AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

 SKETCHES. 

 BY

 ANNIE BESANT

 1885. 

 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 

I am so often asked for references to some pamphlet or journal in whichmay be found some outline of my life, and the enquiries are so oftencouched in terms of such real kindness, that I have resolved to pen a fewbrief autobiographical sketches, which may avail to satisfy friendlyquestioners, and to serve, in some measure, as defence against unfairattack. 

I. 

On October 1st, 1847, I made my appearance in this "vale of tears", "little Pheasantina", as I was irreverently called by a giddy aunt, a petsister of my mother's. Just at that time my father and mother werestaying within the boundaries of the City of London, so that I was bornwell "within the sound of Bow bells". 

Though born in London, however, full three quarters of my blood areIrish. My dear mother was a Morris--the spelling of the name having beenchanged from Maurice some five generations back--and I have often heardher tell a quaint story, illustrative of that family pride which is socommon a feature of a decayed Irish family. She was one of a largefamily, and her father and mother, gay, handsome, and extravagant, hadwasted merrily what remained to them of patrimony. I can remember herfather well, for I was fourteen years of age when he died. A bent oldman, with hair like driven snow, splendidly handsome in his old age, hot-tempered to passion at the lightest provocation, loving and wrath inquick succession. As the family grew larger and the moans grew smaller, many a pinch came on the household, and the parents were glad to acceptthe offer of a relative to take charge of Emily, the second daughter. Avery proud old lady was this maiden aunt, and over the mantel-piece ofher drawing-room ever hung a great diagram, a family tree, which mightilyimpressed the warm imagination of the delicate child she had taken incharge. It was a lengthy and well-grown family tree, tracing back theMorris family to the days of Charlemagne, and branching out from a stockof "the seven kings of France". Was there ever yet a decayed. Irishfamily that did not trace itself back to some "kings"? and these"Milesian kings"--who had been expelled from France, doubtless for goodreasons, and who had sailed across the sea and landed in fair Erin, andthere had settled and robbed and fought--did more good 800 years aftertheir death than they did, I expect, during their ill-spent lives, ifthey proved a source of gentle harmless pride to the old maiden lady whoadmired their names over her mantel-piece in the earlier half of thepresent century. And, indeed, they acted as a kind of moral thermometer, in a fashion that would much have astonished their ill-doing andbarbarous selves. For my mother has told me how when she would commitsome piece of childish naughtiness, her aunt would say, looking gravelyover her spectacles at the small culprit: "Emily, your conduct isunworthy of the descendant of the seven kings of France. " And Emily, withher sweet grey Irish eyes, and her curling masses of raven-black hair, would cry in penitent shame over her unworthiness, with some vague ideathat those royal, and to her very real ancestors, would despise her smallsweet rosebud self, as wholly unworthy of their disreputable majesties. But that same maiden aunt trained the child right well, and I keep evergrateful memory of her, though I never knew her, for her share in formingthe tenderest, sweetest, proudest, purest, noblest woman I have everknown. I have never met a woman more selflessly devoted to those sheloved, more passionately contemptuous of all that was mean or base, morekeenly sensitive on every question of honor, more iron in will, moresweet in tenderness, than the mother who made my girlhood sunny asdreamland, who guarded me until my marriage from every touch of pain thatshe could ward off, or could bear for me, who suffered more in everytrouble that touched me in later life than I did myself, and who died inthe little house I had taken for our new home in Norwood, worn out ereold age touched her, by sorrow, poverty and pain, in May, 1874. 

Of my father my memory is less vivid, for he died when I was but fiveyears old. He was of mixed race, English on his father's side, Irish onhis mother's, and was born in Galway, and educated in Ireland; he tookhis degree at Dublin University, and walked the hospitals as a medicalstudent. But after he had qualified as a medical man a good appointmentwas offered him by a relative in the City of London, and he neverpractised regularly as a doctor. 

In the City his prospects were naturally promising; the elder branch ofthe Wood Family, to which he belonged, had for many generations beensettled in Devonshire, farming their own land. When the eldest sonWilliam, my father, came of age, he joined with his father to cut off theentail, and the old acres were sold. Meanwhile members of other brancheshad entered commercial life, and had therein prospered exceedingly. Oneof them had become Lord Mayor of London, had vigorously supported theunhappy Queen Caroline, had paid the debts of the Duke of Kent, in orderthat that reputable individual might return to England with his Duchess, so that the future heir to the throne might be born on English soil; hehad been rewarded with a baronetcy as a cheap method of paying hisservices. Another, my father's first cousin once removed, a youngbarrister, had successfully pleaded a suit in which was concerned thehuge fortune of a miserly relative, and had thus laid the foundations ofa great success; he won for himself a vice-chancellorship and aknighthood, and then the Lord Chancellorship of England, with the baronyof Hatherley. A third, a brother of the last, Western Wood, was doinggood service in the House of Commons. A fourth, a cousin of the last two, had thrown himself with such spirit and energy into mining work, that hehad accumulated a fortune. In fact all the scattered branches had madetheir several ways in the world, save that elder one to which my fatherbelonged. That had vegetated on down in the country, and had grown poorerwhile the others grew richer. My father's brothers had somewhat of afight for life. One has prospered and is comfortable and well-to-do. Theother led for years a rough and wandering life, and "came to grief"generally. Some years ago I heard of him as a store-keeper in Portsmouthdock-yard, occasionally boasting in feeble fashion that his cousin wasLord Chancellor of England, and not many months since I heard from him inSouth Africa, where he has secured some appointment in the CommissariatDepartment, not, I fear, of a very lucrative character. 

Let us come back to Pheasantina, who, I am told, was a delicate andsomewhat fractious infant, giving to both father and mother considerablecause for anxiety. Her first attempts at rising in the world wereattended with disaster, for as she was lying in a cradle, with carvediron canopy, and was for a moment left by her nurse in full faith thatshe could not rise from the recumbent position, Miss Pheasantinadetermined to show that she was capable of unexpected independence, andmade a vigorous struggle to assume that upright position which is theproud prerogative of man. In another moment the recumbent position wasre-assumed, and the nurse returning found the baby's face covered withblood, streaming from a severe wound on the forehead, the iron fretworkhaving proved harder than the baby's head. The scar remains down to thepresent time, and gives me the valuable peculiarity of only wrinkling upone side of my forehead when I raise my eyebrows, a feat that I defy anyof my readers to emulate. The heavy cut has, I suppose, so injured themuscles in that spot that they have lost the normal power of contraction. 

My earliest personal recollections are of a house and garden that welived in when I was three and four years of age, situated in Grove Road, St. John's Wood. I can remember my mother hovering round the dinner-tableto see that all was bright for the home-coming husband; my brother--twoyears older than myself--and I watching "for papa"; the loving welcome, the game of romps that always preceded the dinner of the elder folks. Ican remember on the first of October, 1851, jumping up in my little cot, and shouting out triumphantly: "Papa! mamma! I am four years old!" andthe grave demand of my brother, conscious of superior age, atdinner-time: "May not Annie have a knife to-day, as she is four yearsold?"

It was a sore grievance during that same year 1851, that I was not judgedold enough to go to the Great Exhibition, and I have a faint memory of mybrother consolingly bringing me home one of those folding pictured stripsthat are sold in the streets, on which were imaged glories that I longedonly the more to see. Far-away, dusky, trivial memories, these. What apity it is that a baby cannot notice, cannot observe, cannot remember, and so throw light on the fashion of the dawning of the external world onthe human consciousness. If only we could remember how things looked whenthey were first imaged on the retinae; what we felt when first we becameconscious of the outer world; what the feeling was as faces of father andmother grew out of the surrounding chaos and became familiar things, greeted with a smile, lost with a cry; if only memory would not become amist when in later years we strive to throw our glances backward into thedarkness of our infancy, what lessons we might learn to help ourstumbling psychology, how many questions might be solved whose answers weare groping for in vain. 

II. 

The next scene that stands out clearly against the background of the pastis that of my father's death-bed. The events which led to his death Iknow from my dear mother. He had never lost his fondness for theprofession for which he had been trained, and having many medicalfriends, he would now and then accompany them on their hospital rounds, or share with them the labors of the dissecting room. It chanced thatduring the dissection of the body of a person who had died of rapidconsumption, my father cut his finger against the edge of thebreast-bone. The cut did not heal easily, and the finger became swollenand inflamed. "I would have that finger off, Wood, if I were you, " saidone of the surgeons, a day or two afterwards, on seeing the state of thewound. But the others laughed at the suggestion, and my father, at firstinclined to submit to the amputation, was persuaded to "leave Naturealone". 

About the middle of August, 1852, he got wet through, riding on the topof an omnibus, and the wetting resulted in a severe cold, which "settledon his chest". One of the most eminent doctors of the day, as able as hewas rough in manner, was called to see him. He examined him carefully, sounded his lungs, and left the room followed by my mother. "Well?" sheasked, scarcely anxious as to the answer, save as it might worry herhusband to be kept idly at home. "You must keep up his spirits", was thethoughtless answer. "He is in a galloping consumption; you will not havehim with you six weeks longer. " The wife staggered back, and fell like astone on the floor. But love triumphed over agony, and half an hour latershe was again at her husband's side, never to leave it again for tenminutes at a time, night or day, till he was lying with closed eyesasleep in death. 

I was lifted on to the bed to "say good-bye to dear Papa" on the daybefore his death, and I remember being frightened at his eyes whichlooked so large, and his voice which sounded so strange, as he made mepromise always to be "a very good girl to darling Mamma, as Papa wasgoing right away". I remember insisting that "Papa should kiss Cherry", adoll given me on my birthday, three days before, by his direction, andbeing removed, crying and struggling, from the room. He died on thefollowing day, October 5th, and I do not think that my elder brother andI--who were staying at our maternal grandfather's--went to the houseagain until the day of the funeral. With the death, my mother broke down, and when all was over they carried her senseless from the room. Iremember hearing afterwards how, when she recovered her senses, shepassionately insisted on being left alone, and locked herself into herroom for the night; and how on the following morning her mother, at lastpersuading her to open the door, started back at the face she saw withthe cry: "Good God! Emily! your hair is white!" It was even so; her hair, black, glossy and abundant, which, contrasting with her large grey eyes, had made her face so strangely attractive, had turned grey in that nightof agony, and to me my mother's face is ever framed in exquisite silverbands of hair as white as the driven unsullied snow. 

I have heard that the love between my father and mother was a verybeautiful thing, and it most certainly stamped her character for life. Hewas keenly intellectual, and splendidly educated; a mathematician and agood classical scholar, thoroughly master of French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with a smattering of Hebrew and Gaelic, thetreasures of ancient and of modern literature were his daily householddelight. Nothing pleased him so well as to sit with his wife, readingaloud to her while she worked; now translating from some foreign poet, now rolling forth melodiously the exquisite cadences of Queen Mab. Student of philosophy as he was, he was deeply and steadily sceptical;and a very religious relative has told me that he often drove her fromthe room by his light playful mockery of the tenets of the Christianfaith. His mother and sister were strict Roman Catholics, and near theend forced a priest into his room, but the priest was promptly ejected bythe wrath of the dying man, and by the almost fierce resolve of the wifethat no messenger of the creed he detested should trouble her darling atthe last. 

This scepticism of his was not wholly shared by his wife, who held to thenotion that women should be "religious, " while men might philosophise asthey would; but it so deeply influenced her own intellectual life thatshe utterly rejected the most irrational dogmas of Christianity, such aseternal punishment, the vicarious atonement of Christ, the doctrine thatfaith is necessary to salvation, the equality of Christ with God, theinfallibility of the Bible; she made morality of life, not orthodoxy ofbelief, her measure of "religion"; she was "a Christian", in her own viewof the matter, but it was a Christian of the school of Jowett, ofColenso, and of Stanley. The latter writer had for her, in after years, the very strongest fascination, and I am not sure that his "variegateduse of words", so fiercely condemned by Dr. Pusey, did not exactly suither own turn of mind, which shrank back intellectually from the crudedogmas of orthodox Christianity, but clung poetically to the artisticside of religion, to its art and to its music, to the grandeur of itsglorious fanes, and the solemnity of its stately ritual. She detested themeretricious show, the tinsel gaudiness, the bowing and genuflecting, thecandles and the draperies, of Romanism, and of its pinchbeck imitatorRitualism; but I doubt whether she knew any keener pleasure than to sitin one of the carved stalls of Westminster Abbey, listening to thepolished sweetness of Dean Stanley's exquisite eloquence; or to thethunder of the organ mingled with the voices of the white-robedchoristers, as the music rose and fell, as it pealed up to the archedroof and lost itself in the carven fretwork, or died away softly amongthe echoes of the chapels in which kings and saints and sages laysleeping, enshrining in themselves the glories and the sorrows of thepast. 

To return to October, 1852. On the day of the funeral my elder brotherand I were taken back to the house where my father lay dead, and while mybrother went as chief mourner, poor little boy swamped in crape andmiserable exceedingly, I sat in an upstairs room with my mother and hersisters; and still comes back to me her figure, seated on a sofa, withfixed white face and dull vacant eyes, counting the minutes till thefuneral procession would have reached Kensal Green, and then following inmechanical fashion, prayer-book in hand, the service, stage by stage, until to my unspeakable terror, with the words, dully spoken, "It is allover", she fell back fainting. And here comes a curious psychologicalproblem which has often puzzled me. Some weeks later she resolved to goand see her husband's grave. A relative who had been present at thefuneral volunteered to guide her to the spot, but lost his way in thatwilderness of graves. Another of the small party went off to find one ofthe officials and to enquire, and my mother said: "If you will take me tothe chapel where the first part of the service was read, I will find thegrave". To humor her whim, he led her thither, and, looking round for amoment or two, she started from the chapel, followed the path along whichthe corpse had been borne, and was standing by the newly-made grave whenthe official arrived to point it out. Her own explanation was that shehad seen all the service; what is certain is, that she had never been toKensal Green before, and that she walked steadily to the grave from thechapel. Whether the spot had been carefully described to her, whether shehad heard others talking of its position or not, we could neverascertain; she had no remembrance of any such description, and the matteralways remained to us a problem. But after the lapse of years a hundredlittle things may have been forgotten which unconsciously served asguides at the time. She must have been, of course, at that time, in astate of abnormal nervous excitation, a state of which another proof wasshortly afterwards given. The youngest of our little family was a boyabout three years younger than myself, a very beautiful child, blue-eyedand golden haired--I have still a lock of his hair, of exquisite palegolden hue--and the little lad was passionately devoted to his father. Hewas always a delicate boy, and had I suppose, therefore, been speciallypetted, and he fretted continually for "papa". It is probable that theconsumptive taint had touched him, for he pined steadily away, with nomarked disease, during the winter months. One morning my mother calmlystated: "Alf is going to die". It was in vain that it was urged on herthat with the spring strength would return to the child. "No", shepersisted. "He was lying asleep in my arms last night, and William cameto me and said that he wanted Alf with him, but that I might keep theother two. " She had in her a strong strain of Celtic superstition, andthoroughly believed that this "vision"--a most natural dream under thecircumstances--was a direct "warning", and that her husband had come toher to tell her of her approaching loss. This belief was, in her eyes, thoroughly justified by the little fellow's death in the following March, calling to the end for "Papa! papa!" My brother and I were allowed to seehim just before he was placed in his coffin; I can see him still, sowhite and beautiful, with a black spot in the middle of the fair waxenforehead, and I remember the deadly cold which startled me when I wastold to kiss my little brother. It was the first time that I had touchedDeath. That black spot made a curious impression on me, and longafterwards, asking what had caused it, I was told that at the momentafter his death my mother had passionately kissed the baby brow. Patheticthought, that the mother's kiss of farewell should have been marked bythe first sign of corruption on the child's face. 

And now began my mother's time of struggle and of anxiety. Hitherto, since her marriage, she had known no money troubles, for her husband wasearning a good income; he was apparently vigorous and well: no thought ofanxiety clouded their future. When he died, he believed that he left hiswife and children safe, at least, from pecuniary distress. It was not so. I know nothing of the details, but the outcome of all was that nothingwas left for the widow and children, save a trifle of ready money. Theresolve to which, my mother came was characteristic. Two of her husband'srelatives, Western and Sir William Wood, offered to educate her son at agood city school, and to start him in commercial life, using their greatcity influence to push him forward. But the young lad's father and motherhad talked of a different future for their eldest boy; he was to go to apublic school, and then to the University, and was to enter one of the"learned professions"--to take orders, the mother wished; to go to theBar, the father hoped. On his death-bed there was nothing more earnestlyurged by my father than that Harry should receive the best possibleeducation, and the widow was resolute to fulfil that last wish. In hereyes, a city school was not "the best possible education", and the Irishpride rebelled against the idea of her son not being "a University man". Many were the lectures poured out on the young widow's head about her"foolish pride", especially by the female members of the Wood family; andher persistence in her own way caused a considerable alienation betweenherself and them. But Western and William, though half-disapproving, remained her friends, and lent many a helping hand to her in her firstdifficult struggles. After much cogitation, she resolved that the boyshould be educated at Harrow, where the fees are comparatively low tolads living in the town, and that he should go thence to Cambridge or toOxford, as his tastes should direct. A bold scheme for a penniless widow, but carried out to the letter; for never dwelt in a delicate body a moreresolute mind and will than that of my dear mother. 

In a few months' time--during which we lived, poorly enough, in RichmondTerrace, Clapham, close to her father and mother--to Harrow, then, shebetook herself, into lodgings over a grocer's shop, and set herself tolook for a house. This grocer was a very pompous man, fond of long words, and patronised the young widow exceedingly, and one day my mother relatedwith much amusement how he had told her that she was sure to get on ifshe worked hard. "Look at me!" he said swelling visibly with importance;"I was once a poor boy, without a penny of my own, and now I am acomfortable man, and have my submarine villa to go to every evening". That "submarine villa" was an object of amusement when we passed it inour walks for many a long day. "There is Mr. ----'s submarine villa", some one would say, laughing: and I, too, used to laugh merrily, becausemy elders did, though my understanding of the difference between suburbanand submarine was on a par with that of the honest grocer. 

