance ? Is He not as living and poweSjul
in our da^s feS He was in the days of St. Paul, or Luther, or Wesley ? Have we not been
tffiu^LtHha^the Spirit of Truth shall guide us into all truth ? It is our intimate trust that
our apprehension of the fallacies of ancient creeds is due to His influence. These creeds
are
monuments of dogmatic nonsense and of human credulity. To put them
aside is an act of faith in the God of truth—I would almost say an act of filial respect,
of loyalty—to Christianity, for people who think, as we do, that the religion of Christ has
nothing in common with the prodigious aberrations of our theologians, or the servile
credulity of so many believers.
“But if we are accomplishing in a spirit of faith the work of destruction which needs!
■gfbe carried on, we cannot say that we have found as yet the means of raising with its
■|®Sn and’beauty the religious life in the souls of our contemporaries.
“ Truly, that work does not depend on us. ‘ The wind bloweth where it listeth.* God’s
power is not at an end, so that it might not raise out of our actual world great fiery souls
to shine like beacons in the darkness of our night. Only it seems that if we were*to see
any movement like that of the sixteenth century, those who would take the lead in it must
be much larger-minded than were or could be any of the great reformers of past ages.
They must be men of unlimited freedom in their minds, of broad sympathies, ready to
accept as the very thought of God, as a revelation, any truth which has been proved by
scientific researches, were it ever so much in (real or apparent) opposition to the Bible,
is true, is true, is of God, whether it is found written in the Bible or in the least
ecclesiastical of our modern authors.
“ To conciliate in our minds these truths which may seem contradictory to one
another, is no very easy task, but is the very task which the providence of God lays
before our hands. Let us hope that our generation will not shrink from it.
“Your purpose, if I understand you rightly, is to promote those researches, to
investigate with your friends the best conditions to be fulfilled in order to make possible
a religious reform congenial to the want of our time. May you be blessed in your
enterprise. May the Spirit of the first days of Christianity inspire all your assembly,
so that, living in more advanced times, we may come to do greater things than even
the jostles. The same Spirit which formed then a St. Paul—one of the most mar
vellous men that ever existed, a conqueror of souls as very few have been—will form in
our days men able to present to the actual world the unfathomable riches of God in
Christ, of God in our souls, of God in the moral and spiritual world.
“May we only be faithful to our task!
“Accept, dear Sir, this expression of my wish for the success of your Meeting, and
transmit it, if you think fit, to your friends, from an unknown friend and brother.”
M, Emile de Harven. writes from Antwerp :—
“Sir,—
“ By convoking to an International Congress all earnest-minded men caring for the
moral wants of humanity, you take too laudable an initiative for your appeal not to be
heard. Therefore, however feeble the light which I may be able to shed upon the interesting questions which occupy us, I do not wish it to be lost, and I deem it my duty to
contribute my grain of sand towards the religious edifice which the future will erect upon
the ruins of established churches. I beg leave therefore to announce my views upon this
important subject.
“ In order efficaciously to break down the absurd dogmas which divide men, it is need
ful, above all, to replace them by something better. The French Revolution, on proclaiming
fh^ Religion of Beason, failed in the attempt, through not having taken this principle into
account. All religions, and especially the Roman Church, have blind faith as a funda
mental basis. More matured in the present day, thanks to the immense progress of science,
reason ^egins to claim its rights and rebels against those who would despise it.
“ In our days the struggle is no longer upon dogmatical grounds; it is only carried on
between the torch of truth and the clerical extinguisher; it is circumscribed between
thinkers, on the one hand, and on the other the clergy, dragging in their train the crowd
of simple and timid minds, with those who are, or think they are, interested in the maintenance of the sacerdotal power.
“Between these two elements floats the great mass of idle or indifferent minds. The
indifferent ones are only so because their intelligence rejects dogmas, and no rationalist
notion has happened to enlighten them. The idle ones fall in with ready-made doctrines
and deem that<everything is for the best in this world. In politics as in religion, they
�42
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
are Conservatives. It is this category of men, who are becoming more and more numerous,
especially in Catholic countries, that we ought to strive to interest in our work.
’
“That the study of the exact sciences,the utility of which is only»felt by a few
should not move the masses, is easily conceivable ; but it will not be so if we succeed in
making them understand that the search after psychological truths concerns the happiness
of each one individually, and only requires common sense, with which often the simplest
men are amply provided.
“ It is easy, by the help of sensible arguments, supported by examples drawn from the
concordance of material facts, to prove that the phenomena of the soul are explained in
the same manner as the former, that is to say by deduction, and thus to establish
hypotheses as logical as that of undulations uniting together the laws of optics.
“ Hitherto all those who have taken an active interest in these questions have remained
in the higher spheres of philosophy, consequently only addressing themselves to converts,
or to detractors of talent.
’
“ Now, we know by experience what it costs to deny one’s whole past studies, and after
many labours to acknowledge that we are mistaken.- Hence it is that proselytes are rare.
Let us then strive to demonstrate that we base our faith on reason. Is it not the criterion
which distinguishes from animality ? Those who impose upon us dogmas which reason
reproves are impostors seeking to perpetuate their domination by ignorance.
“ Whom should I believe ? The one who, in the name of an imaginary authority, pre
tends to impose a blind submission on my reason, or this same reason with which nature
has endowed me assuredly that I may make use of it 1 We might as well affirm that our
arms have not been given to us for working, our feet and legs for carrying us, our stomach
for digesting, and that there is merit before God in remaining in a state of inaction and in
allowing ourselves to die of hunger.
“ Let us found schools, free from all dogmatical teaching ; let us teach in them the
philosophy of history, and let us shew to our children and to those who may listen to us,
that in fighting against superannuated creeds we respond to the divine will, which is that
every thing should progress. Let us say that religious faith and its manifold forms have
always followed the development of the aggregate intellect of humanity. Our forefathers,
were idolators, and so are still the uncivilised peoples of the globe. The Mosaic law did
not proclaim the immortality of the soul. ‘ Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy
days may be long in the land,’ It left aside charity and did not mention the forgiveness
of offences: eye for eye; tooth for tooth.
“ Buddhism, and afterwards Christianism have answered the aspirations of their time.
But man emancipates himself as he advances, the old doctrines no longer suffice for him 1
science has dethroned the absurd, and reveals God to us in the magnificence of his works’
“ At the present day, when we know the immensity to be peopled with innumerable and
gigantic worlds, of which our ancestors were unaware, we may proclaim the solidarity of
worlds with each other, as logically as that which unites the countries and continents of our
sphere. The immense space which separates the stars is perhaps not, relatively, more
considerable than that which separates the molecules of the body. Teaching men to make
use of their reason, such is the first object to be attained. He who sets about thinking,
very quickly perceives that the first efforts of his intelligence are followed by the desire to
know, and, finding before him a field to be explored, the limits of which extend in direct
proportion to his efforts, he is all the more ardent in extending the circle of his knowledge
as he recognises that it is ever extending.
°
“ The sentiment of free examination makes rapid progress ; it is afresh want that is in
the air and which is manifested on all points of the globe at once. Let us avail ourselves
of it; let us spread light in profusion and, above all, let us strive to make ourselves under
stood, by using language within the reach of every one.
“ Let each of us bring forward his ideas 1 Along with inevitable errors, will be found a
particle of truth. These scattered rays gathered by the most learned, will give rise to
sound and consoling theories and will furnish a luminous centre destined to shine on
every side.”
The Chairman said they would now take a debate upon the subjects
which had been opened, which would last until luncheon time. In the after
noon opinions as to the proposed association would be brought forward.
Their time was now rather short, and there was much to discuss, so that he
would ask the speakers to limit themselves to ten minutes.
Mr. Johnston Russell (Limerick), then read the following paper:—
In the ten minutes allowed to each speaker to-day, it is impossible to even
�Report—14th
june,
1878.
43
briefly revilvfthe whole of yesterday’s discussion. The speakers to-dayJcan
only deal with the remarks which principally attracted their attention. I
have therefore selected three observations made yesterday regarding which
I wouldJike'to say a few words.
One Kt1 the speakers (a lady) said :—“ I want proof of the existence of
I Goa.” No subsequent speaker, although I believe there were a good many
clergymen present, gave her the reply that she required, and I would not
presume now to touch so great a subject, only that I feel that an answer
should be given by somebody to what was certainly a demand, if not a
L challenge. I assume that our enquiring friend does not demand direct ocular de| monstration of the existence of God, because she knows that it is not in our
rH»@Bj«to give her any such proof, and if any proof short of that would do,
f she ought to have stated what kind and what amount of evidence would be
| ^sufficient to convince her. If she had thought the matter out—if she had
"1 worked it out in her own mind—and saw distinctly what she wanted, and
!1 put.it simply and clearly in writing, it would, I think, have been much
. easier to give her a satisfactory answer than it is to deal with the question
[ put in so vague a manner.
It is obvious that we cannot have for ourselves, nor give to others, direct
I ocular demonstration of the existence of God. That kind of proof is with4 held from us for apparently the very purpose of inducing us to search for
GW, and no one who searches earnestly will ever be disappointed. The
4 desire to see God is largely gratified, and in the way that is really the best
for us. To the exact extent that we qualify ourselves to see God, to that
extent we do see him.
We who desire to see God, just as eagerly as our enquiring friend does,
and who reverently say as Moses said, “ I beseech thee, shew me thy glory,”
receive the same answer as Moses : “ I will make all my goodness pass before
thee; but my face thou canst not see.” We are not permitted to see the face
of God, but his goodness—the rays of his glory—we are permitted to see.
’t In answer to the question, “ How and when and where can we see God ?”
|| we are told, “In his goodness you can see God.” We can read the rocks
| and question the stars—we can enquire of the seasons and talk with the
I [flowers. They all tell us about God. Let our gifted friend look again at the
I order and beauty and goodness around her, and if that is not enough, let her
' look in her own heart at the noble qualities which are folded up there for
endless development, and if all these do not give her the proof that she
| requires of the existence of God, then, indeed, it must be hard to convince
I her.
^Another speaker (Mrs. Rose), denounced religion, and would not even
i retain the name.
The lady was very eloquent, but very illogical. She condemns the service
s^e advocates the service of humanity. She seems not to perceive
I that serving humanity, as she proposes, is the truest and grandest way of
^serving God. Every exercise of pity, and charity, and mercy,—of love, and
‘ courage, and self devotion, are exercises of goodness, and goodness is the
glory of God. What Mrs. Rose calls the service of humanity, and what
others call the service of God are identical. The names are different, but the
goodness is the same.
As to having no religion at all, as some of you advocate, we must have a
system of belief and morals, and if all that is included in the word religion
—-even an inferior religion is better than the unbelief which is spreading so
widely now. Who have been the benefactors of the world ? Were they the
S
E
F
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�44
GENETtAlJoconference] of liberal thinker^
men who taught that there is no God, and no hereafter, and no retribution,
so that men may do evil with impunity? No. The benefactors of manland
were the men who preached goodness, who said, “Be good and do good,”
who taught that there is a holy God, and a life hereafter, and a sure retribu-,
tion, where every man will receive according to his works.
We are told that science is opposed to religion, but that cannot be, for
true science is the handmaid of religion. There are false religions. Against
these let science do its worst. Science means knowledge. The man of science
is the man who knows. What does he know ? What does the wisest know I
Ask him, and he will say, “ I know nothing absolutely. I only stand picking
up a few pebbles and shells on the shore of the great ocean of truth, which
stretches away into the infinite.”
A good deal was said here yesterday about religious differences, and one
of the objects of this Conference is to try to harmonize them ; but, constituted
as men are, differences are inevitable, and they are not altogether disadvan
tages, for they have their good as well as their evil uses. We may make the
differences fewer and less marked, but we can never get rid of them entirely.
Men’s minds are different. Some men, like creeping things, creep upon the
earth, still looking downwards ; while others mount up to the heaven of heavens
and breathe imperial air. Religious differences mean liberty—liberty of
thought and liberty of speech—and as we must preserve liberty, we must have
differences.
Although countries are separated by rivers and seas and oceans, yet the
separation is only on the surface of the earth. Beneath the flowing river, and
the dark blue sea, and even the deep ocean, we find the adamantine rock
which joins all countries together and binds them into one. Religions are
like countries. Their differences are only superficial. If we go deep enough
we shall find that essence of religion which underlies all religions and which
at some not distant time will bind them altogether into one. Why should
men disagree so much about religion when religion is so simple a matter ?
If there is only one Supreme Being, why should there be more than one
religion ? There is indeed only one true religion, viz.: “ The Religion of
Goodness.” It is the goodness in it which gives every religion whatever
vitality it has. Why should not all religions adopt the essence of religion as
their bond of union, and agree to differ about the small matters—about creeds
and rituals, and the mere husks of religion ? Here is a platform on which
all religions can unite, but especially the three great religions which are so
closely related to each other, viz. : Judaism, Christianity, and Mohamedanism.
Men have followed two much after Moses and Jesus and Mohamed, and too
little after God. If Moses, Jesus, and Mohamed were here now, would each
of them say, “ I am the messenger of God, follow only me, and be ye called
only by my name ? ” No! Each would exclaim, “ Perish me,—Let God be
all in all.” In this way the religions of Moses, Jesus, and Mohamed could
be reconciled and be amalgamated into one universal religion—the religion
of God.
Can nothing be done to bring about so desirable a state of things ? Can
we not give some help ? That question brings me to the third of the
observations made yesterday, to which I wish to reply. The speaker
(Miss Downing) said, “ I want a path to follow; I want something to
do for humanity.” In those few words the speaker touched one of the
great religious needs of the time. There is an abundance of goodness and
intellect in the world, but the people have no purpose and consequently their
powers are wasted. The sects and societies of religious reformers have
�REPORT—14tiFjlne, 1878.
45
neither union; nor plan, noir purpose? They will neither lead mor follow J
but each ’goes its own way, and as there is no earnestness in them they can.
produce but ^very little effect. Somebody has said, “ I would to God that
the men who have the truth were as firm and resolute in spreading it as are
the men who spread the error.” People need a path to follow, and something
that they themselves can do for humanity. The religion that will provide
all its professors with good work to do, will attract to itself all the earnest
and most valuable people in all the sects and all the churches. I expected
that something great would come out of this Conference, and perhaps it may
come hereafter, but nothing will come of itself. There is work to be done
and every one should help.
The religion of goodness, which is both the service of humanity and the
senice of God, is just the thing that we all want. It is a religion that all
men can believe, and that most men do already believe. There is nothing
higher than it for man, and nothing holier for God. It is a religion that
will refine men like gold and raise them nearer and nearer to God. In
the religion of goodness three words shine like the stars. They are—God,
immortality, retribution. These are the three essentials of belief. This is
the Faith that the world needs.
In their prayers to God many millions of people daily pray, “thy
kingdom come.” But what are they themselves doing to cause this
^kingdom to come ? Do they mean what they pray ? Do they expect to be
introduced into a kingdom of God, ready made for them, while they are to
sit still and wait until it comes ? If they do they have quite mistaken the
matter. God has long ago done his part; men have to do theirs. The
kingdom of God is here already. The kingdom of God is within you, but
it has to be brought out. It is an idea—the dream of every noble mind—
but it is not always to remain an idea. It has to be realised—to become
visible and tangible. The kingdom of God, when it comes, will elevate
mankind materially as well as morally, and deliver men from the bondages
under which they groan. But when shall this kingdom come ? If -we
might give the answer, what would our answer be? "Would we say noiv ?
And why not now ?
We need a new Reformation—:religious, political and social. Nothing
less will cure the great evils of the time. What if this religion of
goodness, which each of you is invited to take up and spread, is to be
the means by which these great reconstructions are to be effected ? What
if this is to be the grandest work of any age ? These may seem to
be only the words of an enthusiast — a dreamer. Perhaps so; but
everything great is only the dream of a dreamer at first. Who can tell
what may happen ? These are eventful days. Around us are portentous
signs of coming changes. Already the fateful writing is on the wall. It
says, “The time has come.”
Mr. Henley said he should not have addressed that meeting if he had not
delivered a lecture in London some time ago, in which he suggested the for
mation of an association of this kind, and requested co-operation to assist him
in forwarding a copy to the ministers of the various religions in London and
its neighbourhood, in order that afterwards a meeting might be arranged to
discuss this question, and to see if it were not possible to form some associa
tion of this kind. At that time he proposed a short creed, which he suggested
for the adoption of that meeting. Amid some interruption, he went on to say,
that he was going to make a statement which nine-tenths of the meeting
would think him a fool for making, but he would make it on the authority of
�46
general! conference of liberaiBthini^ers.
Mr. Crookes and Professor Varley, and others. It was in Spiritualism that
they would have these questions thoroughly explained. It was Spiritualism
that brought before them the matter, as a truth that could be proved, of the
existence of life beyond the grave. He had studied that for seven years, and
he knew what he was talking about. Spiritualism proved to the Christian
the orthodox Christian, that what he had been teaching Sunday after Sunday
he was now able to prove. What nobler thing could there be than that
which proved the truth of immortality ? He would not say more than except
that if he had time he would be bound to convince every man there o£r the
truth of what he was stating.
Mrs. Law : Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, and ladies—We have met
here yesterday and to-day for a specific purpose, that of discovering, if pos
sible, if we can make a platform sufficiently broad to hold on it speakers
and thinkers of various denominations. We heard yesterday a number of
opinions expressed which were truly valuable in themselves, but few of them
of real practical importance for the object we have in view. This morning,
we have heard some excellent papers which have not, in my opinion, had
those necessary elements that we require in order to come to some definite
conclusion. Yesterday we had a number of what I should call cardinal
ideas offered by different speakers, which I think seemed as though they
could not possibly be woven into one piece. I want to show there is some
thing we can do. Mr. Voysey started yesterday by affirming what I know
to be the lamentable fact, that there are thousands of men in the church Who
are theological atheists, and yet profess to be other than they are. That is a
terrible state and condition of affairs. He said if you place men in positions
where you oblige them to dissemble before Grod they will ere long dissemble,
before men. He believed this, and he believed that the hypocrisy of the churches
is sapping the morals of the people at large. Mr. Street very clearly ex
pressed what he knew to be necessary to be expressed, and which ought to
be, I was going to say, spoken by the tongue of an angel, if there is an angel
and he has a tongue. It is a fact that there are great thinkers who stand
in a position of isolation. We want the people to assist them, and we want
public opinion to assist them in the great work they are attempting to
carry on. Mr. Holyoake gave us one practical direction, when he said that it
is perfectly useless for us to attempt to form a platform where we can hope
to reconcile the opinion of speakers or that of thinkers. What we want to
do, and this is one thing we can do, is to recognize these differences of opinion.
I would just add one sentence to that. We want not only to recognize these
differences, but we want to see. if we can form a platform upon which we can
tolerate these differences. It is the result of many years’ experience, I dare
not say how many years’ experience on the subject, that if you commence
by giving definitions you will have definitions upon definitions, and that will
not result in anything practical. We don’t want to know whether Atheism
or Theism is true, but we want to recognize the fact that that there are
Theists and Atheists in existence, and Christians, Mahomedans, and Jews in I
existence, and that the great thing to determine is, is there any possibility
of bringing these people together and bringing them to do some effective
work? Is this conference then Utopian? I say emphatically, No! I look
upon Mr. Conway as having done a great work in this respect, only in bring
ing us together. A gentleman whispered in my ear just now that it would be
rather a broad platform whereon the last speaker and myself could stand.
But it is something, sir, to bring us under one roof. I believe this Confer
ence is not merely practical in its efforts but that it is thoroughly opportune
�REPORT—14thjune, 1878]
47
in its convenement. 'T look upon Mr. Conway as a central figure holding out
the right hand of fellowship to Christians and the left hand to the ex treble
infidels, trying to bring them altogether in unity. Mr. Holyoake said wisely
that whaBJwe want to do is to put these various thinkers on to the platform
and make them more acquainted with each other, and then their differ^
K ences of opinion would be modified. Undoubtedly they will, but by what
■ meffis, what practical means are we to do this ? Mr. Conway has done something in bringing us together. What are we prepared to do in the matter
I ourselves ? It is a practical settlement if we can recognize differences of opinion
■ where they exist, and at the same time can start some scheme and lay down
I some principle by which we can bring thinkers of various kinds together in
order that they may compare notes, discuss subjects, and tell each other
j the different opinions they are holding. Our friend who just sat down,
the spiritualist, said he could convert every man in the hall if he had the
| opportunity of speaking to him. I am not here to contradict that, and I may
' think, indeed, that if I had the same opportunity I might do the same. We
are not anxious to convert you all to spiritualism or to atheism. What we
want to know is this, can we so affect you by any means as to make you
tolerant enough to hear every man and every woman express their own
opinions ? How far can this be effected? We have the elements present to
a a great extent already. We were told yesterday that this liberal movement
is not confined to England, but that it stretches throughout Europe and
America, and affects all kinds and conditions of men, that it pervades
I all thought. Secondly, it seems to me that there must be something in the
times in which we live, in the way in which men are looking at things : so
I peculiar are the views people are taking : that is introducing this subject to
I public attention. What we want to do is to listen to each other without
I haste,'* without heat—yes, even not to suspect each other of having some bad
I motive—not to be afraid of sitting down with each other, and to have no
man feel “ I am more holy than thou.” Mr. Conway has done a great work
in having invited us together to be more cordial and more tolerant; and a
> greater work for us to do is to utilise his work and his connection with this
place. Recollect I am speaking as an outsider, having nothing to do with this
place. I am simply speaking my impressions as I received them yesterday.
I say this is what might be done, and I think it is a practical step. This
building from time to time might be utilised by persons representing difI ferent phases of thought so that we might each have a chance of meeting as
many friends as possible, and modifying each other’s opinions, of proving that
persons of the widest diversity of thought have a sufficient amount of
humanity, of common sense—some will call it Christianity, and I don’t
object if you like it—to enable them to look upon all as brothers and sisters.
There seems to me to be this difficulty in the matter, that we have to deal
with human beings not only as thinkers, but as creatures who feel as well as
think. Mr. Voysey said we want a religion intellectual in its character. Now,
^directly Mr. Voysey attempted to make any portion of religion intellectual,
; or to make the existence of a God logical, a lady got up, and as I consider
-very logically said, to accept the being of a God, unless his existence was
proved to you, was just as much a piece of superstition as to accept any other
dogma of the Church, We cannot satisfy people’s feelings, but this much
we can do, We can show them that they must admit that persons may accept
the being of a God, although they cannot prove his existence. It is with them
a matter of feeling. If any lady or gentleman says to me,“ I feel that a Gcd
d°es
good to know that that is so,” I am glad of it; but their
■
Jt
r
B
�48
[GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LtBERAtr THINKERS.
feeling his existence does not prove it to my intellect. I only'ds'15’that you |
go on believing that he does exist, and allow me the privilege of thinking that I
he does not. The practical step that we might take would be to try and bring |
the different thinkers nearer together. Then, of course, we liaVe a difficulty |
that Mr. Conway must have felt; that whilst the most radical heterodox, like |
myself, are always willing to unite with the orthodox, the orthodox,are not |
always willing to unite with the heterodox. The position is a most difficult 1
one. I am quite sure Mr. Conway can get Atheists, Theists, and Socialists |
upon this platform, but Low is he to make the Extreme Right meet with them ?
I don’t know how it would work, but I would suggest that among the repre- 1
sentative persons who are here to-day, as many as think it desirable, 1
should propose to hire this building for a certain number of evenings during |
the year, to explain their opinions. I would make one, and would undertake I
to hire it two or three times a year to explain my own peculiar views. That I
would establish a free platform. It would bring together various elements, I
and out of those elements we might form a society comprised of a number of 1
men and women, perhaps of literary, scientific, and artistic repute, who would- I
prove to the world that it was possible to found and to form a bond of union
independent and separate from the belief in any church or any divine revela- |
tion whatever. My time has passed. It is an affliction natural to woman,
that she forgets time. Of course you will excuse the weakness of my sex on. i
account of the importance of my subject. I thank you for hearing me, and I 1
would urge that after luncheon we should throw ourselves into practical work,
and that we do not discuss anybody’s God or anybody’s religion, or any
body’s heaven or hell, but that we should accept those phrases and see how |
we can work together to form an association.
The Rev. J. D. Hirst Smyth said : I don’t think I should be tempted to i
trespass on the limits of time, as my principal object in coming upon the 1
platform is to express the great sympathy I have with the movement inau- j
gurated here yesterday. I am glad to hear there has been no attempt to 1
form or found a basis of belief, however wide, upon which people might come 1
together, but that it has been recognised clearly that there are already 3
particular organisations, each doing its own particular work in this way. I
Because such people belong to these individual organisations, that is no reason *
that they should be kept apart in the discussion of the most important subjects, I
but rathei’ a reason that they should be brought more frequently together.
Of course I am very glad to escape the necessity of making any reference to g|
any person’s idea of God or of immortality. After all I do not know that the h
distinction between Atheism and Theism is not a vanishing one. It is like a
the line which used to be drawn so clearly between animal and vegetable,
and which is drawn still between organised and unorganised matter, when j
really, if we had instruments that were fine enough to detect it, we should J
probably discover there were no lines at all. It is a very difficult thing to i
assert a negative; and when a man says he is an atheist he does it because ; a
something higher than himself binds him to say it. In that then he repre- sents all the elements of religion. Let me say a word here for Christianity.
I am an historic Christian, and I should like to say a word for it. Professor I
Clifford says as it has so long taught not only an erroneous thing but a
wicked thing, that he believes it ought to be cast overboard with the
wicked thing. I am sorry to say there is a good deal of truth in that. I J
believe those who represent what he has written, so far as that it has taught a
a wicked thing, or that those who represent it have done so. I once heard i
Mr. Bradlaugh discussing Science and Faith, and I burned with shame as 1
�REPORT—IhmSB 1878.
49
he repeated the horrors done in the name of Christianity. All I could say
was, it was not CfiAstianity that did it, it was theology. And what we have
got to do here is to get that put on one side and to get some basis of religion
to go back upon. Even as to those things that were done in the name of
^h^f^^ty, it was not men who perpetrated these wickednesses, it was
churchmen. As a fact now, the curse of us all has been the men who
hold the church above everything, who think it necessary to take care of
the church first of all, forgetting that the interests of one living man are better
than the interests of all the recognised churches that ever were. That is what
we have to do—to find out what will best help man to grow towards all perfection in every way you like, whether in reference to wisdom or to meekness
or to love—what you will, but to grow towards all perfection, disregarding
what may come to the churches. That, indeed, will be the best thing for the
churches.
After the usual interval for luncheon, the meeting was called to order
by the Chairman who said:—The most important part of the Congress is
now about to commence. We have had a great deal of theoretical discussion.
EEhat must now give place to a practical debate, from which we shall hope to
get at some result. First, Mr. Conway will bring up the report of the Com
mittee, and speak to it generally. Then another member of the Committee
will move its adoption, and will explain the different points in it; and another
member of the Committee will second it. Of course, the minister of this place
is the proper person to bring it forward. It was felt it should be brought
forward by someone in connection with the chapel, who should take the
TOitMtiw J but while he thus takes the initiative which belongs to him, it is
also proper that the report should be explained and enforced by members of
the Committee.
