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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
PAST AND PRESENT
OF THE
HERESY LAWS.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 1st DECEMBER, 1878,
BY
‘ W. A. HUNTER, M.A.,
Barrister-at-Law, Professor of Jurisprudence, University College
London.
’
Hontian:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
1878.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SYLLABUS.
Mr. Lecky’s views on the causes of Persecution.
Dogma and Persecution arose from the struggle of the clergy
for political supremacy.
I. Punishment of Heresy as a crime.
1. By the Ecclesiastical Courts.
2. By judge and law.
3. By statute.
4. Proposed article in the New Criminal Code.
II. Deprivation of Civil Rights of Heretics.
1. Nullification of contracts tainted with heresy.
2. Illegality of heretical trusts.
3. Guardianship of children.
4. The refusal of evidence. Oaths. Witnesses.
III. Heresy in morals.
IV. The Persecuting Spirit as perverting the administration
of justice.
�HISTORY OF THE HERESY LAWS.
HE History of Persecution presents to the philosophic
mind a strange problem. Why should men cruelly
maltreat and murder their fellow-men, who do them no
harm, because of a mere difference of opinion regarding
super-terrestrial objects ? The question is not easy to
answer. It implies, on the part of the persecuting sects,
intellectual blindness and moral callousness. For surely
—from a mere intellectual standpoint—nothing can be
more absurd than to punish a man for his belief. To
inflict evil upon a man because his reason does not
recommend a popular creed may make him a hypocrite,
but by no possibility a believer. It implies not less moral
obliquity. For the simplest rule of morals is that we
should do unto others as we would have others do unto
us. But the persecutor never admits that it is right to
punish him for his opinions. His opinions, he tells us,
are right opinions, and it would be highly criminal to
punish a man for holding right opinions. Thus reasons
the bigot with himself. Sometimes indeed he tries to
evade this difficulty. He will tell us, with engaging
candour, that persecution is always right in principle,
however unfortunate it may sometimes be in its applica
tion. He will assure us that he persecutes because he
believes it right to suppress error; and he admits that if
his party is the weaker it would be right to persecute
him in turn. By this ingenuous admission he hopes to
shelter himself under the golden rule; but it is to be
observed that such a confession is never made when there
is any opportunity of testing his sincerity. If this candid
gentleman were to find himself among the persecuted, he
would be the first to call out most lustily against the
wickedness of his persecutors. When, therefore, we
take a persecutor and calmly examine him, we find his
moral sense as much at fault as his intellect; both his
T
�4
The Past and Present
intelligence and his conscience are clouded; in a word, he
is both a rogue and a fool.
In putting the issue on that broad and simple basis I
make an assumption. I assume that the bigot is sincere
according to his light. I assume that he reverences
truth; that he wishes to see truth prevail among man
kind, and that error be driven away. It is from this
point of view that Mr. Lecky, the distinguished historian
of Rationalism in Europe, discusses that most melancholy
chapter in the history of the human race, the rise and
progress of persecution. He ascribes the tremendous
energy of the spirit of persecution to the doctrine of
eternal punishment for religious error, and in a vigorous
passage he thus denounces a cause of untold suffering to
the human race:—*
“If men believe with an intense and realising faith
that their own view of a disputed question is true beyond
all possibility of mistake, if they further believe that those
who adopt other views will be doomed by the Almighty
to an eternity of misery which, with the same moral dis
position but with a different belief, they would have
escaped, these men will, sooner or later, persecute to the
full extent of their power. If you speak to them of the
physical and mental suffering which persecution produces,
or of the sincerity and unselfish heroism of its victims,
they will reply that such arguments rest altogether on the
inadequacy of your realisation of the doctrine they believe.
What suffering that man can inflict can be comparable to
the eternal misery of all who embrace the doctrine of the
heretic? What claim can human virtues have to our
forbearance, if the Almighty punishes the mere profession
of error as a crime of the deepest turpitude ? If you en
countered a lunatic who, in his frenzy, was inflicting on
multitudes around him a death of the most prolonged and
excruciating agony, would you not feel justified in arrest
ing his career by every means in your power—by taking
his life if you could not otherwise attain your object?