My mother had fortunately found a boy, whose parents were glad to placehim in her charge, of about the age of her own son, to educate with him;and by this means she was able to pay for a tutor, to prepare the twoboys for school. The tutor had a cork leg, which was a source of serioustrouble to me, for it stuck out straight behind when we knelt down tofamily prayers--conduct which struck me as irreverent and unbecoming, butwhich I always felt a desire to imitate. After about a year, my motherfound a house which she thought would suit her scheme, namely, to obtainpermission from Dr. Vaughan, the then Head Master of Harrow, to take someboys into her house, and so gain means of education for her own son. Dr. Vaughan, who must have been won by the gentle, strong, little woman, fromthat time forth became her earnest friend and helper; and to the counseland active assistance both of himself and of his wife, was due much ofthe success that crowned her toil. He made only one condition in grantingthe permission she asked, and that was, that she should also have in herhouse one of the masters of the school, so that the boys should notsuffer from the want of a house-tutor. This condition, of course, shereadily accepted, and the arrangement lasted for ten years, until afterher son had left school for Cambridge. 

The house she took is now, I am sorry to say, pulled down, and replacedby a hideous red-brick structure. It was very old and rambling, rose-covered in front, ivy-covered behind; it stood on the top of HarrowHill, between the church and the school, and had once been the vicarageof the parish, but the vicar had left it because it was so far removedfrom the part of the village where all his work lay. The drawing-roomopened by an old-fashioned half-window, half-door--which proved aconstant source of grief to me, for whenever I had on a new frock Ialways tore it on the bolt as I flew through it--into a large gardenwhich sloped down one side of the hill, and was filled with the mostdelightful old trees, fir and laurel, may, mulberry, hazel, apple, pear, and damson, not to mention currant and gooseberry bushes innumerable, andlarge strawberry beds spreading down the sunny slopes. There was not atree there that I did not climb, and one, a widespreading Portugallaurel, was my private country house. I had there my bedroom and mysitting-rooms, my study, and my larder. The larder was supplied by thefruit-trees, from which I was free to pick as I would, and in the study Iwould sit for hours with some favorite book--Milton's "Paradise Lost" thechief favorite of all. The birds must often have felt startled, when fromthe small swinging form perching on a branch, came out in childish tonesthe "Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers", of Milton'sstately and sonorous verse. I liked to personify Satan, and to declaimthe grand speeches of the hero-rebel, and many a happy hour did I pass inMilton's heaven and hell, with for companions Satan and "the Son", Gabriel and Abdiel. Then there was a terrace running by the side of thechurchyard, always dry in the wettest weather, and bordered by an oldwooden fence, over which clambered roses of every shade; never was such agarden for roses as that of the Old Vicarage. At the end of the terracewas a little summer-house, and in this a trap-door in the fence, whichswung open and displayed one of the fairest views in England. Sheer fromyour feet downwards went the hill, and then far below stretched thewooded country till your eye reached the towers of Windsor Castle, faraway on the horizon. It was the view at which Byron was never tired ofgazing, as he lay on the flat tombstone close by--Byron's tomb, as it isstill called--of which he wrote:

"Again I behold where for hours I have pondered, As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay, Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wandered, To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray. "

Reader mine, if ever you go to Harrow, ask permission to enter the oldgarden, and try the effect of that sudden burst of beauty, as you swingback the small trap-door at the terrace end. 

Into this house we moved on my eighth birthday, and for eleven years itwas "home" to me, left always with regret, returned to always with joy. 

Almost immediately afterwards I left my mother for the first time; forone day, visiting a family who lived close by, I found a stranger sittingin the drawing-room, a lame lady with, a strong face, which softenedmarvellously as she smiled at the child who came dancing in; she calledme to her presently, and took me on her lap and talked to me, and on thefollowing day our friend came to see my mother, to ask if she would letme go away and be educated with this lady's niece, coming home for theholidays regularly, but leaving my education in her hands. At first mymother would not hear of it, for she and I scarcely ever left each other;my love for her was an idolatry, hers for me a devotion. [A foolishlittle story, about which I was unmercifully teased for years, markedthat absolute idolatry of her, which has not yet faded from my heart. Intenderest rallying one day of the child who trotted after her everywhere, content to sit, or stand, or wait, if only she might touch hand or dressof "mamma, " she said: "Little one (the name by which she always calledme), if you cling to mamma in this way, I must really get a string andtie you to my apron, and how will you like that?" "O mamma darling, " camethe fervent answer, "do let it be in a knot. " And, indeed, the tie oflove between us was so tightly knotted that nothing ever loosened it tillthe sword of Death cut that which pain and trouble never availed toslacken in the slightest degree. ] But it was urged upon her that theadvantages of education offered were such as no money could purchase forme; that it would be a disadvantage for me to grow up in a houseful ofboys--and, in truth, I was as good a cricketer and climber as the best ofthem--that my mother would soon be obliged to send me to school, unlessshe accepted an offer which gave me every advantage of school without itsdisadvantages. At last she yielded, and it was decided that Miss Marryat, on returning home, should take me with her. 

Miss Marryat--the favorite sister of Captain Marryat, the famousnovelist--was a maiden lady of large means. She had nursed her brotherthrough the illness that ended in his death, and had been living with hermother at Wimbledon Park. On her mother's death she looked round for workwhich would make her useful in the world, and finding that one of herbrothers had a large family of girls, she offered to take charge of oneof them, and to educate her thoroughly. Chancing to come to Harrow, mygood fortune threw me in her way, and she took a fancy to me and thoughtshe would like to teach two little girls rather than one. Hence her offerto my mother. 

Miss Marryat had a perfect genius for teaching, and took in it thegreatest delight. From time to time she added another child to our party, sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl. At first, with Amy Marryat and myself, there was a little boy, Walter Powys, son of a clergyman with a largefamily, and him she trained for some years, and then sent him on toschool admirably prepared. She chose "her children"--as she loved to callus--in very definite fashion. Each must be gently born and gentlytrained, but in such position that the education freely given should be arelief and aid to a slender parental purse. It was her delight to seekout and aid those on whom poverty presses most heavily, when the need foreducation for the children weighs on the proud and the poor. "Auntie" weall called her, for she thought "Miss Marryat" seemed too cold and stiff. She taught us everything herself except music, and for this she had amaster, practising us in composition, in recitation, in reading aloudEnglish and French, and later, German, devoting herself to training us inthe soundest, most thorough fashion. No words of mine can tell how much Iowe her, not only of knowledge, bit of that love of knowledge which hasremained with me ever since as a constant spur to study. 

Her method of teaching may be of interest to some, who desire to trainchildren with the least pain, and the most enjoyment to the little onesthemselves. First, we never used a spelling-book--that torment of thesmall child--nor an English grammar. But we wrote letters, telling of thethings we had seen in our walks, or told again some story we had read;these childish compositions she would read over with us, correcting allfaults of spelling, of grammar, of style, of cadence; a clumsy sentencewould be read aloud, that we might hear how unmusical it sounded; anerror in observation or expression pointed out. Then, as the lettersrecorded what we had seen the day before, the faculty of observation wasdrawn out and trained. "Oh, dear! I have nothing to say!" would come froma small child, hanging over a slate. "Did you not go out for a walkyesterday?" Auntie would question. "Yes", would be sighed out; "butthere's nothing to say about it". "Nothing to say! And you walked in thelanes for an hour and saw nothing, little No-eyes? You must use your eyesbetter to-day. " Then there was a very favorite "lesson", which proved anexcellent way of teaching spelling. We used to write out lists of all thewords we could think of, which sounded the same but were differentlyspelt. Thus: "key, quay, " "knight, night, " and so on; and great was theglory of the child who found the largest number. Our French lessons--asthe German later--included reading from the very first. On the day onwhich we began German we began reading Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell, " and theverbs given to us to copy out were those that had occurred in thereading. We learned much by heart, but always things that in themselveswere worthy to be learned. We were never given the dry questions andanswers which lazy teachers so much affect. We were taught history by onereading aloud while the others worked--the boys as well as the girlslearning the use of the needle. "It's like a girl to sew, " said a littlefellow, indignantly, one day. "It is like a baby to have to run after agirl if you want a button sewn on, " quoth Auntie. Geography was learnedby painting skeleton maps--an exercise much delighted in by smallfingers--and by putting together puzzle maps, in which countries in themap of a continent, or counties in the map of a country, were always cutout in their proper shapes. I liked big empires in those days; there wasa solid satisfaction in putting down Russia, and seeing what a large partof the map was filled up thereby. 

The only grammar that we ever learned as grammar was the Latin, and thatnot until composition had made us familiar with the use of the rulestherein given. Auntie had a great horror of children learning by rotethings they did not understand, and then fancying they knew them. "Whatdo you mean by that expression, Annie?" she would ask me. After feebleattempts to explain, I would answer: "Indeed, Auntie, I know in my ownhead, but I can't explain". "Then, indeed, Annie, you do not know in yourown head, or you could explain, so that I might know in my own head. " Andso a healthy habit was fostered of clearness of thought and ofexpression. The Latin grammar was used because it was more perfect thanthe modern grammars, and served as a solid foundation for modernlanguages. 

Miss Marryat took a beautiful place, Fern Hill, near Charmouth, inDorsetshire, on the borders of Devon, and there she lived for some fiveyears, a centre of beneficence in the district. She started aSunday-school, and a Bible-class after a while for the lads too old forthe school, who clamored for admission to her class in it. She visitedthe poor, taking help wherever she went, and sending food from her owntable to the sick. It was characteristic of her that she would never give"scraps" to the poor, but would have a basin brought in at dinner, andwould cut the best slice to tempt the invalid appetite. Money she rarely, if ever, gave, but she would find a day's work, or busy herself to seekpermanent employment for anyone asking aid. Stern in rectitude herself, and iron to the fawning or the dishonest, her influence, whether she wasfeared or loved, was always for good. Of the strictest sect of theEvangelicals, she was an Evangelical. On the Sunday no books were allowedsave the Bible or the "Sunday at Home"; but she would try to make the daybright by various little devices; by a walk with her in the garden; bythe singing of hymns, always attractive to children; by telling uswonderful missionary stories of Moffat and Livingstone, whose adventureswith savages and wild beasts were as exciting as any tale of MayneReid's. We used to learn passages from the Bible and hymns forrepetition; a favorite amusement was a "Bible puzzle", such as adescription of some Bible scene, which was to be recognised by thedescription. Then we taught in the Sunday-school, for Auntie would tellus that it was useless for us to learn if we did not try to help thosewho had no one to teach them. The Sunday-school lessons had to becarefully prepared on the Saturday, for we were always taught that workgiven to the poor should be work that cost something to the giver. Thisprinciple, regarded by her as an illustration of the text, "Shall I giveunto the Lord my God that which has cost me nothing?" ran through all herprecept and her practice. When in some public distress we children wentto her crying, and asking whether we could not help the little childrenwho were starving, her prompt reply was: "What will you give up forthem?" And then she said that if we liked to give up the use of sugar, wemight thus each save 6d. A week to give away. I doubt if a healthierlesson can be given to children than that of personal self-denial for thegood of others. 

Daily, when our lessons were over, we had plenty of fun; long walks andrides, rides on a lively pony, who found small children most amusing, andon which the coachman taught us to stick firmly, whatever hiseccentricities of the moment; delightful all-day picnics in the lovelycountry round Charmouth, Auntie our merriest playfellow. Never was ahealthier home, physically and mentally, made for young things than inthat quiet village. And then the delight of the holidays! The pride of mymother at the good report of her darling's progress, and the renewal ofacquaintance with every nook and corner in the dear old house and garden. 

III. 

The strong and intense Evangelicalism of Miss Marryat colored the wholeof my early religious thought. I was naturally enthusiastic and fanciful, and was apt to throw myself strongly into the current of the emotionallife around me, and hence I easily reflected the stern and narrow creedwhich ruled over my daily life. It was to me a matter of the most intenseregret that Christians did not go about as in the "Pilgrim's Progress", armed to do battle with Apollyon and Giant Despair, or fight through awhole long day against thronging foes, until night brought victory andrelease. It would have been so easy, I used to think, to do tangiblebattle of that sort, so much easier than to learn lessons, and keep one'stemper, and mend one's stockings. Quick to learn, my lessons of Bible andPrayer Book gave me no trouble, and I repeated page after page withlittle labor and much credit. I remember being praised for my love of theBible, because I had learned by heart all the epistle of St. James's, while, as a matter of fact, the desire to distinguish myself was a farmore impelling motive than any love of "the holy book;" the dignifiedcadences pleased my ear, and were swiftly caught and reproduced, and Iwas proud of the easy fashion in which I mastered and recited page afterpage. Another source of "carnal pride"--little suspected, I fear, by mydear instructress--was found in the often-recurring prayer meetings. Inthese the children were called on to take a part, and we were bidden prayaloud; this proceeding was naturally a sore trial, and being endued withan inordinate amount of "false pride"--the fear of appearing ridiculous, _i. E. _, with self conceit--it was a great trouble when the summons came:"Annie dear, will you speak to our Lord". But the plunge once made, andthe trembling voice steadied, enthusiasm and facility for cadenced speechalways swallowed up the nervous "fear of breaking down", and I fear methat the prevailing thought was more often that God must think I prayedvery nicely, than that I was a "miserable sinner", asking "pardon for thesake of Jesus Christ". The sense of sin, the contrition for man's fallenstate, which are required by Evangelicalism, can never be truly felt byany child; but whenever a sensitive, dreamy, and enthusiastic child comesunder strong Evangelistic influence, it is sure to manifest "signs ofsaving grace". As far as I can judge now, the total effect of theCalvinistic training was to make me somewhat morbid, but this tendencywas counteracted by the healthier tone of my mother's thought, and thenatural gay buoyancy of my nature rose swiftly whenever the pressure ofthe teaching that I was "a child of sin", and could "not naturally pleaseGod", was removed. 

In the spring of 1861, Miss Marryat announced her intention of goingabroad, and asked my dear mother to let me accompany her. A little nephewwhom she had adopted was suffering from cataract, and she desired toplace him under the care of the famous Düsseldorf oculist. Amy Marryathad been recalled home soon after the death of her mother, who had diedin giving birth to the child adopted by Miss Marryat, and named at herdesire after her favorite brother Frederick (Captain Marryat). Her placehad been taken by a girl a few months older than myself, Emma Mann, oneof the daughters of a clergyman who had married a Miss Stanley, closelyrelated, indeed if I remember rightly, a sister of the Miss Mary Stanleywho did such noble work in nursing in the Crimea. 

For some months we had been diligently studying German, for Miss Marryatthought it wise that we should know a language fairly well before wevisited the country of which it was the native tongue. We had beentrained also to talk French daily during dinner, so we were not quite"helpless foreigners" when we steamed away from St. Catherine's Docks, and found ourselves on the following day in Antwerp, amid what seemed tous a very Babel of conflicting tongues. Alas for our carefully spokenFrench, articulated laboriously. We were lost in that swirl of disputingluggage-porters, and could not understand a word! But Miss Marryat wasquite equal to the occasion, being by no means new to travelling, and herFrench stood the test triumphantly, and steered us safely to a hotel. Onthe morrow we started again through Aix-la-Chapelle to Bonn, the townwhich lies on the borders of the exquisite scenery of which theSiebengebirge and Rolandseck serve as the magic portal. Our experiencesin Bonn were not wholly satisfactory. Dear Auntie was a maiden lady, looking on all young men as wolves to be kept far from her growing lambs. Bonn was a university town, and there was a mania just then prevailingthere for all things English. Emma was a plump, rosy, fair-haired typicalEnglish maiden, full of frolic and harmless fun; I a very slight, pale, black-haired girl, alternating between wild fun and extreme pensiveness. In the boarding-house to which we went at first--the "Château du Rhin", abeautiful place overhanging the broad blue Rhine--there chanced to bestaying the two sons of the late Duke of Hamilton, the Marquis of Douglasand Lord Charles, with their tutor. They had the whole drawing-roomfloor: we a sitting-room on the ground floor and bedrooms above. The ladsdiscovered that Miss Marryat did not like her "children" to be onspeaking terms with any of the "male sect". Here was a fine source ofamusement. They would make their horses caracole on the gravel in frontof our window; they would be just starting for their ride as we went forwalk or drive, and would salute us with doffed hat and low bow; theywould waylay us on our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; theywould go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew, and Lord Charles--who possessed the power of moving at will the wholeskin of the scalp--would wriggle his hair up and down till we werechoking with laughter, to our own imminent risk. After a month of this, Auntie was literally driven out of the pretty _Château_, and took refugein a girls' school, much to our disgust, but still she was not allowed tobe at rest. Mischievous students would pursue us wherever we went;sentimental Germans, with gashed cheeks, would whisper complimentaryphrases as we passed; mere boyish nonsense of most harmless kind, but therather stern English lady thought it "not proper", and after three monthsof Bonn we were sent home for the holidays, somewhat in disgrace. But wehad some lovely excursions during those months; such clambering upmountains, such rows on the swift-flowing Rhine, such wanderings inexquisite valleys. I have a long picture-gallery to retire into when Iwant to think of something fair, in recalling the moon as it silvered theRhine at the foot of Drachenfels, or the soft mist-veiled island wheredwelt the lady who is consecrated for ever by Roland's love. 

A couple of months later we rejoined Miss Marryat in Paris, where wespent seven happy workful months. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we werefree from lessons, and many a long afternoon was passed in the galleriesof the Louvre, till we became familiar with the masterpieces of artgathered there from all lands. I doubt if there was a beautiful church inParis that we did not visit during those weekly wanderings; that of St. Germain de l'Auxerrois was my favorite--the church whose bell gave thesignal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew--for it contained suchmarvellous stained glass, deepest purest glory of color that I had everseen. The solemn beauty of Notre Dame, the somewhat gaudy magnificence ofLa Sainte Chapelle, the stateliness of La Madeleine, the impressive gloomof St. Roch, were all familiar to us. Other delights were found inmingling with the bright crowds which passed along the Champs Elysées andsauntered in the Bois de Boulogne, in strolling in the garden of theTuileries, in climbing to the top of every monument whence view of Pariscould be gained. The Empire was then in its heyday of glitter, and wemuch enjoyed seeing the brilliant escort of the imperial carriage, withplumes and gold and silver dancing and glistening in the sunlight, whilein the carriage sat the exquisitely lovely empress with the little boybeside her, touching his cap shyly, but with something of her own grace, in answer to a greeting--the boy who was thought to be born to animperial crown, but whose brief career was to find an ending from thespears of savages in a quarrel in which he had no concern. 