Mr. Moncure Conway : What I have to say in reference to the simple
import which our Committee has prepared will be very brief. We have had
a very long and earnest consultation since we last met together yesterday
evening, and as the result of our labours I am authorised to lay before you the
following report:—
1. This organisation shall be called the Association of Liberal Thinkers.
Its objects shall be (1) the scientific study of religious phenomena ; (2)
the collection and diffusion of information concerning world-wide religious
developments; (3) the emancipation of mankind from superstition; (4)
fellowship among liberal thinkers of all races; (5) promotion of the pure
and universal religion—the culture, progress, and moral welfare of man.
2. Membership in this association shall leave each individual responsible
for his own opinions alone, and in no degree affect his relations with other
associations.
In bringing forward these resolutions, it is difficult indeed for me to express my feelings about them. Those feelings are very strong. I have
laboured for many years in this place, well supported by a sympathetic con■ffiSRtiw*and on pleasant relations with a great many people in London who
are not members of this society at all. During my labours I have seen how much
strength, how much character, how much religious and Christian fervour are
scattered about London; and have come to know in part how largely the same
are also distributed and dispersed throughout the nation. I have sometimes
4
�50
General
conference of liberal thinkers.
hacl a happy vision of all these scattered and distributed rays broughvinto some
great focus which should burn up all the remnants of priestSaft, and set
the heart and brain of this noble nation free for some great human task—
free to labour and to serve in removing the superstitions and wrongs which
afflict and degrade the people, especially the ignorant and the poor. At last
I felt there were so many people who believed with me that there was a
strength of this kind abroad not thoroughly utilised, that, with a certain
timidity and misgiving, yet with a certain assurance that there was such
unity possible among liberal people and independent thinkers,—among all
who are emancipated from mere authority and tradition,—I determined that]
some move must be made. I said so to friends not only in this society
but outside it; I met with almost one voice and feeling,—that such a step
ought to be taken—that we had no right, feeling the responsibility and the duty
■cast upon us by our thought and our freedom not to try in some way better to
fulfil our duties to these people and to all people. 1 do not for a moment
agree with all the talk that goes abroad about the necessity of pulling down
nothing and denying nothing until you have got something ready built to
put in its place. I believe the great movements in the world have been the
times of magnificent negation. I believe the great working eras of thought,
religion and power have been not when Constantine was building up, but
when Christ was pulling down; not when people were defining in ecclesias
tical councils the exact clauses of creeds and saying precisely what a man must
believe, but when John the Baptist and Mohammed and men like them
were laying their axe at the root of some evil tree, cutting it down
and clearing the path for the universal religion which always is and
always will be, and will sow itself wherever the field is cleared from the errors
that would kill and the briars that would choke it. If we take Luther and his
great comrades at the time when they were destroying the ancient wrongs of the
world, cutting down all the evil growths that lay between the people and the
light, when their movement was a great negation, a great pulling down of
wrongs and oppressions, we find these men—Luther, Melancthon, and
Erasmus, and the rest2—all joined together in one great unity, with one heart,
to accomplish one great work. It was when they began to build their theories
—to be constructive—that they flew apart into fragments. I believe that true
religion consists in the order of the Universe,—in man, out of man, and
around him,—that nobody has got to build it up, but that it is already built
and created; that just as I deny that two and two make five, because it already
exists that they make four, so I cannot pull down any dogma except because
something already exists in its place. Where the truth is, there denial of its
opposite is. It is a statement of something already built up in the mind and
heart, in the world and universe It is a sentimental fallacy that you must
never deny a thing until you have something to put in its place, for every
clear negation is the other side of an affirmation. There is a positive affirma
tive work in the intellectual and moral emancipation of man, a work in which
Mrs. Law and Mr. Voysey are alike engaged.
I am sorry to say that I have
a sad letter from Mr. Voysey this morning, in which he complains of some
speeches ho heard yesterday, and regrets he will not be able to co-opewfe
with us any more. There is still a platform to be made by clearing away
things that this one and that one know perfectly well to be false, oppressiveJ
superstitious, and wrong. Whatever may be true, these are false, and they lie
in the way. It is a very positive thing, too, this superstition. A supersti
tion which ctn bring an old seven-day theory of creation from an ancient
Persian^ cycle to Shut up every museum and art gallery in London; and
�REPORT-—14th JUNE, 1878.
51
^pra^T^ally deprive the people of enjoying the arts andobtaining culture,
all because of an ancient zodiac, is a very powerful thing. These “ survivals ”
are terribly practical; and to emancipate man from superstition, to open the
windows and unbar the doorways, and bring culture and refinement to the
people, is one @f the most positive and affirmative tasks a man can work at in
thifworid.
I have spoken of only one of these paragraphs—emancipation of man
kind fem religious superstition; but I believe also the fellowship we wish
to promote are quite possible between persons of different religious views—
as I would call them—or moral views as others would say. Whatever th®
name the fact is the same : self-denial, devotion to truth, willingness to
believe and stand by that truth firmly at whatever cost,—to devote unto it
one’s labour, to think and endure for it in order that it may be furthered, to
forget self-interest in serving it,—that is the only religion I, for one, care
anything about. Is there anything more holy in this world than earnestly
thinking and studying with one’s whole heart to find the true and right,
carrying out what a man believes to be true, fostering what he feels to be
right ? There are many men who would not say “ I believe in God ” at all;
and who yet are living for the highest truth they see; they are burning the
midnight oil that they may discover some nobler star of truth either in the
outward or the inward world, and bring out some purer ray to enlighten
mankind. They are giving up the joys of sense and animalism for that pure
devotion to truth and humanity, which I believe will shine far brighter in the
eyes of God himself—assuming him to exist—than any mere assertion of his
existence. There is more real religion in such faithfulness than in the servile
I following of either orthodoxy or heterodoxy—following with the crowd and
getting into the fashion by using the watchwords of .Christianity, now become
mere titles of party and self-interest. What we want is the true heart, the
earnest religion, the warm and hearty devotion to the right and true. That
I call religion. If anybody chooses to call it by any other name it will smell
just as sweet.
We seek this true heart, this self-devotion, earnestly seeking after truth,
and utterly disregarding what is merely fashionable and popular. It has
become so easy now, my brothers, to be a Christian! A poor negro
one® learnt this in Liberia. He was asked what religion he belonged to,
and an independent Sceptic there said to him, “ If you want to be a good man
you had better be a Mahommedan in this neighbourhood; if you want to
make .money be a Christian.” It has come to be almost a disability of
Christianity that it cannot meet the highest wants of our time. It has come
to be a fashionable and a wealthy thing; to believe in it and promote its
success requires no self-denial, but is even a good investment. It is the
watchword of all those timid thinkers who wish to avoid an honest expres-1
sion of their opinions. It is a phrase by which a person may deceive everybody as to what he does really think. The Christian name is also, as I think,
one that will always be impossible to a large number of earnest and thinking
men, because, to a certain extent, it turns our eyes backward instead of for
ward. I* gives an impression which we know to be false, that in someway
orgther religion culminated in its largest knowledge 1878 years ago; that
the world then got nearer to the supreme light, and higher and closer to
heaven than we are ever to expect again. Hence, according to Christianity,
we are never to look for any greater man than Christ to appear on earth, nor
to the attainment of any higher degree of religious knowledge than he
possessed. In ait, in literature, and science, the world looks ever forward
�52
'GENERALKEONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
expecting the coming of men who shall lead on the truer generalisations, the
finer developments and grander achievements. In so-called religions only is the
world is made to look backward and find in crude antiquity its highest point.
There are many other reasons why Christianity can be no longer the
watchword of a great and united progress. Men have been sundered and
weakened by such sectarian divisions throughout history; and we have come
to a loftier conception, that of fellowship among all earnest people,*whether
they see fit to name their highest interpretations and anticipations
“ Christian” or “ Mohammedan,” “ Brahman” or “Buddhist,” howevel
they may be named. Whether they call themselves by this or that title, or
by none at all, really does not matter, if their hearts are joined with all who
are trying to seek truth, rectitude, the advancement and welfare of humanity,
the union of all hearts on earth and of all honest minds for the same grand
purpose. The apotheosis of man, the exaltation of thought, the elevation of
virtue as the true principle of humanity and fraternity,—these are the great
aims which rise together as an Ideal above our sects, our selfishness, and our
passions. In its all-inclusive light men are brothers, and nothing shall'
separate us the one from the other.
Mr. Stuart Glennie : Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have much
pleasure in moving the adoption of this report. I suggested at our meeting
yesterday, that one of the chief objects of our Association should be the col
lection and diffusion of information on the extraordinary contemporary deve
lopment of religious movements' throughout the world. The suggestion was
approved, and you did me the honour of appointing me a member of the
Committee charged with drawing up the report now before you. My sugges
tion of yesterday stands second on the list of objects which your Committee
submit for your seal and sanction. And I now move the adoption of this
report on these three grounds : First, because it recognises facts hitherto quite
inadequately recognised, and yet facts of which the importance cannot, I think,
be exaggerated; secondly, because of the general interest and practical
character of such an aim as the collection and diffusion of information on
religious developments throughout the world ; and thirdly, because of the con
sequences that cannot but follow from the accomplishment of this aim, con
sequences in which all the ether objects we propose to ourselves will assuredly be
realised.
First, as to the facts we recognise. We should have, I think, to go back
to the sixth century before Christ to find a movement at all comparable in its
universal and revolutionary character, to that indicated by the new religious
developments of this nineteenth century after Christ. In that sixth century
before Christ, the break-up of the old heathen religions and civilizations began
in the preaching of new moral religions, of which Buddhism may be named as
the chief and representative. This great moral revolution was continued by
Christianity, which originated five hundred years after Buddhism, and by
Islamism, which arose half a millennium after Christianity. The contemporary
religious developments are revolts against the dogmas in which the new moral
religions, new moral transformations of the old heathen religions, have become
rigidified. The chief cause of these religious revolts is everywhere the same—
the now knowledge brought by the intercommunications of commerce, and the
discoveries of science. Another characteristic these religious revolts have
everywhere in common. Everywhere they are connected with, and are indeed
the soul and inspiration of movements of national reform, and national inde
pendence. And yet a third characteristic everywhere distinguishes these
universal religious revolts. There are two parties in every one of these move-
�REPORT—14th JUNE, T.878.
o3
merits, one completely rationalistic, the other only partially so, and endea
vouring somewhere to trans f(fem rather than to destroy the old faith, whether
Buddhism or Brahminism, Islamism, or Christianism. To prove or illustrate
thusOTfflEirmations were here out of place. Not out of place, however, is it to
"malm them. For not the studies only of years, but extensive travels, in
which the state of religious development has ever been the chief subject of
my inquiries, give me, I think, some right to make these affirmations. And
it is the facts which I thus affirm, our imperfect knowledge, and inadequate
recognition of them, that give, I think, justification, nay, urgency, to the
foundation of such an association as is this day inaugurated. The new re■gous development about which we propose to collect and diffuse information,
have not only such common characteristics as I have just stated, but extend
over the whole zone of civilization, from the Eastern Island, Empire of Japan
to mis Western Island, Empire of Great Britain; and beyond both the Western
and the Southern oceans they are continued in the new worlds of America
and Australasia.
The second ground on which I move the adoption of this report,
is the general interest and practical character of such an aim as the
collection and diffusion of information on contemporary religious developments throughout the world. Of the general interest that such an aim is
^OpqLated to excite I have already had several proofs. The circular convening this Conference was necessarily vague, and necessarily therefore
aroused but languid interest in many of those who received it. But when
informed that we proposed such a practical object as this, I have found the
whole bearing of men change towards our association, the strongest interest
and approval expressed, and support cordially promised. Nor will this interest
bs by any means confined to those only who wish well to these new religions
developments. Knowledge of the state of the army to which oneself belongs
is interesting ; but of even greater interest is knowledge of the state of the
enemies’ forces. And to illustrate the practical character of the information
we propose to give, let me point out that liberal writers would thus know
where, besides in England, their works were likely to sell. We would show
j^hem that the public they address is immensely larger than they imagine.
What keeps up the old theology are its endowments. You may get anything preached if you give it a comfortable parsonage. But by such an
extension of the area of sale as would be the consequence of the information
we should give, the liberal writers would not be so heavily handicapped as
they are at present in the great race of which the prize is the direction of
opinion and the government of conscience.
Finally, I move the adoption of this report, because by the accom
plishment of such a practical object as that which stands second on the
list submitted to you, not only will the other objects named be realised,
^encouragement given to all in the great work of progress. The collecting and diffusing of information on contemporary religious -developments
throughout the world will stimulate that general study of religious phenomena, which is the first of the objects we propose to ourselves. Nor could, I
thtpk, any better means be suggested of realising our third-stated object—
combating the spirit of superstition, than the collection and diffusion
information about movements, which, in all their vast extent and variety,
have this common characteristic, opposition to the spirit of superstition.
MlV h°w more hopefully realise our fourth-stated object than by giving
that knowledge of which sympathy and fellowship is the fruit. And lastly,
I know noWhat better means can be suggested of giving a practical character
�54
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THiNKERS.
to our fifth-stated object, than the collection and diffusion of information on
universal religious movements. But further by the knowledge thus obtained of
the universality of the movement in which we are engaged, we shall all gain both
enthusiasm of impulse, and catholicity of aim. In our parishes we are small and
inconsiderable minorities. Too many are overpoweringly tempted to sophistical
dishonesty, and lose their souls through falsehood. Let us, however, but lift
up our eyes, and behold the battlefield in all its vast length and breadth.
England itself is then seen to be relatively but a parish, relatively but a
corner of the battlefield. And if the call of a dozen Sepoy regiments to
Malta gave Europe a new notion of the military force of the British Empire,
with infinitely greater reason may the recognition of Asiatic, as well as of
European and American movements similar to our own, give us anew notion
of our conquering force and triumphant future.
To give, in conclusion, but one or two illustrations of the practical
political importance of such knowledge as your Committee recommends
it should be one of the chief aims of our association to collect and
diffuse. How few in this country know that “Nihilist” is but a nick
name first attached to the Liberal party in Russia by a character in one
of Tourgueneff’s novels, and that the text books of Russian Nihilism
are the works of our own Darwin, Spencer, and Buckle. Again, in
the discussion of this Eastern question, one hears constant talk of the opposi
tion of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. But what a new light is thrown on
the subject when one finds, as I have in fact found, that the educated Jews
and Muslims, and. a very large proportion of the educated Christians of the
East are all Rationalists, and all of one creed, so far at least, as that all
equally acknowledge the prophetic character of Moses, of Jesus, and of
Mohammed. How instructive also it is for our political views, when we find
that theological dogma is, in Eastern Europe, and in the East generally, but
a badge of nationality, and a badge which could nationally otherwise be
asserted, would be dispensed with. Let it be unnecessary for the Pole and
the Armenian to assert his nationality against the Russian by his national
theology, and both will be again the leaders of a new and greater reformation.
Let it be unnecessary for the Greek to assert his nationality against the Turk
by his Orthodox Christianity, and both will—no longer oppressors and op
pressed, but independent nationalities—both will find themselves of one
creed, and brothers. The Eastern Question, very far indeed as yet from a
settlement, will, I venture to predict, more and more be found to be, not
merely a political, but a religious and social question. Our undertaking to
collect and diffuse information on contemporary religious developments, will
therefore, be found to be an undertaking to collect and diffuse information on
the most important features of the Eastern Question. Knowledge leads to
sympathy, and sympathy to assistance. And thus, though we begin with but
the humble task of collectors and diffusers of information, we may end with
nothing less than a world-wide religious revolution, and social reorganization.
I beg to move the adoption of the report of your Committee.
Colonel Higginson : I will at any rate take the precaution to stop here on
the-floor, because I have always observed that even when a man gets upon what
I may call a raseed pulpit, a platform that was once a pulpit, he still retains
enough of the sort of ownership that clergymen think they have over their
congregations to feel that he may talk for half an hour and that they
have no right to complain. My own hope is that every body who speaks
will have self-control enough to contain himself within ten minutes, and
your excellent Chairman set a good example to all speakers in that
�F
REPORT—1 4th JUNE, 1878.
51
respect. I rise to second the motion foi* the adoption of thiif platform.
I regard it with a little paternal interest as I had something to do with
originating that document. I cannot say of it as Talleyrand said of one of
I the innumerable French constitutions, that it meant nothing and could
mean nothing, for he made it himself on purpose. I can say, on the
| contrary^ it was the result of a very interesting comparison of notes by six
| persons who seemed to have quite different ends in view, and ended by dis
covering that they could hit on a formula which tolerably represented the case
oflOach and every one. In view of this self-control which they manifested I
hope the audience upon whom its adoption will finally rest will practice some
of the same well-bred restraint, particularly as it is no easy thing to suit every
(body in the matter of words. Unless then it is a matter of principle, I hope
there will be a willingness to acquiesce in the statement which after all cannot
precisely suit everybody. It cannot be improper to hint—as I suppose
there are few persons here who are on the side of religious bigotry—that
there may be another form of narrowness and bigotry which we sometimes
' have to guard ourselves against. I am always a little in favour of lecturing an
I audience I see before me, and I have a belief in practical preaching. Coleridge once said if I were preaching to this congregation, where I suppose there
is no smuggler in the whole body, I should not say anything about smuggling,
but if I were stationed on a coast where every man and woman did it I should
preach against smuggling fifty-two Sundays in the year. I do not suppose
there are ten persons in this audience positively suffering from that form of
I mental asphyxia known as Christian bigotry; but when it comes to the other
side, friends, of doing that justice to religious men which we ask then to give
L i us when it comes to dealing with a Christian as fairly as if he were a heathen
• | perhaps the case is different. I remember in the old times—of the Brook
Farm movement, when young men and women had new lights given to
them—I remember that in some of the more prominent places, espe| ©tally in Concord, which was the headquarters of the movement, that
we got some very singular perversions of the ordinary standards of
right and wrong. I remember on one occasion a young man had been
I away fop sometime, and he came back to his parents in the town, where
the good people were pretty thoroughly converted to the new faith; and
11 when they had studied him and his ways a little they said, “ Why John
I is quite changed ? He went away a good Radical and a promising young
man, and now he smokes, and drinks wine, and swears, and goes to church,
and he is just like all the other men.” I think it is rather that state of mental
prejudice than the other which we need to guard against this afternoon, and
I hope that in considering this little form we shall remember that after all
I we are all very much what our temperament and immediate antecedents have
made us. Most of the men I know think in a certain way because their
fathers and mothers thought so; or else think diametrically opposite, for no
better reason. In each one of us there is a certain temperament, a sort of
packing case into which all opinions go, and they take the form of the case.
I Whatever their form when they went in, they bear these particular creases
when they come out. I am reminded here of two little cousins of mine, in
New England who were going out to pick berries, and they met a man who
was or pretended to be a thief, and who alarmed them very seriously by telling
them they must give him their money. The elder boy said : “ But I have not
gotiany money in my pocket,” and the would-be thief was, I suppose, a little
damped by that. But that was nothing to the response of the younger boy, for
when the thief made the same demand on him, the little fellow looked up with his
I
�E6
genEk’AUnjdLNjWhhc® of liberal thinkers.
bright eyes and cheerful voice, and said? “ But I have"not got any pickets.”
There was a perfectly hopeless case. A boy with no money tfrclly might be
an infantine millionaire to-morrow, but a boy without pockets was as hopeless
next week as to-day. I am like him. When I am dealing with people who
bring to bear upon me the five points of Calvinism, and all the nicetf^o^
their scheme of salvation, I cannot give them an answer. I cannot di.JIM
with them because I do not know the language. I do not know how to begin
to refute the extraordinary attitudes they take. All I can say is : “ My dear
sir, I have not got any pockets for the argument.” But you must allow
me, my dear friends, with equal frankness to say that when a man comes
round from the other direction and says to me: “ You cannot prove to our
intellects the existence of a God; therefore you are a fool if you believe in
one yourself; you cannot give us any irrefragable evidence of a future lifp,
therefore you shall not have even the dream that you shall ever see again
your dead brother or your darling sister.” I can only say to him also : “ My
dear sir, I have just as few pockets for that point of view as I have for the
other. So, I say, we all have our individuality of opinion.
I do not
suppose there is in London at this moment a body of people of the same
size so bristling with individuality as this meeting is. I have no doubt
each of us would be willing to make for himself the benevolent offer which
one or two have made to you, that “if you will only give us the chance We
will demonstrate the truth of our views to every one of you.” We cannot all
do that, nor can we find anything to suit us all. We have before us,
drawn up with some effort by tolerably honest men, differing considerably in
opinion, a tolerable basis for this association to go upon. It is not a creed,, it
carefully avoids it. It is simply a basis on which creedless people, or people^
collectively creedless, can act together, and we need that joint action. Above all
others there are two classesof people who need it, and both were represented among
the speakers yesterday. One of these classes consists of those who live at a
distance from London, or any intellectual centre—who do not know
men of thought—who are not able to get into contact with others who feel
like themselves, who are among ignorant or bigoted people, as our Irish
friend said, and who will be glad to hear and know that somewhere at least
on earth there is a set of people who are trying to think independently, and
do not stop to consider whether their teaching is pleasing or not. ThaMs
one class of persons. The other class is of those who, living in the midst of
all opportunities of contact, are excluded from it, not from necessity or tyranny,
but from over-sensitiveness of temperament, and from too great predominance
of the literary tone in their minds ; people who while knowing that they are
independent and feeling that they are useful, feel also that they do not need
contact with others, when really they need it more than anybody else.
There is nothing that strikes me more in England than the social and even
intellectual stratification which exists, the different sects and atmospheres and
circles in which people live, and the amount of benefit they lose by such
isolation. You take a man who has his own library to read in, his own
independent feeling making him careless of w’hat the world thinks, his recluse
habits rendering him indifferent to the frowns of his friends; that man may
go on his work—it may be a magnificent work—for years in quiet and retire
ment. But I tell you there is nothing in the world which that man so needs
to put blood in his veins and to give a larger horizon to his mind as to
come here right into a conference of radicals, to meet face to face people whose
names he has learned to dread, and whose very statement of their opinions
might shock his tastes. Words cannot express how great the need is of that
�REPORT—1'4th1tu" 1878,
57
mutual contact between different minds. One of your own writers, Sir Arthuil
Helps, sa’d
admirably in the best sentence he ever wrote. He advised
a person who writes anything always to read it before some friends. “ You
miustH5ffve«j|Ii’ said, “ the contact of another mind; you must have the
criticism of somebody else.” “But,” said his friend, and here is the felicitous
expression, w suppose the criticisms you get are very poor; suppose they have
not even common sense.” “ That is no matter,” he replied, “ their criticisms
will give you the common nonsense upon what you have written, and that is just
as important.” It is just as important to any one of you who have thought
Anything do bring it here, and have it tested, as if the criticism were the best
possible. You need to take each other’s hands; each need the help of others.
There is that difference between my country and the way in which you are work
ing here, that the lines are less closely marked in America, and a man cannot
keep himself away from the society of those who, if not his peers in intellect and
culture, are at least his peers in the habit of independent thought, and the
frankness which speaks its mind. I believe that these two classes of persons
especially, and all of us in a subordinate degree, will find the value of what
this association will do for us; and I hope when we come to debate the
platform laid down by the Committee, it will be at least with as little modifi
cation and as little mere hair-splitting as the weakness of human nature will
fpprmit.
The Chairman : We are all very much indebted, indeed, to Mr. Conway
and Colonel Higginson for their speeches, and we feel how good has been the
judgment of the Committee in drawing up the platform, to use the American
Expression, or the statement, .to use the English one, which is likely to unite
thinkers of different classes who are liberal not only in discarding the old
formula, but in admitting divers opinions to be expressed. There is one word
which I should like to have omitted from this statement. It is the word
“ the,” and it probably was accidentally left in when a little alteration was
made. The words are “ promotion of the pure and universal religion,” I
think it should read “ promotion of pure and universal religion.”
Mr. Conway said it was, as the Chairman had supposed, an accidental
slip. ,and the alteration might be made.
TheWHAiRMAN : We may take that word out with the consent of the
Committee.
A gentleman in the body of the hall said the second paragraph spoke of
membership in no degree affecting relationship with other associations. Now
BMs|pned to him that a man’s membership could in no degree be affected.
The Chairman said that they would probably have to take a debate upon
that point as upon each of the clauses, but that would come afterwards.
Rev. J. C. Street: In the few hasty words'yesterday, which I spoke
before I had to leave, I ventured to plead for the formation of an organization jpithin which the scattered liberal thinkers might be collected, for I was
afraid lest in the diversified views which were being expressed during the
earlier part of the proceedings we should be—while listening to what was of
very great interest to all of us—wasting the golden opportunity then at our
command, of finding some basis of union and some bond by which to unite
scattered liberals all over the world. I find that after I left the meeting a
committee was appointed to consider a basis for union, and that my name was
putapon the committee. Unfortunately I did not know of it until after the
time the committee met, so that I was not able to contribute anything except
a suggestion or two later on. But I may here say that after looking very
carefully, during our luncheon, over the suggestions that had been thrown
�58
GENERAL CONFERENCE OE LIBERAL THINKERS.
out, I find myself in all but absolute agreemennwith the proposals now before
us. The only objections I have are of the very slightest matter of detail^
and are on the point raised by the gentleman at the back of the hall. The
whole question for me will refer to this last part. I think there is some mis
understanding of the paragraph which refers to membership. Of course we
do not desire in any degree to interfere with the relations of a member of
this association to any other association; but joining this association may
cause other associations to feel they are somewhat affected with regard to us,
and therefore I think it is better that these words should be left out. The
first part of the second resolution is complete in itself. “ Membership of this
association shall leave each individual responsible for his own opinions alone.”
Let him then take tbe consequences of it. If it does affect his relationship
with other associations we cannot help it. We do not want to affect such
relationship, and nothing we propose to do will actually affect it.
Colonel Higginson : May I state what was in the minds of the Com
mittee—the more readily that this was taken hastily from the Constitution of the
American Free Religious Association. The whole object of that paragraph
was to cut off all possibility that any member of the Association might say
to some other member—to the present speaker, for instance, who is, I think,
a Unitarian Clergyman, “ You are a Unitarian clergyman, what business have
you here ? You ought to resign your position in that body if you come into
this.” If you are to give this the character of a comprehensive body, there
must be many considerable differences, and we do not want that any member
should say to any other member, that he should resign his membership in any
other body in order to come into this. If our friend, for instance, had become
a Methodist, he would simply be transferred himself from one sect to another.
Our object was not to place this Association on the platform of a new sect
with a creed, but. especially to guard against this being regarded as a new
sect, and to make it a wider association which persons of any sect might join
on their own responsibility, nobody having the right to say “ You are incon
sistent in not leaving your sect when you come here.”
Mr. Street : I quite agree with the thought which lies behind the
explanation.