But if you knew that this man was inflicting not temporal
but eternal death, if he was not a guiltless though danger* “ Rationalism in Europe,” Lecky, vol. ii. page 1.
�of the Heresy Laws.
5
ous madman, but one whose conduct you believed to involve
the most heinous criminality, would you not act with still
less compunction or hesitation ? ”
Mr. Lecky enforces his argument by a short and
striking sentence from Thomas Aquinas, the great orthodox
logician of mediaeval Catholicism. “If dealers in false
money or other malefactors are forthwith justly delivered
to death by secular princes, much more ought heretics,
the moment they are convicted of heresy, to be at once,
not merely excommunicated, but justly put to death.”
This sentence is worthy a moment’s consideration. It
has the appearance of an argument; in form it professes
to be reasoning; but even a glance is sufficient to show
that it possesses merely the form and not in any degree the
substance of reasoning. The premiss is that dealers in
false money are justly put to death; the conclusion is that
heretics ought to be put to death. But, heretics are not
coiners of bad money; and it would just be as logical to
say—because murderers are justly executed, therefore
those who eat meat on Fridays ought to be executed.
The conclusion has simply no relation to the premiss
whatever. Viewed as a logical proposition, which it pro
fesses in form to be, the saying of St. Thomas Aquinas is
a rank and childish absurdity. But, if we are to under
stand it aright, we must discard the pretentious form of
logic in which it is enveloped. What it really means is
that the writer, and those whom he addressed, considered
heresy to be a worse crime than coining false money or
murder, and upon that assumption St. Thomas Aquinas
is logical enough in saying it ought to be visited with the
penalty of death. If it be a greater crime to doubt or
deny any proposition which the Church of Borne puts
forward as true—for that is the meaning of “ heresy ” in
the mouth of St. Thomas Aquinas—if that be a greater
crime than forgery or murder, then truly it is difficult to
say that heretics ought not to be slain.
But, is heresy a crime worse than murder ? In the
days of Thomas Aquinas this was a question that
admitted neither denial nor doubt. To have said a
word for the heretic would have been to incur imminent
risk of the fate of the heretic. At the present day, so
�6
The Past and Present
deep, so wide, is the revolt from the Church of Borne,
that a person who should gravely maintain the thesis of
the saintly doctor would incur universal ridicule. The
greatest spiritual dominion which Europe has ever known
has been broken up. The sceptre has departed from
Borne, and the Pope has no longer the power of killing
those whom he calls rebels; he can do no more than
brandish the empty thunderbolts of excommunication.
That is why heresy is no longer a crime. Heresy was to
the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope what treason is to
the secular authority of kings. Heresy denied the right
of the priesthood to lord it over the consciences of men.
By denying the dogmas which the priests promulgated
the heretic assailed them in their tenderest point. If
their dogmas were not true, then were they downright
impostors, and the very bread they ate was got by false
pretences. The most cursory examination of the history
of the Christian Church shows that dogma w’as the bond
by which the priesthood reared the extraordinary fabric
of the papacy, an institution which claimed to over-ride
sovereigns, and to exercise the power, without incurring
the responsibility, of secular government. To support
dogma the crime of heresy was invented. The aggrandise
ment of the priesthood was the end to be accomplished;
the punishment of heretics was the means. To achieve
so holy an end the priests had no scruple in recommending
the destruction of those who stood in the way. The end
not merely justified but sanctified and glorified the means.
Is it a marvel, when the clergy had preached for
some hundreds of years the sacred doctrine of the murder
of their enemies and illustrated it, whenever they had
the chance, by practical example, that in the days of
St. Thomas Aquinas every voice in Christendom acknow
ledged the guilt of heresy ?
It seems to me, therefore, that Mr. Lecky, in tracing
the practice of persecution up to the doctrine of eternal
punishment for erroneous belief, misses a most important
element in the problem. Without grave confusion of
ideas mankind could never have fallen into the horrible
crime of persecution; but, even under the narrowest
doctrine of eternal punishment, men would have stopped
�oj- the Heresy Laws.