In the spring of 1862 it chanced that the Bishop of Ohio visited Paris, and Mr. Forbes, then English chaplain at the Church of the Rued'Aguesseau, arranged to have a confirmation. As said above, I was underdeep "religious impressions", and, in fact, with the exception of thatlittle aberration in Germany, I was decidedly a pious girl. I looked ontheatres (never having been to one) as traps set by Satan for thedestruction of foolish souls; I was quite determined never to go to aball, and was prepared to "suffer for conscience sake"--little prig thatI was--if I was desired to go to one. I was consequently quite preparedto take upon myself the vows made in my name at my baptism, and torenounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, with a heartiness andsincerity only equalled by my profound ignorance of the things I soreadily resigned. That confirmation was to me a very solemn matter; thecareful preparation, the prolonged prayers, the wondering awe as to the"sevenfold gifts of the Spirit", which were to be given by "the laying onof hands", all tended to excitement. I could scarcely control myself as Iknelt at the altar rails, and felt as though the gentle touch of the agedBishop, which fluttered for an instant on my bowed head, were the verytouch of the wing of that "Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove", whose presencehad been so earnestly invoked. Is there anything easier, I wonder, thanto make a young and sensitive girl "intensely religious". 

My mother came over for the confirmation and for the "first communion" onEaster Sunday, and we had a delightful fortnight together, returning homeafter we had wandered hand-in-hand over all my favorite haunts. Thesummer of 1862 was spent with Miss Marryat at Sidmouth, and, wise womanthat she was, she now carefully directed our studies with a view to ourcoming enfranchisement from the "school-room. " More and more were wetrained to work alone; our leading-strings were slackened, so that wenever felt them save when we blundered; and I remember that when I oncecomplained, in loving fashion, that she was "teaching me so little", shetold me that I was getting old enough to be trusted to work by myself, and that I must not expect to "have Auntie for a crutch all throughlife". And I venture to say that this gentle withdrawal of constantsupervision and teaching was one of the wisest and kindest things thatthis noble-hearted woman ever did for us. It is the usual custom to keepgirls in the school-room until they "come out"; then, suddenly, they areleft to their own devices, and, bewildered by their unaccustomed freedom, they waste time that might be priceless for their intellectual growth. Lately, the opening of universities to women has removed this danger forthe more ambitious; but at the time of which I am writing no one dreamedof the changes soon to be made in the direction of the "higher educationof women". 

During the winter of 1862-1863 Miss Marryat was in London, and for a fewmonths I remained there with her, attending the admirable French classesof M. Roche. In the spring I returned home to Harrow, going up each weekto the classes; and when these were over, Auntie told me that she thoughtall she could usefully do was done, and that it was time that I shouldtry my wings alone. So well, however, had she succeeded in her aims, thatmy emancipation from the school-room was but the starting-point of moreeager study, though now the study turned into the lines of thoughttowards which my personal tendencies most attracted me. German Icontinued to read with a master, and music, under the marvellously ableteaching of Mr. John Farmer, musical director of Harrow School, took upmuch of my time. My dear mother had a passion for music, and Beethovenand Bach were her favorite composers. There was scarcely a sonata ofBeethoven's that I did not learn, scarcely a fugue of Bach's that I didnot master. Mendelssohn's "Lieder" gave a lighter recreation, and many ahappy evening did we spend, my mother and I, over the stately strains ofthe blind Titan, and the sweet melodies of the German wordless orator. Musical "At Homes", too, were favorite amusements at Harrow, and at thesemy facile fingers made me a welcome guest. 

A very pleasant place was Harrow to a light-hearted serious-brained girl. The picked men of the Schools of Oxford and Cambridge came there asjunior masters, so that one's partners at ball and croquet and archerycould talk as well as flirt. Never girl had, I venture to say, a brightergirlhood than mine. Every morning and much of the afternoon spent ineager earnest study: evenings in merry party or quiet home-life, one asdelightful as the other. Archery and croquet had in me a most devoteddisciple, and the "pomps and vanities" of the ballroom found the happiestof votaries. My darling mother certainly "spoiled" me, so far as wereconcerned all the small roughnesses of life. She never allowed a troubleof any kind to touch me, and cared only that all worries should fall onher, all joys on me. I know now what I never dreamed then, that her lifewas one of serious anxiety. The heavy burden of my brother's school andcollege-life pressed on her constantly, and her need of money was oftenserious. A lawyer whom she trusted absolutely cheated her systematically, using for his own purposes the remittances she made for payment ofliabilities, thus keeping upon her a constant drain. Yet for me all thatwas wanted was ever there. Was it a ball to which we were going? I neednever think of what I would wear till the time for dressing arrived, andthere laid out ready for me was all I wanted, every detail complete fromtop to toe. No hand but hers must dress my hair, which, loosed, fell indense curly masses nearly to my knees; no hand but hers must fasten dressand deck with flowers, and if I sometimes would coaxingly ask if I mightnot help by sewing in laces, or by doing some trifle in aid, she wouldkiss me and bid me run to my books or my play, telling me that her onlypleasure in life was caring for her "treasure". Alas! how lightly we takethe self-denying labor that makes life so easy, ere yet we have knownwhat life means when the protecting mother-wing is withdrawn. So guardedand shielded had been my childhood and youth from every touch of pain andanxiety that love could bear for me, that I never dreamed that life mightbe a heavy burden, save as I saw it in the poor I was sent to help; allthe joy of those happy years I took, not ungratefully I hope, butcertainly with as glad unconsciousness of anything rare in it as I tookthe sunlight. Passionate love, indeed, I gave to my darling, but I neverknew all I owed her till I passed out of her tender guardianship, till Ileft my mother's home. Is such training wise? I am not sure. It makes theordinary roughnesses of life come with so stunning a shock, when one goesout into the world, that one is apt to question whether some earlierinitiation into life's sterner mysteries would not be wiser for theyoung. Yet it is a fair thing to have that joyous youth to look backupon, and at least it is a treasury of memory that no thief can steal inthe struggles of later life. 

During those happy years my brain was given plenty of exercise. I used tokeep a list of the books I read, so that I might not neglect my work; andfinding a "Library of the Fathers" on the shelves, I selected that forone _piéce de résistance_. Soon those strange mystic writers won over mea great fascination, and I threw myself ardently into a study of thequestion: "Where is now the Catholic Church?". I read Pusey, and Liddon, and Keble, with many another of that school, and many of the seventeenthcentury English divines. I began to fast--to the intense disapproval ofmy mother, who cared for my health far more than for all the Fathers theChurch could boast of--to use the sign of the cross, to go to weeklycommunion. Indeed, the contrast I found between my early Evangelicaltraining and the doctrines of the Primitive Christian Church would havedriven me over to Rome, had it not been for the proofs afforded by Puseyand his co-workers, that the English Church might be Catholic althoughnon-Roman. But for them I should most certainly have joined the PapalCommunion; for if the Church of the early centuries be compared with Romeand with Geneva, there is no doubt that Rome shows marks of primitiveChristianity of which Geneva is entirely devoid. I became content when Ifound that the practices and doctrines of the Anglican Church could beknitted on to those of the martyrs and confessors of the early Church, for it had not yet struck me that the early Church might itself bechallenged. To me, at that time, the authority of Jesus was supreme andunassailable; his apostles were his infallible messengers; Clement ofRome, Polycarp, and Barnabas, these were the very pupils of the apostlesthemselves. I never dreamed of forgeries, of pious frauds, of writingsfalsely ascribed to venerated names. Nor do I now regret that so it was;for, without belief, the study of the early Fathers would be anintolerable weariness; and that old reading of mine has served me well inmany of my later controversies with Christians, who knew the literatureof their Church less well than I. 

To this ecclesiastical reading was added some study of stray scientificworks, but the number of these that came in my way was very limited. Theatmosphere surrounding me was literary rather than scientific. I rememberreading a translation of Plato that gave me great delight, and beingrather annoyed by the insatiable questionings of Socrates. Lord Derby'stranslation of the Iliad also charmed me with its stateliness and melody, and Dante was another favorite study. Wordsworth and Cowper I muchdisliked, and into the same category went all the 17th and 18th century"poets, " though I read them conscientiously through. Southey fascinatedme with his wealth of Oriental fancies, while Spencer was a favoritebook, put beside Milton and Dante. My novel reading was extremelylimited; indeed the "three volume novel" was a forbidden fruit. My motherregarded these ordinary love-stories as unhealthy reading for a younggirl, and gave me Scott and Kingsley, but not Miss Braddon or Mrs. HenryWood. Nor would she take me to the theatre, though we went to really goodconcerts. She had a horror of sentimentality in girls, and loved to seethem bright and gay, and above all things absolutely ignorant of all evilthings and of premature love-dreams. Happy, healthy and workful werethose too brief years. 

IV. 

My grandfather's house, No. 8, Albert Square, Clapham Road, was a secondhome from my earliest childhood. 

That house, with its little strip of garden at the back, will alwaysremain dear and sacred to me. I can see now the two almond trees, so richin blossom every spring, so barren in fruit every autumn; the largespreading tufts of true Irish shamrock, brought from Ireland, andlovingly planted in the new grey London house, amid the smoke; the littlenooks at the far end, wherein I would sit cosily out of sight reading afavorite book. Inside it was but a commonplace London house, only oneroom, perhaps, differing from any one that might have been found in anyother house in the square. That was my grandfather's "work-room", wherehe had a lathe fitted up, for he had a passion and a genius for inventivework in machinery. He took out patents for all sorts of ingeniouscontrivances, but always lost money. His favorite invention was of a"railway chair", for joining the ends of rails together, and in theultimate success of this he believed to his death. It was (and is) usedon several lines, and was found to answer splendidly, but the old mannever derived any profit from his invention. The fact was he had nomoney, and those who had took it up and utilised it, and kept all theprofit for themselves. There were several cases in which his patentsdropped, and then others took up his inventions, and made a commercialsuccess thereof. 

A strange man altogether was that grandfather of mine, whom I can onlyremember as a grand-looking old man, with snow-white hair and piercinghawk's eyes. The merriest of wild Irishmen was he in his youth, and Ihave often wished that his biography had been written, if only as apicture of Dublin society at the time. He had an exquisite voice, and onenight he and some of his wild comrades went out singing through thestreets as beggars. Pennies, sixpences, shillings, and even half-crownscame showering down in recompense of street music of such unusualexcellence; then the young scamps, ashamed of their gains, poured themall into the hat of a cripple they met, who must have thought that allthe blessed saints were out that night in the Irish capital. On anotheroccasion he went to the wake of an old woman who had been bent nearlydouble by rheumatism, and had been duly "laid out", and tied down firmly, so as to keep the body straight in the recumbent position. He hid underthe bed, and when the whisky was flowing freely, and the orgie was at itsheight, he cut the ropes with a sharp knife, and the old woman suddenlysat up in bed, frightening the revellers out of their wits, and, luckilyfor my grandfather, out of the room. Many such tales would he tell, withquaint Irish humor, in his later days. He died, from a third stroke ofparalysis, in 1862. 

The Morrises were a very "clannish" family, and my grandfather's housewas the London centre. All the family gathered there on eachChristmastide, and on Christmas day was always held high festival. Forlong my brother and I were the only grandchildren within reach, and werenaturally made much of. The two sons were out in India, married, withyoung families. The youngest daughter was much away from home, and asecond was living in Constantinople, but three others lived with theirfather and mother. Bessie, the eldest of the whole family, was a woman ofrigid honor and conscientiousness, but poverty and the struggle to keepout of debt had soured her, and "Aunt Bessie" was an object of dread, notof love. One story of her early life will best tell her character. Shewas engaged to a young clergyman, and one day when Bessie was at churchhe preached a sermon taken without acknowledgment from some old divine. The girl's keen sense of honor was shocked at the deception, and shebroke off her engagement, but remained unmarried for the rest of herlife. "Careful and troubled about many things" was poor Aunt Bessie, andI remember being rather shocked one day at hearing her express hersympathy with Martha, when her sister left her to serve alone, and at hersaying: "I doubt very much whether Jesus would have liked it if Marthahad been lying about on the floor as well as Mary, and there had been nosupper. But there! it's always those who do the work who are scolded, because they have not time to be as sweet and nice as those who donothing. " Nor could she ever approve of the treatment of the laborers inthe parable, when those who "had borne the burden and heat of the day"received but the same wage as those that had worked but one hour. "It wasnot just", she would say doggedly. A sad life was hers, for she repelledall sympathy, and yet later I had reason to believe that she half brokeher heart because none loved her well. She was ever gloomy, unsympathising, carping, but she worked herself to death for those whoselove she chillily repulsed. She worked till, denying herself everycomfort, she literally dropped. One morning, when she got out of bed, shefell, and crawling into bed again, quietly said she could do no more; laythere for some months, suffering horribly with unvarying patience; anddied, rejoicing that at last she would have "rest". 

Two other "Aunties" were my playfellows, and I their pet. Minnie, abrilliant pianiste, earned a precarious livelihood by teaching music. Thelong fasts, the facing of all weathers, the weary rides in omnibuses withsoaked feet, broke down at last a splendid constitution, and after somethree years of torture, commencing with a sharp attack of Englishcholera, she died the year before my marriage. But during my girlhood shewas the gayest and merriest of my friends, her natural buoyancyre-asserting itself whenever she could escape from her musicaltread-mill. Great was my delight when she joined my mother and myself forour spring or summer trips, and when at my favorite St. Leonards--at thefar unfashionable end, right away from the gay watering-place folk--wesettled down for four or five happy weeks of sea and country, and whenMinnie and I scampered over the country on horseback, merry as childrenset free from school. My other favorite auntie was of a quieter type, asoft pretty loving little woman. "Co" we called her, for she was "such acosy little thing", her father used to say. She was my mother's favoritesister, her "child", she would name her, because "Co" was so much herjunior, and when she was a young girl the little child had been hercharge. "Always take care of little Co", was one of my mother's dyingcharges to me, and fortunately "little Co" has--though the only one of myrelatives who has done so--clung to me through change of faith, andthrough social ostracism. Her love for me, and her full belief that, however she differed from me, I meant right, have never varied, havenever been shaken. She is intensely religious--as will be seen in thelater story, wherein her life was much woven with mine--but however much"darling Annie's" views or actions might shock her, it is "darling Annie"through it all; "You are so good" she said to me the last time I saw her, looking up at me with all her heart in her eyes; "anyone so good as youmust come to our dear Lord at last!" As though any, save a brute, couldbe aught but good to "little Co". 

On the Christmas following my eighteenth birthday, a little MissionChurch in which Minnie was much interested, was opened near AlbertSquare. My High Church enthusiasm was in full bloom, and the services inthis little Mission Church were "high", whereas those in all theneighboring churches were "low". A Mr. Hoare, an intensely earnest man, was working there in most devoted fashion, and was glad to welcome anyaid; we decorated his church, worked ornaments for it, and thought wewere serving God when we were really amusing ourselves in a small placewhere our help was over-estimated, and where the clergy, very likelyunconsciously, flattered us for our devotion. Among those who helped tocarry on the services there, was a young undermaster of Stockwell GrammarSchool, the rev. Frank Besant, a Cambridge man, who had passed as 28thwrangler in his year, and who had just taken orders. At Easter we wereagain at Albert Square, and devoted much time to the little church, decking it on Easter Eve with soft yellow tufts of primrose blossom, andtaking much delight in the unbounded admiration bestowed on the daintyspring blossoms by the poor who crowded in. I made a lovely white crossfor the super-altar with camelias and azaleas and white geraniums, butafter all it was not really as spring-like, as suitable for a"Resurrection", as the simple sweet wild flowers, still dewy from theirnests in field and glade and lane. 

That Easter was memorable to me for another cause. It saw waked andsmothered my first doubt. That some people did doubt the historicalaccuracy of the Bible I knew, for one or two of the Harrow masters werefriends of Colenso, the heretic Bishop of Natal, but fresh from myPatristic studies, I looked on heretics with blind horror, possibly thestronger from its very vagueness, and its ignorance of what it feared. Mymother objected to my reading controversial books which dealt with thepoints at issue between Christianity and Freethought, and I did not carefor her favorite Stanley, who might have widened my views, regarding him(on the word of Pusey) as "unsound in the faith once delivered to thesaints". I had read Pusey's book on "Daniel the prophet", and, knowingnothing of the criticisms he attacked, I felt triumphant at hisconvincing demonstrations of their error, and felt sure that none but thewilfully blind could fail to see how weak were the arguments of theheretic writers. That stately preface of his was one of my favoritepieces of reading, and his dignified defence against all novelties of"that which must be old because it is eternal, and must be unchangeablebecause it is true", at once charmed and satisfied me. The delightfulvagueness of Stanley, which just suited my mother's broad views, becauseit _was_ vague and beautiful, was denounced by Pusey--not unwarrantably--as that "variegated use of words which destroys all definiteness ofmeaning". When she would bid me not be uncharitable to those with whom Idiffered in matters of religion, I would answer in his words, that"charity to error is treason to truth", and that to speak out the truthunwaveringly as it was revealed, was alone "loyalty to God and charity tothe souls of men". 