Colonel Higginson : I do not know that the phrase is at all
necessary.
Mr. Street : I do not know that it is. I think the first part or first
clause involves all the rest.
Mr. Hirst Smyth : The rest will be useful.
The Chairman : May I consider you move that these words be
omitted ?
Mr. Street : Oh, I have not got so far as that, Sir. We shall see if the
Committee will accept my suggestion. With regard, Sir, to the general
matter before us, I find myself in harmony with all these five points. You
call yourselves according to this organisation, an association of liberal
thinkers. You do not presume to define in what a liberal thinker consists ?
You do not presume to define his relation towards any form of thought,
religion, political or social. You simply recognise the fact that all men who
feel themselves to be free thinkers, and desire to be liberal thinkers, may
have association with you. Therefore, at the outset, we have a basis so com
prehensive that Jew and Gentile, Greek and Mussulman, that men who Hire
theists, and men who call themselves atheists, may, if they choose, associate
together upon this platform, and be co-workers for certain specific purposes.
These purposes are defined to be the “ scientific study of religious phenomena.”
�report—TItiT june,
1878T
59
People mayJ&ay thEyyolo not care for religion at all, and may tell us tha® they
think it all to be simple superstition. Well, then, they will be able to work
for the “emancipation of mankind from superstition.” There may be,
according to their idea, some little tautology here. But they can bear this.
We must ^cognise the fact that religious phenomena are the most numerous
and the most important in the world’s history. No one can shut his eyes to
that remarkable fact—that everywhere, among all races, at all periods, manKi^.,has developed religious ideas; and it is a matter for scientific inquiry of
some importance, to ascertain what man has been thinking as regards these
matters. So far, then, as these are concerned, without committing ourselves
to any of them, we simply want to gather together the facts and to groupl
them into scientific order. Then when we have gathered our facts, and put
them into scientific shape and formed our conclusions from them, even those
who do not care for religious phenomena will acknowledge their value and will
not reject the scientific results we deduce from them. Then, Sir, comes the
second plank, “ The collection and diffusion of information concerning world
wide religious development.” I think this is a matter of the greatest im
portance, I think even it should be more comprehensive than it is, for there
are Some forms of religious development which have never been world-wide
and which never will be, and yet are peculiarly interesting and of great
fascination, while they have a distinct relationship to the wider forms of
thought—to those of more general acceptation. It would have been better,
I think, not to confine the objects of the association, and I suppose it is not
really intended to confine them to the great world-wide religion. There are
forms of religion, different developments of it, in odd out-of-the-way places,
oflsingular interest to the thinker, and a man would be sadly wanting in the
means of forming a comprehensive judgment on the whole phenomena, if he
did not take into consideration these little manifestations, these apparent
excrescences which have grown round the original developments of religion.
IJpon the third platform, I think we shall all be united, and I hope we shall
concur upon it, “ The emancipation of the world from superstition.” We have
a pretty well-defined idea what we mean by superstition, a superstructure
which has no real basis. It is pretty clear what we mean by that. We are
all.anxious to clear the world of that great sham. Therefore, I think that
Mrs. Law, as well as those most anxious to promote religion, can co-operate to
do everything possible to get rid of the superstition that has been, and is the
curse of the world. As to the “fellowship among liberal thinkers of all
races,” that defines clearly enough that what we want in this Association is
not merely English scattered thinkers, nor European scattered thinkers, but
that we wish to include that humanity which takes many forms of develop*
ment, and that religion which takes many forms of development also. We
want to have upon this platform men from all parts of the world, represensentatives of all types of thought, who are groping after the light in their
peculiar ways—to gather them upon the only platform, where men can meet
brothers, and confer upon these great and sublime questions. Now, I
come to what seems to me the most important plank of your platform, and
thes ene which will call forth most discussion. It is “ The promotion of pure
and universal Religion,” which you carefully avoid defining, most wisely, as
I think, but which, whatever else it may be, and here every man is left to
choose for himself as an individual thinker, to find out what it is, yet does
-include “ the culture, progress, and moral welfare of man.” Now, surely,
Whatever our differences may be with regard to the term religion; whatever
otif conception as to whether there is or is not a universal religion, and
�60
tjeneWl confrrene^of liberal tthinkers.
rhoweVSTwe define it, we shall all agree that the something covered in the word
religion must include these three, and that the whole previous part of the
platform must mean a union of those who desire the world’s progress. The
world is looking forward and not backwards, except in order to learn lessons
from the past to help forward men to prepare for the future. Religion must
unclude the progressive movement of mankind, marching on towards light
and towards that improvement which involves the moral welfare of us all.
With this programme I find myself in hearty agreement, and so far as it is
here developed I feel you have answered the plea I put before -ArpB
yesterday. I said then there were many scattered thinkers left almost alone
in their battle for liberty, and I asked for an Association—perhaps ms
cautiously—to throw some shield over them. I did not mean to sayHhey
were cowed and afraid to take their part in the fight, and to meet the
difficulties of their position. I did not mean that. But what I did mean
was that they should feel that they in distant places, far away from the
cheering voice of sympathising brothers, would be able to turn to some body
like this, composed of men who would put out their hands and bid them goodl
fellowship, that they should feel that all over the world there were scattered
men like themselves who were fighting the same battle, and that so we should
create a thrill of communion and of helpful association through our work, and
stimulating each individual thinker to renewed efforts. Such an Association,
while giving strength to each individual thinker, would give us also a plat
form so broad, so great and so helpful, that we should go away from this
meeting tenfold stronger than we are now to do our work. I, therefore, with
the greatest possible pleasure adopt this programme here submitted. I concur
with that part of the second regulation which proposes the “ membership of
this Association should leave each individual responsible for his own opinions
alone,” and I should like it to stop there. Else I think the whole of it would
be misunderstood. You do not want to be exclusive. You do not want any
one to think that, because a man joins you he must terminate his connection
elsewhere, but yet you cannot interfere with what other associations might do.
You may say that membership should not interfere, but they may say it
should, and I think, therefore, it would be better left out, and that the
paragraph would stand clearer and stronger if it read “ Membership in this
Association should leave each individual responsible for his own opinions
alone.” On that ground, I think we shall find that every man of us, every
woman of us, will go back to the field of labour or thought with which he
or she is identified, will be stronger than before, will feel there is a brotherhood
and sisterhood of spiritual fellowship—if I may use such a word in such
an assembly—that there is a spiritual fellowship which binds us together, that
though scattered we are still united, and that though distributed over the
surface of the world, we are yet moving together to the accomplishment of
the grandest purpose that the world has yet seen.
The Chairman : I am delighted to find that the gentleman who was
absent from the Committee Meeting, so heartily agrees with the work that
has been done, but I should like, before continuing the discussion, to know
whether the Members of the Committee concur in withdrawing the last words
of the second clause. It seems that they may be misunderstoood, and one or
two persons have already misunderstood them. Besides, the clause is
complete in itself.
Mr. Conway : If we could gain the thing we are trying for, the language
would be a matter of indifference, but it is better that we should secure what
we aim at. It is not intended to offer any interference with anybody’s rela
�REPORT— 14TH JUNE, 187 8.
61
tion to any other association, but what we wish to try and avoid is that at
any future time one member should try to expel another member from this
assoWEtWn because he belongs to some other. It should not be a ground of
ajjmck, and nobody should be able to use it against a member, or to expel him
on the ground that he was a Methodist or a Baptist. Therefore I would!
suggest that words might be modified so as to read “ and is not intended in
any degree to effect his relations with other associations.”
Mr. Smith : If you alter the whole paragraph from the active to the
passive it will carry out what you want.
The Chairman : As it stands will you accept it, Mr. Street ?
Mr. Street : I certainly should not press an amendment.
The Chairman : Then this clause, as amended by Mr. Conway, is to be
regarded as one of the proposals of the Committee.
Mr. Eylott : I should have preferred that the matter had stood with the
second part of the sentence, because if you fear any one member will turn out
another because he belongs to some association you immediately make this
pfcociation responsible for that opinion, whereas, in point of fact, you declare
that each should be responsible for his own opinions alone, so it seems to me
to get into a contradiction. If it is canied out, you give a member of the
association the right to question me where I am coming from and where I am
going.
Mr. Hirst Smyth : As I understand it, the paragraph is not a protection
so much against the future action of this association as it is a protection
against the action of some other associations. People who join this associa
tion and belong to others, and are objected to, can reply, “ You have no
business to object to me, because the association itself says it does not wish
Enembership to affect anyone’s relations with other associations.”
Mr. Conway : There was the double advantage of the paragraph, but it
\ was ,41 rst of all meant to suggest that nobody should charge with inconsistency
whatever any person might see fit to do; while next it was meant that the
paragraph should be something with which a man could stop any discussion,
anAjcould say, “ You see the people among whom I am say on their platform
that each individual is only responsible for his own opinions. If Mr. Voysey
hears opinions which shock him or his friends, that is something for which
the speakers alone are responsible, and the association particularly declines
to have either others or itself compromised. I do not care enough about it,
however, to stand by it.
Several of the Committee : “ Nor I.”
Mr. Conway : If we ever find in any emergency that any amendment of
that kind requires to be passed, it is perfectly competent to us to do it then.
Therefore I do not think we need take up any time now with the discussion.
Mr. Walters : I can give one additional reason why the second part
should remain. There is another organisation which answers to some extent
the ends promoted by this; which was founded a year ago and is known as
the Leicester Conference. In that movement there are, at any rate, two
members of the Committee who will be heartily in sympathy with this—Mr.
Allanson Picton and myself. Now, I am very anxious that this should not
be considered a rival to that movement. The intention of that was to form a
religjous communion, independent of agreement in theoretical dogma; and
^ur^or an<^ advocate free and open enquiry on the part of all those
ESQ desire to know the spirit of truth in religious matters, and to discuss
matters connected with religion. I am very anxious then that the impression
should not go forth that this Conference is intended in any way to step in, or
�62
GENERAL CONFERENCE1 OF
LIBERAiWtHINKERS.
have anything to do with that. I should therefore think that the second
part of this paragraph might be allowed to stand.
The Chairman : I think we will take the debate upon the general subject
first, so that the whole platform may be discussed; but I should fbiommend
speakers to confine themselves to particular parts of it. I think it would be
advisable to close this discussion at four o’clock, because we must separate at
five. When that is done I should put each part of this platform separately
to the meeting, so as to take a separate vote on each, and not force the meeting
to agree or disagree in the lump, which is often inconvenient.
Mr. Freckleton suggested that the platform should be read again,
making the third time, as many gentlemen had come in within the last halfi '
hour or so.
The Chairman then read the platform, and next called on
Mrs. Rose, who said : I need hardly tell you that I am glad to see so good
a meeting come together for the noble purpose described in the paper before i
you. But although I fully and heartily agree with all parts that have a I
tendency to diffuse knowledge and benefit the human family, I am placed in
a peculiar position, for there are some parts that I entirely differ from, and I
fear that when it comes to a vote on such parts that I shall be in a minority
of one, and if it should be so, it would not be the first time, and I would much
rather be in a minority even of one, for the right, than in a large majority for
wrong and oppression. Forty-five years ago it was infinitely more difficult
to speak on religion unless you agreed with it. Now it is not so, and yet I had
the—whatever you may call it—the moral courage or the audacity to question
all religions, as far as I had known them; and I endeavoured to help
forward, as far as I could, that object which is expressed in one part of the
platform, the emancipation of the human mind from superstition. Super
stition indeed is terrible. Like a heavy night-mare it all but crushes human J
individuality, human mind, and human progress. It has only been by such
audacity or moral courage of single individuals here and there in times past, 1
that the way has been prepared for the present congress, or conference, and j
without that, this meeting could never have existed. I fully agree with that 1
part of your programme which speaks of emancipation of the human mind
from superstition, but I am compelled to dissent from that part of it which
mentions religion, for in my conviction, in my conscience, I call all religions
superstitions, and consider them merely as superstitions. I cannot vote for
what appears to me the great curse of the human mind, the great stumbling
block in the way of human progress. The religion of the past is the super- J
stition of to-day. The religion of to-day will be the superstition of the future. I
We.have heard a good deal about the different definitions of religion, and of I
the individuality of what is termed Grod, and we can draw from it that in all I
ages, past as well as present, in accordance with the state of society, whether I
progressive or backward, intellectual or ignorant, moral or immoral, so have I
varied the definitions of religion and of Grod. What does that prove? That I
man makes his religion and his Grod from his own image. As he feels, and is,
so he makes him. As he wants him more or less human, more or less i
refined, more or less civilised, more or less progressive, so he makes him. In J
past ages and ruder times they have made him hard, cruel, and savage. At the I
present time, even those who come to the same book as their ancestors, I
endeavour to clothe him in a little better and finer and more human attri
butes. .The future will go back upon our present definition and shew its i
fallacy, its ignorance, its corruption, its superstition. Therefore, I for one, 1
�report—1 4th june,
1878.
63
though I should. Stand KIunHcannoFsuusWwe to~ this part of the platform. My
friend, Colonel Higginson, had no pocket for the old definition of religion. 1
My pcre^^MW^fullbf humanity alone, that I have no pocket for anything
else. I go for man., We were told a great deal yesterday about the refined]
the aesthetic, and the emotional, in religion. All the emotion we can possibly
possess, all the feeling which human nature is capable, all belongs to man.
If there be one Grod, or ten thousand gods, they do not need it, but man
does and woman does, and to me it is stealing from man what belongs to
man Ito give to a god, and to render to him things that cannot benefit him.
Humanity, morality, justice to man and woman, the non-interference with
each- person’s private opinions—for these ends we must work. We belong
to the same human family, and we must work for it. Our life is short, and
we cannot spare an hour from the human race, even for all the gods in
creation. Any platform that has religion in it contains a creed. If not it
will soon lead to one. You know what a creed is. It is a chain round the
neck of human progress, a strait jacket on the mind of man, and I will not
have that strait jacket upon me. But although I differ in one or two of these
expressions, if your society will allow me to aid and assist, and help them
with all my poor powers, and poor they are, for if they ever were powerful to
feny extent they have been nearly worn out in the service to the same cause.
If you will allow me with all my heart to aid and assist you, I can say,—1
wanted to say, “ Grod speed ! ” All I can say is, “ Gro on, friends ; do all
you can; remembering this that it is a positive theft from the human race to
trouble yourselves about beings, whoever they are, above and beyond man,
for they do not need us.” I believe my time is out, and still more so my
strength is very nearly exhausted, but I am very grateful to the meeting for
having listened to such a heretic as I am, who cannot recognise anything
here beyond the humanity to which we belong.
The Chairman : The difference between Mrs. Rose and us is one merely
of words, and the society we hope to form will only be too happy to have her
name on its lists.
Miss Marshall : This is a society of liberal thinkers. At first I thought
it bad© fair to be a society of liberal talkers. If I waste one minute now, it
is to save you many hours in future meetings. Therefore I shall pay no com
pliments, make no long apologies, but just “ go ahead.” This society is not
gathered together to be a sort of large united Father Confessor to listen to
our particular little creeds and crotchets. Therefore it does not signify
whether I think the moon is made of green cheese or not. But we come here
to compare notes, to say what we have found or felt in our separate circles,
what we have seen reflected each in our own mirror, of the growth and stature
of all thought with which we have come face to face. To give the diagnosis
of our patient— or impatient—and ter see if we can help each other to utter
aloud what hitherto we have ventured only to whisper. I show I am a social
heretic by taking up no time in unnecessary preambles and needless words.
We meet here to feel the pulse of the religious or thinking community, and
State each our experience as to what we think of the spread of intelligence
round us, to see what point we reach from time to time. Have you not been
Struck by the irrelevant remarks that have been made here as to the question
at issue ? The time is come when we arc not afraid to speak out our
opinions in a community like this. It matters little, apparently, about any
body’s opinions. That does not prevent, however, the necessity of our being'
throughly reaT—vital in these opinions. On every'side we find vast super
�64
'GENERAL conference of liberal thinkers,
stations existing which, some of you would, at a stroke, sweep away.
our duty is to
But
<l Watch what main currents draw the years
Cut prejudice against the grain;
But gentle words are always gain,
Regard the weakness of thy peers.”
I have often asked what we call goody people what they would do could it
be proved by any means that there was no God, no future life. They
answer,—“ Oh what shall we do if you take away the foundation ? ” What
ever they mean by this, I know not. Mere reward and punishment foj good
and bad deeds ? Now I do know that we must not forget initiation; that is
what I mean by watching what main currents draw the years, and yet to
remember the weakness of those to whom you proclaim your high doctrines.
You dare not go to Whitechapel and cry out, “ There is no God, no future
life, no punishment.” The answer would be, “All right; then here we will
pick your pockets and murder you, and then there’s an end o’t.” You must
remember that our superstitions of yesterday are the religions of thousands
to-day. “ Milk for babes.” If you force your forms of thought on others,
you may but produce a sort of moral indigestion, by making too sudden a
change. . I stand here and claim gentle mercy for superstition. I am not
superstitious, but how much of this may be owing to my life, circumstances,
and strong physique, and my not knowing what indigestion means ? Scrooge
says to the ghost of Marley, “How do I know you are not a crumb—a
piece of indigested cheese? ” And Leigh Hunt says, “Many a young lady’s
fit of romantic melancholy is simply pork.” A railway accident might change
me from a moderately clear thinker into a drivelling superstitious fool. I
have a servant who calls the word stupid-stition, and says, “ I have
none, mum.” But there are stupid people, and they will have their
scupidstitions.^ Be merciful to them. Remember that while a little leaven
leavens the wnole lump, it is no use making it all leaven, as my mother once
did. Taunted in fun by her husband, when both were very young, that she
could, not make a loaf, she said she would try. She had a vague notion as to
how it should be done, and took no counsel. She went in for unlimited veast
and leaven, and very limited flour.
The baker asked, “What is this?”
“ A loaf.” “ Oh! ” . And when he brought it back it was a little brown film at
the bottom of the dish. “ Tell your mistress,” said he to the servant, “ that
her loaf was so very light, and rose so very high, that it took six men to sit
upon it to keep it down.”
Now let us take care that we do not rise
to such a possible height, or we too shall burst and come down a little brown
over-baked crusty film at the bottom of the dish. We want to meet here for
sympathy, to compare each other’s conditions of mind, to just say, “How do
you do ?
And little more than this we did not dare to do twenty vears ago.
Then we should have been tabooed. That is a capital word. It means being
no more invited into j oily society; it means being dismissed with a sneer;
and to endure a social sneer is very terrible to us ladies. You use the word
Liberal in your programme; it does not mean much; it merely means pro
gress. Remember free religion itself may be superstition. Superstition and
sectarianism enters into everything. Science has its superstition, as you would
know had you lived much in purely scientific circles, where you will find more than
in a±l the rest of the world put together. I believe I have known people— L
I am not sure I would not have done it myself—who would have sold
their souls for a dot upon a diatom ! To make this society of any value, it
must quit this present condition which is in that of water, which requires,
�REPORT—14th
SHjNE,
1878.
65
under certain circumstances, to be shaken before if will’crysTaEaze. We must
quietly hold hands, and not make a fuss about it. All true growth is silent—
makes little or ifTndse. The ultimate burst of an explosion is but the
final expression of foregone, silent work. You will now and then have
you| little volcanic outburst, a sign of what has been going on beneath,
and E™ Continues till a little hillock on a muddy plain rises gradually into
Etna, Vesuvius, and greater fire mountains of the world. Avoid offences.
They must needs come, but woe unto him by whom they come, because
he is an unnecessary man. I have, perchance, my superstition, and other
people theirs, and if you want to destroy them, you must insert the thin
end of the wedge. See our modern quarry men how they reduce a marble
mountain into a heap of debris, impatiently blasting the rock into fragments for one single huge block. Not so the old Greeks. They did far
better, and if you wander among their quarries of Pentelicus, and other
jnwBtains, you see the rocks look as if they had been cut like a piece of
cheese. Their work was comparatively noiseless. First they made a Utile
in the stone they desired to cut. This conference is such a groove.1
Then they put in a wedge of wood (your conscience), and they poured
water on it till it swelled, and they pressed it, worked it down, and so
smooth and white, came forth from the quarry the hewn temples. And
we want now new temples of human thought, grand, massive, beautiful.
Whefe there is noise and discord in your work, you are doing wrong,
blasting the rock, not making perfect pillars, and plinth, and pure moulded
^hns. Remember this gradual groove of the Greeks, and this society
will be then giving true sympathy and encouragement to us all. We shall
not be obliged to say to you, in a whisper, “We have been there,”
and we shall not see people drawing up their skirts in disdain as we pass as in
fear of contamination. Only ladies can do this well; you gentlemen cannot
make yourselves so disagreeable, simply because you have not the histrionic
talent for it. This is all I have to say, save to wish all prosperity to this
Society of Liberal Thinkers.
Mr* Binns : -The discussion in connection with this conference has now
reached a practical shape, and it seems to me to be drawing towards a tolerably
mOmctory conclusion. Pretty nearly all varieties of opinion have been
expressed. We have had talk from the atheistic standpoint, the humanitarian
^gndpoint. from what I suppose I must call the free religious standpoint,
the Unitarian standpoint, and the undogmatic Christian standpoint, ana it
is hot Necessary to put any other standpoint before you. For my own part,
to a certain extent, I dare say I should stand more or less on all of them except
the first. What then are the practical conclusions towards which we are now
drawing. It would seem that the adoption of the report, as presented by the
y^Lfflittee, so far as I can understand it, it is entirely satisfactory from
beginning to end. I should not feel at all inclined in a mixed multitude like
the present to raise a discussion on alterations of words here and there.
When you say an “ Association of liberal thinkers ” you really have included
all these standpoints to begin with; and when you have said you are going
to adopt the scientific study of religious phenomena you have included all
varieties of religious ideas. Mr. Street’s idea for dropping out “world
wiMe^ seems to me unnecessary, for “ religious phenomena ” includes world
wide religious ideas, and the merest bit of hole and corner religious development
that you can discover. But the point to which I feel I attach great importance,
is that which you have stated in the second part. It seems to me very
desirable you should insist upon keeping in your constitution this statement
�66
GENERAL CONFERENCE OFLIBERAL THINKERS?
that not only does membership in this association
each individual
responsible for his own opinions alone, but that it is not intended in any degree
to affect his relationship with other associations.' Of course, all that is
included in the first statement, but if you do not go a little bit into detail you
do not know where you are. The fact is, everything is included in Everything
else, but you have got to point out a little bit here and there as toyMpr^^a
way in which one thing is included in another. All things, Mrs. Rose Would!
say, are included in humanity, but then she must set to work to explain humal
nity a little. All things, I should say, are included in Grod, as a Christian
apostle said before me, when he mentioned that out of him, and through him,
and to him, are all things. But it is necessary in order to set things H a
tolerably intelligible phase to go into detail. I do not suppose any association
would dream of interfering with me on account of my position, although I did
preach the annual sermon at the Unitarian Association on Wednesday. • They
would not think of interfering with me at all on account of that. I see here a
gentleman who introduced the religious service on that occasion, and I see
here twenty Unitarian ministers. We all feel perfectly easy ourselves, (but
then all people are not exactly like us. There may be weaker brethren
scattered here and there, and weaker sisters too —I think more weaker sistal
in spite of the strong-minded sisters who have addressed us from this platform,
than weaker brethren. I fear then that there are weaker sisters and weaker
brethren who would be inclined to draw themselves up in that histrionic Way
which has been so graphically described by the last speaker; and one does
want them to have the opportunity. Nobody should be able to inter
fere with anybody else on account of their belonging to this association, and
if anybody attempts to do so we can only refer them to this clear statement.
You may say “ But we need not take people of that kind into consideration J
let them take the consequences of their action?’ We shall all have to do
that, my brethren, in spite of all our talk, and no sort of qualification will
enable us to get rid of the consequences. That divine law of retributhp is
what, if Mrs. Rose will allow me, I term a godsend to humanity! But
let us consider these weak people, and not only bear our own burdens but
help them to bear theirs. That doctrine of sympathy which was laid down wjS
Miss Marshall is beautifully expressive of what we ought to be aiming
at. I do not anticipate there will be many future meetings like the
present. It would not be desirable they should all be like the present.
Here we are to a large extent talking at random, beginning sentences
when we do not see the end of them, beginning speeches of a certain line
of thought, not knowing where we should get by the time we have got
to the termination of our ten minutes. If this association is to do any real,
lasting work, there must be downright hard, scientific work in connec
tion with it. We must study religion scientifically, not only the various
world-wide forms of religion, but the force and nature of religious thought!
and life here in England. The secularism that widely prevails among the
working classes is religious; for in my opinion it derives all its significance
from its relationship to religion ; and we must study that. Then we have to
study to emancipate mankind from superstition. “ But,” says Mrs. Rose, “the
religion of one age is the superstition of another; the superstition that
exists now is what people called religion not many years ago.” Butthat
applies to every thing. It applies to science. The science of one age is
the nonsense and absurdity of another. In proof of which I refer Mrs.
Rose or any one else to astronomy before Newton, Copernicus, and
Kepler, to geological science before Lyall, to biological science and anthro
�REPORT—14th JUNE, 1878.
67
pological science before E. B. Tyler and Darwin threw such Tight on
these speculative topics. I do not object to a name because it is some
times misused, and personally I may say I should not object to “ religion ”
or to Christianity in the way in which Mr. Conway and Colonel Higginson
seem inclined to object to it. But these, after all, are personal opinions.
They take Christianity as they like it, and they let me take it as I like it. The
Association is not tied to my views or to their views; but we are an “ Associafl
ijgof Liberal Thinkers,” and we go in for science and philosophy andl
■progress and the constant growth of man towards the unity of the ideal
■perfection.
Rev. H. W. Perris (Norwich) I should feel much greater timidity in
speaking last on such an occasion as this, if I did not feel that that
last word, brief as it is, would be a word of real sympathy. After
all, we have come together more upon a basis of common feeling than
a common knowledge. Indeed, we have had abundant manifestation
of it. If I hud been able to judge, in any measure accurately of the
diversity of views expressed, we had abundant proof to-day of the
present impossibility, to say the least, of our arriving at anything like a
formal agreement in matters of religious thought. We have shown, I tbink,
as indeed we often do in social and domestic circles, by our sharp antagonism
as well as by our incidental agreements, how very much we have in common.