7
short of murdering heretics, but that their hatred was
inflamed by the sinister ambition of an insatiable priest
hood. The ghastly catalogue of crime would not have
been so long had there been no dupes; but it never
would have existed at all if there had not been a design
ing oligarchy of churchmen building up for themselves
a throne higher than that of the oldest and proudest
monarchies of Europe. Worldly ambition, using as its
tools the fears and passions of its dupes, is the real
parent of persecution. Jesus Christ said, my kingdom
is not of this world; but the priests, who pretended to
be His followers, resolved that their kingdom should be
of this world, and that they should sit on the necks of
kings, and they pursued this scheme of universal dominion
with pitiless cruelty. The tortures of the inquisition
will be remembered with a shudder when the blackest
crimes perpetrated by individual ambition have fallen into
oblivion. It is well to bear this in mind. The true
source of persecution is not erroneous religious opinion,
but priestcraft. Heresy, it is asserted, is disloyalty to
truth. But not for that reason was it punished with
death. It was disloyalty to the priests that fired their
bitter indignation, and rooted out of their breasts those
feelings of tenderness and humanity which we may
believe they shared at their birth with the generality of
mankind.
This sad story in the history of our race is well illustrated
by the relation of Christianity to the Roman Empire. Books
have been written to show the benign influence which
Christianity is alleged to have exercised on Roman
Civilization and Roman Law. It was under Constantine,
and by his help, that in the year a.d. 312, Christianity
was adopted as the religion of the Roman Empire. I have
carefully read the jurisprudence of Rome before Christi
anity was introduced and afterwards. And what do
I find? That a spirit of humanity and justice was
breathed into the dry bones of heathen law ? Nothing of
the sort. Humanity and justice reached their highest
development under such heathens as Antoninus Pius and
Marcus Aurelius. You will search in vain through the
Law of Rome for any traces of reform under Christianity;
�8
The Past and Present
but, there are two things of which you will get more than
enough. You will get laws intended to aggrandise the
priests, to shield them from civil and criminal responsibility,
and to enable them to extort money with ease and hoard
it with safety. You will, also, find many statutes passed
to despoil of their property, to banish, and even to kill,
all those sects of Christians who did not bow the knee
to Rome, but were guilty of the crime of understanding
the teaching of Christ differently from the Roman Bishops.
Rew people are aware of the ruthless violence with which
all dissent from the Church of Rome was stamped out.
Before a century had passed under the Christian emperors,
the catalogue of Rome’s victims were to be reckoned by hun
dreds of thousands. In a statute passed in the year a.d. 428
against heretics we have a curious enumeration of sects,
as regards some of whom even ecclesiastical antiquaries
are silent. They were:—Arians and Macedonians,
Pneumatomachi and Apollinariani and Novatiani or
Sabbatiani, Eunomiani, Tetraditae, Valenteniani, Papianistse, Montanists or Priscillianists, Marcianists, Borboriani, Messaliani, Eutychitse or Enthusiastse, Donatists,
Audiani, Hydroparastatae, Tascodrogitae, Batrachitae, Hermeieciani, Photiniani, Pauliani, Marcelliani, Ophitae,
Encratitae, Apotactitae, Saccophori, and worst of all
Manichaeans and Nestorians. Here is a list of about
thirty sects who were broken up and destroyed by the
criminal law. That is how the marvellous unity of the
Catholic Church was obtained. It won its conquests by
blood and iron; by the same means it maintained them ;
but it lasted long enough to show that truth is stronger
than tyranny, and that the sword of the Spirit can cut
deeper than any weapons of steel.
In the course of time the priests invented an ingenious
plan for perpetuating their dominion. Owing to the pro
found ignorance of the population, it was easy to teach
the people that the principal calamities that affected them
were due to the prevalence of heresy. In one of the
enactments of the Christian Emperor, Justinian, we find
the philosophy of heresy, from the priestly point of view,
stated with the most naive absurdity. The reason for
killing heretics was that famines, earthquakes, and pesti-
�of the Heresy Laws.
17
deprivation of civil rights in respect of contract or trusts
seriously interferes with or even hampers the propaganda
of heretical opinions. While, however, such a state of the
law does nothing to protect orthodoxy, it does act as an
encouragement to immorality, and enables a few persons,
on rare occasions, to break their promise with impunity.
But the portion of the law which we have now to consider
does not possess this harmless character. The law, when
ever it operates at all, works with the cruellest injustice..