Judge, then, of my terror at my own results when I found myself betrayedinto writing down some contradictions from the Bible. With that poeticdreaming which is one of the charms of Catholicism, whether English orRoman, I threw myself back into the time of the first century as the"Holy Week" of 1866 approached. In order to facilitate the realisation ofthose last sacred days of God incarnate on earth, working out man'ssalvation, I resolved to write a brief history of that week, compiledfrom the four gospels, meaning then to try and realise each day theoccurrences that had happened on the corresponding date in A. D. 33, andso to follow those "blessed feet" step by step, till they were

 ". .. Nailed for our advantage to the bitter cross. "

With the fearlessness which springs from ignorance I sat down to mytask. My method was as follows:

 MATTHEW. | MARK. | LUKE. | JOHN. | | | PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY. | PALM SUNDAY. | | |Rode into | Rode into | Rode into | Rode intoJerusalem. | Jerusalem. | Jerusalem. | Jerusalem. SpokePurified the | Returned to | Purified the | in the Temple. Temple. Returned | Bethany. | Temple. Note: |to Bethany. | | "Taught daily | | | in the Temple". | | | | MONDAY. | MONDAY. | MONDAY. | MONDAY. | | |Cursed the fig | Cursed the fig | Like Matthew. |tree. Taught in | tree. Purified | |the Temple, and | the Temple. | |spake many | Went out of | |parables. No | city. | |breaks shown, | | |but the fig tree | | |(xxi. , 19) did | | |not wither till | | |Tuesday (see | | |Mark). | | | | | | TUESDAY. | TUESDAY. | TUESDAY. | TUESDAY. | | |All chaps, xxi. , | Saw fig tree | Discourses. No |20, xxii. -xxv. , | withered up. | date shown. |spoken on Tues- | Then discourses. | |day, for xxvi. , 2 | | |gives Passover as | | |"after two days". | | | | | | WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY. | WEDNESDAY. | | |Blank. | | |(Possibly remained in Bethany; the alabaster box of ointment. ) | | | THURSDAY. | THURSDAY. | THURSDAY. | THURSDAY. | | |Preparation of | Same as Matt. | Same as Matt. | Discourses withPassover. Eating | | | disciples, butof Passover, | | | _before_ theand institution | | | Passover. Washesof the Holy Eu- | | | the disciples'charist. Gesthse- | | | feet. Nothing saidmane. Betrayal | | | of Holy Eucharist, by Judas. Led | | | nor of agony incaptive to Caia- | | | Gethsemane. Phas. Denied by | | | Malchus' ear. St. Peter. | | | Led captive to | | | Annas first. Then | | | to Caiaphas. Denied | | | by St. Peter. | | | FRIDAY. | FRIDAY. | FRIDAY. | FRIDAY. | | |Led to Pilate. | As Matthew, | Led to Pilate. | Taken to Pilate. Judas hangs | but hour of | Sent to Herod. | Jews would nothimself. Tried. | crucifixion | Sent back to | enter, that theyCondemned to | given, 9 a. M. | Pilate. Rest as | might eat thedeath. Scourged | | in Matthew; but | Passover. And mocked. | | _one_ male- | Scourged by Pi-Led to cruci- | | factor repents. | late before con-fixion. Darkness | | | demnation, andfrom 12 to 3. | | | mocked. Shown byDied at 3. | | | Pilate to Jews | | | at 12. 

At this point I broke down. I had been getting more and more uneasy anddistressed as I went on, but when I found that the Jews would not go intothe judgment hall lest they should be defiled, because they desired toeat the passover, having previously seen that Jesus had actually eatenthe passover with his disciples the evening before; when after writingdown that he was crucified at 9 a. M. , and that there was darkness overall the land from 12 to 3 p. M. , I found that three hours after he wascrucified he was standing in the judgment hall, and that at the very hourat which the miraculous darkness covered the earth; when I saw that I waswriting a discord instead of a harmony, I threw down my pen and shut upmy Bible. The shock of doubt was, however only momentary. I quicklyrecognised it as a temptation of the devil, and I shrank backhorror-stricken and penitent for the momentary lapse of faith. I saw thatthese apparent contradictions were really a test of faith, and that therewould be no credit in believing a thing in which there were nodifficulties. _Credo quia impossibile_; I repeated Tertullian's words atfirst doggedly, at last triumphantly. I fasted as penance for myinvoluntary sin of unbelief. I remembered that the Bible must not becarelessly read, and that St. Peter had warned us that there were in it"some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned andunstable wrest unto their own destruction". I shuddered at the"destruction" to the edge of which my unlucky "harmony" had drawn me, andresolved that I would never again venture on a task for which I was soevidently unfitted. Thus the first doubt was caused, and though swiftlytrampled down, it had none the less raised its head. It was stifled, notanswered, for all my religious training had led me to regard a doubt as asin to be repented of, not examined. And it left in my mind the dangerousfeeling that there were some things into which it was safer not toenquire too closely; things which must be accepted on faith, and not toonarrowly scrutinised. The awful threat: "He that believeth not shall bedamned, " sounded in my ears, and, like the angel with the flaming sword, barred the path of all too curious enquiry. 

V. 

The spring ripened into summer in uneventful fashion, so far as I wasconcerned, the smooth current of my life flowing on untroubled, hardreading and merry play filling the happy days. I learned later that twoor three offers of marriage reached my mother for me; but she answered toeach: "She is too young. I will not have her troubled. " Of love-dreams Ihad absolutely none, partly, I expect, from the absence of fiery novelsfrom my reading, partly because my whole dream-tendencies were absorbedby religion, and all my fancies ran towards a "religious life". I longedto spend my time in worshipping Jesus, and was, as far as my inner lifewas concerned, absorbed in that passionate love of "the Savior" which, among emotional Catholics, really is the human passion of lovetransferred to an ideal--for women to Jesus, for men to the Virgin Mary. In order to show that I am not here exaggerating, I subjoin a few of theprayers in which I found daily delight, and I do this in order to showhow an emotional girl may be attracted by these so-called devotionalexercises. 

"O crucified Love, raise in me fresh ardors of love and consolation, thatit may henceforth be the greatest torment I can endure ever to offendThee; that it may be my greatest delight to please Thee. "

"Let the remembrance of Thy death, O Lord Jesu, make me to desire andpant after Thee, that I may delight in Thy gracious presence. "

"O most sweet Jesu Christ, I, unworthy sinner, yet redeemed by Thyprecious blood. .. . Thine I am and will be, in life and in death. "

"O Jesu, beloved, fairer than the sons of men, draw me after Thee withthe cords of Thy love. "

"Blessed are Thou, O most merciful God, who didst vouchsafe to espouse meto the heavenly Bridegroom in the waters of baptism, and hast impartedThy body and blood as a new gift of espousal and the meet consummation ofThy love. "

"O most sweet Lord Jesu, transfix the affections of my inmost soul withthat most joyous and most healthful wound of Thy love, with true, serene, most holy, apostolic charity; that my soul may ever languish and meltwith entire love and longing for Thee. Let it desire Thee and faint forThy courts; long to be dissolved and be with Thee. "

"Oh, that I could embrace Thee with that most burning love of angels. "

"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for Thy love is betterthan wine. Draw me, we will run after Thee. The king hath brought me intohis chambers. .. . Let my soul, O Lord, feel the sweetness of Thy presence. May it taste how sweet Thou art. .. . May the sweet and burning power ofThy love, I beseech Thee, absorb my soul. "

To my dear mother this type of religious thought was revolting. But then, she was a woman who had been a wife and a devoted one, while I was achild awaking into womanhood, with emotions and passions dawning and notunderstood, emotions and passions which craved satisfaction, and found itin this "Ideal Man". Thousands of girls in England are to-day in exactlythis mental phase, and it is a phase full of danger. In America it isavoided by a frank, open, unsentimental companionship between boys andgirls, between young men and young women. In England, where this wiselyfree comradeship is regarded as "improper", the perfectly harmless andnatural sexual feeling is either dwarfed or forced, and so we have"prudishness" and "fastness". The sweeter and more loving natures becomeprudes; the more shallow as well as the more high-spirited and merrynatures become flirts. Often, as in my own case, the merry side finds itssatisfaction in amusements that demand active physical exercise, whilethe loving side finds its joy in religious expansion, in which theidealised figure of Jesus becomes the object of passion, and the life ofthe nun becomes the ideal life, as being dedicated to that one devotion. To the girl, of course, this devotion is all that is most holy, mostnoble, most pure. But analysing it now, after it has long been a thing ofthe past, I cannot but regard it as a mere natural outlet for the dawningfeelings of womanhood, certain to be the more intense and earnest as thenature is deep and loving. 

One very practical and mischievous result of this religious feeling isthe idealisation of all clergymen, as being the special messengers of, and the special means of communication with, the "Most High". The priestis surrounded by the halo of Deity. The power that holds the keys ofheaven and of hell becomes the object of reverence and of awe. Far morelofty than any title bestowed by earthly monarch is that patent ofnobility straight from the hand of the "King of kings", which seems togive to the mortal something of the authority of the immortal, to crownthe head of the priest with the diadem which belongs to those who are"kings and priests unto God". Swayed by these feelings, the position of aclergyman's wife seems second only to that of the nun, and has thereforea wonderful attractiveness, an attractiveness in which the particularclergyman affected plays a very subordinate part; it is the "sacredoffice", the nearness to "holy things", the consecration involved, whichseem to make the wife a nearer worshipper than those who do not partakein the immediate "services of the altar"--it is all these that shed aglamor over the clerical life which attracts most those who are most aptto self-devotion, most swayed by imagination. I know how incomprehensiblethis will seem to many of my readers, but it is a fact none the less, andthe saddest pity of it is that the glamor is most over those whose brainsare quick and responsive to all forms of noble emotions, all suggestionsof personal self-sacrifice; and if such later rise to the higher emotionswhose shadows have attracted them, and to that higher self-sacrificewhose whispers reached them in their early youth, then the falseprophet's veil is raised, and the life is either wrecked, or throughstorm-wind and surge of battling billows, with loss of mast and sail, issteered by firm hand into the port of a higher creed. 

My mother, Minnie, and I passed the summer holidays at St. Leonards, andmany a merry gallop had we over our favorite fields, I on a favoriteblack mare, Gipsy Queen, as full of life and spirits as I was myself, whodanced gaily over ditch and hedge, thinking little of my weight, for Irode barely eight stone. At the end of those, our last free summerholidays, we returned as usual to Harrow, and shortly afterwards I wentto Switzerland with some dear friends of ours named Roberts. 

Everyone about Manchester will remember Mr. Roberts, the solicitor, the"poor man's lawyer". Close friend of Ernest Jones, and hand-in-hand withhim through all his struggles, Mr. Roberts was always ready to fight apoor man's battle for him without fee, and to champion any workerunfairly dealt with. He worked hard in the agitation which saved womenfrom working in the mines, and I have heard him tell how he had seen themtoiling, naked to the waist, with short petticoats barely reaching totheir knees, rough, foul-tongued, brutalised out of all womanly decencyand grace; and how he had seen little children working there too, babiesof three and four set to watch a door, and falling asleep at their workto be roused by curse and kick to the unfair toil. The old man's eyewould begin to flash and his voice to rise as he told of these horrors, and then his face would soften as he added that, after it was all overand the slavery was put an end to, as he went through a coal-district thewomen standing at their doors would lift up their children to see "LawyerRoberts" go by, and would bid "God bless him" for what he had done. Thisdear old man was my first tutor in Radicalism, and I was an apt pupil. Ihad taken no interest in politics, but had unconsciously reflected moreor less the decorous Whiggism which had always surrounded me. I regarded"the poor" as folk to be educated, looked after, charitably dealt with, and always treated with most perfect courtesy, the courtesy being duefrom me, as a lady, to all equally, whether they were rich or poor. Butto Mr. Roberts "the poor" were the working-bees, the wealth producers, with a right to self-rule, not to looking after, with a right to justice, not to charity, and he preached his doctrines to me, in season and out ofseason. "What do you think of John Bright?" he demanded of me one day. "Ihave never thought of him at all, " I answered lightly. "Isn't he a ratherrough sort of man, who goes about making rows?" "There, I thought so, " hebroke out fiercely. "That's just what they say. I believe some of youfine ladies would not go to heaven if you had to rub shoulders with JohnBright, the noblest man God ever gave to the cause of the poor. " And thenhe launched out into stories of John Bright's work and John Bright'seloquence, and showed me the changes that work and eloquence had made inthe daily lives of the people. 

With Mr. Roberts, his wife, and two daughters, I went to Switzerland asthe autumn drew near. It would be of little interest to tell how we wentto Chamounix and worshipped Mont Blanc, how we crossed the Mer de Glaceand the Mauvais Pas, how we visited the Monastery of St. Bernard (Ilosing my heart to the beautiful dogs), how we went by steamer down thelake of Thun, how we gazed at the Jungfrau and saw the exquisiteStaubbach, how we visited Lausanne, and Berne, and Geneva, how we stoodbeside the wounded Lion, and shuddered in the dungeon of Chillon, how wewalked distances we never should have attempted in England, how weyounger ones lost ourselves on a Sunday afternoon, after ascending amountain, and returned footsore and weary, to meet a party going out toseek us with lanterns and ropes. All these things have been so oftendescribed that I will not add one more description to the list, nor dwellon that strange feeling of awe, of wonder, of delight, that everyone musthave felt, when the glory of the peaks clad in "everlasting snow" is forthe first time seen against the azure sky on the horizon, and you whisperto yourself, half breathless: "The Alps! The Alps!"

During that autumn I became engaged to the Rev. Frank Besant, giving upwith a sigh of regret my dreams of the "religious life", and substitutingfor them the work which would have to be done as the wife of a priest, laboring ever in the church and among the poor. A queer view, some peoplemay think, for a girl to take of married life, but it was the naturalresult of my living the life of the Early Church, of my enthusiasm forreligious work. To me a priest was a half-angelic creature, whose wholelife was consecrated to heaven; all that was deepest and truest in mynature chafed against my useless days, longed for work, yearned to devoteitself, as I had read women saints had done, to the service of the churchand the poor, to the battling against sin and misery. "You will have moreopportunity for doing good as a clergyman's wife than as anything else, "was one of the pleas urged on my reluctance. My ignorance of all thatmarriage meant was as profound as though I had been a child of four, andmy knowledge of the world was absolutely _nil_. My darling mother meantall that was happiest for me when she shielded me from all knowledge ofsorrow and of sin, when she guarded me from the smallest idea of themarriage relation, keeping me ignorant as a baby till I left her home awife. But looking back now on all, I deliberately say that no more fatalblunder can be made than to train a girl to womanhood in ignorance of alllife's duties and burdens, and then to let her face them for the firsttime away from all the old associations, the old helps, the old refuge onthe mother's breast. That "perfect innocence" maybe very beautiful, butit is a perilous possession, and Eve should have the knowledge of goodand of evil ere she wanders forth from the paradise of a mother's love. When a word is never spoken to a girl that is not a caress; whennecessary rebuke comes in tone of tenderest reproach; when "You havegrieved me" has been the heaviest penalty for a youthful fault; when noanxiety has ever been allowed to trouble the young heart--then, when thehothouse flower is transplanted, and rough winds blow on it, it droopsand fades. 

The spring and summer of 1867 passed over with little of incident, saveone. We quitted Harrow, and the wrench was great. My brother had leftschool, and had gone to Cambridge; the master, who had lived with us forso long, had married and had gone to a house of his own; my motherthought that as she was growing older, the burden of management wasbecoming too heavy, and she desired to seek an easier life. She had savedmoney enough to pay for my brother's college career, and she determinedto invest the rest of her savings in a house in St. Leonard's, where shemight live for part of the year, letting the house during the season. Sheaccordingly took and furnished a house in Warrior Square, and we movedthither, saying farewell to the dear Old Vicarage, and the friends lovedfor so many happy years. 

At the end of the summer, my mother and I went down to Manchester, to paya long visit to the Roberts's; a very pleasant time we passed there, alarge part of mine being spent on horseback, either leaping over a bar inthe meadow, or scouring the country far and wide. A grave break, however, came in our mirth. The Fenian troubles were then at their height. OnSeptember 11th, Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasy, two Fenian leaders, werearrested in Manchester, and the Irish population was at once thrown intoa terrible ferment. On the 18th, the police van containing them wasreturning from the Court to the County Gaol at Salford, and as it reachedthe railway arch which crosses the Hyde Road at Bellevue, a man sprangout, shot one of the horses, and thus stopped the van. In a moment it wassurrounded by a small band, armed with revolvers and with crowbars, andthe crowbars were wrenching at the locked door. A reinforcement of policewas approaching, and there was no time to be lost. The rescuers called toBrett, a sergeant of police who was in charge inside the van, to pass thekeys out, and, on his refusal, there was a cry: "Blow off the lock!". Themuzzle of a revolver was placed against the lock, and the revolver wasdischarged. Unhappily, poor Brett had stooped down to try and see throughthe keyhole what was going on outside, and the bullet, fired to blow openthe lock, entered his head, and he fell dying on the floor. The rescuersrushed in, and one Allen, a lad of seventeen, opened the doors of thecompartments in which were Kelly and Deasy, and hurriedly pulled themout. Two or three of the band, gathering round them, carried them offacross the fields to a place of safety, while the rest gallantly threwthemselves between their rescued friends and the strong body of policewhich charged down after the fugitives. With their revolvers pointed, they kept back the police, until they saw that the two Fenian leaderswere beyond all chance of capture, and then they scattered, flying in alldirections. Young William Allen, whose one thought had been for hischiefs, was the earliest victim. As he fled, he raised his hand and firedhis revolver straight in the air; he had been ready to use it in defenceof others, he would not shed blood for himself. Disarmed by his own act, he was set upon by the police, brutally struck down, kicked and stoned byhis pursuers, and then, bruised and bleeding, he was dragged off to gaol, to meet there some of his comrades in much the same plight. The wholecity of Manchester went mad over the story, and the fiercestrace-passions at once blazed out into flame; it became dangerous for anIrish workman to be alone in a group of Englishmen, for an Englishman toventure into the Irish quarter of the city. The friends of the arrestedIrishmen went straight to "Lawyer Roberts", and begged his aid, and hethrew himself heart and soul into their defence. He soon found that theman who had fired the fatal shot was safe out of the way, having leftManchester at once, and he trusted that it would at least be possible tosave his clients from the death-penalty. A Special Commission was issued, with Mr. Justice Blackburn at its head. "They are going to send thathanging judge, " groaned Mr. Roberts when he heard it, and we felt therewas small chance of escape for the prisoners. He struggled hard to havethe _venue_ of the trial changed, protesting that in the state ofexcitement in which Manchester was, there was no chance of obtaining animpartial jury. But the cry for blood and for revenge was ringing throughthe air, and of fairness and impartiality there was no chance. On the25th of October, the prisoners were actually brought up before themagistrates _in irons_, and Mr. Ernest Jones, the counsel briefed todefend them, after a vain protest against the monstrous outrage, threwdown his brief and quitted the Court. The trial was hurried on, and onOctober 29th, Allen, Larkin, Gould (O'Brien), Maguire, and Condon, stoodbefore their judges. 