I stand here, I will not say at the opposite pole from Mrs. Rose, but very far
indeed from her point of view. I am very far from being orthodox, and I allow
myself to be called a Unitarian Christian. I do not glory in these appella
tions. They do not describe me; they only label me with an approximation
to correctness. But I can no more rid myself of them than I can rid myself of
my parentage and my scholastic training, or of various things which cleave
to me, and will cleave to me, like the colour of my eyes or my hair, to the
day of my death. Yet, curiously enough—and it will strike Mrs. Rose as
extremely curious—I avow myself in substantial agreement with her. The
things which she was discussing and condemning under the names of super
stition and Christianity and what not, are things which I as a Christian am
continually denouncing in my pulpit, opposing in the press, and counteracting
by various means of instruction and education, in a tolerably large community
in the farthest eastern county of this land—a congregation that was founded
long ago and has had a continuously evolving religious history. Mrs. Rose is
denouncing a thing which she calls by a certain name, and I am denouncing
things which I call by certain other names. But this last word of mine
should simply be one of hope and sympathy, and real joy that we have been able
to come together in this way, finding aims substantially in common; that we
should have been able to express such diverse views on side issues, to exemplify
the diversity of our temperament and the difference of our training or want
of training, and to prove that we only belong to different climes in this
strangely varied and wonderful world, some breathing a very ratified atmo
sphere and others requiring an exceedingly thick and heavy one, and yet be
longing to one race. Having common wants and common yearnings which
bring us together. If we did not feel that there were wrongs to be righted,
mischief to be corrected, knowledge to be disseminated, truth to be fought
for,Shved for and died for, we should not be here to-day. Therefore, whether
Atheists or Theists, believers in some ideas about God and man and religion, or
doubtless about these things, we are all agreeing to seek on this simple basis
of liberal .thinkers real, earnest—shall I not venture to say a spiritual
fellowship—a fellowship of heart and heart, of hand and hand, which will
�GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL TEMBKERS.
stand to us for the outline of a great liberal church, as representing that at
which all churches are dimly aiming. In this movement there will be the
peginning of better things. The Laureate expresses our common conviction
from whatever point we regard it:—
“ Self-reverence, Self-knowledge, Self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power (power of herself
Would come, uncalled for,) but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by, without fear;
And, because Right is Right, to follow Right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.”
. .
Let us trust that we who are here to-day may carry away with us a sympathetB
feeling towards each other; and let us resolve that in our various circles we
will try to understand each other better, and never again speak hastily as
Ho motives until we get to know how fine is the bond that is put around us
and how strongly the currents mingle in this wonderful world. We are
drifting often closely together in the great revival of intellectual and moral
life that is breaking out around us. May it be vaster and deeper than any
reformation of the days that are past.
The Chairman : I think I must now close the discussion of the report of
the Committee, in order that we may take it into consideration, clause by clause,
and vote upon it for the purpose of giving it practical life. I should have liked
to have said many words myself, but I refrain as there is very much busi
ness to get through.
The Chairman then read the first paragraph, “ This organisation shall be
called £ The Association of Liberal Thinkers.’ ”
This was carried unanimously.
The Chairman : Its objects shall be: “ (1) The scientific study of religious
phenomena.”
This was put and carried unanimously.
The Chairman : “ (2) The collection and diffusion of information con
cerning world-wide religious developments.”
Mr. Street : I will move the omission of the word (i world-wide.”
Col. Higginson : May I suggest that instead we add the words at the
end “ throughout the world.”
Mr. Street : I will gladly adopt the suggestion.
The Chairman : “ The collection and diffusion of information concerning
religious developments throughout the world.”
This was put and carried unanimously.
The Chairman : “ (3) The emancipation of mankind from superstition.”
Professor Carpenter : I beg to move that this clause be omitted; and
in doing so I may just say, very briefly, that it appears to me that the word
superstitions is essentially an unscientific word. The previous clauses have
defined the objects of the Association to be the scientific collection and study
of the various phenomena of religion as they present themselves. Now it
will necessarily be that among this great number of religious phenomena there
will be some that will present themselves to us individually as superstitions J
We also know that the term “ Superstitions ” may well be applied to numerous
beliefs that many here present would cherish very deeply. It seems to me
that the further definition “ the promotion of pure and universal religion—
the culture, progress, and moral welfare of mankind ” will necessarily carry
with it “the emancipation of human kind from superstitions,” and that there-«|
fore it is not necessary for us to involve ourselves in labelling any beligfsj
�report—14th june,
1878^ ’
69
by^ offensive name*as we should by this clause. If I may be permitted
one Reminiscence, I heard a sermon from the minister of this congregation
some years ago, and that sermon left a very deep impression upon my
minul pLffiit a thought was dwelt upon which I will endeavour to repro
duce, though I cannot repeat the eloquence which first adorned it. The
sermon was a plea for destructive preaching, and the preacher vindicated
the right of destructive preaching. He urged that no error is abolished]
until a new truth is ready to be set in its place, and that therefore destruc
tive teaching is essentially constructive. I venture to turn the thought the
other way round. Pure and universal religion, for instance, will include
P within it essentially the culture and progress of mankind, and by the promo
tion of pure and universal religion we shall emancipate the human race from
superstitions. In view of this fifth article I move that the fourth be not put.
it Rev. R. A. Armstrong : I second this, not only for the reason put before
us, but because I am anxious that the Association should be of a thoroughly
practical nature, and because I am also anxious that persons representing a
wide variety of views as possible, should be attracted to become members of
it: and I can conceive a case that one person might feel a something as a
superstition which another person whom we should be glad to welcome here
might regard not as a superstition, but as the heart and soul of his religion.
Mr. Binns, for instance, might try to prove that Mrs, Rose has a superstition.
Comte has spoken of the atheistic superstition. So long as this has been
I done accidentally, all well and good, but I do not think either Mr. Binns or
Mrs, I^ose could fail to go away and to feel separated, the one from the other,
if it became an essential and leading object of the society to pursue superstitions. We should all be taking different views, and that would produce a
general contention.
Mr. Conway: Although I fear the reasons I gave for not calling myself
a Christian, may not have been understood, yet I have the greatest desire,
while preserving individuality of view in this Association, not to involve
others; and, indeed, I would make very great sacrifices to secure anything
like a scientific and general discussion and investigation, in a harmonious and
fair spirit, on the subject of religion and its phenomena. I observe that Mr.
Armstrong and Professor Carpenter—lam sure it is an unintentional mistake
Bnise in their remarks, the word “ superstitions ” in the plural, whereas, in
the programme, it is “ superstition ” in the singular. Our idea in that was not
to encourage .members to attack definite superstitions which might be Mrs.
Rose s, or .mine, or somebody else’s, but the principle of superstition everywhere, which I take to be a clinging to a belief for which there is no evidence
and no grounds, and I think we should all agree in feeling that a meeting of
this sort ought to work to emancipate people from clinging to anything resting on mere authority, tradition, or hearsay, which would not bear investiga
tion, and had no grounds to support it. That is superstition. We do not
mean that we would necessarily fix on this view or that view, and call it a
superstition. So long as a man can believe a thing and give a reason for
the faith that is in him, he is not superstitious, although he worships a fetish.
If a man believes, on the best evidence he can get, he cannot be called a be J
lieWr i11 wsuPersfhion, until I have given him such a reason for throwing it
over, _as will show that he is believing without reason or fact. It was that
principle that was in my mind, and which led me to propose that this clause
should be inserted. I cannot see, therefore, if we aim at the liberation of
mankind fr0111 superstition, if we try to get rid of a thing based on mere
authority or tradition, the bad habit of mentally accepting a thing merely
�6
7b
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
® because it is traditional, that we should be doing anything else than justly
j. assailing a bad habit. I do not wish, however, to press the discussion if the
L feeling of the meeting is different from mine. In this particular I am per
fectly willing to leave the point to the good sense and opinion of the majority.
I do not wish in any way to dictate, but merely .wish to show—not that the
Association should hold up any particular opinion or superstition, but merely
that we should attack the mental principle of holding anything withonffl
sufficient fact or evidence for belief.
Colonel Higginson : I will move to amend the amendment, by substitut
ing the original clause, the words “ the spirit of superstition.” I do not wish
] to take up time, but I think this amendment would guard us against the
j possible misrepresentations which have very properly been suggested, and
I would also retain the original object sought. It must be observed that
|i throughout this constitution we have been obliged, as people always are, to
I indicate things in general terms, for you never can go into detail. There isj
( for instance, the encouragement of the principle of morality. We should
] greatly err if we attempted to define it, though everybody would say it is a
g good thing. If there is one thing on which everybody would unite, it is in
agreeing that the spirit of superstition is a bad thing. If there is a Roman
Catholic at this meeting, he would agree to that. He may differ from us a
good deal in what we regard as superstition, of course. I am just as desirous
as the gentleman who moved the amendment, to avoid anything like any
particular invasion of private rights, and if I remember right, Herbert Spencer
lays down several things as superstitions which are as dear to me as life itself.
I think, however, the amendment will not run any danger of trenching on
individual claims, and if we can afford to do anything, we can surely afford
to brand the spirit of superstition.
The Chairman asked whether that amendment would be accepted ?
Professor Carpenter : I would willingly accept that alteration, for I am
very anxious not to disturb the harmonious feeling of the meeting, if it is
generally accepted.
The clause was then put and unanimously adopted as follows : i( The
emancipation of mankind from the spirit of superstition.”
The Fourth Clause—“Fellowship among liberal thinkers of all efesses,”
was carried unanimously.
A
The Fifth Clause—“ The promotion of pure and universal religion, which
includes the culture, progress, and moral welfare of mankind,” was then con
sidered, the words “ which includes ” being added at the suggestion of the
Chairman.
A Gentleman at the back of the Hall, said : What meaning are we to
attach to the word “universal”? Poes the Committee mean that there is a
universal religion which is to be discovered first and propagated afterwards.
The Chairman : The term “ promotion ” rather implies “ not yet arrived
at.” We anticipate the existence or thing. It is that after which we are
striving and which we desire to make universal, as I gather. We state at
the end some of the objects which the pure and universal religion is supposed
to include. Perhaps Mr. Conway will explain this.
t Mr. Conway : I think it was in our minds to represent that in all
religious developments, certainly in all important ones, and perhaps in all, I
there was some element which, if divested of ritual and all particular investi
tures or additions of localities would be found to furnish some common sub
stratum. We thought it would be found that the corruptions of all churches
would be mere superstitions and that there would be found some common
�REPORT—14TH JUNE, 1878.
73
foundation for all the religions in the world, that there was in them all a
substantial something which was universal if we could only get at it? We
thought there was some common stand-point, something human and pure}
something free from mere priestly perversions and mere temporary develop
ments, and that that was the universal purified part of religion, that probably
these words pure and universal had the same meaning, and that if you
divested religion of everything artificial or sham you would leave a reality
that was alike in all; that it would include sympathy, charity, and a good
many other things which, like the Golden Rule for instance, would be found in
all religions.
_ Mr. Levy : Is not that a dogma in itself—that the part common to all
religions is the pure part, and the part that is not common is the impure
That appears almost as dangerous a dogma as anything I have heard
outside the Society. I do not know that there is anything common to all
religions, and if there is I do not know if I could distil it down that I should
find It much better than the principles that are not so common. My own
opinion is that pure religion is very far from being universal at the present
time. Can we not amend the clause by saying, “ Promotion of pure and
universal religion is the culture, progress, and moral welfare of mankind.”
.The Chairman : That is just what we want to avoid. We want to avoid
limiting it. We state certain things which are included in it, and we leave
the rest, believing that there is a great deal more.
Mr. Street : I think in the main this expresses my own views. I am
more concerned about the reality than the language, but I would propose for
your consideration, in order to catch the feeling of the audience before I pro'
rea<^ fhe clause thus, <( The promotion of the culture, progress and
moral welfare of mankind.” If you say that is religion, you have a reality,
and if some people say it is not religion, still they are getting at a reality too.
We are an association of liberal thinkers studying religious phenomena, working within the field of what we call religion. Is there any necessity to divide
us, even in thought, upon the word ? We want to work for the culture, pro
gress, and moral welfare of mankind. Would it not be as well to rest there
,and not go further ? If you get a reality, cannot you be content with that ?
Mr. Hirst Smyth seconded the motion, and it was also seconded in
several other parts of the hall.
Mr. Rapp : I remember hearing Mr. Bradlaugh lecture upon this point
shortly after his return from America, and he then mentioned his objection
to the retention of the word “ religion ” by the Free Religion Association.
If you get the word “ religion ” you will be sure to get hostility from
secularists, and by this amendment you will do away with that.
Mr. Binns : I think it is undesirable on the whole to debate this. We
^propose the scientific study of religious phenomena, and we go on to say we
propose to examine all widely spread developments of religion; then we
propose to emancipate the human mind from the spirit of superstition, and I
think after that we are fairly justified in asking that our resolution should go
on further to declare that just as we are against the spirit of superstition, we
are Ki ^avour °f wbat we may call the spirit of pure and universal religion.
As to the sense in which the word universal is to be interpreted, it may be
taken in various ways. The Chairman interprets it in one way and the
Chairman of the Committee in another. We can take it either way. The
Chairman of the Committee looks upon it as a thing really existing in all
religions; the Chairman of the Conference as a thing to be discovered.
Although it is quife possible that by retaining the word religion we might
�72
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS.
prevent certain members of secularist varieties from joining us, I should feel
pretty certain also, that by dropping the word religion we should prevent a
great many people from joining us. It would not affect me persomajlE but
my impression is that it would affect many people who would readily agree to
the scientific study of religion, or the examination of widely spread religious
phenomena. With all due deference to the secularists, they do not care
For the scientific study of religion and its investigation as we ourselves do.
Therefore it is really more important that we should endeavour to include this
and attach some sort of importance to the undefined religion—more impor
tance than those who consider it does not amount to anything much.
not however the secularist who objects to it. When a man is a hearty sincere
believer in religion I think it is unnecessarily throwing away one who might
be a valuable ally to carry this amendment.
Dr. Burdoe : If we get rid of the word religion we shall get confused.
I would extend the right hand of fellowship to the honest reverent atheist, be
he whom he may, but I would not like to connect myself to any society of
irreverent persons. We can study any religion in the world, if it be done in
a reverent manner, but I should be sorry to connect myself to this Society if
by getting rid of the word you would open the door to irreverence.
Dr. Drummond : I would suggest an amendment which I think will go
some way towards what we want. “Culture” is far too wide. Our object is not
to promote culture in all ways and in all directions, but the promotion of a
certain sort of culture. If we say then the promotion of religious culture, we
shall not appear to give any definition of religion, and we shall at the same
time limit the word culture to the principal direction in which we wish it
to go.
Mr. Judge : I have very much pleasure in seconding the proposition. It
appears to me this association is to be essentially a religious association. If
there are certain individuals who will not be attracted to a religious association J
well they are not required. (Cries of No I No !) That may seem illiberal,
but if you wish to form a commercial association you would not wish to havel
as members persons who take no interest in commerce, and I think we ought
to seek to attract those persons who are interested in the study of religion!
The definition given to the objects of this association is especially religious,
and even if we altered this, no person who does not take that interest in religion
which we assume members would take, would be interested in this association.
I certainly think the statement of Mr. Binns is correct, who openly said that,
this does not concern persons who take no interest in religious questions, and
I say we are not illiberal in making it definitely understood that this is to be
a religious body.
Mr. Freckleton : I think we may see our way out of this difficulty, and
to be unanimous on this point as on the others, by a slight alteration in the
framework of the sentence which would take away some of the objections
made, if it were made to read “ whatever may be found to be included in pure
and universal religion.”
The Chairman : Nobody has seconded that.
. Mr. Levy : I have no objection to the word religion personally, but my
objection is to the assertion that there is such a thing as pure and universal
religion, somehow to be distilled out of the various systems of religion in the
world. It seems to me that we are suggesting that by a sufficient abstraction
of all the religious systems of the world you could get down to something
that is pure and universal. I think that is a statement of dogma that is out
side the objects of this association.
�repoi£t—14th ^&ne^1878.
73
Mr. Rowell : I will second Mr. Fre Stolon’s amendment.
The
seems rather vague.
MiW|®®Setoh : Whatever is included in that, is what I mean.
Mrs. Rose : Why not say “ whatever can be found good and useful in
universal religion.’*
. Mr. Rylott: Will you take another amendment* Sir, I should like to
i*moVe that we omit the words altogether.
Mr. Lieber : Pne remark, Mr. Chairman. I think it is a pity that a
h|y|gciety like this should state as one of its objects the promotion of that
whicmnobody can define. It seems to me that the amendment suggested on
the left there the motion leaving the latter end of the sentence and taking
out the introductory words—is a practical one that everybody would under-'
stand, tmd would make an end of the difficulty.
Mr. Levy : Could not we get it by saying “ the diffusion and the promotion of religion ? ” (Cries of No! No!)
Mr. Rylott : My amendment is altogether the best, Sir—to leave out
the clause altogether. It is necessarily involved in what has gone before, and
therefore it seems to me you will be throwing out what may prove to be an
apple of discord, when you gain nothing by leaving the words in. The “pro*
Ignojggn of pure and universal religion ” which is supposed to include “ the
culture, progress, and moral welfare of mankind,” is certainly included in
mai)kind from the spirit of superstition. And the collection and
diffusion of information relating to the religious developments of the world,
must certainly involve the scientific collection and classification of them,
KhEBi these remarks I would move that it be omitted altogether.
Mr. Buhler : I would second that.
. ^■r®*
Before putting any other resolution I should like to have a
distinct answer to this question. Mr. Judge has said this association is strictly
a religious association. Now the name of the association I understood to be
The Association of Liberal Thinkers/’ If this is to be a religious associa
tion that fact ought to be notified.
Colonel Higginson : It seems to me that two persons, who have moved
previous resolutions, have suggested together a mode of putting the thing in
the shape we want, and it is a very astonishing circumstance that these two
should be a gentleman who claims to be a Christian minister and a lady who
EpH
he complimented by any such imputation. If we take the statement made by Mr. Street and add to it substantially the clause suggested
by Mrs. Rose we have something I think which would satisfy ninety-nine out
of & hundred of those here. Suppose the clause stands in this form :—“that
the objiects should be the promotion of the culture, progress and moral welfare
of mankind,” thus far Mr. Street; “ and whatever in any religion may tend
towards that end,” which is Mrs. Rose.
I)r. Burdoe : I will second this.
Mr. Street : I am quite willing to accept that. I did not move the
amendment without thought. I feel anxious about the reality; I am not
concerned about the name. I did not feel I was dropping the name, nor was
E;aB concerned about dropping any of those who might become members.
Mr. Judge seems to think we have a society which by its definitions will
^xc^de Others, but I do not want to exclude any man. Therefore I used
have suggested. It seemed to me that in the four preparagraphs religion had been spoken of clearly and definitely; but
I think Mrs. Rose has made a very good amendment, and Col. Higginson,
with that wonderful tact which he has shown throughout the whole of fhjE
�74
GENERAL CONFERENCE OF LIBERAL THINKERS!
debate, and which is so remarkable that I wish we could get him to go
down and arbitrate on the strike now paralysing industry in Lancashire, has
exactly suggested what we mean, to “promote the culture, progress, and moraM
welfare of mankind and whatever in any religion may tend towards that end.”
By the first words you imply that you take everything in religion that is
good, and you add several words which, so far as I can see, are of no particular
value, but I will accept them.
The Chairman : It is like the difference between proximate and ultimate
elements in chemistry. The first three may be considered proximate
elements.
Mr. Street: It will bo better still if you reverse the words “the
promotion of whatever in any religion may tend towards the culture, progress,
and moral welfare of mankind.”
Mr. Levi : I do not think that that is as well, because there may be
means outside the different systems of religion.
Mr. Conway : Yes ; I quite think so.
The Chairman : Then you do not wish to limit it, Mr. Street ?
Mr. Street : No; I do not in any way.
The Chairman : Then I may consider the other amendment withdrawn
in favour of Colonel Higginson’s ?
Mr. Freckleton : As it now stands the amendment expresses all I want
to say.
Mr. Harrison : Would it not be better to say, “ any form of religion ” ?
Colonel Higginson : I would just as lief have these words. It is not
worth discussing.
The Chairman : Perhaps it is better it should stand as proposed.
Mrs. Bose: Would it not be better to say “all the good that can be
found in any religion ”—“ all the good and useful that can be found in any
religion ” ?
Colonel Higginson : My amendment was, “ or whatever may tend
towards that end.”
The Chairman : Colonel Higginson’s motion is, “ the promotion of the
culture, progress, and moral welfare of mankind, and of whatever in any
religion may tend towards that end.”
Mr. Haynes : I think it is better as it went before. I will move that the
second part of this be left out.
Mr. Levy : I should wish to move an amendment in another part of it.
I should wish to substitute a word in order to make it more logical.
Mr. Armstrong : I would second that amendment that the latter half of
the clause be left out. My grounds are that we have been told that this
Association is to be as broad as possible, and Colonel Higginson just now
ventured to hope that his amendment would include ninety-nine out of every
one hundred here. Now, I want to include the other one, and though I
have a great detestation of anybody discussing questions, whether religious
or sectarian, irreverently, yet I think the tone of our discussion will be
sufficient to shut the door against any irreverent persons coming a second
time, and I should not like to shut every door against their coming the first
time. Therefore I will second the amendment that all reference to religion
be left out, and that the clause read, “ the promotion of the culture, progress,
and welfare of mankind.”
Mrs. Rose : I will accept that.
The Chairman : Do you accept it, Col. Higginson ?
Col. Higginson : I am quite willing. All I want is peace.
�f ;
report—14th june, 1878.
75
I- Mr; Russell: One question. The principal object of the association
has been stated to be the investigation of religious phenomena. To what end
■artfi tOP religious investigations to be directed ?
Mr. Street : The culture, progress and moral welfare of mankind.
The Chairman & That is not quite a fair question to ask. We have all a
different feeling as to what it should be. We have now reached the time for
■cMMMwKid I must ask the meeting whether we shall go on till halfI This was agreed to unanimously.
Dr. Drummond : I have not withdrawn my amendment, though I do not
f^ghbo press it if it is not acceptable to the meeting, but my seconder is very
unwilling to withdraw it, and it is very important that the special direction in
which culture is to be recognised should be mentioned. I am not altogether
s^sSied with any of the other amendments proposed, and I therefore will
venture to ask you, sir, to put my amendment.
The Chairman then put the question that the clause should stand, “ The
promotion of the culture, progress and moral welfare of mankind.”
This was carried.
The Chairman then put the amendment that the word religious should
l^mmMaed before the word culture.
This was lost by a very large majority, about eight persons voting for it.
* Mr. Freckleton asked if Colonel Higginson’s amendment fell to the
' ground.
Mr. Binns : It comes from the Committee, and of course must be voted on.
The Chairman : It is now a substantial motion that the clause should
Sm<wbxis :—“ The promotion of the culture, progress, and moral welfare of
mankind,” and then it is moved that these words be added, “ And of whatever in any form of religion may tend towards that end.”
This addition was also carried.
The whole clause as amended was then put as a substantial motion, and also
J
almost unanimously.
The second paragraph, “ Membership in this Association shall leave each
iffi^Hual responsible for his own opinion alone, and in no degree affect his
relations with other associations,” was also unanimously agreed to ; and the
Jvn^efplatform was then read over, and carried unanimously.
Mr. Conway : It is necessary now that we should name persons to form
m Committee, in order to complete the formal organisation of the association.
' It will take very few minutes, but you see we have left ourselves without any
machinery by which a meeting may be called at some future time. We must
, also have some means of settling terms of membership and what the subscription should be. All these things will have to be digested by a
l Committee representing all sides, and it is - necessary we should appoint
the members of that Committee, and decide what should be a quorum. It
their duty to frame and submit to the meeting, rules for its action, to
propose terms of membership, and the manner of corresponding with members
tin various countries, with reference to carrying out the objects of the associa’ tion. This will probably be a peripatetic association, and the committee will
i have to arrange a good deal in the way of work. Of course we must crawl
i before we can walk; and we must have somebody to begin and see how many
l mpnmftbility are ready to come and join us. I would propose that a comI mittee of twenty-one be formed, with power to add to their number. Of
| co.ur& considerable number of the Committee must be in London, but we
i shoWljak^Le have persons in the country also. I should think a quorum of
I five would be sufficient.
�76
’GENERWI7 'CONEEREN (Je"wJ»PBERAL THINKERS.
Mr. Street: Why not make it a committee of all who are willing to
serve, with power to add to their number.
Mr. Conway suggested the following names: Rev. Richard Armstrong
(Nottingham), Rev. Goodwyn Barmby (Wakefield), Rev. William Binns
(Birkenhead), Miss Julie Braun (Manchester), Prof. J. Estlin Carpenter)
(London), Moncure D. Conway (London), Miss Helena Downing (London^’
Rev. Robert Drummond (Edinburgh), V. K. Dhairyaban (Bombay and
London), A. J. Ellis (London), Edwin Ellis (Guildford), H. Garrod (London),
J. S. Stuart Glennie (London), Mrs. Harriet Law (London), George L. Lyon
(London), K. N. Mitra (Calcutta and London), Miss Sarah Marshall (London), I
Alfred Preston (London), H. W. Smith (Edinburgh), Rev. J. Hirst Smyth ;
(London), Leslie Stephen (London), Rev. J. C. Street (Belfast), Rev. Frank
Walters (Glasgow), George J. Wyld.
Mrs. Rose’s name was mentioned, bat she replied that she could not serve.
The Chairman : The resolution is that these be the committee, with power j
to add to their number, that five of their number be a quorum, that they be
appointed to fix on a time and place for the next meeting, frame rules and 1
terms of membership of the Association, and for conducting corresponder^^j
with persons in foreign countries in reference to the particular objects of the
Association.
This was carried unanimously.
Mr. Street : I should beg to move that Mr. Conway be requested to act
as secretary for the present.
The Chairman : Of course the whole of the Committee is at present pro
visional. As the business of this meeting is now terminated I think I may <
fairly congratulate you on the success of our experiment.
Mr. Street : Before you leave the Chair, Sir, there is one question to I
ask and one duty to discharge. The question I have to ask is this. Some- >
body must have been involved in very considerable expenditure, mid we
would like to know if there is any possibility of our being allowed to contribute
something towards that. The duty we have, if indeed it can be called^qutw:
is to say—I am sure I have felt as every member of the Conference has felt
—that we ought to express our deep indebtedness, not merely to the gentle
men who have so admirably presided over our deliberations, but to Mr. Con- :
way and the Committee who summoned us here together. Perhaps my j
question might be answered first that we may deal with that.
Mr. Conway : Mr. Street, you must rest assured that when we make up I
our bill we will send it round. Until then you may rest perfectly quietland
I can assure you that we shall feel entirely repaid any debt or costs we may
have incurred by finding there has been such a spirit of liberality displayed
on all sides, and so much magnanimity, in these discussions. I, for one, feel
extremely gratified and deeply thankful—more thankful than I can express
—for the most successful meeting that we have had.
Mr. Street: I suppose I must accept that answer, but at any rate we
must be allowed to discharge the duty I have just indicated. I am sure the
congregation and its interpreter here cannot but have felt immensely grati
fied by the way in which liberal thinkers throughout the kingdom have
responded to the invitation. They cannot but further be gratified by seeing
one of the most remarkable facts that I have ever observed, that men and
women of the most diverse opinions, representing almost every shade ofultra
thought, have gathered here together, and have spoken with the utmost free
dom, have been heard with the utmost consideration, and yet without any
sort of feeling whatever. I think this of itself will be almost sqfficienM;
�I
I
REPORT—lTTIWTUNE, 1878,
77
3 reward to the"ommitW for their kindness in calling us together. Yet that
I loes not free us from the responsible duty of expressing by our united action
jur warm and ^^cy thanks to Mr. Conway and his congregation for sumJ
noning us here to-day, and to the two gentlemen who, with so much dignity,
liscretion, and ability, have conducted the proceedings of these two days.
jKMraJ. gentlemen rose in the meeting at the same time, but they gave
way to Mrs. Rose, who said she wished to second the motion with a great deal
fef pleasure.