The law as to the guardianship of children may be
summed-up in a sentence—it sacrifices the mother to the
father, and it sacrifices both father and mother to religious
bigotry. The rule of law is almost inexorable that a
child must be brought up in the religion of its father,
even after he is dead, and when he has never expressed
even the slightest wish that the widowed mother should
be robbed of the care of her offspring. A Protestant
widow will be compelled to bring up her infant daughter
in the Roman Catholic faith, if the father was a Roman
Catholic in profession merely, and was really indifferent
as to the religion his children should be taught. I cannot
use more forcible language to describe this law than that
which was employed by V. C. Wickens in a case where
he was obliged to give judgment against a mother:—
“To direct that this ward shall be brought up in the
Roman Catholic faith will be to create a barrier between a
widowed mother and her only child; to annul the mother’s
influence over her daughter on the most important of
all subjects with the almost inevitable effect of weakening
it on all others; to introduce a disturbing element into a
union which ought to be as close, as warm, and as abso
lute, as any known to man; and lastly, to inflict severe
pain on both mother and child. But it is clear that no
argument which would recognize any right in the widowed
mother to bring up her child in a religion different from
the father’s can be allowed to weigh with me at all.
According to the law of this court a mother has no such
right.” (Hawksworth v. Hawksworth, 6 L.R. Ch.).
The recent Agar-Ellis case still more illustrates the
strength of the father’s legal position. Even an express
antenuptial promise, without which the marriage would
�18
The Past and Present
never have taken place, that the children should be brought
up in the religion of the mother, had not, in a Court of
Equity, so much as the weight of a feather to outweigh
the father’s claims. So strong is the father’s power, that
he cannot legally divest himself of it by such a contract
as would suffice to settle ten million pounds. By the
law as it stands, a man may induce a woman to marry
him by promising her the enjoyment of what she may
regard as a particular boon — the preparation of her
infant children for eternity—and when the marriage
takes place, he can cast his promise to the winds, and
bring up the children in principles which, according to the
mother’s belief, will assign them to everlasting torments.
But the rights of the father, while strong as a band of
iron to crush the mother, snap like a reed when they come
into collision with the interests of orthodoxy. Charity,
parental affection, the sweet influences of home—all must
give way to the paramount object of stuffing the child with
a particular set of theological opinions. Even eccentric,
although not blasphemous, opinions on religion have been
held sufficient to rob a father of his children. In giving
judgment in Thomas v. Roberts (3 D.Gr. & S. 758), Lord
Justice Knight Bruce, then Vice-Chancellor, is reported
as distinguishing the degree of eccentricity which might
not be absolutely fatal from that which in law disqualifies
a man from having the custody of his own children.
“ I doubt whether a man, who, having been ordained a
minister of religion, as a Christian in a Christian com
munity, has designedly and systematically given up
attending any place of worship (whatever his private
feelings and whatever hymns he may sing) ought in any
condition of circumstances to be permitted in this country
to have the guardianship or care of an English child, for
whose maintenance and education there exist any other
means of providing, though the child be his own. But
that particular question I think it not, in the present
instance, necessary to decide, and I wish to be understood
as giving no opinion upon it.”
“ However this may be, I apprehend that in England a
man who holds the opinion that prayer—I mean prayer
in the sense of entreaty and supplication to the Almighty
�of the Heresy Laws.
19
—is no part of duty; who considers moreover that there
is not any day of the week which ought to be observed
as a Sabbath, as a day of peculiar rest, or as one of
peculiar holiness, or in a manner distinct from other
days, must be deemed to entertain opinions noxious to
society, adverse to civilization, opposed to the usages of
Christendom, contrary (in the case of prayer at least) to
the express command of the New Testament, and, finally,
pernicious necessarily in the highest degree to any young
person unhappy enough to be imbued with them. I say
in England.”