We drove up to the court; the streets were barricaded; soldiers wereunder arms; every approach was crowded by surging throngs. At last, ourcarriage was stopped in the midst of excited Irishmen, and fists wereshaken in the window, curses levelled at the "d----d English who weregoing to see the boys murdered". For a moment things were uncomfortable, for we were five women of helpless type. Then I bethought myself that wewere unknown, and, like the saucy girl I was, I leant forward and touchedthe nearest fist. "Friends, these are Mr. Roberts' wife and daughters. ""Roberts! Lawyer Roberts! God bless Roberts. Let his carriage through. "And all the scowling faces became smile-wreathen, and cheers sounded outfor curses, and a road was cleared for us to the steps. 

Very sad was that trial. On the first day Mr. Roberts got himself intotrouble which threatened to be serious. He had briefed Mr. Digby Seymour, Q. C. As leader, with Mr. Ernest Jones, for the defence, and he did notthink that the jurymen proposed were challenged as they should be. Weknew that many whose names were called were men who had proclaimed theirhostility to the Irish, and despite the wrath of Judge Blackburn, Mr. Roberts would jump up and challenge them. In vain he threatened to committhe sturdy solicitor. "These men's lives are at stake, my lord, " he saidindignantly. At last the officers of the court were sharply told: "Removethat man, " but as they advanced reluctantly--for all poor men loved andhonored him--Judge Blackburn changed his mind and let him remain. At lastthe jury was empanelled, containing one man who had loudly proclaimedthat he "didn't care what the evidence was, he would hang every d----dIrishman of the lot". In fact, the verdict was a foregone conclusion. Themost disreputable evidence was admitted; the suppositions of women oflowest character were accepted as conclusive; the _alibi_ for Maguire--clearly proved, and afterwards accepted by the Crown, a free pardon beingissued on the strength of it--was rejected with dogged obstinacy; howpremeditated was the result may be guessed from the fact that I saw--withwhat shuddering horror may be estimated--some official in the room behindthe judges' chairs, quietly preparing the black caps before the verdicthad been given. The verdict of "Guilty" was repeated in each of the fivecases, and the prisoners were asked by the presiding judge if they hadanything to say why sentence should not be passed on them. Allen spokebriefly and bravely; he had not fired a shot, but he had helped to freeKelly and Deasy; he was willing to die for Ireland. The others followedin turn, Maguire protesting his innocence, and Condon declaring also thathe was not present (he also was reprieved). Then the sentence of deathwas passed, and "God save Ireland"! rang out in five clear voices inanswer from the dock. 

We had a sad scene that night; the young girl to whom poor Allen wasengaged was heartbroken at her lover's doom, and bitter were her cries to"save my William!". No protests, no pleas, however, availed to mitigatethe doom, and on November 23rd, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were hangedoutside Salford gaol. Had they striven for freedom in Italy, Englandwould have honored them as heroes; here she buried them as commonmurderers in quicklime in the prison yard. 

I have found, with a keen sense of pleasure, that Mr. Bradlaugh andmyself were in 1867 to some extent co-workers, although we knew not ofeach other's existence, and although he was doing much, and I only givingsuch poor sympathy as a young girl might, who was only just awakening tothe duty of political work. I read in the _National Reformer_ forNovember 24, 1867, that in the preceding week, he was pleading onClerkenwell Green for these men's lives:

"According to the evidence at the trial, Deasy and Kelly were illegallyarrested. They had been arrested for vagrancy of which no evidence wasgiven, and apparently remanded for felony without a shadow ofjustification. He had yet to learn that in England the same state ofthings existed as in Ireland; he had yet to learn that an illegal arrestwas sufficient ground to detain any of the citizens of any country in theprisons of this one. If he were illegally held, he was justified in usingenough force to procure his release. Wearing a policeman's coat gave noauthority when the officer exceeded his jurisdiction. He had argued thisbefore Lord Chief Justice Erle in the Court of Common Pleas, and thatlearned judge did not venture to contradict the argument which hesubmitted. There was another reason why they should spare these men, although he hardly expected the Government to listen, because theGovernment sent down one of the judges who was predetermined to convictthe prisoners; it was that the offence was purely a political one. Thedeath of Brett was a sad mischance, but no one who read the evidencecould regard the killing of Brett as an intentional murder. Legally, itwas murder; morally, it was homicide in the rescue of a politicalcaptive. If it were a question of the rescue of the political captives ofVarignano, or of political captives in Bourbon, in Naples, or in Poland, or in Paris, even earls might be found so to argue. Wherein is our sisterIreland less than these? In executing these men, they would throw downthe gauntlet for terrible reprisals. It was a grave and solemn question. It had been said by a previous speaker that they were prepared to go toany lengths to save these Irishmen. They were not. He wished they were. If they were, if the men of England, from one end to the other, wereprepared to say, "These men shall not be executed, " they would not be. Hewas afraid they had not pluck enough for that. Their moral courage wasnot equal to their physical strength. Therefore he would not say thatthey were prepared to do so. They must plead _ad misericordiam_. Heappealed to the press, which represented the power of England; to thatpress which in its panic-stricken moments had done much harm, and whichought now to save these four doomed men. If the press demanded it, noGovernment would be mad enough to resist. The memory of the blood whichwas shed in 1798 rose up like a bloody ghost against them to-day. He onlyfeared that what they said upon the subject might do the poor men moreharm than good. If it were not so, he would coin words that should speakin words of fire. As it was, he could only say to the Government: You arestrong to-day; you hold these men's lives in your hands; but if you wantto reconcile their country to you, if you want to win back Ireland, ifyou want to make her children love you--then do not embitter their heartsstill more by taking the lives of these men. Temper your strength withmercy; do not use the sword of justice like one of vengeance; for the daymay come when it shall be broken in your hands, and you yourselvesbrained by the hilt of the weapon you have so wickedly wielded. "

In October he had printed a plea for Ireland, strong and earnest, asking:--

"Where is our boasted English freedom when you cross to Kingstown pier?Where has it been for near two years? The Habeas Corpus Act suspended, the gaols crowded, the steamers searched, spies listening at shebeenshops for sedition, and the end of it a Fenian panic in England. Oh, before it be too late, before more blood shall stain the pages of ourpresent history, before we exasperate and arouse bitter animosities, letus try and do justice to our sister land. Abolish once and for all theland laws, which in their iniquitous operation have ruined her peasantry. Sweep away the leech-like Church which has sucked her vitality, and hasgiven her back no word even of comfort in her degradation. Turn herbarracks into flax mills, encourage a spirit of independence in hercitizens, restore to her people the protection of the law, so that theymay speak without fear of arrest, and beg them to plainly and boldlystate their grievances. Let a commission of the best and wisest amongstIrishmen, with some of our highest English judges added, sit solemnly tohear all complaints, and then let us honestly legislate, not for thepunishment of the discontented, but to remove the causes of thediscontent. It is not the Fenians who have depopulated Ireland's strengthand increased her misery. It is not the Fenians who have evicted tenantsby the score. It is not the Fenians who have checked cultivation. Thosewho have caused the wrong at least should frame the remedy. "

VI. 

In December, 1867, I was married at St. Leonards, and after a brief tripto Paris and Southsea, we went to Cheltenham where Mr. Besant hadobtained a mastership. We lived at first in lodgings, and as I was verymuch alone, my love for reading had full swing. Quietly to myself Ifretted intensely for my mother, and for the daily sympathy andcomradeship that had made my life so fair. In a strange town, amongstrangers, with a number of ladies visiting me who talked only ofservants and babies--troubles of which I knew nothing--who wereprofoundly uninterested in everything that had formed my previous life, in theology, in politics, in questions of social reform, and who lookedon me as "strange" because I cared more for the great struggles outsidethan for the discussions of a housemaid's young man, or the amount of"butter when dripping would have done perfectly well, my dear, " used bythe cook--under such circumstances it will not seem marvellous that Ifelt somewhat forlorn. I found refuge, however, in books, andenergetically carried on my favorite studies; next, I thought I would trywriting, and took up two very different lines of composition; I wrotesome short stories of a very flimsy type, and also a work of a much moreambitious character, "The Lives of the Black Letter Saints". For the sakeof the unecclesiastically trained it may be well to mention that in theCalendar of the Church of England there are a number of Saints' Days;some of these are printed in red, and are Red Letter Days, for whichservices are appointed by the Church; others are printed in black, andare Black Letter Days, and have no special services fixed for them. Itseemed to me that it would be interesting to take each of these days andwrite a sketch of the life of the saint belonging to it, and accordinglyI set to work to do so, and gathered various books of history and legendwherefrom to collect my "facts". I don't in the least know what became ofthat valuable book; I tried Macmillans with it, and it was sent on bythem to someone who was preparing a series of church books for the young;later I had a letter from a Church brotherhood offering to publish it, ifI would give it as an "act of piety" to their order; its ultimate fate isto me unknown. 

The short stories were more fortunate. I sent the first to the _FamilyHerald_, and some weeks afterwards received a letter from which dropped acheque as I opened it. Dear me! I have earned a good deal of money sinceby my pen, but never any that gave me the intense delight of that firstthirty shillings. It was the first money I had ever earned, and the prideof the earning was added to the pride of authorship. In my childishdelight and practical religion, I went down on my knees and thanked Godfor sending it to me, and I saw myself earning heaps of golden guineas, and becoming quite a support of the household. Besides, it was "my veryown", I thought, and a delightful sense of independence came over me. Ihad not then realised the beauty of the English law, and the dignifiedposition in which it placed the married woman; I did not understand thatall a married woman earned by law belonged to her owner, and that shecould have nothing that belonged to her of right. [1] I did not want themoney: I was only so glad to have something of my own to give, and it wasrather a shock to learn that it was not really mine at all. 

[Footnote 1: This odious law has now been altered, and a married woman isa person, not a chattel. ]

From time to time after that, I earned a few pounds for stories in thesame journal; and the _Family Herald, _ let me say, has one peculiaritywhich should render it beloved by poor authors; it pays its contributorwhen it accepts the paper, whether it prints it immediately or not; thusmy first story was not printed for some weeks after I received thecheque, and it was the same with all others accepted by the same journal. Encouraged by these small successes, I began writing a novel! It took along time to do, but was at last finished, and sent off to the _FamilyHerald. _ The poor thing came back, but with a kind note, telling me thatit was too political for their pages, but that if I would write one of"purely domestic interest", and up to the same level, it would probablybe accepted. But by that time I was in the full struggle of theologicaldoubt, and that novel of "purely domestic interest" never got itselfwritten. 

I contributed further to the literature of my country a theologicalpamphlet, of which I forget the exact title, but it dealt with the dutyof fasting incumbent on all faithful Christians, and was very patristicin its tone. 

In January, 1869, my little son was born, and as I was very ill for somemonths before, --and was far too much interested in the tiny creatureafterwards, to devote myself to pen and paper, my literary career waschecked for a while. The baby gave a new interest and a new pleasure tolife, and as we could not afford a nurse I had plenty to do in lookingafter his small majesty. My energy in reading became less feverish whenit was done by the side of the baby's cradle, and the little one'spresence almost healed the abiding pain of my mother's loss. 

I may pass very quickly over the next two years. In August, 1870, alittle sister was born to my son, and the recovery was slow and tedious, for my general health had been failing for some time. I was, among otherthings, fretting much about my mother, who was in sore trouble. A lawyerin whom she had had the most perfect confidence betrayed it; for yearsshe had paid all her large accounts through him, and she had placed hermoney in his hands. Suddenly he was discovered by his partners to havebeen behaving unfairly; the crash came, and my mother found that all themoney given by her for discharge of liabilities had vanished, while theaccounts were unpaid, and that she was involved in debt to a very seriousextent. The shock was a very terrible one to her, for she was too old tobegin the world afresh. She sold off all she had, and used the money, asfar as it would go, to pay the debts she believed to have been long agodischarged, and she was thus left penniless after thinking she had made alittle competence for her old age. Lord Hatherley's influence obtainedfor my brother the post of undersecretary to the Society of Arts, andalso some work from the Patent Office, and my mother went to live withhim. But the dependence was intolerable to her, though she never letanyone but myself know she suffered, and even I, until her last illness, never knew how great her suffering had been. The feeling of debt weighedon her, and broke her heart; all day long while my brother was at hisoffice, through the bitter winter weather, she would sit without a fire, lighting it only a little before his home-coming, so that she might saveall the expense she could; often and often she would go out abouthalf-past twelve, saying that she was going out to lunch, and would walkabout till late in the afternoon, so as to avoid the lunch-hour at home. I have always felt that the winter of 1870-1 killed her, though she livedon for three years longer; it made her an old broken woman, and crushedher brave spirit. How often I have thought since: "If only I had not lefther! I should have seen she was suffering, and should have saved her. "One little chance help I gave her, on a brief visit to town. She waslooking very ill, and I coaxed out of her that her back was alwaysaching, and that she never had a moment free from pain. Luckily I hadthat morning received a letter containing £2 2s. From my liberal _FamilyHerald_ editor, and as, glancing round the room, I saw there were onlyordinary chairs, I disregarded all questions as to the legal ownership ofthe money, and marched out without saying a word, and bought for £1 15s. A nice cushiony chair, just like one she used to have at Harrow, and hadit sent home to her. For a moment she was distressed, but I told her Ihad earned the money, and so she was satisfied. "Oh, the rest!" she saidsoftly once or twice during the evening. I have that chair still, andmean to keep it as long as I live. 

In the spring of 1871 both my children were taken ill with hooping-cough. The boy, Digby, vigorous and merry, fought his way through it with nodanger, and with comparatively little suffering; Mabel, the baby, hadbeen delicate since her birth; there had been some little difficulty ingetting her to breathe after she was born, and a slight tendencyafterwards to lung-delicacy. She was very young for so trying a diseaseas hooping-cough, and after a while bronchitis set in, and was followedby congestion of the lungs. For weeks she lay in hourly peril of death;we arranged a screen round the fire like a tent, and kept it full ofsteam to ease the panting breath, and there I sat all through those wearyweeks with her on my lap, day and night. The doctor said that recoverywas impossible, and that in one of the fits of coughing she must die; themost distressing thing was that at last the giving of a drop or two ofmilk brought on the terrible convulsive choking, and it seemed cruel totorture the apparently dying child. At length, one morning when thedoctor was there, he said that she could not last through the day; I hadsent for him hurriedly, for her body had swollen up rapidly, and I didnot know what had happened; the pleura of one lung had become perforated, and the air escaping into the cavity of the chest had caused theswelling; while he was there, one of the fits of coughing came on, and itseemed as though it would be the last; the doctor took a small bottle ofchloroform out of his pocket, and putting a drop on a handkerchief, heldit near the child's face, till the drug soothed the convulsive struggle. "It can't do any harm at this stage, " he said, "and it checks thesuffering. " He went away, saying that he would return in the afternoon, but he feared he would never see the child alive again. One of thekindest friends I had in my married life was that same doctor, Mr. Lauriston Winterbotham; he was as good as he was clever, and, like somany of his noble, profession, he had the merits of discretion and ofsilence. 

That chance thought of his about the chloroform, verily, I believe, savedthe child's life. Whenever one of the convulsive fits was coming on Iused it, and so not only prevented to a great extent the violence of theattacks, but also the profound exhaustion that followed them, when ofbreath at the top of the throat showing that she still lived. At last, though more than once we had thought her dead, a change took place forthe better, and the child began slowly to mend. For years, however, thatstruggle for life left its traces on her, not only in seriouslung-delicacy but also in a form of epileptic fits. In her play she wouldsuddenly stop, and become fixed for about a minute, and then go on againas though nothing had occurred. On her mother a more permanent trace wasleft. 

Not unnaturally, when the child was out of danger, I collapsed from sheerexhaustion, and I lay in bed for a week. But an important change of minddated from those silent weeks with a dying child on my knees. There hadgrown up in my mind a feeling of angry resentment against the God who hadbeen for weeks, as I thought, torturing my helpless baby. For some monthsa stubborn antagonism to the Providence who ordained the sufferings oflife had been steadily increasing in me, and this sullen challenge, "IsGod good?" found voice in my heart during those silent nights and days. My mother's sufferings, and much personal unhappiness, had been, intensifying the feeling, and as I watched my baby in its agony, and feltso helpless to relieve, more than once the indignant cry broke from mylips: "How canst thou torture a baby so? What has she done that sheshould suffer so? Why dost thou not kill her at once, and let her be atpeace?" More than once I cried aloud: "O God, take the child, but do nottorment her. " All my personal belief in God, all my intense faith in hisconstant direction of affairs, all my habit of continual prayer and ofrealisation of his presence, were against me now. To me he was not anabstract idea, but a living reality, and all my mother-heart rose up inrebellion against this person in whom I believed, and whose individualfinger I saw in my baby's agony. 

At this time I met a clergyman--I do not give his name lest I shouldinjure him--whose wider and more liberal views of Christianity exercisedmuch influence over me during the months of struggle that followed. Mr. Besant had brought him to me while the child was at her worst, and Isuppose something of the "Why is it?" had, unconsciously to me, shownitself to his keen eyes. On the day after his visit, I received from himthe following letter, in which unbeliever as well as believer mayrecognise the deep human sympathy and noble nature of the writer:--

"April 21st, 1871. 

"MY DEAR MRS. BESANT, --I am painfully conscious that I gave you butlittle help in your trouble yesterday. It is needless to say that it wasnot from want of sympathy. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to saythat it was from excess of sympathy. I shrink intensely from meddlingwith the sorrow of anyone whom I feel to be of a sensitive nature. 

'The heart hath its own bitterness, and the stranger meddleth nottherewith. '

It is to me a positively fearful thought that I might await a reflectionas

 'And common was the common place, And vacant chaff well meant for grain'. 