Rev. Carey Walters : May I be allowed to support this resolution as
•one who stands at the very opposite pole of thought to many of the gentlemen who have spoken this evening and yesterday. I expect I should be confeidered in my theological opinions exceedingly superstitious and antiquated
■by ifiany* gentlemen present. But still I feel most thankful for having been
herejand for the hours I have spent in this place; and the discussion gives
tod great hope that before long the points which separate a number of earnest
thinkers will be broken down and we shall be able to shake hands with frankaess, and to feel there is one cause in which we can work together with heart
md soul—the regeneration of humanity—the raising it to a higher plat
form.
The resolution was carried by loud acclamation.
| The Chairman : Our chief thanks are due to Mr. Conway, who has shown
the greatest interest and care throughout the whole of this discussion, and to
whom the convocation and success of this meeting are mainly due.
The Conference then terminated.
Waterlow & Sons Limited, Printers, London Wall, London.
�i-
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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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Report of a general conference of liberal thinkers for the "discussion of matters pertaining to the religious needs of our time, and the methods of meeting them" held June 13th and 14th, 1878 at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London
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General Conference of Liberal Thinkers
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 77 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr. Moncure Conway. Printed by Waterlow & Sons Limited, London. Welcoming remarks by Moncure Conway; additional remarks p. 8-10, 49-52, 69-70. P. 68 notes the carrying of the proposal "this organisation shall be called "The Association of Liberal Thinkers". Chaired by Dr Wylde.
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Trubner & Co.
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1878
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G5589
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Free thought
Liberalism
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Association of Liberal Thinkers
Conway Tracts
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Text
Jfcmtog c&cmngfi fur fljt fwrgk
DISCOURSE
DELIVERED BY
SIR JOHN BOWRING
AT
ST. MARTIN’S HALL,
ON
FEBRUARY 17, 1867.
ALSO
THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS
OF
J. BAXTER LANGLEY, Esq., M.R.C.S., F.L.S.
LONDON :
TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1867.
Price, 2d.
a
A.
•
SIAM AND THE SIAMESE
�Ji
I
1^
�J. Baxter Langley, Esq., said—
I congratulate myself that in assembling for the sixth time to con
tinue these services, under the title of Sunday Evenings for the
People, and I am sure you will unite in congratulating me on the fact
that the attendance of those whom I see around me in such large
numbers, indicates that these services meet an obvious want of the
people of London. It has been my custom to notice in my opening
address some of the events of the preceding week, and though on this
platform we know no politics, and have no antagonism to any estab
lished creed, it is my duty to recognise the fact that on Monday
evening when the Minister of the Crown brought forward the pro
gramme of the Session ; he alluded to a condition of things which I
think germaine to the matter which we in assembling here have in
hand, and which has a bearing on what we have undertaken here.
'1 he passage' is as follows : —
“ Since 1832 this country has, no doubt, made great progress; but it is during
the last ten years that that progress has been most remarkable. I will not now
attempt to inquire into the particular causes that have brought about this great
advance, but It bink I may say there is one : overeign cause which is at the bottom
of everything, we suggest, and that is, the increased application of science to
social life. (Hear hear.) We are all familiar with the material results which
that application of science has produced. They are prodigious, but in my mind
the moral results are not less remarkable. That revolution in locomotion which
would strike us every day as a miracle if we were not familiar with it, has given
to the great body of the inhabitants of this country in some degree the enlighten
ing advantages of travel. The mode in which steam power is applied to the
printing press in this country produces effects more startling than the first dis
covery in the loth century. It is science that has raised wages ; it is science
that has increased the desires and the opportunities of labour ; it is science that
has enobled labour.”
Here we have sought to erect a Church for the future. Recognizing
the advantage of the services in the ordinary churches, we feel that
they do not meet the exigencies of the people at large. There is too
much disposition to regard science as antagonistic to religion ; but
here we make science the handmaid of religion. We do not seek to
oppose the churches, but we seek to supplement them; and since
literature and the fine arts have an elevating and enobling effect on
all who come in contact with them, we seek to supply, by the aid of
the most eminent men in every branch of science, the information
which cannot fail to be valuable, leaving you to apply the truths
which they will teach ; and asking you to unite with us in seeking to
develope our organization, which in the future shall produce greater
results than we can even foresee in the present.
�Ml
�SIR JOHN BOWRING’S DISCOURSE
OX
SIAM AND THE SIAMESE.
Between the two most peopled andmost powerful empires that the world
has ever known—China, with a population of wore than 400,000,000
of human beings, and the British Empire in India, with scarcely
less than half that number, there is a tract of country sometimes called
a Peninsula, but erroneously so, inhabited by three nations—the Annamites—commonly called Cochin Chinese, by the Burmans, and by the
Siamese. The Siamese are the most advanced and civilized of these peo
ples, having a language and literature of their own, occupying a terri
tory of about 250,000 square miles, maintaining a population of
from five to six millions. There is a Siamese manuscript, some
centuries old, giving an account of their earliest introduction to the
European world, and it seems that in those remote times a French
ship visited that country. The captain made his way to the capital,
and was introduced to the Sovereign of Siam. He, with very natural
patriotism, talked to the Siamese of the greatness of the country
from which he came. He described Paris, no doubt, somewhat
in a romantic style, as if “ all its streets were paved with gold,
and all its folks were witty.” But certainly he did inspire the minds
of the King and people of Siam with a desire to know more of
the wondrous land of the West. And the narrative is interesting.
The King determined to send an embassy to France, and to re
present in that embassy whatever was honorable to and characteristic
of the Siamese kingdom, and prominent amongst the officials was, as
was customary in those times, a mag’ician, who was considered an
important member in the staff of an ambassador. Even at the
present day it is not an unusual thing to nominate men acquainted
with the arts of necromancy to accompany official travellers ; and the
�6
Siam and the Siamese.
man selected on this occasion is reported to have been one of the
most eminent of his class. When the vessel which conveyed the
ambassy reached the coasts of France there was a terrible storm, and
the magician was requested to use his superhuman power that they
might arrive safely on land. And he is said to have subdued the
winds and the waves, so that the vessel reached its destined port
in safety ; then inquiry was made of him as to the influences which
had enabled him to still the adverse elements ; he said it was because
he was empowered to unite the influences of the French with those of the
Siamese that the storm abated, and the vessel arrived unharmed. I
will read from the document the statement which the ambassador
made on returning to the Siamese Court:—
“ They were admitted to the presence of the King, and the King or
dered a company of 500 French soldiers, all good marksmen, to
be drawn up in two ranks, facing each other, 250 on each side.
They were commanded to fire. They fired, and each soldier lodged
his ball in the musket barrel of the soldier opposite. The King
asked the Siamese ambassador if there were any sharp-shooters as
good in Siam; and the ambassador replied that the King of Siam
did not esteem this kind of skill as worth much in war. The King
of France was displeased, and asked what kind of skill the King of
Siam did esteem, and what kind of soldiers he did appreciate ?
The ambassador replied, “The King admires soldiers who are well
skilled in the magical arts ; and such as, if good marksmen like your
Majesty’s soldiers here, should fire at them the bullets would not
touch their bodies. His Majesty the King of Siam has soldiers who
can go unseen into the midst of the battle, and cut off the heads of the
officers and men in the enemy’s ranks, and return unmolested. Ho has
others who can stand under the weapons of the enemy to be shot at
or pierced with swords and spears, and yet not receive the least
wound or injury. Soldiers skilled in this kind of art he values very
highly, but he keeps them for his special use in his own country."’ When
the French King heard this he was unwilling to have the trial made ;
but the ambassador said, “You need not fear: they have an art by
which they can ward off your bullets.” They were ordered to come forth,
and they came. The French soldiers all fired several rounds,
some at a distance, some near, but the powder would not ignite, and
the guns made no report. The magician desired the French soldiers
not to be discouraged : “ They shall fire and the guns shall go off. ”
They fired—all the balls fell to the ground before they reached the
Siamese soldiers, of whom not one was struck.”
Such was the first state of relations between Siam and
France; and I have no doubt that the European credulity
was almost as great as the Siamese. But Siam has long
been an object of interest to Europeans. There is an account
of a conversation between Mr. Boswell and Dr. Johnson, in
which the latter declared that the Siamese might have sent missions
�Siam and the Siamese.
7
to Europe, but that the Europeans had never sent missions to the
Siamese. It is surprising that a man of such universal knowledge
should have made so strange a mistake. There have been many
missions from Europe to Siam. The most illustrious of Portuguese
poets, Camoens, was wrecked in the Meinam river, of which he gives
a poetical picture, and he is said to have escaped with his Lusiads
in his hand. And the Portuguese have left in that country re
markable vestiges. With them all objects of commerce or conquest
were subordinate to purposes of conversion. I found in that country
Catholics bearing Portuguese names, and representing the traditions of
many generations, who wore Portuguese garments, and were proud
to trace their origin to the Portuguese of the 16th century. The
Dutch never went to Siam to convert anybody or anything, except
to convert men and merchandise into money as fast as was
possifre. They have left there no names, no traditions, and no marks
of any influence. I saw the ruins of their factories, but I never
heard in Siam a Dutch name or a Dutch word. The Spaniards
frequently and vainly tried to establish themselves in Siam. They
made elaborate efforts, and one of their expeditions cost seventy
thousand dollars, and is much vaunted in the history of the Philip
pines, whence the envoys took their departure. But the most remarkble fact in Siamese history is the attempt made in the reign of the
King whom the vanity and prostration of his courtiers called the
“Grand Monarque ” to cultivate and perpetuate relations with
France. A man named Faulcon was wrecked on the coast, and made
his way to the Siamese Court. He brought with him European civi
lisation, and exercised so wide an influence that he became the Prime
Minister of the country. The news of his good fortune reached Eu
rope, and it was thought in France that through his agency and
his zeal for Catholicism, French rule and Papal authority might
be established in Siam. A remarkable letter was written by the
famous French Minister Colbert, and a large number of gentlemen
went to Siam, and were received in a very friendly spirit. The
ambassador’s name was Chaumont, and he published a re
markable account of his reception in Siam. As I had the good
fortune to follow in his steps, I was struck with the fact that the
court ceremonials and the manners of the Sovereign and the people
had undergone few changes in the course of two centuries. As soon
as the Siamese discovered that the purpose of the Pope and the
monks was to tamper with their religion, and that of the King
and his representatives was to interfere with their Government, a re
bellion broke ont. Faulcon was executed, the monks and foreigners
were exiled, and from that time Siam seems to have been forgotten
for something like a century and a half. But it was known to be a
a rich and progressive country, and in process of time successive
attempts were made to open negociations and establish commerce
with the Siamese government and people. It is not necessary
�Siam and the Siamese.
to trouble you with the detail of the causes which led to the
failure of four expeditions from England and two from the United
States. They had very little effect, and the project had apparently
fallen into abeyance, when it was my privilege to receive Her Ma
jesty’s commands to take steps if an opportunity offered for the
establishment of amicable and trading intercourse with Siam. I
was fortunate in having had much previous correspondence
with the King, who is one of the most extraordinary men
with whom in the course of my life I have ever come into
contact. He was the eldest legitimate son of the King of Siam,
but when his father died he, being under age, was superseded by an
illegitimate brother, who seized upon the Government. And to protect
himself from the perils to which the heir to an oriental throne is
always exposed when that throne is occupied by an usurper, he
‘ ‘ made himself holy ”—that is to say, he entered into a Buddhist
temple. There he remained eleven years, and devoted himself to the
study of literature, science, and the acquirement of a knowledge of
the sacred languages, the Pali and the Sanscrit. He also found
time to learn the English and the Latin. On the death of his bro
ther which happened too suddenly to enable him to convey the sceptre
to his own descendants, the nobility and the people demanded the
proclamation of the legitimate King, who was made the ruler of the
country; and it was through his influence that Siam was thrown
open to the commerce not only of Britain but of the world. In
1855 I had the satisfaction of entering into a treaty of friendship
and commerce with that country. In those days the whole shipping
trade of Siam was represented by 20 vessels — one half foreign
and the other Siamese. Now 400 cargoes are annually shipped
from Bangkok alone. Before proceeding to Bangkok I wrote to
the King stating that our public relations were of a very unsatis
factory character, but that I wished to approach him in a friendly
spirit; that I had a force which I had no desire to display;
but if he would meet me and enable me to show him
that our interests were his and that his interests were ours,
if I should persuade him that we were made rather to love than
to hate, rather mutually to serve and conciliate than to distrust and
repel each other, I hoped he would allow me to present my cre
dentials at his Court; that I would come with a large force, if neces
sary for my purpose, but that I would much rather appeal to his
feelings of respect for the position of the country which I repre
sented. I implored him to allow me to come in amity. The Ameri
can missionaries, wiih whom I was in correspondence, did not
encourage us. They thought, whatever assurances I might have
received from the King, that I should be met with a feeling of repug
nance. I had better hopes, and I went. We reached the mouth of the
Meinam Rxver, of which the Siamese are very proud—-as all nations
are proud of their rivers I We English boast of our “Silver Thames”
whose silver indeed is somewhat tarnished! The Portuguese
�Siam and the Siamese.
daunt their “ Golden Tagus”, though gold is no longer found in
its sands. We have all heard of the love of the people of Egypt
for the Nile ; and one of the most emphatic benedictions I remember
is that, when I gave three or four pence to a poor Arab woman for
holding my horse, she said, “May you always be blessed by Allah as
he blessed the sources of the Nile.” So in India the Ganges is regarded
as blessed by the Godhead and as blessing those who have had the
privilege of dying on its shores. I have seen Christians, Mahommedans,
and Jews bathing together in the waters of the Jordan, and uniting in
common thanksgiving that they have been permitted to enjoy so
great a glory. Chinese poetry is full of the Yang-tze-Kiang—“ the
Son of the Ocean.” Nor are these feelings confined to the ancient
world : the Americans of the North sing the praises of their Missisippi
and Missouri ; and those of the South of the Amazon and the Plate.
The Siamese call their Meinam the “ Mother of Waters.” When w®
reached the mouth of that river, we were told “ you must not
enter it with your ships of war.” So the King sent down a fleet of the
most splendid galleys, like coronetted dragons, beautifully gilt
and painted; and I was told to “ Come up in these galleys, and
abandon your ships of war.” I said, “ I shall accept your attention
and come in your galleys, and the ships shall follow ; and you must
tell your people that I am coming as a friend and not as a foe.”
And the King issued a proclamation declaring that we were coming
not as an enemy to humiliate, but as a friend to extend friendship.
We had many difficulties as to receptions and invitations, but the
King requested me to come to meet him in his palace at midnight.
A magnificent palace it is ' He said, “I want to see you as a friend,
and now I wish you to assent to one condition : in your country
people wear swords in the presence of the Sovereign, but that is
against our custom.” I said, “Undoubtedly I am bound to pay your
Majesty all the attention that I pay to my own Queen, and the wearing
of a sword is a point of etiquette.” He said, “It is never the case at our
Court.” But I was able to give evidence that the point had been con
ceded at the reception of the ambassadors of Louis XIV.; and
the King allowed that, as the British Queen was at least as great a
Sovereign as the French King, her envoys had a claim to every honor
which had ever been granted And so I and my suite were received
in the Great Hall, standing erect and wearing our swords, while the
Siamese dignitaries lay prostrate on their faces, and not one of* them
dared to lift his head to the King, who sat upon a superb throne.
The ceremonies being over, the King asked me to come to him in the
palace. I went and found the King of Siam (whom a short time
before I had' seen encumbered with the robes of royalty, with bright
gems glittering from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet)
with nothing on him but his shirt. He had a child upon his knee,
and the only thing it wore was a garland of white flowers upon its
head. I contrasted the grandeur and glory of the Monarch with th®
simplicity and the affection of the tender parent, and the latter appeared
to me more worthy of homage than the potent King. I spoke of ths
�10
S'/CJ nt and Ihe Si a mete.
Meinam. It is a wonderful river. It is somewhat like the Nile, its yellow
waters being fringed with emerald banks fertilized by its inundations. I
don t know whether it is more attractive by night or by day. By niomt
the fire flies cover the trees with marvellous splendour, the loud noise of
the Ghik lizard is heard, and animal and insect life is as vital as by day ;
when beautiful birds, and beetles, and butterflies are full of activity; and
fish that speak, and fight, and travel by land, and strange reptiles and
quadrupeds abound. Siam gives great evidence of Chinese influenc n
Chinese houses, with their led and yellow ornaments, are seen ail
along the banks of the Meinam. The Chinese are the great civilizers
of the East, and a million and a half of them are settled in Siam.
They are the most advanced, industrious, persevering and economical
of all the oriental nations. Bangkok is an aquatic City, almost all
the houses are on the water, and when the inhabitants shift their
residences, they move their entire habitations up and down the river.
And as the Siamese are proud of their rivers, they are also proud of
their towns. One is called the town of ten million elephants, one
is the town of pure gold, another, the town of the diamond walls,
another, the celestial hill, another, the paradise of Archangels ! This
may be vanity, but it is a very common and natural one. Does not
a Swiss exalt in the grandeur of his native mountains ? and I once
met with an Icelander who said “How can you tolerate a country in
which there are no snow storms?”
The Siamese religion is more identified with the national character
aud customs than any other religion in the world. I speak of Budd
hism. I cannot go into the details of that religion, for they occupy
sixty volumes, but I will point out some of its characteristics as
evidence of the fact that no religion ever exercised a great influence
over millions of men unless there were in it many elements of truth
and wisdom ; and if, instead of attacking everything which they find
in the religion of foreign nations, missionaries would recognize
that we are not the monopolists of truth and wisdom, but, that truth
and wisdom are to be found elsewhere, many stumbling blocks would
be removed which now arrest their way. Buddhism is, as I have said,
a part and portion of the social institutions of the land, and has a strong
hold upon the feelings of the people. No man enters upon or enjoys
the rights of citizenship till he has passed a certain time in a Buddhist
Convent, and has gone through a certain religious examination.
Th£ maintenance of the temples and of the priestsis wholly depen
dent upon public opinion. There are in Bankok 1,000 wats or tem
ples, and 10,000 bonzes or priests, and these wats have cost more
than ten millions of dollars, and are supported by voluntary contribu
tions, giving about a million dollars a year. The priests come forth
every morning from their convents, they are not allowed to ask for
contributions, and they are not permitted to thank the donors. They
bear a wallet for articles of food, and a cruise for drink, and they
find at every dooi' a contribution waiting their arrival. Given by
the people without asking, it is received from them without thanks.
The great outlines of Buddhism are, that every child is born purs
�Slum and ths Siamese.
11
that life is a scene of discipline, and that after infinite processes of
purification man will be absorbed in the divinity. If there be much in
Buddhism that represents the ignorance of dark ages, there is much
that even we might study, and study for our instruction. And Budd
hism, like Brahminism, like Christianity itself, is, under the influence
of philosophic discovery, being rescued from the false teachings of the
half-instructed or the wholly uninformed Let me give you a few
w'ords of wisdom from Buddhist books :—
“ Wherever* a single ray of divine wisdom penetrates there is wor
ship, there is praise in honour of the universal sovereign.”
“ How shall words exhibit the infinities of the mysterious creation,
where every atom emanates from all, and all is traceable in every atom,
united in one mysterious whole!”
Very beautiful are some of the speculations into the infinity of
Bpace and time—
A Phra obtained from Buddha the power of travelling two millions
and a half of miles in the time that a shot arrow takes in passing
through the shadow of a palm tree. He travelled at this rate for
10 years in search of infinite space ; he made no perceptible progress ;
he continued for hundred years, then for a thousand, then for ten thou
sand, then for a hundred thousand years, at the rate of two and a
half millions of miles in a second, and he returned disappointed to
earth, not having approached even the border of infinity.
Another sage applied to Buddha to know something about eternity,
and Buddha pointed to a rock of granite sixteen miles long; that
rock he said would be touched once in ten thousand years by the hem
of a spiritual visitant’s muslin garment; and when, by such visits
and by such attrition, the rock shall be reduced to the size of a nut,
then you may begin to have some notion of eternity.
Patience under suffering and submission to authority are among
the prominent teaching of Buddhism. I knew a priest who held his
forefinger for hours in the flame of a lamp till the first two joints
were burnt away.
Time only allows the mention of a few of the peculiar usages of the.
Siamese. At the birth of child, the mother is placed for some days
before a fire, from which she suffers so much, that frequently death
follows. The next stage in the life of the child is the ceremonial
of the top-knot. The hair is gathered together, and the rites con
nected with the removal of the knot, which generally takes*place
about the age of thirteen, constitute an epoch of existence. The
next stage is marriage, which is carried on as it is in China, by those
who are employed by the friends of the parties, and who are supposed
to know the condition and circumstances of both families. The marriage
is performed with the most elaborate ceremonies. As regards death,
in the case of persons of high distinction, a funeral pile is made, on
which the body is placed, and some of these erections cost thousands
of pounds. A great many of the treasures which had belonged to the
deceased are placed on the pile, and are collected with the ashes of
the dead, and sent to the surviving friends of the deceased.
�12
Siam and the Siamese.
The claims of the female aristocracy are manifested in a curious
way. It is the practice in China for ladies of rank to make them
selves useless. Their finger nails are allowed to grow to a length of
5 or 6 inches,and they never go to bed without having them care
fully covered up. But the ladies of Siam have a still stranger habit
of exhibiting their emancipation from labour. Their elbows are con
torted and turned outward, so that deformity is one of the recom
mendations of a Siamese lady. No doubt you have heard of the
reverence with which the white elephant is held in Siam. The
stable is beautifully adorned ; he is magnificently caparisoned ; is fed
on the sugar-cane ; he has nobles constantly in attendance ; and he
never goes forth unaccompanied by bands of music. Among the
presents given to me for our Queen was a gold box, with a golden
key, contaning a few hairs of the white elephant’s tail, which the
King deemed to be the most precious of all the royal gifts. The
white elephant is believed to be one of the resting places of Buddha
in his transmigration through the dominions of earth. The Siamese
invariably place high value upon white animals. The white
elephant, white monkey, and the white deer, are peculiarly prized.
I dont know whether this was the inspiration of my friend Words
worth, when he wrote of the “ white doe ” of Rylstone.
I found in Siam an instructive application of the decimal system—
one of the most useful discoveries of human intelligence, and one of
the most valuable auxiliaries to human progress, as without it we
could scarcely penetrate into the realms of geological and astrono
mical discovery. The Siamese distinguish the varieties of rank by
cyphers. No arithmetic oan represent that of the sovereign. The
second king stands at 100,000 ; the half-brother at 50,000; a son, in
office, at 40,000 ; out of office at 15,000. The highest lady in tie
land at 10,000 ; the next in rank only at 600. Then, remote cousins
of royalty stand at 599 and so down to the lowest denomination.
The value of a living being—in other words, the compensation to
be obtained for the loss of such—is regulated by law, and reduced
to English money, may be thus represented :—
Male 1 to 3 months old ..
3 to 4 years
>>
'
Maximum value 26 to 40 do.
86 to 90 do.
ff
Baby value „ 91 to 100 do.
Value of female baby
16s.
55s.
154s.
16s.
11s.
6d. Females..............
Od.
„ 21 to 30 yrs.
Od.
„ 86 to 90 do.
6d.
,. 91 to 100 do.
Od.
11s.
44s.
132s.
11s.
8s.
Od.
Od.
Od.
Od.
3d.
The allotted time is exhausted. I will, therefore, merely add
|
that I am much obliged to ycu for your attendance, and for your
kind attention, and if you should think that anything which I have
said affords you new materials for thought, new motives for the
exercise of candour and charity in the estimate of other nations and
other religions, I shall rejoice.
The service concluded with a selection of sacred music.
A. Macpherson Walker, Printer, 75, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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Siam and the Siamese : A discourse delivered by Sir John Bowring at St. Martin's Hall, on February 17 1867
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Bowring, John
Langley, J. Baxter
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 12 p. ; 21 cm.
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Colonialism
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Colonialism
Conway Tracts
Thailand
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Text
ESSAYS ON CHAUCER,
His Words and Works.
PART II.
III. Practica Chilindri : or, The Working of the Cylinder, by
John Hoveden. Edited, with a Translation, by Edmund
Brock.
IV. The use of final -e in Early English, and especially in Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales. By Professor Joseph Payne.
V. Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Chaucer.
“ English Poets,” ed. 1863.
From her
VI. Specimen of a critical edition of Chaucer’s Compleynte to Fite,
with the Genealogy of its Manuscripts. By Prof. BernHARd
Ten-Brink,
PUBLISHED FOR THE CHAUCER SOCIETY BY
N. TRUBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL,
�Smnir
9.
JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.
�III.
PRACTICA CHILINDRI:
OR
THE WORKING OF THE CYLINDER,
BY
JOHN HOVEDEN.
EDITED WITH A TRANSLATION
BY
Edmund Brock
��57
PREFACE.
By the kindness of Mr Frederick Norgate, we are now
able to lay before the reader another short treatise on the
cylinder. How it was found, and what it contains, may
be learnt from the following notice, which we reprint from
Notes and Queries, 4th Series, III, June 12, 1869.
“CHILENDBE: (‘ SCHIPMANNES TALE, 206.’)
"We have to thank the Chaucer Society for the publica
tion of a very early tract on the ‘ Chilindre,’ removing to
a great extent the difficulty about the meaning of this
word, which for ages has puzzled all the commentators on
the Canterbury Tales. This little tract is devoted almost
exclusively to information as to the construction of the in
strument in question, with only a few brief rules at the
end for its use. I have recently been so fortunate as to
discover another MS. which may be a useful and interest
ing supplement to that which Mr Brock has edited for the
above-named society; and before describing its contents,
let me mention the strange way in which I found it.
Looking through the Index of Authors at the end of Ayscough’s Catalogue of the Sloane MSS. (not thinking at the
time of Chaucer or anything relating to him), my attention
was arrested by the name ‘ Chilander,’ and on turning to
the page referred to, I found Chilander noted as the author
of a work entitled Practica Astrologorum, fyc. Hereupon
I determined on taking the first opportunity of examining
the MS. itself, and having done so, to my surprise I found,
instead of Practica Astrologorum, with Chilander for its
author, a tract entitled Practica Cliilindri secundum magistrum Johannem Astrologum 1 The MS. is of the beginning
of the fourteenth century, neatly written (on vellum), and
differs from that which the Chaucer Society has brought to
�58
PREFACE.
light, inasmuch as it is devoted exclusively to instructions
for using the instrument.
“ The whole is comprised in six pages, closely written,
and in a small but neat hand. The titles of the several
chapters are as follows1:—
1. Primum capitulum est de horis diei artificialis
inueniendis.