This passage needs no remark, for the final limitation
converts the whole reasoning into absurdity; but I may
observe that the Vice-Chancellor is a good deal more
straightlaced in his orthodoxy than Saint Paul. We read
in Romans (xiv. 5), “ One man esteemeth one day above
another ; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every
man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”
4. Refused of the Evidence of Heretics—Oaths.—The
confusion of ideas that so long covered the question
of admissibility of witnesses with deep darkness attests in
a remarkable degree the weakness of the human under
standing when it is swayed by strong passion. Eirst of
all, our judges and writers on law have uniformily assigned,
as one of the conclusive and irresistible arguments for
religious persecution, that the administration of justice
rests upon oaths, and oaths rest upon religion, therefore,
to weaken religion is to shake the administration of justice.
With more truth it might be urged that it is only the
power to punish false evidence with imprisonment that
prevents oaths degenerating into an unmeaning farce; for
experience shows that men will habitually take oaths which
they never mean to observe, as in the case of so many
official oaths, when no temporal punishment is annexed to
the perjury.
To refuse the testimony of an unbeliever involved even
a more glaring solecism. If an unbeliever dissembled or
denied his opinion, the English law accepted his testimony
without hesitation or scruple; but if he openly avowed
his opinions, and thereby showed his conscientiousness,
honesty, and courage, he was dismissed from the witness
�20
The Past and Present
box as unworthy of credence. At last, in the years 1869
and 1870, the grave reproach on our law was removed,
and now, in England, although not in Scotland, a solemn
affirmation is to be taken instead of an oath by those who
were formerly disqualified from giving evidence through
defect of religious belief.
III.—Resteiction on Feeedom oe Discussion
in
Mosals.
Recent events in Germany have attracted notice to a
subject akin to religious heresy, namely, social or
moral heresy. Under the influence of a disgraceful
panic, the German Parliament has allowed itself to be
come the author of a political inquisition. It has sanc
tioned a law bad in principle, and still worse in respect
of the authority by which it is to be carried out. Power
has been given to the Executive Government to rob and
maltreat all persons guilty of the heresy of Socialism, by
which is understood opinions hostile to the existing
social institutions, and aiming at a reconstruction of
human society in respect of its deepest foundations.
The teaching of experience has been ignored, for, if one
thing is certain, it is that persecution of Socialist heretics
will increase their power, and add to the danger of their
error. It may be a gross error to say with Proudhon,
for example, that property is theft, or to say, with Mr.
Noyes, that the institution of the family is a relic of bar
barism ; but surely the proper way to deal with their
errors is to exhibit the fallacy of their reasoning, and not
to knock them down by brute force. Just as improve
ment in the art of government is impossible without free
and unsparing discussion of proposed and actual legisla
tion ; just as true views regarding the constitution of the
universe and the destiny of man are impossible under a
regime of clerical terrorism ; just as a scientific knowledge
of nature is only possible in a country which freely
handles even the most revered names, so progress in
morals, an improvement in the conduct of mankind, can
only be attained by unqualified freedom in discussing
every moral question. If, in a country where polygamy
is sanctioned, it is a crime to condemn polygamy, or in a
�of the Heresy Laws.
21
country where monogamy is established, it is a crime to
say anything against monogamy, how is it possible for
mankind to change for the better? Whatever reasons
exist in favour of political or religious liberty apply with
equal force for freedom in the sphere of human conduct
or morals.
Yet it is a strange fact, and one not generally known,
that so far as the law is concerned, England has the
unenviable distinction of anticipating the recent fanatical
legislation of Germany. Until within the last year most
Englishmen supposed that to preach a moral heresy in
this country was even less a crime than to doubt the
infallible truth of the XXXIX. Articles. Yet, at the
present moment, it is undoubtedly law that any one who
publishes a book on any subject that can be comprehended
in the vague designation of “ morality ” does so with a
halter round his neck, for if his opinions are unpopular,
or if they should happen to differ from those of twelve
men picked up by chance and put in a jury box, he is
liable to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. The
way in which this has come about inspires us with a pro
found sense of the mystery of the law. The case of
blasphemy helps us partially to understand it. Blasphemy,
in its popular acceptation, means language insulting to
the Deity; by a process of judicial interpretation it was
held that it meant any opinions contrary to the generally
accepted doctrines of Christianity. The word “ obscene,”
one should think, had a perfectly distinct, not to say a
“ pungent ” meaning; but, inasmuch as all obscenity is
contrary to morality, it has been decided by a process of
logic, which the students of Aristotle will find it difficult
to follow, that whatever is contrary to morality is
obscenity. In this way it has now been established
that any publication of opinions which a jury may
be pleased to regard as contrary to their notions of
morality is an indictable offence. We have all great
respect for English juries in their right place ; but it is
hardly the right place for a jury to sit on the chair of
infallibility and ape the ridiculous pretensions of the Pope
of Rome. It is a subject, I think, of unqualified regret
that the new Criminal Code aggravates the mischief of
�22
The Past and Present
recent decisions If that code should become law, the
advocates of what may be considered moral heresy may
say with truth, that whereas the Common Law whipped
them with cords the Criminal Code lashes them Sith
scorpions.