Conventional consolations, conventional verses out of the Bible andconventional prayers are, it seems to me, an intolerable aggravation ofsuffering. And so I acted on a principle that I mentioned to yourhusband, that 'there is no power so great as that of one human faithlooking upon another human faith'. The promises of God, the love ofChrist for little children, and all that has been given to us of hope andcomfort, are as deeply planted in your heart as in mine, and I did notcare to quote them. But when I talk face to face with one who is in soreneed of them, my faith in them suddenly becomes so vast andheart-stirring that I think I must help most by talking naturally, andletting the faith find its own way from soul to soul. Indeed I could notfind words for it if I tried. And yet I am compelled, as a messenger ofthe glad tidings of God, to solemnly assure you that all is well. We haveno key to the 'Mystery of Pain', excepting the Cross of Christ. But thereis another and a deeper solution in the hands of our Father. And it willbe ours when we can understand it. There is--in the place to which wetravel--some blessed explanation of your baby's pain and your grief, which will fill with light the darkest heart. Now you must believewithout having seen; that is true faith. You must

 'Reach a hand through time to catch The far-oft interest of tears'. 

That you may have strength so to do is part of your share in the prayersof yours very faithfully, W. D----. "

During the summer months I saw much of this clergyman, Mr. D---- and hiswife. We grew into closer intimacy in consequence of the dangerousillness of their only child, a beautiful boy a few months old. I hadgained quite a name in Cheltenham as a nurse--my praises having been sungby the doctor--and Mrs. D---- felt she could trust me even with herdarling boy while she snatched a night's sorely needed rest. Myquestionings were not shirked by Mr. D----, nor discouraged; he wasneither horrified nor sanctimoniously rebuking, but met them all with awide comprehension inexpressibly soothing to one writhing in the firstagony of real doubt. The thought of hell was torturing me; somehow out ofthe baby's pain through those seemingly endless hours had grown a dimrealisation of what hell might be, full of the sufferings of the beloved, and my whole brain and heart revolted from the unutterable cruelty of acreating and destroying God. Mr. D---- lent me Maurice and Robertson, andstrove to lead me into their wider hope for man, their more trustfulfaith in God. 

Everyone who has doubted after believing knows how, after the firstadmitted and recognised doubt, others rush in like a flood, and howdoctrine after doctrine starts up in new and lurid light, looking sodifferent in aspect from the fair faint outlines in which it had shoneforth in the soft mists of faith. The presence of evil and pain in theworld made by a "good God", and the pain falling on the innocent, as onmy seven months' old babe; the pain here reaching on into eternityunhealed; these, while I yet believed, drove me desperate, and I believedand hated, instead of like the devils, "believed and trembled". Next, Ichallenged the righteousness of the doctrine of the Atonement, and whileI worshipped and clung to the suffering Christ, I hated the God whorequired the death sacrifice at his hands. And so for months the turmoilwent on, the struggle being all the more terrible for the verydesperation with which I strove to cling to some planks of the wreckedship of faith on the tossing sea of doubt. 

After Mr. D---- left Cheltenham, as he did in the early autumn of 1871, he still aided me in my mental struggles. He had advised me to readMcLeod Campbell's work on the Atonement, as one that would meet many ofthe difficulties that lay on the surface of the orthodox view, and inanswer to a letter dealing with this really remarkable work, he wrote(Nov. 22, 1871):

"(1) The two passages on pp. 25 and 108 you doubtless interpret quiterightly. In your third reference to pp. 117, 188, you forget one greatprinciple--that God is impassive; cannot suffer. Christ, quâ _God_, didnot suffer, but as Son of _Man_ and in his _humanity_. Still, it may becorrectly stated that He felt to sin and sinners 'as God eternallyfeels'--_i. E. , abhorrence of sin and love of the sinner_. But to inferfrom that that the Father in his Godhead feels the sufferings whichChrist experienced solely in humanity, and because incarnate, is, Ithink, wrong. 

"(2) I felt strongly inclined to blow you up for the last part of yourletter. You assume, I think quite gratuitously, that God condemns themajor part of his children to objectless future suffering. You say thatif he does not, he places a book in their hands which threatens what hedoes not mean to inflict. But how utterly this seems to me opposed to thegospel of Christ. All Christ's reference to eternal punishment may beresolved into reference to the Valley of Hinnom, by way of imagery; withthe exception of the Dives parable, where is distinctly inferred a moralamendment beyond the grave. I speak of the unselfish desire of Dives tosave his brothers. The more I see of the controversy the more baselessdoes the eternal punishment theory appear. It seems, then, to me, thatinstead of feeling aggrieved and shaken, you ought to feel encouraged andthankful that God is so much better than you were taught to believe him. You will have discovered by this time, in Maurice's 'What is Revelation'(I suppose you have the 'Sequel' too?) that God's truth _is_ our truth, and his love is our love, only more perfect and full. There is noposition more utterly defeated in modern philosophy and theology, thanDean Mansel's attempt to show that God's justice, love, etc. , aredifferent in kind from ours. Mill and Maurice, from totally alien pointsof view, have shown up the preposterous nature of the notion. 

"(3) A good deal of what you have thought is, I fancy, based on a strangeforgetfulness of your former experience. If you have known Christ (whomto know is eternal life)--and that you have known him I am certain--canyou really say that a few intellectual difficulties, nay, a few moraldifficulties if you will, are able at once to obliterate the testimony ofthat higher state of being?

"Why, the keynote of all my theology is that Christ is loveable because, and _just_ because, he is the perfection of all that I know to be nobleand generous, and loving, and tender, and true. If an angel from heavenbrought me a gospel which contained doctrines that would not stand thetest of such perfect loveableness--doctrines hard, or cruel, or unjust--Ishould reject him and his trumpery gospel with scorn, knowing thatneither could be Christ's. 

"Know Christ and judge religions by him; don't judge him by religions, and then complain because you find yourself looking at him through ablood-colored glass. .. . 

"I am saturating myself with Maurice, who is the antidote given by God tothis age against all dreary doubtings and temptings of the devil todespair. "

On these lines weary strife went on for months, until at last brain andhealth gave way completely, and for weeks I lay prostrate and helpless, in terrible ceaseless head-pain, unable to find relief in sleep. Thedoctor tried every form of relief in vain; he covered my head with ice, he gave me opium--which only drove me mad--he used every means his skillcould dictate to remove the pain, but all failed. At last he gave up theattempt to cure physically, and tried mental diversion; he brought me upbooks on anatomy and persuaded me to study them; I have still an analysismade by me at that time of Luther Holden's "Human Osteology ". He waswise enough to see that if I were to be brought back to reasonable life, it could only be by diverting thought from the currents in which it hadbeen running to a dangerous extent. 

No one who has not felt it knows the fearful agony caused by doubt to theearnestly religious mind. There is in this life no other pain sohorrible. The doubt seems to shipwreck everything, to destroy the onesteady gleam of happiness "on the other side" that no earthly storm couldobscure; to make all life gloomy with a horror of despair, a darknessthat may verily be felt. Fools talk of Atheism as the outcome of foullife and vicious thought. They, in their shallow heartlessness, theirbrainless stupidity, cannot even dimly imagine the anguish of the merepenumbra of the eclipse of faith, much less the horror of that greatdarkness in which the orphaned soul cries out into the infiniteemptiness: "Is it a Devil who has made this world? Are we the sentienttoys of an Almighty Power, who sports with our agony, and whose peals ofawful mocking laughter echo the wailings of our despair?"

VII. 

On recovering from that prostrating physical pain, I came to a verydefinite decision. I resolved that, whatever might be the result, I wouldtake each dogma of the Christian religion, and carefully and thoroughlyexamine it, so that I should never again say "I believe" where I had notproved. So, patiently and steadily, I set to work. Four problems chieflyat this time pressed for solution. I. The eternity of punishment afterdeath. II. The meaning of "goodness" and "love" as applied to a God whohad made this world with all its evil and its misery. III. The nature ofthe atonement of Christ, and the "justice" of God in accepting avicarious suffering from Christ, and a vicarious righteousness from thesinner. IV. The meaning of "inspiration" as applied to the Bible, and thereconciliation of the perfection of the author with the blunders and theimmoralities of the work. 

Maurice's writings now came in for very careful study, and I read alsothose of Robertson, of Brighton, and of Stopford Brooke, striving to findin these some solid ground whereon I might build up a new edifice offaith. That ground, however, I failed to find; there were poetry, beauty, enthusiasm, devotion; but there was no rock on which I might take mystand. Mansel's Bampton lectures on "The Limits of Religious Thought"deepened and intensified my doubts. His arguments seemed to makecertainty impossible, and I could not suddenly turn round and believe toorder, as he seemed to recommend, because proof was beyond reach. I couldnot, and would not, adore in God as the highest Righteousness that which, in man was condemned as harsh, as cruel, and as unjust. 

In the midst of this long mental struggle, a change occurred in theoutward circumstances of my life. I wrote to Lord Hatherley and asked himif he could give Mr. Besant a Crown living, and he offered us first onein Northumberland, near Alnwick Castle, and then one in Lincolnshire, thevillage of Sibsey, with a vicarage house, and an income of £410 perannum. We decided to accept the latter. 

The village was scattered over a considerable amount of ground, but thework was not heavy. The church was one of the fine edifices for which thefen country is so famous, and the vicarage was a comfortable house, withlarge and very beautiful gardens and paddock, and with outlying fields. The people were farmers and laborers, with a sprinkling of shopkeepers;the only "society" was that of the neighboring clergy, Tory and prim toan appalling extent. There was here plenty of time for study, and of thattime I vigorously availed myself. But no satisfactory light came to me, and the suggestions and arguments of my friend Mr. D---- failed to bringconviction to my mind. It appeared clear to me that the doctrine ofEternal Punishment was taught in the Bible, and the explanations given ofthe word "eternal" by men like Maurice and Stanley, did not recommendthemselves to me as anything more than skilful special pleading--evasions, not clearings up, of a moral difficulty. For the problem was:Given a good God, how can he have created mankind, knowing beforehandthat the vast majority of those whom he had created were to be torturedfor evermore? Given a just God, how can he punish people for beingsinful, when they have inherited a sinful nature without their own choiceand of necessity? Given a righteous God, how can he allow sin to existfor ever, so that evil shall be as eternal as good, and Satan shall reignin hell, as long as Christ in Heaven? The answer of the Broad churchschool was, that the word "eternal" applied only to God and to life whichwas one with his; that "everlasting" only meant "lasting for an age", andthat while the punishment of the wicked might endure for ages it waspurifying, not destroying, and at last all should be saved, and "Godshould be all in all". These explanations had (for a time) satisfied Mr. D----, and I find him writing to me in answer to a letter of mine datedMarch 25th, 1872:

"On the subject of Eternal punishment I have now not the remotest doubt. It is impossible to handle the subject exhaustively in a letter, with asermon to finish before night. But you _must_ get hold of a few valuablebooks that would solve all kinds of difficulties for you. For most pointsread Stopford Brooke's Sermons--they are simply magnificent, and arecalled (1) Christian modern life, (2) Freedom in the Church of England, (3) and (least helpful) 'Sermons'. Then again there is an appendix toLlewellyn Davies' 'Manifestation of the Son of God', which treats offorgiveness in a future state as related to Christ and Bible. As to thatspecial passage about the Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (to which yourefer), I will write you my notions on it in a future letter. "

A little later, according, he wrote:

"With regard to your passage of difficulty about the unpardonable sin, Iwould say: (1) If that sin is not to be forgiven in the world to come, itis implied that all other sins _are forgiven in the world to come_. (2)You must remember that our Lord's parables and teachings mainly concernedcontemporary events and people. I mean, for instance, that in his greatprophecy of _judgment_ he simply was speaking of the destruction of theJewish polity and nation. The _principles_ involved apply through alltime, but He did not apply them except to the Jewish nation. He wasspeaking then, not of 'the end of the _world_, (as is wronglytranslated), but of 'the end of the _age_'. (Every age is wound up with ajudgment. French Revolutions, Reformations, etc. , are all ends of agesand judgments. ) [Greek aion] does not, cannot, will not, and never didmean _world_, but _age_. Well, then, he has been speaking of the Jewishpeople. And he says that all words spoken against the Son of Man will beforgiven. But there is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God--thereis a confusion of good with evil, of light with darkness--which goesdeeper down than this. When a nation has lost the faculty ofdistinguishing love from hatred, the spirit of falsehood and hypocrisyfrom the spirit of truth, God from the Devil--_then its doom ispronounced_--the decree is gone forth against it. As the doom of Judaism, guilty of this sin, _was then_ pronounced. As the _decree against it hadalready gone forth. It is a national warning, not an individual one. Itapplies to two ages of this world, and not to two worlds_. All itsteaching was primarily _national_, and is only thus to be rightly read--if not all, rather _most of it_. If you would be sure of this andunderstand it, see the parables, etc. , explained in Maurice's 'Gospel ofthe Kingdom of Heaven' (a commentary on S. Luke). I can only indicatebriefly in a letter the line to be taken on this question. 

"With regard to the [Greek: elui, elui, lama sabbachthani]. I don'tbelieve that the Father even momentarily hid his face from Him. The lifeof sonship was unbroken. Remark: (1) It is a quotation from a Psalm. (2)It rises naturally to a suffering man's lips as expressive of agony, though not exactly framed for _his_ individual _agony_. (3) The spirit ofthe Psalm is one of trust, and hope, and full faith, notwithstanding the1st verse. (4) Our Lord's agony was very extreme, not merely of body butof _soul_. He spoke out of the desolation of one forsaken, not by hisdivine Father but by his human brothers. I have heard sick and dying menuse the words of beloved Psalms in just such a manner. 

"The impassibility of God (1) With regard to the Incarnation, thispresents no difficulty. Christ suffered simply and entirely as man, wastoo truly a man not to do so. (2) With regard to the Father, the key ofit is here. 'God _is_ love. ' He does not need suffering to train intosympathy, because his nature is sympathy. He can afford to dispense withhysterics, because he sees ahead that his plan is working to the perfectresult. I am not quite sure whether I have hit upon your difficulty here, as I have destroyed your last letter but one. But the 'Gospel of theKingdom' is a wonderful 'eye-opener'. "

Worst of all the puzzles, perhaps, was that of the existence of evil andof misery, and the racking doubt whether God _could_ be good, and yetlook on the evil and the misery of the world unmoved and untouched. Itseemed so impossible to believe that a Creator could be either cruelenough to be indifferent to the misery, or weak enough to be unable tostop it: the old dilemma faced me unceasingly. "If he can prevent it, anddoes not, he is not good; if he wishes to prevent it, and cannot, he isnot almighty;" and out of this I could find no way of escape. Not yet hadany doubt of the existence of God crossed my mind. 

In August, 1872 Mr. D---- tried to meet this difficulty. He wrote:

"With regard to the impassibility of God, I think there is a stone wrongamong your foundations which causes your difficulty. Another wrong stoneis, I think, your view of the nature of the _sin_ and _error_ which issupposed to grieve God. I take it that sin is an absolutely necessaryfactor in the production of the perfect man. It was foreseen and allowedas a means to an end--as in fact an _education_. 

"The view of all the sin and misery in the world cannot grieve God, anymore than it can grieve you to see Digby fail in his first attempt tobuild a card-castle or a rabbit-hutch. All is part of the training. Godlooks at the ideal man to which all tends. The popular idea of the fallis to me a very absurd one. There was never an ideal state in the past, but there will be in the future. The Genesis allegory simply typifies thefirst awakening of consciousness of good and evil--of two _wills_ in amind hitherto only animal-psychic. 

"Well then--there being no occasion for grief in watching the progress ofhis own perfect and unfailing plans--your difficulty in God'simpassibility vanishes. Christ, _quâ_ God, was, of course, impassibletoo. It seems to me that your position implies that God's 'designs' havepartially (at least) failed, and hence the grief of perfect benevolence. Now I stoutly deny that any jot or tittle of God's plans can fail. Ibelieve in the ordering of all for the best. I think that the painconsequent on broken law is only an inevitable necessity, over which weshall some day rejoice. 

"The indifference shown to God's love cannot pain Him. Why? because it issimply a sign of defectiveness in the creature which the ages willrectify. The being who is indifferent is not yet educated up to the pointof love. But he _will be_. The pure and holy suffering of Christ was(pardon me) _wholly_ the consequence of his human nature. True it wasbecause of the _perfection_ of his humanity. But his Divinity had nothingto do with it. It was his _human heart_ that broke. It was because heentered a world of broken laws and of incomplete education that he becameinvolved in suffering with the rest of his race. .. .. 

"No, Mrs. Besant; I never feel at all inclined to give up the search, orto suppose that the other side may be right. I claim no merit for it, butI have an invincible faith in the morality of God and the moral order ofthe world. I have no more doubt about the falsehood of the populartheology than I have about the unreality of six robbers who attacked methree nights ago in a horrid dream. I exult and rejoice in the grandeurand freedom of the little bit of truth it has been given me to see. I amtold that 'Present-day Papers', by Bishop Ewing (edited) are a wonderfulhelp, many of them, to puzzled people: I mean to get them. But I am sureyou will find that the truth will (even so little as we may be able tofind out) grow on you, make you free, light your path, and dispel, at nodistant time, your _painful_ difficulties and doubts. I should say on noaccount give up your reading. I think with you that you could not dowithout it. It will be a wonderful source of help and peace to you. Forthere are struggles far more fearful than those of intellectual doubt. Iam keenly alive to the gathered-up sadness of which your last two pagesare an expression. I was sorrier than I can say to read them. Theyreminded me of a long and very dark time in my own life, when I thoughtthe light never would come. Thank God it came, or I think I could nothave held out much longer. But you have evidently strength to bear itnow. The more dangerous time, I should fancy, has passed. You will haveto mind that the fermentation leaves clear spiritual wine, and not (astoo often) vinegar. 