2. De gradu solis inueniendo.
3. De altitudine solis et lune, et vtrum fuerit ante
meridiem uel post.
4. De linea meridiei inuenienda et oriente et occidente.
5. Quid sit vmbra versa, quid extensa.
6. De punctis vmbre verse et extense similiter.
7. De altitudine rerum per vmbram uersam.
8. De declinacione solis omni die, et gradu eius per declinacionem inueniendo, et altitudine eius omni hora anni.
9. De latitudine omnis regionis inuenienda.
10. De inuenienda quantitate circuitus tocius orbis et
spissitudine eius.
“ The colophon is as follows :—
‘ Explicit practica chilindri Magistri
Iohannis de Houeden astrologi.’
Fred. Norgate.
“ Henrietta Street, Covent Garden."
This tract, with the former, will give a tolerably clear
idea of the nature and uses of the instrument; but there is
much more on the subject which we have no space to
print, and we must therefore be content with giving the
reader references, which will enable those who care to read
more about the cylinder, to do so.
1. Compositio horologiorum, in piano, muro, truncis,
anulo, con[uexo], concauo, cylindro & uarijs quadrantibus,
cum signorum zodiaci & diuersarum horarum inscriptionibus : autore Sebast. Munstero. Basileae, 1531. Composi
tio cylindri, hoc est, trunci columnaris. Caput xxxix.
2. Horologiographia, post priorem seditionem per Se
bast. Munsterum recognita, & plurimum aucta atqwe
locupletata, adiectis multis nouis descriptionibus & figuris,
in piano, concauo, conuexo, erecta superficie &c. Basileae.
1533. Compositio cylindri, hoc est, trunci columnaris.
Caput xliii.
1 The table is printed according to the MS, from which Mr
Norgate’s copy deviates in one or two cases.
�PREFACE.
59
3. Set
/ Dber Sonnen vpren / $imftft$e
Sefdjvetfcung / wt'e btefelfcigen nad) mantyerley aprt an bte
SDlauren / Sffienbte / (Bme / fie fepen Stgenbe / Sluffgertc^fet /
@d;reg / audf auff S'lonbe I Slu^gepolte vnb fonft alter
$anbt ^nftrument / Sluf^uretffen / 2)urc^ Sebafitanum
STOunfter. 23afel, 1579. 2Ste man etnen timber @ircu*
Iteren vnb jurtc^ten foil. ®ad rrrvj. daptlel
4. Dialogo della descrittione teorica et pratica de gli
horologi solari. Di Gio: Batt. Vimercato Milanese. In
Ferrara, per Valente Panizza Mantouano Stampator Ducale.
1565. In gual modo per pratica operatione si possono
fabricare i Cilindri. Capitolo xi.
5. Gnomonice Andrese Schoneri Noribergensis, hoc est:
de descriptionibils horologiorum sciotericorum omnis generis,
proiectionibns circulorum Sphaericorum ad superficies, cum
planas, turn conuexas concauasqwe, Sphsericas, Cylindricas,
ac Conicas : Item delineationibus quadrantum, annulorum,
&c. Libri tres. Noribergse, 1562. The second book treats
of spherical, cylindrical, and conical dials.
6. Io. Baptistae Benedicti Patritij Veneti Philosophi
de Gnomonum umbrarumqwe solarium usu liber. Augustae
Taurinorum. 1574. De examinations pensilium horologio
rum, § de nouo horologio circulari. Cap. lxxviii.
7. Horarii Cylindrini Canones, 1515. Eeprinted in
Opera Mathematica Ioannis Schoneri, fol. Norinbergae,
1551. This, like Hoveden’s treatise, consists of rules for
using the cylinder.
8. Histoire de l’Astronomie du Moyen Age par M.
Delambre, Paris. 1819, 4to. The third book, entitled
Gnomonique, gives an account of the cylindrical dial
(padran cylindrique') of the Arabians as treated of by
Aboul-Hhasan (pp. 517—520), and of Sebastian Munster’s
(pp. 597, 598).
There is a large cut of the cylinder on page 166 of
Munster’s Compositio Horologiorum, page 269 of his Horologiographia, and page 125 of Der Horologien Beschreibung;
a smaller one on the title-page and page 131 of Horologiographia. In Vimercato’s treatise, page 165, is a cut show
ing the separate parts of the cylinder.
In Cotton MS. Nero C ix, leaves 195—226, we find eight
Latin poems by John Hoveden, chaplain of Queen Eleanor,
mother of King Edward. There can be little doubt that
this writer is the same as the author of the present treatise.
We here give the beginnings and endings of these poems.
�60
PREFACE.
I. Incipit meditacio Iohan?iis de houedene, clerici regine
anglie, matris regis Edwardi/ de natiuitate, passione, et resurreccione domini saluatoris edita, ut legentis affeccio in
christi amore profici[a]t et celerius accendatur / hoc opus
sic incipzt: Aue verbum ens in principi'o. & sic finitur. &
uoluzt editor quod liber medffa&onis illius philomena
uocaretur.
Begins : Ave uerbum ens in principio,
Caro factum pudoris gremio;
Fac quod fragreif presens laudaczo.
Ends : Melos tzfei sit et laudacio,
Salus, honor, et iubilacio,
Letus amor lotus in lilio,
Qui es verbum ens in principio.
Explicit libellus rigtmichus1 qui philomena uocatur, que
meditacio est de natiuitate, passione, et resurrecti’one, ad
honorem domini noshi iesu christi saluatoris edita, a Iohanne
de houedene, clerico Alianore regine anglie, matris edwardi
regis anglie.
II. Incipiunt .xv. gaudia virgznis gloriose, edita a
Magistro Iohanne houedene Clerico.
Begins : Virgo vincens vernancia
Carnis pudore lilia.
Ends : Et nocteni lianc excuciens,
Ducas ad portum pahie. Amen.
Expliciunt .15. gaudia beate virgznis, edita ritmice2 ex
dictamine Iohannis de Houedene.
III. Hie scribitnr meditacio Iohannis de Honedene,
edita ad honorem domini saluatoris, et ut legentes earn proficiant .in amore diuino: et vocatur hec meditacio cantica
.50. quod in .50. canticis continetur.
The first canticle begins :
In laude nunc wpirituo omnis exultet,
Et leta mens do?nini laude sustollat.
The last one ends :
Et ut nouella cantica cumulentur,
In laude nunc spmYuc omnis exultet. Amen.
Explicit meditacio dicta cantica 50*?, edita a Iohanne
de Houedene ad honorem domini saluatoris.
IV. In honore domini saluatoris incipit meditacio, edita
a Iohanne de houedene, clerico Alianore regine anglie, matr/s
regis Edwardi / faciens mencionem de saluatoris redolentissima passione; et amoris christi suaue??i inducit affecturn.
Hec meditacio uocatur cythara eo quod verbzs amoriferis,
1 So in MS.
2 MS. ricunce.
�PREFACE.
61
qnaszquibwsdam cordis musice, ad delectacionemspmTualem
legentes inuitat.
Begins : I mi vena du'lcedinis,
Proles pudica numinis,
Verbum ens in principio,
Fructns intacte virginis.
Ends : Verbum ens in principio,
Et des ut gost has semitas
Nos foueat et felicitas
In celebri coliegio. Amen.
Explicit laus de domino saluatore uel meditacio que
cythara nominator, a Iohanne de Houedene, edita ut legent is
affectus in amore diuino proficiat et celerius accendator.
V. Incipiunt 50^ salutaczones beafe virgwiis, quibns
inseritor memoria domznice passionis, edita. a lohanne de
houedene ad honorem virginis matris, & laudem domzni
saluatoris.
Begins : Ave stella maris,
Virgo singularis,
Vernans lilio.
Ends : Fer michi remedia,
Vt in luce qua lustraris
Michi dones gaudia. Amen.
Expliciunt 50^ salutaciones beate marie, edite a
Iohanne de Houedene.
VI. Incipit laus de beata virgine,. que uiola uocatur,
edita a Iohanne de Houedene.
Begins : Maria stella maris,
Fax sum mi luminaris,
Kegina singularis.
Ends : Penas mittigatura,
Assis in die dura,
Maria virgo pura.
Explicit uiola beate virginis, a Iohanne de Houedene
edita.
VII. Incipit lira extollens virginem gloriosam.
Begins : 0 qui fontem gracie
Captiuis regeneras,
Celos endelichie.1
Ends ; Quos expiat sic puniat,
Vt vices quas variat, i
Alternis sic uniat, ne lira deliret.
Explicit lira NLagistri Iohannis houedene.
So in MS.
�62
PREFACE.
VIII. Canticu?n amoris quod composuit Iohannes de
Houedene.
Begins : Princeps pacis, proles puerpere,
Hijs te precor labris illabere,
Vt sincere possim disserere
Laudem tuam, et letus legere.
End lost from :
Eius claui punctura perea?n,
Cum superstes magis inteream.
There is a copy of the first of these poems in the Lambath MS. 410, and another in Harleian MS. 985 with the
heading : Incipit tractates metricus N. de lion dene, de processu cliristi & redempcfonis nostre, qui aliter dicitur
philomena. At the end are merely these words : Explicit
liber q?zi uocatwr philomena. It appears from Nasmith’s
Catalogue that there is a French version of the poem in
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 471, intitled, Li
rossignol, ou la pensee Iohan de Hovedene, clerc la roine
d’Engleterre, mere le roi Edward de la neissance et de la
mort et du relievement et de 1’ascension Iesu Crist et de
l’assumpcion notre dame.
It is perhaps worthy of mention that Hoveden’s Plulo''trte.na has long been confounded by the catalogue-writers
with a wholly different composition, by another writer, and
beginning:
Philomena preuia temporis ameni,
Que recessum nuncians i??zbris atgrne ceni,
Dum demulces animos tuo cantu leni,
Auis predulcissima, ad me queso veni.
End : Quicquid tamen alij dicant, frafer care,
Istam novam martirem libens imitare;
Cumque talis fueris, deum deprecare
Vt nos cantus martiris faciat cantare. Amen.
Copies of this poem are contained in Cotton MS. Cleo
patra A xii., Harleian MS. 3766, and Royal MS. 8 G vi.,
from the first of which the above lines are taken. A late
hand has written the following mistaken heading over it
in the Cotton MS.: philomela Canticum per Ioannem de
Houedene Capellanum Alienorse Reginse matris Ed. primi.
�PREFACE.
63
The Laud MS. 368 contains both these poems; the latter
has the following heading: Incipit meditaczo frafris
Iohawzis de peccham, qwondam cantuarze archiepz'scojh,
de ordine frafrum minorww, que Nocatur philomena. The
real author, however, appears to be Giovanni Fidanza,
better known as Cardinal Bonaventura. The whole poem,
with some additional lines at the end, is printed in his
works, Mayence, 1609, vol. 6, p. 424, and Venice, 1751-56,
vol. 13, p. 338. The English poem of The Nyghtyngale
in Cotton MS. Caligula A ii., leaves 59-64, has no con
nection with Hoveden’s Philomena, but is an imitation of
Bonaventura’s poem.
According to Bale’s account,1 which is followed by Pits2
and Tanner,3 John Hoveden was a native of London, doc
tor of divinity, and chaplain of Queen Eleanor, but after
wards parish priest at Hoveden, where he died in the year
1275. Besides the poems already mentioned, Bale, Pits,
and Tanner ascribe to him the work called Speculum
Laicorum ; 4 but this could not have been written till long
after Hoveden’s death, since it contains mention of Henry
the IVth’s reign.5
1 Bale, v. 79.
2 Pitseus, p. 356.
3 Tanner, under Hocedenus
4 See Royal MS. 7 C xv and Oxford Univ. MSS. 29 and 36.
5 In chapter 36.
�64
PRACTICA CHILINDRI.
[Sloane MS 1620, leaf 2.]
PRACTICA
CHILINDRI
SEOHMD DM
MAGISTRITM
[iOHANNEm]1
[aJstrologum.
1. Primnm capz'bdwm ost de horis diei artificiab's
inueniendis.
2. De gradu sob's inueniendo.
3. De altitudine sobs et lune, et vtrum fuerit anfe
meridiem uel post
4. De linea meridiei inuenienda et oriente et, occide??te.
5. (6.)2 Qzdd sit vmbra versa, (5) qnid extensa.
6. (7.) De punctis vmbre verse, et extense similiter.
7. (8.) De altifojtb'ne rerzzm per vmbram uersam.
8. (9.) De declinaczone sob's omni die, et gradueiwsper
decb’nocionem inueniendo, (10) et eMitudioo eius omni hora
anni.
9. (11.) De latitudine omnis regionis inuenienda.
10. (12.) De inuefnjienda qnanti/ate circuitns tociws
orbis et -spissitudine eius.
DE HORIS INUENIENDIS.
1. Z^vm volueris scire horas diei, verte stilum superiorem super mensem aut signuzn in quo fueris, et
super partem que preteriit de ipso; cumqne hoc feceris,
1 Nearly obliterated.
2 The numbers in parentheses correspond to those which head
the sections.
�65
THE WORKING OF THE CYLINDER.
THE WORKING OF THE CYLINDER ACCORDING TO MASTER
JOHN, THE ASTROLOGER.
1. The first chapter is on finding the hours of the
artificial day.
2. On finding the sun’s degree.
3. On the altitude of the sun and of the moon; and
whether it is before midday or after.
4. On finding the meridian line, and the east and the
west.
6. What umbra versa is, (5) and what umbra extensa.
7. On the points of the umbra versa, and likewise of
the umbra extensa.
8. On (finding) the height of objects by the umbra
versa..
9. On (finding) the sun’s declination on any day, and
on finding his degree by the declination; (10) and on
(finding) his altitude at any hour of the year.
11. On finding the latitude of any region.
12. On finding the extent of the circumference of the
whole world, and its thickness.
1.
ON FINDING THE HOURS.
When you wish to know the hours of the day, turn the
upper style1 over the month or sign in which you are, and
over the part of it which is gone by; and when you have
1 Only one style is mentioned in the former treatise.
�66
. PRACTICA CH1LJNDRI.
vertes etiam inferiorezzz stiluzzz in opposituzzz stili szzperioris,
et erit izzstrumezztum disposituzzz ad horas sumendas.
Cumqzze volueris horas sumere, suspende chilindruzzz pez*
filuzzz suuzzz ad solezzz, mouezzdo ipszzm chilindruzzz hue et
illuc donee vrnbra superioris stili super chilizzdruzzz eqzzidistazzter longitudzzzi eius ceciderit; et ad qzzamczzzzzqzze horazzz
peruenerit vmbra stili, ipsa est hora diei pertransita.
Qzzod si ceciderit finis vmbre inter duas horas, tuzzc apparebit etiam pars hore in qua fueris, secundum quod plus
uel minzzs occupauerit vmhra de ipso spacz'o qzzod est inter
duas lineas horarzzzzz. Est eniro. hora spacium [cojntentuzzz
inter duas lineas horarzzzzz; ipse autezzz linee szzzzt fines
horarzzzzz,
DE GRADU SOLIS.
2. /~^vm volueris scire in quo signo fuerit sol, et in’
quoto gradu eizze, eqzzabis solem ad meridiem
diei in quo volueris hoc scire, siczz£ in lecczonibz/s tabzzlarzzzzz
docetzzr, et addes ei motuzzz 8ue spere, et haftebis graduzzz
solz's quesituzzz. Qzzod si volueris hoc ipszzm leuizzs scire,
intra cum die mezzsis in quo fueris izz aliqzzam 4 tabzzlarzzzzz,
seczzzzdzzm qzzod fuerit annzzs bissextilis uel distans ab eo ;
que qzzidezzz tabzzle izztitulantzzr sic :—Tabzzle solis ad izzuezzienduzzzjlocuzzz eius in orbe decliui fixo. Et izz dirp.e.to
diei cum quo intras statizzz inuenies graduzzz solzs equatum,
et hoc est qzzod voluisti. Qzzod si nec has nec illas tabzzlas
1 That is, straight down the cylinder.
2 The following extract from Delamhre’s Astronomic du Moyen
Age, Paris, 1819, pp. 73, 74, may serve to explain the motion of the
eighth sphere :—
“ Thebith ben Chorath.—Son malheureux systeme de la trepi
dation infecta les tables astronomiques jusqu’a Tycho, qui, le
premier, sut les en purger. Ce long succes n’a point empeche que
son livre ne soit reste inedit; mais j’en ai trouve un exemplaire
latin manuscrit, a la Bibliotheque du Boi, n° 7195. Ce traite a
pour titre Thebith ben Chorath de motu octaves Spheres.........
“ Il imagine une ecliptique fixe, qui coupe l’equateur fixe dana
les deux points equinoxiaux, sous un angle de 23° 33', et une eclip
tique mobile, attachee par deux points diametralement opposes a
deux petits cercles, qui ont pour centres les deux points equinoxiaux
�67
ON THE SUN’S DEGREE.
done this, turn also the lower style into the place opposite
the upper style, and the instrument will be set in order for
taking the hours. And when you wish to take the hours,
suspend the cylinder by its string against the sun, moving
it to and fro, until the shadow of the upper style falls on
the cylinder parallel to its length,1 and whatever hour the
shadow of the style reaches, the same is the (last) past
hour of the day. But if the end of the shadow falls be
tween two hours, then will appear also the part of the hour
in which you are, according as the shadow occupies more
or less of that space which is between the two hour-lines.
For the space contained between two hour-lines is an hour;
but the lines themselves are the ends of the hours.
2. ON THE sun’s DEGREE.
'
When you wish to know in what sign the sun is, and
in what degree thereof, you must adjust (?) the sun to the
noon of the day on which you wish to know this, as it is
taught in the readings of the tables, and add to it the
motion of the eighth sphere,2 and you will have the sun’s
degree which you have sought. But if you wish to know
the same more easily, enter with the day of the month in
which you are into one of the four tables according as it is
leap-year or distant from it. These tables are thus en
titled :—Tables of the sun for finding his place in the fixed
ecliptic, and in a line -with the day with which you enter
de l’ecliptique fixe, et dont le rayon est de 4° 18' 43/z. Ces points
de l’ecliptique tournent sur la circonference des deux petits cercles
opposes; l’ecliptique mobile s’eleve done et s’abaisse alternativement sur l’ecliptique fixe ; les points equinoxiaux avancent ou
retrogradent d’une quantite qui peut aller a 10° 45z. Ce mouve
ment est commun a tous les astres ; ce mouvement est celui de la
huitieme sphere, et il s’appelle mouvement d’acces ou de reces. Le
lieu de la plus grande declinaison du Soleil change done continuellement, puisqu’il est toujours a 90° de l’une et l’autre intersections
de l’ecliptique mobile avec l’equateur fixe. La plus grande decli
naison est done tantot dans les Gemeaux et tantot dans le Cancer.”
For Thebit’s treatise see Harleian MS 13, leaf 117. Incipiif
thehit de motu octaue spere. Or Harleian MS 3647, leaf 88, col. 2,
incipit libfr tebith bewcorat de motu octave spere.
�68
PRACTICA CHILINDRI.
habueris, et volueris [leaf 2, bk] aliter querere gradum solis
[a]ut fere, scito qnod secwndnm compotistas xv. kalendas
cuiuslibet mensis ingreditur sol nouu?n signum, sicn^ patet
in kalendario. Considera ergo qnot dies transierint de
mense i?z qwo fueris, et adde supe?’ eos qnindecim dies, et
serua eos. Computabis ergo ab inicio signi, in qno fuerit
sol, totidem gradus, et ubi finitzzs fuerit nu?nerns, ip.se est
gradus solis quern queris. Qwod si nu??ze?7zs tuus excesserit
xxx., tot gradus qwot excedit xxx. perambulauit sol de
signo seq-"^ 0 si Deus voluerit.
DE ALTIT UDINE SOLIS.
3. ZA vod si altitudinem sohs seu lune placuerit inuestiAv gare, verte stilum sn^eriorem super gradus chilindri, et stilum inferiore?n in oppositum ei-us semper; et
hoc sit tz&i generale, ut uersus qwamcunqwe partem chilindri verteris stilum snperiorem, semper vertas stilum inferiorem in partem ei oppositam. Post hec opponas instrnmentmn. soli, et ad qwemcunqne gradum peruenerit vmbra,
ipsa est altitudo solis, seu lune, si feceris de luna, in eadem
bora. Qnod si volueris scire si fuerit ante meridiem uel
post, aspice snper qnot gradns ceciderit vmbra, et expectans
paulisper, iterato sumes altitudinem sobs; epuod si creuerit
vmbi’a, tunc est ante meridiem. Simz'k/er qnog'we scies de
luna. Et per hoc ipsnm quod dzc/nm est, scies vtrum ipsa
fuerit orientals 9, meridie uel occidental^; qnia dum
vmbra crescit, est in parte orientali a meridie, dum uero
decrescit, est in parte occidentis.
o
�ON THE ALTITUDE OF THE SUN.
69
you will immediately find the sun’s degree rectified, and
this is what you desired. If, however, you have neither
of these tables, and wish to seek, in another way, the sun’s
degree or thereabouts, know that, according to the calcu
lators, the sun enters a new sign on the 15 th before the
kalends of every month, as appears in the calendar. Con
sider, therefore, how many days of the month in which you
are have passed, and add to them fifteen days, and keep
them. Reckon then the same number of degrees from the
beginning of the sign in which the sun is*?&p4, when the
number is completed, the same is the sun’ • gree which
you seek. But if your number exceeds 30, the sun has
passed through as many degrees of the next sign as it (the
number) exceeds 30, if God will.
3.
ON THE ALTITUDE OF THE SUN.
Now if it is your pleasure to investigate the altitude of
the sun or of the moon, turn the upper style over the de
grees of the cylinder, and the lower style always into the
opposite place. And let this be a general rule, that to
whichever part of the cylinder you turn the upper style
you always turn the lower style to the part opposite to it.
After that .hold up the instrument against the sun, and
to whatever degree the shadow reaches, the same is the
altitude of the sun; or of the moon, if you are deal
ing with the moon, at that hour. But if you wish to
know whether it is before midday, or after, see over how
many degrees the shadow falls, and having waited a little
time, take the sun’s altitude again, and if the shadow has
increased, then it is before midday. In like manner you
will know also of the moon. And by what has been said
you shall know whether she is on the east of the meridian
or on the west; for while the shadow increases, she is on
the eastern side of the meridian, but while it decreases, she
is on the western side.
CH. ESSAYS.
F
�70
RRACTICA CHXLINDRI.
DE LINEA MERIDIEI.
4. Z~\ vod si volueris scire lineam meridiei per hoc instrwmentom, fiat circizlws in swperficie aliqwa preparata, eqizidistanter orizonti, cuiwscunqzie magnitudes
volueris, non sit tamen nimis paruus; deinde sumes altitudinem soli's diligentissime, et serua earn; et suspended
etiam in eaAem bora filum vnum cum aliqwo ponderoso in
directo iam fetch circwli, ita u.t vmbra eins cadat omnino
super centrum circuli, et attingat circumferenciam in parte
opposita soli; notabisque contactum vmbre in circumferencia, et post hoc expectabis donee iterato post meridiem
fiat sol in prius accepta altitudine, notabisque etiam [leafs;
tunc vmbram fili super centrum ut prius transeuntem
notabi's, dico, contactum eius in circumferencia in opposito
soli's. Deinde diuide arcum qizi est inter duas notas
vmbre per equedia, et notam iizprimes, coniungesque earn
cum centro, perficiens diametrum circuli, et hoc diametrum
erit linea meridiei. Quadrabis cpuoque circulum ipsum per
diametra, et ha&ebis lineam orientis et occidentis, ut apparet in isto circulo. Sic etiam inuenies omnes partes
orizontis, si Dews voluerit. Et nota quod hec consideracio
verior et leuior est quam ilia que fit per erecci'onem stilj
ortogonalis in circulo, quia vix uel nuncquam possi? ita
ortogonaliter erigi, sicuZ perpendiculum dummorZo pendeat
inmobiliter. SeeZ hec consideracz'o verissima erit, si sumatur
in solsticialibus diebws, et hoc anZequam sol ascendat multum in ilia die.
Nota quod a. et b. sunt note vmbre
anta meridiem et posi ad eandern altitudinem sold ; et mediuzn inter a. et b.
est meridies.
Occident
�ON THE MERIDIAN LINE.
4.
71
ON THE MERIDIAN LINE.
And if you wish to know the meridian line oy means
of this instrument, let a circle he made, of whatever size
you will, only let it not he too small, on some plane pre
pared (for the purpose) parallel with the horizon. Then
take the sun’s altitude very accurately, and keep it; and
also at the same hour hang, over the circle already made,
a thread with something heavy (on it), so that its shadow
falls exactly upon the centre of the circle and reaches the
circumference on the side opposite to the sun; and mark the
(point of) contact of the shadow with the circumference,
and after this wait until the sun again arrives at the before-,
taken altitude after midday; and mark then also the
shadow of the thread passing as before across the centre,
mark, I say, its point of contact with the circumference
opposite to the sun. Then divide the arc which is between
the two shadow-marks into equal parts, and impress a
mark. Join it with the centre, and complete the diameter
of the circle. This diameter will be the meridian line.
■Quarter the circle itself by diameters,1 and you will have
the line of east and west, as appears in this circle. Thus
also you will find all parts of the horizon, if God will.
Note that this observation is truer and easier than that which
is made by raising a rectangular style in the circle, because it
can with difficulty or never be raised as rectangularly as a
plumb-line, provided it (viz. the plumb-line) hangs motion
less. But the observation will be truest, if it be made on the
solstitial days, and that before the sun rises high on that day.
West
�72
PRACTICA CHILINDRI.
DE VMBRA EXTENSA.
5. nVTvnc dicendus est quia! sit vmbra versa, et quid
11 sit vmbra extensa. Igitur intelligamus superfi
cies quanda??! equidistautem orizonti, et super hanc super-'
ficies intelligamus aliquid ortogonaliter erectus, verbi
gratia, palus rectus; huius pali sic erecti cadens vmbrrf
in dzcZam superficiem (iicitur vmbra extensa. Est igitur
vmbra extensa rei erecte ad superficiem orizontis perpendiculariter vmbra cadens iu eades szzperficie.
DE VMBRA VERSA.
6. TTem intelligamus eande?n superficies quam prius, ei
JL in ipsa aliquid perpendiculariter erectus, et ab illo
sic erecto iutelligasus stilus ortogonalt'Zer prominentes,
sicut sunt stili qui prominent in parietibus eccZesiarus ad
horas sumendas; vmbra huius stili cadens super rem orto
gonaliter erectas, equidistanter s[cilicet] longitudzni eiusdes rei, dicitur vmbra versa; equidistanter, dico, cadens,
quia alite?' esset vmbra irregularis. Et huiusmodi vmbra
cadit in chilindro. Hec auZes vmbra versa sesper crescit
vsque ad meridies, et tunc, i[d est] in meridie, est maxisa.
Econuerso est de vmbra extensa, quia ilia decrescit vsque
ad meridie??t, et tunc fit minima.