IV-—Bervertino
Administration-
or
Justice.
Heresy may be struck out of the Criminal Law, it may
cease to deny to the citizen his civil rights, and there is
sp .
re lgious antipathies to cause a miscarriage
of justice. I may mention, by way of illustration, the
IRBI °f Tha<?ai?gh V‘ Edwards’in the Common Pleas, in
cm ?! rCtS we^e simple- Mr- Bradlaugh had hired
a fieid to deliver a lecture in Devonport, as the public
halls m the town had been forbidden to him. The
superintendent of the police interfered to prevent the
meeting, and finally arrested Mr. Bradlaugh and put him
in prison. The next day, Mr. Bradlaugh was brought
before the magistrates, and, as there was not even a
pretence for the charge of assault trumped-up against him,
he was discharged. He then brought an action against
the superintendent of police for false imprisonment. The
tacts were notorious, and even the prejudiced jury
who tried the case could not refuse a verdict for Mr.
Bradlaugh; but they gave only a farthing of damages,
and so compelled him to pay his own costs. Upon that
ground Mr. Bradlaugh moved in the Court of Common
- ea® . a n®w
as the damages were ridiculously
insufficient. Lord Chief Justice Erie, in giving judgment,
Finsing a new trial, expressed the somewhat strange
Ï idea that it was a real blessing to a freethought lecturer
to deprive him of his liberty without excuse. Upon the
same ground a jury of farmers might think that a ducking
m a horse pond was a real benefit to the misguided secthe ^pourers’ Union. The Chief Justice
®ai^’ d.re.are opinions which are in law a crime. .
H the plaintiff wanted to use his liberty for the purpose
ot disseminating opinions which were in reality of that
pernicious description, and the defendant prevented him
from doing that which might be a very pernicious act to
those who heard him, it might be that thé jury thought
�of the Heresy Laws.
23
the act of imprisonment was in reality not an injury,
but, on the contrary, an act which, in its real substantial
result, was beneficial to the plaintiff, and so the nominal
wrong would be abundantly compensated by the small
sum given.”
This brief sketch of the Heresy Laws brings before us
one of the most melancholy aberrations of legislation.
These laws have caused prodigious suffering, but they
never conferred on the human race one iota of counter
vailing advantage. They represent a dead loss to the
credit side of human happiness, and the passions which
gave rise to them are an unmitigated and unredeemed
evil. Black is the guilt of those who have abused their
position as the guides and instructors of mankind to
pl a,nt in the infant mind the seeds of unfounded and
irrational hatred, and so have helped to pile up that great
mountain of persecution of man’s inhumanity to man,
which has made countless thousands mourn.
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single reserved-seat tickets, available for any lecture.
Tickets for each series (one for each lecture) as below,—
To the Shilling- Reserved Seats—5s. 6d.
To the Sixpenny Seats—2s., being at the rate of Three
each lecture.
pence
For tickets, and for list of the Lectures published by the
Society, apply (by letter) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W.
Payment at the door:—One Penny;—Sixpence;—and
(Reserved Seats) One Shilling.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The past and present of the heresy laws : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society [.....]1st December, 1878
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hunter, W.A.
Sunday Lecture Society
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Publisher's advertisements on back page. Includes Mr Lecky's views on the causes of persecution. Includes bibliographical references. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Sunday Lecture Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1878
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N318
Subject
The topic of the resource
Heresy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The past and present of the heresy laws : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society [.....]1st December, 1878), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Heresy
Heresy-Great Britain-Law and Legislation
NSS