"I wish I could write something more helpful to you in this great matter. But as I sit in front of my large bay window, and see the shadows on thegrass and the sunlight on the leaves, and the soft glimmer of therosebuds left by the storms, I cannot but believe that all will be verywell. 'Trust in the Lord; wait patiently for him'--they are trite words. But he made the grass, the leaves, the rosebuds, and the sunshine, and heis the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now the trite words haveswelled into a mighty argument. "

Despite reading and argument, my scepticism grew only deeper and deeper. The study of W. R. Greg's "Creed of Christendom", of Matthew Arnold's"Literature and Dogma", helped to widen the mental horizon, while makinga return to the old faith more and more impossible. The church serviceswere a weekly torture, but feeling as I did that I was only a doubter, Ispoke to none of my doubts. It was possible, I felt, that all mydifficulties might be cleared up, and I had no right to shake the faithof others while in uncertainty myself. Others had doubted and hadafterwards believed; for the doubter silence was a duty; the blinded hadbetter keep their misery to themselves. I found some practical relief inparish work of a non-doctrinal kind, in nursing the sick, in trying tobrighten a little the lot of the poor of the village. But here, again, Iwas out of sympathy with most of those around me. The movement among theagricultural laborers, due to the energy and devotion of Joseph Arch, wasbeginning to be talked of in the fens, and bitter were the comments ofthe farmers on it, while I sympathised with the other side. One typicalcase, which happened some months later, may stand as example of all. There was a young man, married, with two young children, who was wickedenough to go into a neighboring county to a "Union Meeting", and who was, further, wicked enough to talk about it when he returned. He became amarked man; no farmer would employ him. He tramped about vainly, lookingfor work, grew reckless, and took to drink. Visiting his cottage one dayI found his wife ill, a dead child in the bed, a sick child in her arms;yes, she "was pining; there was no work to be had". "Why did she leavethe dead child on the bed? because there was no other place to put it. "The cottage consisted of one room and a "lean-to", and husband and wife, the child dead of fever and the younger child sickening with it, were allobliged to lie on the one bed. In another cottage I found fourgenerations sleeping in one room, the great-grandfather and his wife, thegrandmother (unmarried), the mother (unmarried), and the little child, while three men-lodgers completed the tale of eight human beings crowdedinto that narrow, ill-ventilated garret. Other cottages were hovels, through the broken roofs of which poured the rain, and wherein rheumatismand ague lived with the dwellers. How could I do aught but sympathisewith any combination that aimed at the raising of these poor? But tosympathise with Joseph Arch was a crime in the eyes of the farmers, whoknew that his agitation meant an increased drain on their pockets. For itnever struck them that, if they paid less in rent to the absent landlord, they might pay more in wage to the laborers who helped to make theirwealth, and they had only civil words for the burden that crushed them, and harsh ones for the builders-up of their ricks and the mowers of theirharvests. They made common cause with their enemy, instead of with theirfriend, and instead of leaguing themselves with the laborers, as formingtogether the true agricultural interest, they leagued themselves with thelandlords against the laborers, and so made fratricidal strife instead ofeasy victory over the common foe. 

In the summer and autumn of 1872, I was a good deal in London with mymother. --My health had much broken down, and after a severe attack ofcongestion of the lungs, my recovery was very slow. One Sunday in London, I wandered into St. George's Hall, in which Mr. Charles Voysey waspreaching, and there I bought some of his sermons. To my delight I foundthat someone else had passed through the same difficulties as I abouthell and the Bible and the atonement and the character of God, and hadgiven up all these old dogmas, while still clinging to belief in God. Iwent to St. George's Hall again on the following Sunday, and in thelittle ante-room, after the service, I found myself in a stream ofpeople, who were passing by Mr. And Mrs. Voysey, some evidently known tohim, some strangers, many of the latter thanking him for his morning'swork. As I passed in my turn I said: "I must thank you for very greathelp in what you have said this morning", for indeed the possibilityopened of a God who was really "loving unto every man", and in whose careeach was safe for ever, had come like a gleam of light across the stormysea of doubt and distress on which I had been tossing for nearly twelvemonths. On the following Sunday, I saw them again, and was cordiallyinvited down to their Dulwich home, where they gave welcome to all indoubt. I soon found that the Theism they professed was free from thedefects which revolted me in Christianity. It left me God as a SupremeGoodness, while rejecting all the barbarous dogmas of the Christianfaith. I now read Theodore Parker's "Discourse on Religion", FrancisNewman's "Hebrew Monarchy", and other works, many of the essays of MissFrances Power Cobbe and of other Theistic writers, and I no longerbelieved in the old dogmas and hated while I believed; I no longerdoubted whether they were true or not; I shook them off, once for all, with all their pain, and horror, and darkness, and felt, with relief andjoy inexpressible, that they were all but the dreams of ignorant andsemi-savage minds, not the revelation of a God. The last remnant ofChristianity followed swiftly these cast-off creeds, though, in partingwith this, one last pang was felt. It was the doctrine of the Deity ofChrist. The whole teaching of the Broad Church School tends, of course, to emphasise the humanity at the expense of the Deity of Christ, and whenthe eternal punishment and the substitutionary atonement had vanished, there seemed to be no sufficient reason left for so stupendous a miracleas the incarnation of the Deity. I saw that the idea of incarnation wascommon to all Eastern creeds, not peculiar to Christianity; the doctrineof the unity of God repelled the doctrine of the incarnation of a portionof the Godhead. But the doctrine was dear from association; there wassomething at once soothing and ennobling in the idea of a union betweenMan and God, between a perfect man and divine supremacy, between a humanheart and an almighty strength. Jesus as God was interwoven with all art, with all beauty in religion; to break with the Deity of Jesus was tobreak with music, with painting, with literature; the Divine Child in hismother's arms, the Divine Man in his Passion and in his triumph, thehuman friend encircled with the majesty of the Godhead--did inexorableTruth demand that this ideal figure, with all its pathos, its beauty, itshuman love, should pass into the Pantheon of the dead Gods of the Past?

VIII. 

The struggle was a sharp one ere I could decide that intellectual honestydemanded that the question of the Deity of Christ should be analysed asstrictly as all else, and that the conclusions come to from an impartialstudy of facts should be faced as steadily as though they dealt with someunimportant question. I was bound to recognise, however, that more thanintellectual honesty would be here required, for if the result of thestudy were--as I dimly felt it would be--to establish disbelief in thesupernatural claims of Christ, I could not but feel that such disbeliefwould necessarily entail most unpleasant external results. I might giveup belief in all save this, and yet remain a member of the Church ofEngland: views on Inspiration, on Eternal Torture, on the VicariousAtonement, however heterodox, might be held within the pale of theChurch; many broad church clergymen rejected these as decidedly as I didmyself, and yet remained members of the Establishment; the judgment on"Essays and Reviews" gave this wide liberty to heresy within the Church, and a laywoman might well claim the freedom of thought legally bestowedon divines. The name "Christian" might well be worn while Christ wasworshipped as God, and obeyed as the "Revealer of the Father's will", the "well-beloved Son", the "Savior and Lord of men". But once challengethat unique position, once throw off that supreme sovereignty, and thenit seemed to me that the name "Christian" became a hypocrisy, and itsrenouncement a duty incumbent on an upright mind. But I was a clergyman'swife; my position made my participation in the Holy Communion anecessity, and my withdrawal therefrom would be an act marked andcommented upon by all. Yet if I lost my faith in Christ, how could Ihonestly approach "the Lord's Table", where Christ was the central figureand the recipient of the homage paid there by every worshipper to "Godmade man"? Hitherto mental pain alone had been the price demandedinexorably from the searcher after truth; now to the inner would be addedthe outer warfare, and how could I tell how far this might carry me?

One night only I spent in this struggle over the question: "Shall Iexamine the claims to Deity of Jesus of Nazareth?". When morning brokethe answer was clearly formulated: "Truth is greater than peace orposition. If Jesus be God, challenge will not shake his Deity; if he beMan, it is blasphemy to worship him. " I re-read Liddon's "BamptonLectures" on this controversy and Renan's "Vie de Jesus". I studied theGospels, and tried to represent to myself the life there outlined; Itested the conduct there given as I should have tested the conduct of anyordinary historical character; I noted that in the Synoptics no claim toDeity was made by Jesus himself, nor suggested by his disciples; Iweighed his own answer to an enquirer, with its plain disavowal ofGodhood: "Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, that isGod" (Matt, xix. , 17); I conned over his prayers to "my Father", his reston divine protection, his trust in a power greater than his own; I notedhis repudiation of divine knowledge: "Of that day and that hour knowethno man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, _neither the Son_, butthe Father" (Mark xiii. , 32); I studied the meaning of his prayer ofanguished submission: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup passfrom me! nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matt, xxvi. , 39); I dwelt on his bitter cry in his dying agony: "My God, my God, whyhast thou forsaken me?" (Matt, xxvii. , 46); I asked the meaning of thefinal words of rest: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Lukexxiii. , 46). And I saw that, if there were any truth in the Gospels atall, they told the story of a struggling, suffering, sinning, prayingman, and not of a God at all and the dogma of the Deity of Christfollowed the rest of the Christian doctrines into the limbo of pastbeliefs. 

Yet one other effort I made to save myself from the difficulties Iforesaw in connexion with this final breach with Christianity. There wasone man who had in former days wielded over me a great influence, onewhose writings had guided and taught me for many years--Dr. Pusey, thevenerable leader of the Catholic party in the Church, the learnedPatristic scholar, full of the wisdom of antiquity. He believed in Christas God; what if I put my difficulties to him? If he resolved them for meI should escape the struggle I foresaw; if he could not resolve them, then no answer to them was to be hoped for. My decision was quickly made;being with my mother, I could write to him unnoticed, and I sat down andput my questions clearly and fully, stating my difficulties and askinghim whether, out of his wider knowledge and deeper reading, he couldresolve them for me. I wish I could here print his answer, together withtwo or three other letters I received from him, but the packet wasunfortunately stolen from my desk and I have never recovered it. Dr. Pusey advised me to read Liddon's "Bampton Lectures", referred me tovarious passages, chiefly from the Fourth Gospel, if I remember rightly, and invited me to go down to Oxford and talk over my difficulties. Liddon's "Bampton Lectures" I had thoroughly studied, and the FourthGospel had no weight with me, the arguments in favor of its Alexandrianorigin being familiar to me, but I determined to accept his invitation toa personal interview, regarding it as the last chance of remaining in theChurch. 

To Oxford, accordingly, I took the train, and made my way to the famousDoctor's rooms. I was shown in, and saw a short, stout gentleman, dressedin a cassock, and looking like a comfortable monk; but the keen eyes, steadfastly gazing straight into mine, told me of the power and subtletyhidden by the unprepossessing form. The head was fine and impressive, thevoice low, penetrating, drilled into a somewhat monotonous andartificially subdued tone. I quickly found that no sort of enlightenmentcould possibly result from our interview. He treated me as a penitentgoing to confession, seeking the advice of a director, not as an enquirerstruggling after truth, and resolute to obtain some firm standing-groundin the sea of doubt, whether on the shores of orthodoxy or of heresy. Hewould not deal with the question of the Deity of Jesus as a question forargument; he reminded me: "You are speaking of your judge, " when Ipressed some question. The mere suggestion of an imperfection in Jesus'character made him shudder in positive pain, and he checked me withraised hand, and the rebuke: "You are blaspheming; the very thought is aterrible sin". I asked him if he could recommend to me any books whichwould throw light on the subject: "No, no, you have read too muchalready. You must pray; you must pray. " Then, as I said that I could notbelieve without proof, I was told: "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed, " and my further questioning was checked by themurmur: "O my child, how undisciplined! how impatient!". Truly, he musthave found in me--hot, eager, passionate in my determination to know, resolute not to profess belief while belief was absent--but very littleof that meek, chastened, submissive spirit to which he was accustomed inthe penitents wont to seek his counsel as their spiritual guide. In vaindid he bid me pray as though I believed; in vain did he urge the duty ofblind submission to the authority of the Church, of yielding, unreasoningfaith, which received but questioned not. He had no conception of thefeelings of the sceptical spirit; his own faith was solid as a rock--firm, satisfied, unshakeable; he would as soon have committed suicide ashave doubted of the infallibility of the "Universal Church". 

"It is not your duty to ascertain the truth, " he told me sternly. "It isyour duty to accept and to believe the truth as laid down by the Church;at your peril you reject it; the responsibility is not yours so long asyou dutifully accept that which the Church has laid down for youracceptance. Did not the Lord promise that the presence of the Spiritshould be ever with his Church, to guide her into all truth?"

"But the fact of the promise and its value are the very points on which Iam doubtful, " I answered. 

He shuddered. "Pray, pray, " he said. "Father, forgive her, for she knowsnot what she says. "

It was in vain I urged that I had everything to gain and nothing to loseby following his directions, but that it seemed to me that fidelity totruth forbade a pretended acceptance of that which was not believed. 

"Everything to lose? Yes, indeed. You will be lost for time and lost foreternity. "

"Lost or not, " I rejoined, "I must and will try to find out what is true, and I will not believe till I am sure. "

"You have no right to make terms with God, " he answered, "as to what youwill believe and what you will not believe. You are full of intellectualpride. "

I sighed hopelessly. Little feeling of pride was there in me just then, and I felt that in this rigid unyielding dogmatism there was nocomprehension of my difficulties, no help for me in my strugglings. Irose and, thanking him for his courtesy, said that I would not waste histime further, that I must go home and just face the difficulties out, openly leaving the Church and taking the consequences. Then for the firsttime his serenity was ruffled. 

"I forbid you to speak of your disbelief, " he cried. "I forbid you tolead into your own lost state the souls for whom Christ died. "

Slowly and sadly I took my way back to the station, knowing that my lastchance of escape had failed me. I recognised in this famous divine thespirit of the priest, which could be tender and pitiful to the sinner, repentant, humble, submissive, craving only for pardon and for guidance, but which was iron to the doubter, to the heretic, and would crush outall questionings of "revealed truth", silencing by force, not byargument, all challenge of the traditions of the Church. Out of such menwere made the Inquisitors of the Middle Ages, perfectly conscientious, perfectly rigid, perfectly merciless to the heretic. To them hereticswere and are centres of infectious disease, and charity to them "theworst cruelty to the souls of men". Certain that they hold "by no meritof our own, but by the mercy of our God the one truth which he hathrevealed", they can permit no questionings, they can accept nought butthe most complete submission. But while man aspires after truth, whilehis brain yearns after knowledge, while his intellect soars upward intothe heaven of speculation and "beats the air with tireless wing", so longshall those who demand faith be met by challenge for proof, and those whowould blind him shall be defeated by his determination to gazeunblenching on the face of Truth, even though her eyes should turn himinto stone. 

During this same visit to London I saw Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Scott for thefirst time. I had gone down to Dulwich to see Mr. And Mrs. Voysey, andafter dinner we went over to Upper Norwood, and I was introduced to oneof the most remarkable men I have ever met. At that time Mr. Scott was anold man, with beautiful white hair, and eyes like those of a hawkgleaming from under shaggy eyebrows; he had been a man of magnificentphysique, and though his frame was then enfeebled, the splendid lion-likehead kept its impressive strength and beauty, and told of a uniquepersonality. Of Scotch descent and wellborn, Thomas Scott had, as a boy, been a page at the French Court; his manhood was spent in many lands, forhe "was a mighty hunter", though not "before the Lord". He had lived formonths among the North American Indians, sharing the hardships of theirwild life; he had hunted and fished all over the world. At last, he camehome, married, and ultimately settled down at Ramsgate, where he made hishome a centre of heretical thought. He issued an enormous number oftracts and pamphlets, and each month he sent out a small packet tohundreds of subscribers and friends. This monthly issue of hereticalliterature soon made itself a power in the world of thought; the tractswere of various shades of opinion, but were all heretical: some moderate, some extreme; all were well-written, cultured and polished in tone--thiswas a rule to which Mr. Scott made no exceptions; his writers might saywhat they liked, but they must have something real to say, and they mustsay that something in good English. The little white packets found theirway into many a quiet country parsonage, into many a fashionable home. His correspondence was world-wide and came from all classes--now a letterfrom a Prime Minister, now one from a blacksmith. All were equallywelcome, and all were answered with equal courtesy. At his house metpeople of the most varying opinions. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, EdwardMaitland, E. Vansittart Neale, Charles Bray, Sara Hennell, W. J. Birch, R. Suffield, and hundreds more, clerics and laymen, scholars and thinkers, all gathered in this one home, to which the right of _entrée_ was gainedonly by love of Truth and desire to spread Freedom among men. 

Mr. Scott devoted his fortune to this great work. He would never letpublishers have his pamphlets in the ordinary way of trade, but issuedthem all himself and distributed them gratuitously. If anyone desired tosubscribe, well and good, they might help in the work, but make it amatter of business he would not. If anyone sent money for some tracts, hewould send out double the worth of the money enclosed, and thus for yearshe carried on this splendid propagandist work. In all he was noblyseconded by his wife, his "right hand" as he well named her, a sweet, strong, gentle, noble woman, worthy of her husband, and than that nohigher praise can be spoken. Of both I shall have more to say hereafter, but at present we are at the time of my first visit to them at UpperNorwood, whither they had removed from Ramsgate. 

Kindly greeting was given by both, and on Mr. Voysey suggesting thatjudging by one essay of mine that he had seen--an essay which was laterexpanded into the one on "Inspiration", in the Scott series--my pen wouldbe useful for propagandist work, Mr. Scott bade me try what I could do, and send him for criticism anything I thought good enough forpublication; he did not, of course, promise to accept an essay, but hepromised to read it. A question arose as to the name to be attached tothe essay, in case of publication, and I told him that my name was not myown to use, and that I did not suppose that Mr. Besant could possibly, inhis position, give me permission to attach it to a heretical essay; weagreed that any essays I might write should for the present be publishedanonymously, and that I should try my hand to begin with on the subjectof the "Deity of Jesus of Nazareth". And so I parted from those who wereto be such good friends to me in the coming time of struggle. 

IX. 