DE PUN0T1S VMBRE.
vm volue?is scire omni hora quot puncta ha&ue?'it
vmbra versa, verte stilus super puncta vmb/'e, et
super quot puncta ceciderit vmbra, ipsa sunt puncta vmbre
quesite. Quod si volue?-is [scire] vmbra?n extensa??! ad
eandes altitudinem, diuide 144 pe?' [leafs&j puncta que habueris, et exibunt puncta vmbre extense in eades hora. Et si
volueris scire quot status sunt i?i vmb?‘a, diuZde puncta que
7.
�ON THE UMBRA. EXTENSA AND. THE. UMBRA ' VERSA.
5. ' ON THE UMBRA EXTENSA.
'
73
-
Now we must explain, -what is the umbra versa, and
what the umbra extensa. Therefore let us conceive some
plane parallel to the horizon, and on this plane let us con
ceive something raised at right angles, for instance, a
straight stake; the shadow of this stake so raised, falling
on the said plane, is called umbra extensa. The umbra
extensa is, therefore, the shadow of an object which is
raised perpendicularly to the plane of the horizon, falling
on the same plane.
6.
ON THE UMBRA VERSA.
Also let us conceive the same plane as before, and upon
it something raised perpendicularly; and from the latter
so raised let us conceive a style jutting out at a right
angle, like the styles which jut out from the walls of
churches for taking the hours; the shadow of this style
falling upon the object raised at right angles, parallel, of
course, to the length of the same object,1 is called umbra
versa—falling parallel, I say, because otherwise the shadow
would be irregular. And such a shadow falls on the
cylinder. Now this umbra versa always increases until
midday, and then, that is at midday, it is greatest; the
contrary is the case with the umbra extensa, for that de
creases until midday, and then becomes least.
7.
ON THE POINTS OF THE SHADOW.
'When you wish to know how many points the umbra
versa has at any hour, turn the style over the points of the
shadow; and. as many points as the shadow falls over, the
same are the required points of the shadow. But if you
wish to know the umbra extensa at the same altitude,
divide 144 by the points which you have, and the result
will be the points of the umbra extensa at the same hour.
1 That is, straight down it.'
�74
TRACTICA CHILINDRI.
ha&ueris per 12, et exz'bunt states. Quod si non haZ>u[er]is
12 puzzcta, uide quota pars sint puncta de 12, et tota pars
erunt puncta que haftuez’is ad vnuzn statuzn. Est autezn1
status tota longitudo cuzuslibe^ rei, et quia ozzzzzem rem quo
ad vmbrazn eius sumendam diuz’dimzzs in 12 partes eqwales,
propterea 12 puncta vmbre faciunt vnuzn statuzn; est eniin
quodlihet punctuzn longitudznis oznnis eqwale duodecimo
parti2 rei cuius est vmbra.
DE ALTITUDINE RERIZM PER VMBRAAf.
8. Z~^vm volueris scire altitudinem turris per vmbrazzz
V.7 versazzz que cadit in chilindro, aut altitudinem
alicuz'us rei erecte, cum hoc, inquam, volueris, verte stiluzzz
super puncta uznbre, et vide super quot puncta ceciderit
vmbra. Deinde considera izz qua pz’oporczone se ha Sent
puncta uzzzbre in chilindro ad stiluzzz, izz eadezzz proporczone
se ha&et oznnis res erecta ad suazzz uzzzbrazn, hoc est, si
puncta uznbre in chilindro fuerint sex, stilus duplus est ad
vmbrazn, et tunc in eadezn hora erit oznnis uznbz-a extensa
dupla ad suam rein ; et si uzzzbra in chilindro fuerit dupla
ad stiluzn, hoc est, cum vmbra fuerit 24 punctoruzn, erzt
oznnis res erecta dupla ad suazn uznbrazn ; et sic semper in
qua proporczone se haZzet uznbra ‘chilindri ad stiluzzz, in
eadezn proporczozze se ha Set econtrario omnis res erecta ad
vmbrazzz suazzz extensazn, omnis res erecta, dico, que fecerit
vmbrazn sub eadezzz solzs altiZuzfzne, in,ilia hora;.vel, si,
nescieris proporczonem sumez-e, diuide 144 per puncta que
ha&ueris, sicut dz’cbzm est, et exibit vmbra rei erecte que
dzczYur extensa, vide ergo quot status .sint in ilia uznbra
extensa, auZ quota fuerint puncta de 12, et haSebis quod
voluisti.
1 Read, enim.
The word vmbre is wrongly inserted after parti in the MS.
�FINDING THE HEIGHT OF OBJECTS BY THE SHADOW.
75
And if you wish to know how many status are in the
shadow, divide the points which you have by 12, and the
status will be the result. And if you have not 12 points,
see what part of 12 the points are, and the points which
you have will be that part of one status. For a status is
the whole length of any object; and because we divide
every object into 12 equal parts whereby to take its shadow,
therefore 12 points of the shadow make one status; for
every point is equal to a twelfth part of the whole length
of the object, whose the shadow is.
8.
on
(finding)
the height of objects by the shadow.
When you wish to know the height of a tower by the
umbra versa which falls on the cylinder, or the height of
any upright object—I say, when you wish this, turn the
style over the points of the shadow, and see over how
many points the shadow falls. Then consider : what
ever proportion the points of the shadow on the cylinder
hold to the style, every upright object holds the same
proportion to its shadow; that is, if the points of the
shadow on the cylinder be six, the style is double of the
shadow, and then at the same hour every umbra extensa
will be double of its object; and if the shadow on the
cylinder be double of the style, that is, when the shadow
is of 24 points, every upright object will be double of its
shadow; and so always, whatever proportion the shadow
on the cylinder holds to the style, conversely every upright
object holds the same proportion to its umbra extensa.,
every upright object, I say, which throws a shadow under
the same altitude of the sun at that hour. Or, if you do
not know how to take the proportion, divide 144 by the
points which you have, as was said, and the result will be
the shadow which is called extensa of the upright object;
see, then, how many status are in that umbra extensa, or
what part of 12 the points are, and you will have what
you desired.
�76
PRACTICA CHIL1NDRI.
DE DECLINACIONE SOLIS.
vm volueris scire declinaci'onem sobs omni die
anni, scias umbram uersam Arietis in regione in
qua fueris, i[d est], scias ad quem, gradum chihndri proueniat vmbra stili eius in meridie, cum fuerit sol in primo
gradu Arietis, et hec est mbra Arietis in gradibns chilindri in ilia regione. Qno scito, sume vmbram meridiei per
chilindrum qnocunyne die volueris scire declinacionem
soli's, et vide super quot gradus chilindri ceciderit umbra,
et quantum plus uel minns fuerit umbra ilia qnam vmbra
Arietis, tanta erit declinacio solzs in meridie illins diei.
Sed si umbra tua fuerit maior quarn vmbra Arietis, erit
declinacio solis [leaf 4] septemtrionalz's ; si uero minor fuerit,
erzt declinacio meridiana. Qnod si volueris scire gradum
solis in ilia die per eins declinacionem, intra1 in tabnlam
declinacionis solzs, et quere similem declinaci'onem ei quam
inuenisti per chilindrum, et aliqnis 4 graduum quem in
directo eins inueneris erit gradus sob's uel fere; et scies
qnis erit gradus ex ilb’s 4, vt aspicias vtrum declinaci'o
fuerit meridiana uel septemtrionab's. Qnod si fuerit meridiana, erit vnns de gradibns meridionalibas, et si fuerit
declinacio septemtrionalz's, erit vnns de gradibns septemtrionalibiis; ha&ent autem omnes 4 gradus eqnidistantes ab
eqninoctiali eandem declinaci'onem. Cum ergo sciueris
quod fuerit vnns de gradibns septemtrionis seu meridiei,
scies qnis duornzn fuerit gradus soli's, ut aspicias seqnenti
die declinacionem per chilindrum, et si umbra fuerit maior
qnam die precedent^ fueritqne declinacio meridiana, erit
gradus ille a Capricorno in Ariete?n; et si umbra tails declinaci'onis fuerit minor, erit gradus ille a Libra in Capricornum; si uero umbra creuerit, fueritqne declinacio septemtrionalis, erit gradus ille ab Ariete in Cancruzn; si uero
decreuerit, a Cancro in Libram.
9.
1 MS ‘ iuxZn.’
�ON THE DECLINATION OF THE SUN.
9.
77
ON THE DECLINATION OF THE SUN.
When- you wish, to know the declination of the sun on
any day in the year, know the urn,bra versa of Aries in the
region in which you are, that is, know to what degree of
the cylinder the shadow of its style reaches at midday,
when the sun is in the first degree of Aries, and this is the
shadow of Aries in the degrees of the cylinder in that
region. That being known, take the midday shadow by
the cylinder on whatever day you wish to know the de
clination of the sun, and see over how many degrees of the
cylinder the shadow falls, and the declination of the sun
at noon of that day, will be as great as that shadow is
greater or less than the shadow of Aries. But if your
shadow is greater than the shadow of Aries, the sun’s de
clination will be northern, but if it is less, the declination
will be southern. And if you wish to know the sun’s de
gree on that day by his declination, enter into the table of
the sun’s declination, and seek a similar declination to that
which you have found by the cylinder, and some one of
the 4 degrees, which you find on a line with it will be the
sun’s degree or nearly (so); and you shall know which
will be the degree out of those 4, as you look whether the
declination is southern or northern ; for if it be southern,
it will be one of the southern degrees, and if the declina
tion be northern, it will be one of the northern degrees.
But all the 4 parallel degrees have the same declination
from the equinoctial. When, therefore, you know that it
is one of the northern degrees orcofi the southern, you
shall know which of the two is the degree of the sun, as
you observe the declination on the following day by the
cylinder, and if the shadow be greater than on the preced
ing day and the'declination be southern, the degree will be
that from Capricorn towards Aries ; and if the shadow of
such declination be less, ther degree will be that from
Libra towards Capricorn; but if the shadow has increased
and the declination is northern, the degree will be that
from Aries towards Cancer; but- if it has decreased, from
Cancer towards Libra. . '
�78
-
PRACTICA CHILINDRI.
DE ALTITUDINE SOLIS OMNI HORA ANNI.
10. IjlT si volueris scire altiinch'nem sob's que poterit
-Li esse omni bora anni, vide quantum capiet quelibei hora anni de gradibns chilindri, mensurando per circinum aut per festucam, et ipsa erit altitudo sob's ad quamlibei horam anni in regione tua, s[cilicet], snj?er qnam
figurantnr hore chilindri, si Deus voluerit.
DE LATIT UDLVE REGIONIS.
11. Oil volueris scire latitudinem regionis ignote ad
quam veneris, tunc vertes stilum super gradus
altitudz'nis, et vide ad qnot gradus peruenerit vmbra.
Quod si hoc feceris in die eqninoctiali, niinue gradus qnos
habueris de 90, et residuuzn er it latitudo regionis. Quod
si no?z feceris hoc in eqninoctio, vide per tabnlam decb'nacionis que fuerit declinacio solis in ipsa die. Quam declinacionem, si fuerit australis, adde snper susceptam
altitudinem, et hafrebis altitudinem eqninoctialis in eadem
regione ; et si declinacio fuerit septemtrionalis, niinue earn
de accepta altiinciine, haSebisqne altitudinem eqninoctiab's
in eadem regione. Haftita autem alti/nciine eqninoctialis,
minuas ipsam semper de 90, et residuum er it latitudo regionis, que est distencia cenith ab eqninoctiali.
DE QUANTITATE ORBIS TERRE.
12. Oil autem volueris scire quantitatem Deaf4,bk] cirKJj cuitns terre per chilindrum, verte stilum super
gradus chilindri, et scias optime gradum solis et &eelinacionem eins, et serua earn. Cumqne hoc sciueris, sumas
altitudinem sob's meridianam, et serua eam; post hec
autem procedas directe uersus septemtrionem uel meridiem,
donee altera die, absqne augmenta[ta] uel minorata interim
�ON THE LATITUDE OF A REGION.
10.
ON
(finding)
79
THE ALTITUDE OF THE SUN AT ANY
HOUR OF THE YEAR.
And if you wish to -know the sun’s altitude, which may
be at any hour of the year, see how much of the degrees of
the cylinder any hour of the year will take, measuring with
the compasses or with a rod, and the same will he the
sun’s altitude at any hour of the year in your region, that
is to say, (the region) upon which the hours of the cylinder
are figured, if God will.
11.
on
(finding) the latitude of a region.
If you wish to know the latitude of an unknown region
to which you have come, then turn the style over the de
grees of altitude, and see to how many degrees the shadow
reaches. And if you do this on the equinoctial day, sub
tract the degrees which you have from 90, and the re
mainder will be the latitude of the region. But if you do
this not at the equinox, see by the table of declination
:what is the sun’s declination on the same day; add the
declination, if it be southern, to the altitude you have
taken, and you will have the altitude of the equinoctial in
the same region; and if the declination be northern, sub
tract it from the taken altitude, and you will have the
altitude of the equinoctial in the same region. Moreover,
the altitude of the equinoctial being had, subtract it always
from 90, and the remainder will be the region’s latitude,
which is the distance of the zenith from the equinoctial.
12.
ON THE SIZE OF THE WORLD.
If, moreover, you wish to know the extent of the
earth’s circumference by the cylinder, turn the style over
the degrees of the cylinder, and know most accurately the
degree of the sun and his declination, and keep it. And
when you know this, take the meridian altitude of the sun,
and keep it. Then after this travel directly northward or
southward, until on another day, without increase or de-
�80
PRACTICA CHILINDRI.
declinaczone, ascendent sol in gradibus chilindri plus vno
gradu quam prizzs ascendent, plus dico, si processeris
versus meridiem, uel minus, si processeris uersus septemtrionem, et iam pertransisti spaciuzn in terra quod subiacet
vni gradui celi. Metire ergo illud, et vide quot miliaria
sint in eo. Deinde multiplica, sfcilicet], miliaria illius
spacij quod haSueris per 360, qui sunt gradus circuli, et tot
miliaria scias esse in circuitu mundi. Quod si volueris
scire spissitudinem mundi, diuide circuitum eius per tria
et septimam partem vnius, eritque hoc quod exierit diametrum terre, et medietas eius erit quantitas que est a superdcie ad centrum eius, si Deus voluerit. De inueniendis
autem ascendente et ceteris domibus per vmbram satis
dictum est in lecczonibus tabularum, et idea de illis nichil
ad presens. Et hec de practica chilindri sufficiant. Ex
plicit.
■
Explicit practica chilindri
Mag is tri
Houeden astrologi.
Iohannis
de
�ON THE SIZE OF THE WORLD.
81
crease of declination in the mean time, the sun has risen
one degree more in the degrees of the cylinder than he
rose before; more, I say, if you have travelled south
ward, or less, if you have travelled northward; and now
you have traversed on the earth the space which lies
under one degree of the heaven. Measure it therefore, and
see how many miles are in it. Then multiply, of course,
the miles in that space which you have by 360, which are
the degrees of a circle, and know that there are so many
mi les in the circumference of the world. But if you wish
to know the thickness of the world, divide its circumfer
ence by three and the seventh part of one, and the result
will be the diameter of the earth, and half of it will be the
distance from its surface to the centre, if God will. But
on finding the ascendant and the other houses by the
shadow enough has been said in the readings of the tables,
and therefore nothing of them at present. And let this
suffice upon the working of the cylinder. End.
Here ends Master John Hoveden, the astrologer’s,
Working
of the
Cylinder.
�‘4*
I
'I
�83
IV.
THE USE OF FINAL -e
IN EAELY ENGLISH,
AND ESPECIALLY IN
CHAUCER’S CANTERBURY TALES.
BY
JOSEPH PAYNE, ESQ.
�84
SYNOPSIS OF THE ARGUMENTS.
The two main arguments are :—
I. That in the ordinary English speech of the 13th and 14th
centuries there was no recognition of the formative, and little of th6
inflexional, -e, which, chiefly for orthoepical reasons, was appended
to many words employed in written composition.
II. That the phonetic recognition of final -e was confined to
verse composition, and only occasionally adopted by license, under
rhythmical exigency, and consequently not adopted at the end of
the verse where it was unnecessary.
These arguments are maintained, (1.) by considerations inherent
in the nature of the case, (2.) by reference to the practice of AngloNorman and Early English writers, and are supported by illus
trations derived (a.) from the laws which governed the formation
of words in early French, (5.) from the manner in which Norman
words are introduced into ancient Cornish poems, and (c.) from the
usage of old Low German dialects (especially that of Mecklenburg),
in respect to words identical (except as regards final -e) with Early
English words.
�85
THE USE OF FINAL -e IN EARLY ENGLISH, WITH
ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE FINAL -e AT
THE END OF THE VERSE IN CHAUCER’S
CANTERBURY TALES.
1. STATEMENT OE THE QUESTION AT ISSUE.
H'
The question whether the final -e, which is so obvious
a feature of numerous English words in the 13th and 14th
centuries, was or was not frequently recognized as a factor
of the rhythm in verse, is not the question which it is
here proposed to discuss. It needs, in fact, no discussion,
since there can be no doubt whatever on the point. The
real question is what it meant, that is, whether it was an
organic and essential element of the words in which it
occurred, to be accounted for by reference to original
formation, inflexion, &c., or whether it was, for the most
part, an inorganic orthoepic adjunct of the spelling, and
only exceptionally performed any organic function.
If the former hypothesis is true, the -e was recognized
in the rhythm because it was recognized in ordinary
parlance as a necessary part of the pronunciation of the
word, and the instances in which it was silent were excep
tional and irregular. If the latter is true, the instances
in which it was silent represent the regular pronunciation
of the words, and those in which it is sounded an excep
tional pronunciation, allowed by the fashion of the times
in verse composition. It is a consequence, moreover, of
the former theory that the -e, being by assumption a neces
sary organic part of the word, ought to be sounded even
where, as in the case of the final syllable of the verse, it is
CH. ESSAYS.
G
�86
THE USE OF FINAL
-e
not required by the rhythm. By the latter theory the -e
of the final rhyme, being generally an inorganic element
of the orthography, not recognized in the ordinary pro
nunciation and not required by the rhythm, was (with
rare exceptions, such as Rome—--to me, sothe—to the, &c., in
the Canterbury Tales and elsewhere) silent.
These theories are obviously inconsistent with each
other, the exceptions of the one being the rule of the
other, and vice versa. The former is that adopted by
Tyrwhitt, Guest, Gesenius, Child, Craik, Ellis, Morris,
and Skeat; the latter is that maintained by the present
writer, supported to some extent by the authority of the
late Mr Richard Price.
In anticipation of the full discussion of the various
points involved, it may be here briefly remarked, that the
former theory requires us to assume that such words as
schame, veyne, sake, space, rose, joie, vie, sonne, witte,
presse, were in ordinary parlance pronounced as scha-me,
vey-ne, ro-se, joi-e, son-ne, wit-te, presse; moreover, that
corage, nature, were pronounced as cora-ge, natu-re, and
curteisie, hethenesse, as cwrfezsz-e, hethenesse, and that
the recognition of the -e in verse as a factor of the rhythm
was required to represent the true pronunciation. The
second theory, on the other hand, assumes that schame,
veyne, seke, joie, witte, nature, curteisie, &c., conventionally
represent scham, veyn, selc, joi, wit, natur, curteisi, as the
ordinary pronunciation of the words, and that the recogni
tion of the -e as significant, was a rhythmical license.
By way of further illustration of the difference between
the two theories, it may be noted that in such verses as
these:
Enbrouded was he, as it were a mede—C. T. v. 89.
Ful wel sche sang the servise devyne—ib. v. 122;
the first theory requires mede and devyne to be pro
nounced me-de, devy-ne; the second, regarding mede
(== A.S. med) and devyne (= Fr. devyn) as conventional
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
87
spellings, requires them to be pronounced med and devyn.
Servise (Fr. servis, service), here servi-se, is regular by the
first theory, exceptional by the second.1
The main principle of the theory here adopted is
that very early (probably in the 12 th century) phonetic
began to supersede dynamic considerations, and, as a con
sequence, to change. the significance of the originally
organic -e ; and that this change was especially due to the
introduction of the Norman speech and the usages of the
Norman scribes into England. The Norman dialect was
the simplest and purest of all the dialects of the French
language, and largely exhibited the influence of phonetic
laws. This influence it began to propagate on its contact
with English. The first effect was to simplify the for
mative English terminations of nouns. Hence in the
beginning of the 12th century -a, -o, -u (as in tima, hcelo,
sceamu) became -e (as in time, sceame, or schame, hele).
It next acted on the grammatical inflexions, as, for in
stance, in nouns, either by suppressing the -e of the
oblique or dative case altogether (cf. Orrmin’s “ be word,”
“bi brsed,” “o boc,” “off stan,” &c.); or by converting it
from an organic to an inorganic termination, reducing it,
in short, to the same category as name, shame, hele. It
next affected the orthography generally by introducing an
expedient of the Norman scribes (before unknown in
England), which consisted in the addition of an inorganic
-e to denote the length of the radical vowel, an expedient
which, when adopted in English, converted, after a time,
A.S. tar, ben, bed, into tare, bene, bede, without disturbing
the individuality of the words, and re-acted on name,
1 In support of the assumption that sonant -e is exceptional,
not regular, it may be noted that in the first 100 lines of the Pro
logue (Ellesmere text) out of 160 instances of final -e only 22 occur
in which it is sounded before a consonant; of the remaining 138
25 are silent before a consonant, 49 before a vowel or It, and 64 in
the final rhyme where its sound is superfluous—that is to say, in
138 instances the words in -e have, it is assumed, their natural
pronunciation against 22 in which, by license, the -e is reckoned as
an additional syllable.
�88
THE USE OF FINAL -C
schame, hele, &c., by treating them (whatever they may
have been before) as monosyllables. It finally acted on
the versification by introducing the license, well known
in early and, by descent, in modern French, of recog
nizing, under rhythmical exigency, the inorganic -e (silent
in ordinary discourse) as a factor of the verse. It hence
appears that certain principles introduced by the Normans,
and exhibited in their own tongue, affected first the spoken
and then the written English, gradually superseding the
organic function of the -e, by treating it as inorganic, as
an orthoepic sign to guide the pronunciation of the reader;
and that this great change was fundamentally due to the
law of phonetic economy, which, by its tendency to
simplification, gradually overpowered the original dynamic
laws of the language, and ended in converting the forma
tive and inflexional -e into a conventional element of the
spelling.
2.
OBJECTIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE VERSIFICATION CON
SIDERED.
I _
Two d priori objections may be taken, and indeed
have been taken, against this conclusion as applied to
Chaucer’s versification. The first is indicated in these
words of Mr Ellis,1 “that Chaucer and Gdthe'used the
final -e in precisely the same way,” and in these of Pro
fessor Child,2 “that the unaccented, final -e of nouns of
French origin is sounded in Chaucer as it is in French
verse,” by which assertions it is affirmed that the laws of
modern German and French versification are identical with
those of Chaucer.
The full answer to this objection will be found in the
subsequent investigation, but for the present it may be
urged, without pressing the argument already presumptively
1 “ Early English Pronunciation,” p. 339.
2 “ Observations on the Language of Chaucer,” by Professor
Child of Harvard University, a paper contributed to the “ Memoirs
of the American Academy,” vol. viii. p. 461.
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
89
stated, that the use of -e in German and French versifica
tion is (with very rare exceptions) regular and constant,
while that in Chaucer is continually interfered with hy
instances of silent -<?, which, indeed, outnumber those in
which it is sounded (see note, p.' 87), even -without taking
into consideration the -e of the final rhyme. Then with
regard to the final rhyme, the objection as applied to
French versification proves too much, inasmuch as the -e
at the end of a French verse is not, and probably never
was, a factor of the rhythm. This argument, then, as far
as it is worth anything, is for, not against, the theory here
maintained.
The following instances, which are typical, show that
the laws of French versification are continually violated by
Chaucer:
And he hadde ben somtyme in chivachie.— v. 85.
In hope to stonden in his lady grace.—v. 88.
He sleep nomore than doth a nightyngale.—w. 97, 98.
Ful semely aftui' hire mete sche raught.—v. 13-6.
By cause that it was old and somdel streyt.—v. 174.
Kfrere ther was, a wantoun and a merye.—v. 208.
In alle the ordres foure is noon that can.—v. 210, &c.
If these verses are read by the French rule they become
unmetrical; it is only by ignoring it that they can be read
with metrical precision. The conclusion, then, is that the
only exact identity between French and early English
versification consists in the silence of the -e at the end of
the verse.
Nor would it be difficult to show from the above and
from thousands of other instances, that the strict applica
tion of the laws of German versification would render
Chaucer unreadable.
The second'd priori argument, first put forward by
Tyrwhitt, against the theory here adopted, that the -e at
the end of a verse was silent, is to the effect that Chaucer
intended the verse of the Canterbury Tales to be an imita
tion of the Italian endecasyllabic, that of Boccaccio, &c.,
and, therefore, that he required the -e at the close of the
�90
THE USE OF FINAL -0
line to be pronounced to make the eleventh syllable.
Against this assumption, however, it may be urged that he
simply adopted the decasyllabic French verse, of which
there were numerous examples before his time. The metre
of the Chanson de Roland, Huon de Bordeaux, Guillaume
d’Orange, &c., as well as of many of the “Ballades” of his
contemporary Eustache Deschamps, appears to be pre
cisely that of the Canterbury Tales. The following are
typical examples :—
Co sent Rollenz que la mort le tresprent,
Devers la teste sur le quer li descent.— Chan, de Roland.
Ma douce mere jamais ne me verra.—Huon de Bordeaux.
Cis las dolans, vrais dex, que devenra.—ib.
Forment me poise quant si estes navres
Se tu recroiz, a ma fin sui alez.— Guillaume d? Orange.
En bon Anglais le livre translatas.—Eustache Deschamps.
Grant translateur, noble Geoffroy Chaucier.—ib.
Ta noble plant, ta douce melodie.—ib.
We see, then, that there was no occasion for Chaucer to
go to the Italians for a model. It may, moreover, be
plausibly urged that in none of Chaucer’s earlier works is
there any trace of Italian influence, whether as regards
subject, general treatment, or versification.3
3. THE SECTIONAL PAUSE.
Before entering on the illustration by reference to the
actual usage of early French and English poets of the
theory which has been already stated, some notice may be
taken of a characteristic feature of early French and
English verse which has an important bearing on the
point at issue.1 It is that of the sectional pause, a stop
made in the reading of the verse, for the sake of the sound,
and having no immediate connection with the sense.
This pause in decasyllabic verse (to which, however, it is by
no means confined) occurred at the end of the fourth or
1 It is remarkable that scarcely any of the writers on early
English versification (except Dr Guest) have noticed the sectional
pause, or explained the true use of the prosodial bars or full-points
found in the MSS.
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
91
sixth measure, and divided the verse into two parts, which
were prosodially independent of each other; that is, it
made each part a separate verse. Dr Guest (History of
English Rhythms, i. 181) thus states the rule generally:
“ When a verse is divided into two parts or sections by
what is called the middle pause, the syllable which follows
such pause is in the same situation as if it began the
verse.” The bearing of this point, however, on the ques
tion at issue is more fully seen in the usage of early
French verse, in which the effect of the pause was to
silence the -e which closed the section. This usage is
altogether unknown in modern French verse; a fact which
of itself forms an argument against the presumed identity
of the laws of early English and modern French versifica
tion. The rule is thus stated by Quicherat (“Versification
frangaise,” p. 325) :• “ Une preuve de Timportance que nos
anciens poetes donnaient au repos de la cesure ” (he means
the sectional pause) “ c’est qu'ils la traitaient comme la
rime, et lui permettaient de prendre une syllabe muette, qui
n'etait pas comptee dans la mesure.”
This principle, in its application to early Anglo-Nor
man and English, may be thus formulated :—
The -e that occurred at the sectional pause (and, pre
sumptively, that at the final pause closing the
verse) was silent, and not a factor of the rhythm.
Instances in which the -e at the pause was silent
abound in early French and Anglo-Norman poems, and
this usage was borrowed or imitated by English poets, as
may be seen in the instances which follow.
Fors Sarraguce || ki est en une muntaigne.— Chanson de
Roland, v. 6.
De vasselage || fut asez chevaler.—ib. v. 25.
Mais ami jeune || quiert amour et amie.—Eustache Des
champs, i. 122.
Car vieillesse || sans cause me decoipt.—ib. ii.' 20.
Desous la loi de Rome || na nule region.—Rutebeuf, i. 236.
Si li cors voloit fere || ce que lame desire.—ib. i. 399.
Toz cis siecles est foire || mais lautre ert paiement.—ib. i. 400.
/
�92
THE USE OF FINAL -6
De medle se purpense || par ire par rancour.—Langtoft (ecl.
Wright), i. 4.
Lavine sa bele file || li done par amour.—i&.
Norice le tient en garde || ke Brutus le appellait.— ib.
I rede we chese a hede || fat us to werre kan dight.—De
Drvnne (ed. Hearne, i. 2).
pat ilk a kyng of reame || suld mak him alle redie.—ib. i. 4.
Sorow and site he made || per was non oper rede.—ib. 5.
That ben commune || to me and the.—Eandlyng Synne (ed.
Furnivall, p. 1).
In any spyce || pat we falle ynne.—ib. p. 2.
For none \>arefore || shulde me blame.—ib.
On Englyssh tunge || to make pys boke.—ib.
In al godenesse || pat may to prow.—ib. p. 3.
pe yeres of grace || fyl pan to be.—ib.
Faire floures for to fecclie || pat he bi-fore him seye.— William
of Palerne (ed. Skeat), v. 26.
and comsed pan to crye || so ken[e]ly and schille.—ib. v. 37.
panne of saw he ful sone || pat semliche child.—ib. n. 49.
pat alle men vpon molde || no mqt telle his sorwe.—ib. v. 85.
but carfuli gan sche crie || so kenely and lowde.—ib. v. 152.
It will be seen that in all these instances the power of
the pause overrides the grammatical considerations. Alle,
commune (plurals), reame, spyce, tunge, grace, molde
(datives), crie (infin.), to fecche, to crye (gerundial infini
tives), have the -e silent.
The following examples show that Chaucer adopted
the same rule :—
Schort was his goune || with sleeves long and wyde.—Earl.
n. 93.
He sleep no more || than doth a nightingale.—ib. v. 97.
Hire gretest otliex || nas but by seint Eloi.—Tyrmhitt, v. 120.
Hire grettest ooth || nas | but by | seint Loi.—-Earl. v. 120.
That no drope || til | uppon | hire brest.—ib. v. 131.
That no drope || ne fille upon hir brist.—Ellesmere, v. 131.
I durste swere || they weyghede ten pound.—Earl. v. 454.
And of the feste || that was at hire weddynge.—ib. v. 885.
And maken alle || this lamentacioun.—ib. v. 935.
For Goddes love || tak al in pacience.—iA v. 1086.
Into my herte || that wol my bane be.—ib. v. 1097.
No creature || that of hem maked is.—ib. v. 1247.
And make a werre || so scharpe in this cite.—ib. v. 1287.
Thou mayst hire wynne || to lady and to wyf.—ib. v. 1289.
Ther as a beste || may al his lust fulfille.—ib. v. 1318.
1 Othe and ooth are the same word, the inorganic -e being
merely an index to the sound. This exclamation occurs in
“ Nenil, Sire, par Seint Eloi ” (Theatre Frangais du Moyen Age, p.
120). Loi itself appears to be simply a contraction of Eloi,
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
93
In. the following instances the independence of the
second section of the verse is shown :—
Whan that Aprille || with ] hise shore | wes swoote.—•
Harl. v. 1.
- And whiche they were || and | of what | degree.—Elies, v. 40.
In al the parisshe || wyf | ne was | ther noon.—Harl. v. 451.
Sche schulde slope || in | his arm | al night.—ib. v. 3406.
That wyde where' || sent | her spy | eerie.—ib. v. 4556.
Than schal your soule || up | to he|ven skippe.—ib. v. 9546.
For Goddes sake || think | how I | the chees.—ib. v. 10039.
And with a face || deed | as ai|sshen colde.—ib. v. 13623.
In view of the numerous instances given above of the
silence of the -e at the sectional pause, it would seem a
fortiori improbable that it would be sounded at the greater
pause, that formed by the end of the verse. This argu
ment, though as yet only presumptive, is held to be
strongly in favour of the theory adopted by the present
writer, who would therefore read,
In God|des love || tak al | in pa|cience
as ten syllables and no more.
Even if the illustrations adduced are not admitted as
decisive of the silence of -e at the end of the verse, they
undoubtedly account for its silence at the sectional pause
as a characteristic of Anglo-Norman and Early English
versification, and confirm the general argument, that in
Chaucer’s time the law of phonetic economy prevailed over
what have been assumed to be the demands of word
formation and grammar.
4. THE USE OF FINAL
-e
AS A FORMATIVE CONVENTIONAL
ELEMENT OF THE SPELLING.
The position to be here maintained has been already
stated (see p. 87), and amounts to this, that, as a con
sequence of Norman influence, the -e, which, whether
1 If the -e of where is sounded, it is probably the single instance
in which it is so used, either in Chaucer or any other Early English
writer. Here and there, too, are always monosyllables, and there
fore Mr Child’s marking of them as dissyllables when final, as in
1821, 3502, 5222, &c., is entirely gratuitous. They will be con
sidered hereafter.
�94
THE USE OF FINAL -e
formative or inflexional, was once organic and significant,
became, as in time = turn, dede = ded, &c., simply a
mark or index of the radical long vowel sound, or as in
witte = wit, presse = press, a mere conventional append
age of the doubled consonant which denoted the radical
short vowel sound.
It- is further assumed that this phonetic influence,
which probably acted first on the formative -e, as in the
instances just given, gradually involved with varying
degrees of velocity also the inflexional -e, and therefore
that the so-called oblique cases as roote, brethe, ramme, &c.,
and the infinitives as take, arise, telle, putte, merely repre
sent in their spelling the sounds rot, breth, ram, tali, arts,
tel, put, the formative and the inflexional -e being reduced
to the same category.
The doctrine here laid down in its largest generality
involves, it is easily seen, the whole question of the cor
respondence between the sound of words uttered in ordin
ary speech and their orthographic representation, as far as
the final -e is concerned, and is to be considered independ
ently of the exceptional use of -e as, by the usage of the
times, an occasional factor of the verse. If, however, it
can be proved it disposes entirely of the assumption that
the -e was sounded at the end of the verse, and this is the
main object in view.
5. CANONS OF
ORTHOGRAPHY
AND ORTHOEPY APPLICABLE
TO EARLY ENGLISH.
The main points, then, to be proved—by reference to
the nature of the case and to actual usage—are, that in the
time of Chaucer and long before, final -e had become either
(1) an orthoepic or orthographic mark to indicate the sound
of the long radical vowel or diphthong, or (2) a superfluous
letter added for the eye, not for the ear, after a doubled
consonant.
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
95
These conventionalities may he reduced for convenience
of reference to the following
Canons of orthography and orthoepy.
Canon I. (1) When final -e followed a consonant or
consonants which were preceded by a long vowel or
diphthong, it was not sounded.
Thus mede = med, rose = rds, veyne = veyn.
(2) When final -e followed a vowel or diphthong, tonic
or atonic, it was not sounded.
Thus curteisie = curteisi, glorie = glori, weye = wey,
merie = meri.
Canon II. When final -e followed a doubled consonant
or two different consonants, preceded by a short
vowel, it was not sounded.
Thus witte = wit, blisse = blis, sette = set, ende =
end, reste = rest.
Once more admitting that the -e in each of these cases
could be made, and was made, at the will of the poet,
exceptionally significant, we proceed to consider these pro
positions seriatim, merely observing, by the way, that these
rules—framed and adopted five or six hundred years ago—
are in substance the same as those now in common use.
(1.) Final -e suffixed to a consonant or consonants which
were preceded by a long vowel or diphthong, as in mede,
penaunce, veyne.
On this point we are bound to listen to the doctrine of
Mr Richard Price, contained in the preface to his edition of
Warton’s History of English Poetry.
Referring first to the fact that in A.S. the long vowel of
a monosyllabic word was commonly marked by an accent,
which in the Early English stage of the language was
entirely disused, he inquires what was done to supply its
place, and maintains that in such cases an -e was generally
suffixed to indicate the long quantity of the preceding
�9G
THE USE OF FINAL
-e
radical vowel. “The Norman scribes,” he says, “or at
least the disciples of the Norman school, had recourse to
the analogy which governed the French language;”1 and,
he adds, “ elongated the word or attached, as it were, an
accent instead of superscribing it.” “ From hence,” he
proceeds to say, “ has emanated an extensive list of terms
having final e’s and duplicate consonants, [as in witte,
synne, &c.,J which were no more the representatives of
additional syllables than the acute or grave accent in the
Greek language, is a mark of metrical quantity.” He adds
in a note, “ The converse of this can. only be maintained
under an assumption that the Anglo-Saxon words of one
syllable multiplied their numbers after the Conquest, and
in some succeeding century subsided into their primitive
simplicity.” Illustrating his main position in another
place,2 he observes, “ The Anglo-Saxon a was pronounced
like the Danish aa; the Swedish ci, or our modern o in
more, fore, &c. The strong intonation given to the words
in which it occurred would strike a Norman ear as indicat
ing the same orthography that marked the long syllables of
his native tongue, and he would accordingly write them
with an e final. It is from this cause that we find liar,
sar, lidt, bat, wd, an, ban, stan, &c., written hore (hoar),
sore, hote (hot), bote (boat), woe, one, bone, stone, some of
1 Mr Price makes no attempt to prove this position, but a few
remarks upon it may not be out of place here. The general
principle in converting Latin words into French was to shorten
them, and the general rule, to effect this by throwing off the termin
ation of the accusative case. Thus calic-em would become calic,
which appears in Old French both as callz and callee, evidently
equivalent sounds. So we find vertiz, devis, servis, surplis, graas,
and in phonetic spelling ros, clios. Conversely, as showing the
real sound of such words, we find in Chaucer and other English
poets, trespaas, solaas, caas, faas, gras (also grasse~), las, which
interpret solace, case, face, grace, lace, as words in which -e was
mute, and this because it was mute in French. French words
ending in -nee, as sentence, paclence, experience, were presumpt
ively sounded without -e, since we find Chaucer and other English
writers expressing them as sentens, paciens, experiens. See Ap
pendix I “ On the final -e of French nouns derived from Latin.”
2 End of note to the Saxon Ode on the Victory of Athelstan.
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
97
which have heen retained. The same principle of elonga
tion was extended to all the Anglo-Saxon vowels that were
accentuated; such as rec, reke (reek), lif, life, god, gode
(good), scur, shure (shower); and hence the majority of
those e’s mute, upon which Mr Tyrwhitt has expended so
much unfounded speculation.” 1
Mr Price means to assert—what is maintained by
the present writer—that an original monosyllable, as
lif, for instance, was never intended by those who sub
sequently wrote it life to be considered or treated, when
used independently, as a word of two syllables, though
when introduced into verse it might be employed as such,
under the stress of the rhythm. There seems an a priori
absurdity in the conception of such an interference with
the individuality of a word, as is involved in denying the
essential identity of lif and life. The fact, too, that in
Early English, as distinguished from Anglo-Saxon so
called, nearly, if not quite all, the words in question
appear as monosyllables, seems strikingly to confirm the
hypothesis. Thus in the Orrmulum we find boc, blod,
brad, braed, cwen, daed, daef, daefy, god, so], wa, an, stan,
nearly all of which are the identical A.S. forms, and were
most of them in later texts lengthened out by an inorganic
-e. As the pronunciation of these words was no doubt
well established, there seemed no need for the scribe to
indicate in any way what was everywhere known, but soon
the confusion that began to arise, in writing, between long
and short syllables, suggested the more general use of the
orthoepical expedient in question, and accordingly we find
in early English texts both forms employed. Thus along
with lif, str if, drem, bot, &c., we see bede (A.S. bed),
bene, bone (A.S. ben), bode (A.S. b6d), &c.
The “ Early English Poems” (written before 1300,
1 Mr Price promised to resume the subject “ in a supplementaryvolume, in an examination of that ingenious critic’s ‘ Essay upon
the Language and Versification of Chaucer.’ ” This promise was,
however, never fulfilled.
�98
THE USE OF FINAL -e
in a “pure Southern” dialect1) supply us with numerous
examples. The following are from “ A Sarmun ” :
pe dere (A.S. deor) is nauqte (A.S. naht, nawht) pat pou
mighte sle
v. 24
If pou ertpr.wtfe (A.S. prut) man, of pi fleisse
v. 25
pe wiked wede (A.S. wed) pat was abute
v. 49
Hit is mi rede (A.S. rad, red) while pou him hast
v. 61
pen spene pe gode (A.S. god) pat god ham send
v. 68
His hondes, \sfete (A.S. fet) sul ren of blode
v. 117
Of sinful man pat sadde pi blode (A.S. blod)
v. 124
flopefire (A.S. fyr) and wind lude sul crie
v. 125
And forto hir pe bitter dome (A.S. dom)
V. 134
Angles sul quake, so seip pe bohe (A.S. hoc)
v. 135
To crie ihsu pin ore (A.S. ar)
v. 142
While pou ert here (A.S. her) be wel iware (A.S. gewar) v. 143
Undo pin hert and live is lore (A.S. lar)
v. 144
Hit is to late (A.S. last) whan pou ert pare (A.S. pa*r, par,
per)
v. 146
For be pe soule (A.S. sawl) enis oute (A.S. ut)
v. 171
he nel nojt leue his eir al bare (A.S. bser)
v. 174
and helpip pai pat habip nede (A.S. nead, neod, ned) v. 186
pe ioi of heven hab to mede (A.S. med)
v. 188
heven is heij hope lange (A.S. lang) and wide (A.S. wid) v. 213
In this long list of passages It will be seen that not one
instance occurs in which the formative -e is phonetic, so
that bede, bone, blode, boke, ore, here, lore, nede, bare, ware,
wide, late, &c., are all treated as words of one syllable
in which the -e is merely an orthoepical index to the
sound.
These instances, alone, go far to show what the ordinary
pronunciation of the words in question was, and to make
it appear very improbable that, except by poetical license,
the -e which closes them was ever pronounced.
It appears, then, clear that the A.S. words above quoted
are absolutely equivalent to the corresponding Early English
words ending in -e. But the principle admits of some ex
tension. We find that not only A.S. words ending in a
consonant assumed -e in Early English, but that the A.S.
terminations -a, -o, -u, were also represented by -e. This we
see in time from tima, and hele from hselo, or hselu. When
1 “ Some notes on the leading grammatical characteristics of the
principal Early English dialects.” By Wm. T. P. Sturzen-Becker,
Ph.D. Copenhagen, 1868.
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
99
these forms were generally adopted, the next step would
he to consider them as in the same category as blode, dome,
&c., and to apply the same rule of pronunciation to them.
Hence, except by way of license, we find in the 13th and
14th centuries no practical difference in the use of the two
classes of words—crede from creda, stede from steda, care
from cearu, shame from sceamu, being treated precisely as
blode from blod, dome from dom, &c.; and the same remark
applies to such adjectives as blithe, dene, grene, &c., which
in their simple indefinite use, at least, were probably mono
syllables.
The position now gained is, that the -e in such English
words as dome, mede, fode, mone, name, &c., was orthoepic,
not organic. It is highly probable—as Mr Price appears
to have believed—that Latin words became French by a
si-mil ar process, and that the orthoepic expedient in question
is of French origin.1 The Norman words place, grace,
face, space, as interpreted in English by plas, graas, faas,
spas, are found in “ Early English Poems,” and later, in
Chaucer, and we also find conversely trespace, case, for
the French trespas, cas. Both in Early French and English
we moreover find as equivalent forms, devis, devise, and
device; servis, servise, service; pris, prise, price; surplis,
surplice; assis, assise.2
It will now be shown by examples, both Anglo-Norman
and English, that in words containing a long vowel
followed by a consonant and final -e, the -e was simply an
index to the quantity of the vowel, and therefore not
generally pronounced in verse composition—though under
stress of the rhythm it might be.
The usage in Anglo-Norman verse will first be shown
generally:
1 See Appendix I.
2 The phonetic identity of -s, -sse, -ce, in Anglo-Norman and
English is shown by numerous illustrations in a paper by the pre
sent writer, on Norman and English pronunciation, in the Philo
logical Transactions for 1868-9, pp. 371, 418-19, 440.
�100
TIIE USE OF FINAL -e
Quy a la dame de parays.—Lyrical Poetry of reign of Edward
I. (ed. Wright), p. 1.
Quar ele porta le noble enfant.—ib.
De tiele chose tenir grant pris.— ib. p. 3.
Vous estes pleyne de grant docour,—ib. p. 65.
The word dame is derived from domin-am — domin —
domn — dom — dam — dame, just as anim-am becomes
anim, anm, dm, ame. In both instances the -e is inorganic.
Dame frequently occurs in Chaucer, and generally, as
we might expect, with -e silent.1 Examples are :—
Of themperoures doughter dame Custaunce.—Harl. v. 4571.
Madame, quod he, ye may be glad & blithe.—ib. v. 5152. (See
also v. 4604, 7786, &c.)
We may presume, then, that at the end of a line, the -e
in this word would be silent, and that the -e of any word
rhyming with it would therefore be silent, as of blame in
And elles certeyn hadde thei ben to blame :
It is right fair for to be clept madarne.—Harl. v. 378-0.
We may infer, then, that English words of the same
termination—as scliame, name, &c., would follow the same
rule—and accordingly we find—
J?e more scliame Jsat he him dede.—Ear. Eng. Poems, p. 39.
We stunt noj?er for schame ne drede.—ib. p. 123.
In gode burwes and \mx-fram
Ne funden he non f>at dede hem sham.—Haveloh (ed. Skeat),
v. 55-6.
Ful wel ye witte his nam,
Ser Pers de Birmingham.—Harl. v. 913 (date 1308) ;
and in Wiclif’s “ Apology for the Lollards ” (Camden
Society), “ in pe nam of Crist ” (p. 6); “ in nam of the
Kirke” (p. 13), &c., as also “in the name" on the same
page. We may therefore conclude that shame = sham, and
name = ndm.
Following out the principle we should conclude that
1 Professor Child, in a communication to Mi- Furnivall, in
tended for publication, decides that “ dame is an exception ” from
the general rule, but quotes Chaucer’s usage of fame throughout the
“House of Fame ” as a dissyllable. There is, of course, no disputing
the fact, but we see nothing in it beyond a convenient license.
Does Mr Child pretend that fame was formed on some special
principle, and for this reason employed by Chaucer as a dissyllable?
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
101
what is true of -ame would also he true of -erne, in dreme,
-ime in rime, -ome in dome, -ume in coustume; and by
extending the analogy we should comprehend -ene in queue,
-ine in pine, as well as -ede in bede, -ete in swete, -ote in
note, -ute in prute, -ere in chere, &c., and expect that the -e
in all these cases would be mute. This, with exceptions
under stress, is found to be the case—the Northern MSS.
(as seen above) very frequently even rejecting it in the
spelling.
For the purpose of this inquiry it is obvious that such
terminations as -ume, -ine, -ete, -ere, -age, -ance, &c., are virtu
ally equivalent to monosyllabic words of the same elements.
As, however, it would be quite impossible without extend
ing the investigation to an enormous length, to illustrate
them all, the terminations -are, -ere, -ire, -ure, -age, -ance,
will be taken as types of the class.
-ere. We commence -with -ere because Professor Child
asserts that “ there can be no doubt -e final was generally
pronounced after r,” a conclusion inconsistent with the law
of formation already considered, and, as it would appear,
with general usage in early Anglo-Norman and English.
He farther maintains that “ the final -e of deere (A.S. deor,
deore) and of cheere (Fr. chere) was most distinctly pro
nounced ” [in Chaucer].
The first of these propositions evidently includes the
second, and means that words in -are, as bare, in -ere, as
here, in -ire, as fire, in -ore, as lore, generally have sonant -e.
Now it has been shown (p. 98) that bare, here, fire, lore,
were monosyllables in the 13th century. It is, therefore,
extremely improbable that these words would in the 14th
century put on another syllable. And if not these words,
why others of the same termination, as deere and cheere ?
However frequently, then, such words may appear in
Chaucer, with sonant -e, the cases are exceptional, and
being themselves exceptions from a general rule, cannot
form a separate rjile to override the general one.
CH. ESSAYS.
n
�102
THE USE OE FINAL
-e
Although, then, it were proved that Chaucer more
generally than not uses deere as a dissyllable, that fact
being exceptional cannot prove that here,1 prayere, frere,
manere,1 matere, have the -e sonant because they rhyme with
deere. The argument, in fact, runs the other way, inas
much as here, which is without exception a monosyllable
—manere and matere, which are almost without exception
dissyllables, being themselves representatives of the general
law of analogy—have a right, which no exceptional case
can have, to lay down the law. When therefore we find
heere and deere rhyming together, it is here, not deere,
that decides the question, and proves deere in that in
stance to be a monosyllable. We are indeed, in deter
mining such cases, always thrown back on the formative
law, which, being general, overrides the exceptions. All
the instances, then, in which deere rhymes with here,
manere and matere, are instances of monosyllabic deere.
As to chere, on which Mr Child also relies, he seems to
have forgotten that this word is very frequently written
cheer (there are eight such instances in the Clerk’s Tale
alone), and wherever so written confirms, and indeed proves,
the contention that it was-only exceptionally a dissyllable.
Every instance, then, in which deere and cheere rhyme with
here, there, where, matere, manere, frere, cleere, all repre
sentatives of the formative rule, is an argument against Mr
Child’s partial induction.
A few instances will now be given, showing the use of
-are, -ere, -ire, -ore, -ure, in Anglo-Norman and English
writers:
-are, -ere, -ire, -ore:—
’ No instance has yet been met with in Chaucer of here, there,
or manere with sonant -e. Two from Gower of manere, as a tri
syllable, have been found by Professor Child. Gower however,
who affected Frenchisms everywhere, being, if possible, more
French than the native authorities, and in his French ballads writes
in the “ French of Paris,” not Anglo-Norman—is no authority on
the question.
�IN EARLY ENGLISH.
103
Si fut un sirex de Rome la citet.—Alexis, v. 13.
. Quant vint al fare, dune le funt gentement.—ib. v. 47.
En cele manere1 Dermot le reis.— Conquest of Ireland (ed.
2
Michel), p. 6.
Vers Engletere la haute mer.—ib. p. 153.
En Engleter sodeinement.—French Chronicle (Cam. Soc.),
Appendix.
Deus le tot puissant ke eeel e terre crea.—Langtoft (ed.
Wright), v. 1.
Ke homme de terre venuz en terre revertira.—ib.
Uncore vus pri pur cel confort.—Lyrical Poetry, p. 55.
Then, for English instances :
Lyare wes mi latymer.— Lyrical Poetry, p. 49.
Careful men y-cast in care.—ib. p. 50.
Thareiena ne lette me nomon.—ib. p. 74.
Ther is [mani] maner irate—Land of Cokaygne, v. 49.
On fys manure handyl J>y dedes.—Handlyng Synne, p. 5.
Four manere joyen hy hedde here.—Shoreham's Poems (Percy
Soc.), p. 118.
And alle ine nout maner . . . Ine stede of messager.—ib. p. 119.
Sire quap pis holi maide our louerd himself tok.—Seinte,
Margarete (ed. Cockayne), p. 27.
Fyrst of my lvyre my lorde con wynne.—Allit. Poems, i. v. 582.
Bifore3 J?at spot my honde I spennd.—ib. i. v. 49.
pat were i-falle for prude an hove
To fille har stides pat wer ilor.—Ear. Eng. Poems, p. 13.
And never a day pe dore to pas.—ib. p. 137.
More j?en me lyste my drede aros.—ib. v. 181.
1 In Anglo-Norman verse of the 13th century Sire is generally
a monosyllable, and is even repeatedly written Sir. See in “ Polit
ical Songs ” (Camd. Soc.), pp. 66, 67, “ Sir Symon de Montfort,”
“Sir Rogier,” and also in “Le Privilege aux Bretons,” a song con
taining, like that just quoted from, a good deal of phonetic spelling,
“ Syr Hariot,” “ Syr Jac de Saint-Calons ” and “ Biaus Sir ” (Jubinal’s “Jongleurs et Trouveres,” pp. 52—62). Writings of this kind
in which words are phonetically, not conventionally, spelt, are often
very valuable as showing the true sound, and illustrate a pithy re
mark of Professor Massafia’s, that “ pathological examples are fre
quently more instructive than sound ones.”
2 In the “Assault of Massoura,” an Anglo-Norman poem (13th
century, Cotton MS. Julian A. v.), we find mere,frere, banere, arere,
almost always spelt without the -e. Manere (when not final) is a
dissyllable, and, when final, rhymes with banere, which in its turn
rhymes with/re?’. Mester and mestere both occur, and the latter
rhymes with eschapere and governere, for eschaper and governer,
showing that the added -e was inorganic and merely a matter of
spelling.
3 A.S. biforan became in Early English biforen, which fell
under the orthoepic rule which, as in many infinitives (see infra),
elided the -e in the atonic syllable -en. Biforen thus became
biforn, then lost the n and received an inorganic or index letter, e,
becoming bifore or before. No instance has yet been found by the
present writer, of bifore as a trisyllable.
�
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Essays on Chaucer: his words and works. Part II
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: [3], 57-177, [2] p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by John Childs and Son. Published for The Chaucer Society. Publisher's series list inside and on the back over.
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[Unknown]
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[1874]
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Trübner & Co.
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Poetry
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Essays on Chaucer: his words and works. Part II), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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G5555
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Chaucer
Conway Tracts
Poetry
Poetry in English