My resolve was now made, and henceforth there was at least no more doubtso far as my position towards the Church was concerned. I made up my mindto leave it, but was willing to make the leaving as little obtrusive aspossible. On my return to Sibsey I stated clearly the ground on which Istood. I was ready to attend the Church services, joining in such partsas were addressed to "the Supreme Being", for I was still heartilyTheistic; "the Father", shorn of all the horrible accessories hung roundhim by Christianity, was still to me an object of adoration, and I couldstill believe in and worship One who was "righteous in all His ways, andholy in all His works", although the Moloch to whom was sacrificed thewell-beloved son had passed away for ever from my creed. Christian I wasnot, though Theist I was, and I felt that the wider and more generousfaith would permit me to bow to the common God with my Christianbrethren, if only I was not compelled to pay homage to that "Son of Man"whom Christians believed divine, homage which to me had become idolatry, insulting to the "One God", to him of whom Jesus himself had spoken as of"my God and your God". 

Simply enough was the difficulty arranged for the moment. It was agreedthat I should withdraw myself from the "Holy Communion"--for in thatservice, full of the recognition of Jesus as Deity, I could not joinwithout hypocrisy. The ordinary services I would attend, merely remainingsilent during those portions of them in which I could not honestly takepart, and while I knew that these changes in a clergyman's wife could notpass unnoticed in a country village, I yet felt that nothing less thanthis was consistent with barest duty. While I had merely doubted, I hadkept silence, and no act of mine had suggested doubt to others. Now thatI had no doubt that Christianity was a delusion, I would no longer act asthough I believed that to be of God which heart and intellect rejected asuntrue. 

For awhile all went smoothly. I daresay the parishioners gossipped aboutthe absence of their vicar's wife from the Sacrament, and indeed Iremember the pain and trembling wherewith, on the first "SacramentSunday" after my return, I rose from my seat and walked quietly from thechurch, leaving the white-spread altar. That the vicar's wife should"communicate" was as much a matter of course as that the vicar should"administer"; I had never in my life taken public part in anything thatmade me noticeable in any way among strangers, and still I can recall thefeeling of deadly sickness that well nigh overcame me, as rising to goout I felt that every eye in the church was on me, and that my exit wouldbe the cause of unending comment. As a matter of fact, everyone thoughtthat I was taken suddenly ill, and many were the calls and enquiries onthe following day. To any direct question, I answered quietly that I wasunable to take part in the profession of faith required from an honestcommunicant, but the statement was rarely necessary, for the idea ofheresy in a vicar's wife did not readily suggest itself to the ordinarybucolic mind, and I did not proffer information when it was unasked for. 

It happened that, shortly after that (to me) memorable Christmas of 1872, a sharp epidemic of typhoid fever broke out in the village of Sibsey. Thedrainage there was of the most primitive type, and the contagion spreadrapidly. Naturally fond of nursing, I found in this epidemic work justfitted to my hand, and I was fortunate enough to be able to lend personalhelp that made me welcome in the homes of the stricken poor. The motherswho slept exhausted while I watched beside their darlings' bedsides willnever, I like to fancy, think over harshly of the heretic whose hand wasas tender and often more skilful than their own. I think Mother Naturemeant me for a nurse, for I take a sheer delight in nursing anyone, provided only that there is peril in the sickness, so that there is thestrange and solemn feeling of the struggle between the human skill onewields and the supreme enemy, Death. There is a strange fascination infighting Death, step by step, and this is of course felt to the fullwhere one fights for life as life, and not for a life one loves. When thepatient is beloved, the struggle is touched with agony, but where onefights with Death over the body of a stranger, there is a weirdenchantment in the contest without personal pain, and as one forces backthe hated foe there is a curious triumph in the feeling which marks thedeath-grip yielding up its prey, as one snatches back to earth the lifewhich had well-nigh perished. 

Meanwhile, the promise to Mr. Scott was not forgotten, and I penned theessay on "The Deity of Jesus of Nazareth" which stands first in thecollection of essays published later under the title, "My Path toAtheism". The only condition annexed to my sending it to Mr. Scott wasthe perfectly fair one that if published it should appear without myname. Mr. Scott was well pleased with the essay, and before long it wasprinted as one of the "Scott Series", to my great delight. 

But unfortunately a copy sent to a relative of Mr. Besant's brought abouta storm. That gentlemen did not disagree with it--indeed he admitted thatall educated persons must hold the views put forward--but what wouldSociety say? What would "the county families" think if one of theclerical party was known to be a heretic. This dreadful little paper borethe inscription "By the wife of a beneficed clergyman"; what would happenif the "wife of the beneficed clergyman" were identified with Mrs. Besantof Sibsey?

After some thought I made a compromise. Alter or hide my faith I wouldnot, but yield personal feelings I would. I gave up my correspondencewith Mr. And Mrs. Voysey, which might, it was alleged, he noticed in thevillage and so give rise to mischievous gossip. In this Mr. And Mrs. Voysey most generously helped me, bidding me rest assured of theircordial friendship while counselling me for awhile to cease thecorrespondence which was one of the few pleasures of my life, but was notpart of my duty to the higher and freer faith which we had all embraced. With keen regret I bade them for awhile farewell, and went back to mylonely life. 

In that spring of 1873, I delivered my first lecture. It was delivered tono one, queer as that may sound to my readers. And indeed, it was queeraltogether. I was learning to play the organ, and was in the habit ofpractising in the church by myself, without a blower. One day, beingsecurely locked in, I thought I would like to try how "it felt" to speakfrom the pulpit. Some vague fancies were stirring in me, that I couldspeak if I had the chance; very vague they were, for the notion that Imight ever speak on the platform had never dawned on me; only the longingto find outlet in words was in me; the feeling that I had something tosay, and the yearning to say it. So, queer as it may seem? I ascended thepulpit in the big, empty, lonely church, and there and then I deliveredmy first lecture! I shall never forget the feeling of power and ofdelight which came upon me as my voice rolled down the aisles, and thepassion in me broke into balanced sentences, and never paused forrhythmical expression, while I felt that all I wanted was to see thechurch full of upturned faces, instead of the emptiness of the silentpews. And as though in a dream the solitude became peopled, and I saw thelistening faces and the eager eyes, and as the sentences came unbiddenfrom my lips, and my own tones echoed back to me from the pillars of theancient church, I knew of a verity that the gift of speech was mine, andthat if ever--and it seemed then so impossible--if ever the chance cameto me of public work, that at least this power of melodious utteranceshould win hearing for any message I had to bring. 

But that knowledge remained a secret all to my own self for many a longmonth, for I quickly felt ashamed of that foolish speechifying in anempty church, and I only recall it now because, in trying to trace outone's mental growth, it is only fair to notice the first silly strivingafter that expression in spoken words, which, later, has become to me oneof the deepest delights of life. And indeed none can know save they whohave felt it what joy there is in the full rush of language which, movesand sways; to feel a crowd respond to the lightest touch; to see thefaces brighten or graven at your bidding; to know that the sources ofhuman passion and human emotion gush at the word of the speaker, as thestream from the riven rock; to feel that the thought that thrills througha thousand hearers has its impulse from you and throbs back to you thefuller from a thousand heart-beats; is there any joy in life morebrilliant than this, fuller of passionate triumph, and of the veryessence of intellectual delight?

My pen was busy, and a second pamphlet, dealing with the Johanninegospel, was written and sent up to Mr. Scott under the same conditions ofanonymity as before, for it was seen that my authorship could in nowisebe suspected, and Mr. Scott paid me for my work. I had also made acollection of Theistic, but non-Christian, hymns, with a view of meetinga want felt by Mr. Voysey's congregation at St. George's Hall, and thiswas lying idle, while it might be utilised. So it was suggested that Ishould take up again my correspondence with Mr. And Mrs. Voysey, and gladenough was I to do so. During this time my health was rapidly failing, and in the summer of 1873 it broke down completely. At last I went up toLondon to consult a physician, and was told I was suffering from generalnervous exhaustion, which, was accompanied by much disturbance of thefunctions of the heart. "There is no organic disease yet, " said Dr. Sibson, "but there soon will be, unless you can completely change yourmanner of life. " Such a change was not possible, and I grew rapidlyworse. The same bad adviser who had before raised the difficulty of "whatwill Society say?" again interfered, and urged that pressure should beput on me to compel me at least to conform to the outward ceremonies ofthe Church, and to attend the Holy Communion. This I was resolved not todo, whatever might be the result of my "obstinacy ", and the result wasnot long in coming. 

I had been with the children to Southsea, to see if the change wouldrestore my shattered health, and stayed in town with my mother on myreturn under Dr. Sibson's care. Very skilful and very good to me was Dr. Sibson, giving me for almost nothing all the wealthiest could have boughtwith their gold, but he could not remove all then in my life which madethe re-acquiring of health impossible. What the doctor could not do, however, others did. It was resolved that I should either resumeattendance at the Communion, or should not return home; hypocrisy orexpulsion--such was the alternative; I chose the latter. 

A bitterly sad time followed; my dear mother was heartbroken; to her, with her wide and vague form of Christianity, loosely held, the intensityof my feeling that where I did not believe I would not pretend belief, was incomprehensible. She recognised far more fully than I all that aseparation from my home meant for me, and the difficulties which wouldsurround a young woman not yet six-and-twenty, living alone. She knew howbrutally the world judges, and how the mere fact that a woman is youngand alone justifies any coarseness of slander. Then, I did not guess howcruel men and women could be, but knowing it from eleven years'experience, I deliberately say that I would rather go through it allagain with my eyes wide open from the first, than have passed thoseeleven years "in Society" under the burden of an acted lie. 

But the struggle was hard when she prayed me for her sake to give way;against harshness I had been rigid as steel, but to remain steadfast whenmy darling mother, whom I loved as I loved nothing else on earth, beggedme on her knees to yield, was indeed hard. I felt as though it must be acrime to refuse submission when she urged it, but still--to live a lie?Not even for her was that possible. 

Then there were the children, the two little ones who worshipped me, Iwho was to them mother, nurse, and playfellow. Were these also to beresigned? For awhile, at least, this complete loss was spared me, forfacts (which I have not touched on in this record) came accidentally tomy brother's knowledge, and he resolved that I should have the protectionof legal separation, and should not be turned wholly penniless and aloneinto the world. So, when everything was arranged, I found myselfpossessed of my little girl, of complete personal freedom, and of a smallmonthly income sufficient for respectable starvation. 

X. 

The "world was all before us where to choose", but circumstances narrowedthe choice down to Hobson's. I had no ready money beyond the firstmonth's payment of my annuity; furnished lodgings were beyond my means, and I had nothing wherewith to buy furniture. My brother offered me ahome, on condition that I should give up my "heretical friends" and keepquiet; but, being freed from one bondage, nothing was further from mythoughts than to enter another. Besides, I did not choose to be a burdenon anyone, and I resolved to "get something to do", to rent a tiny house, and to make a nest where my mother, my little girl, and I could livehappily together. The difficulty was the "something"; I spent variousshillings in agencies, with a quite wonderful unanimity of failures. Itried to get some fancy needlework, advertised as an infallible source ofincome to "ladies in reduced circumstances"; I fitted the advertisementadmirably, for I was a lady, and my circumstances were decidedly reduced, but I only earned 4s. 6d. By weeks of stitching, and the materials costnearly as much as the finished work. I experimented with a Birminghamfirm, who generously offered everyone an opportunity of adding to theirincomes, and received in answer to the small fee demanded a pencil-case, with an explanation that I was to sell little articles of thatdescription--going as far as cruet-stands--to my friends; I did not feelequal to springing pencil-cases and cruet-stands casually on myacquaintances, so did not start in that business. It would be idle torelate all the things I tried, and failed in, until I began to think thatthe "something to do" was not so easy to find as I had expected. 

I made up my mind to settle at Upper Norwood, near Mr. And Mrs. Scott, who were more than good to me in my trouble; and I fixed on a very littlehouse in Colby Road, Gipsy Hill, to be taken from the ensuing Easter. Then came the question of furniture; a friend of Mr. Scott's gave me anintroduction to a manufacturer, who agreed to let me have furniture for abedroom and sitting-room, and to let me pay him by monthly instalments. The next thing was to save a few months' annuity, and so have a littlemoney in hand, wherewith to buy necessaries on starting, and to this endI decided to accept a loving invitation to Folkestone, where mygrandmother was living with two of my aunts, and there to seek someemployment, no matter what, provided it gave me food and lodging, andenabled me to put aside my few pounds a month. 

Relieved from the constant strain of fear and anxiety, my health wasquickly improving, and the improvement became more rapid after I wentdown with my mother to Folkestone. The hearty welcome offered to me therewas extended with equal warmth to little Mabel, who soon arrived, a mostforlorn little maiden. She was only three years old, and she had not seenme for some weeks; her passion of delight was pitiful; she clung to me, in literal fashion, for weeks afterwards, and screamed if she lost sightof me for a moment; it was long before she got over the separation andthe terror of her lonely journey from Sibsey and London in charge only ofthe guard. But she was a "winsome wee thing", and danced into everyone'sheart; after "mamma", "granny" was the prime favorite, and my dear motherworshipped her first grand-daughter; never was prettier picture than thered-golden hair nestled against the white, the baby-grace contrastingwith the worn stateliness of her tender nurse. From that time forward--with the exception of a few weeks of which I shall speak presently and ofthe yearly stay of a month with her father--little Mabel was my constantcompanion, until Sir George Jessel's brutality robbed me of my child. Shewould play contentedly while I was working, a word now and again enoughto make her happy; when I had to go out without her she would run to thedoor with me, and the "good-bye" came from down-curved lips, and she wasever watching at the window for my return, and the sunny face was alwaysthe first to welcome me home. Many and many a time have I been cominghome, weary and heart-sick, and the glimpse of the little face watchinghas reminded me that I must not carry in a grave face to sadden mydarling, and the effort to throw off the dreariness for her sake shook itoff altogether, and brought back the sunshine. I have never forgiven SirGeorge Jessel, and I never shall, though his death has left me only hismemory to hate. 

At Folkestone, I continued my search for "something to do", and for someweeks sought for pupils, thinking I might thus turn my heresy to account. But pupils are not readily attainable by a heretic woman, away from hernatural home, and with a young child as "encumbrance". It chanced, however, that the vicar of Folkestone, Mr. Woodward, was then without agoverness, and his wife was in very delicate health. My people knew himwell, and as I had plenty of spare time, I offered to teach the childrenfor a few hours a day. The offer was gladly accepted, and I soon arrangedto go and stay at the house for awhile, until he could find a regulargoverness. I thought that at least I could save my small income while Iwas there, and Mabel and I were to be boarded and lodged in exchange formy work. This work was fairly heavy, but I did not mind that; it soonbecame heavier. Some serious fault on the part of one or both servantsled to their sudden retirement, and I became head cook as well asgoverness and nurse. On the whole, I think I shall not try to live bycooking, if other trades fail; I don't mind boiling and frying, andmaking pie-crust is rather pleasant, but I do object to lifting saucepansand blistering my hands over heavy kettles. There is a certain charm inmaking a stew, especially to the unaccustomed cook, because of theexcitement of wondering what the result of such various ingredients willbe, and whether any flavor save that of onions will survive thecompetition in the mixture. On the whole my services as cook were votedvery successful; I did my cooking better than I did my sweeping: thelatter was a failure from sheer want of muscular strength. 

This curious episode came to an end abruptly. One of my little pupilsfell ill with diptheria, and I was transformed from cook into sick-nurse. I sent my Mabel off promptly to her dear grandmother's care, and gavemyself up to my old delight in nursing. But it is a horrible disease, diptheria, and the suffering of the patient is frightful to witness. Ishall never forget the poor little girl's black parched lips and gaspingbreath. 

Scarcely was she convalescent, when the youngest boy, a fine, strong, healthy little fellow, sickened with scarlet fever. We elders held aconsultation, and decided to isolate the top floor from the rest of thehouse, and to nurse the little lad there; it seemed almost hopeless toprevent such a disease from spreading through a family of children, butour vigorous measures were successful, and none other suffered. I wasvoted to the post of nurse, and installed myself promptly, taking up thecarpets, turning out the curtains, and across the door ways hangingsheets which I kept always wet with chloride of lime. My meals werebrought upstairs and put on the landing outside; my patient and Iremained completely isolated, until the disease had run its course; andwhen all risk was over, I proudly handed over my charge, the diseasetouching no other member of the flock. 

It was a strange time, those weeks of the autumn and early winter in Mr. Woodward's house. He was a remarkably good man, very religious and to avery remarkable extent not "of this world". A "priest" to the tips of hisfinger-nails, and looking on his priestly office as the highest a mancould fill, he yet held it always as one which put him at the service ofthe poorest who needed help. He was very good to me, and, while deeplylamenting my "perversion", held, by some strange unpriestlike charity, that my "unbelief" was but a passing cloud, sent as trial by "the Lord", and soon to vanish again, leaving me in the "sunshine of faith". Hemarvelled much, I learned afterwards, where I gained my readiness to workheartily for others, and to remain serenely content amid the roughnessesof my toiling life. To my great amusement I heard later that his elderdaughters, trained in strictest observance of all Church ceremonies, hadmuch discussed my non-attendance at the Sacrament, and had finallyarrived at the conclusion that I had committed some deadly sin, for whichthe humble work which I undertook at their house was the appointedpenance, and that I was excluded from "the Blessed Sacrament" until thepenance was completed!

Very shortly after the illness above-mentioned, my mother went up totown, whither I was soon to follow her, for now the spring had arrived, and it was time to prepare our new home. How eagerly we had lookedforward to taking possession; how we had talked over our life togetherand knitted on the new one we anticipated to the old one we remembered;how we had planned out Mabel's training and arranged the duties thatshould fall to the share of each! Day-dreams, that never were to berealised!

But a brief space had passed since my mother's arrival in town, when Ireceived a telegram from my brother, stating that she was dangerouslyill, and summoning me at once to her bedside. As swiftly as express traincould carry me to London I was there, and found my darling in bed, prostrate, the doctor only giving her three days to live. One moment'ssight I caught of her face, drawn and haggard; then as she saw me it allchanged into delight; "At last! now I can rest. "

The brave spirit had at length broken down, never again to rise; theaction of her heart had failed, the valves no longer performed theirduty, and the bluish shade of forehead and neck told that the blood wasno longer sent pure and vivifying through the arteries. But her death wasnot as near as the doctor had feared; "I do not think she can livefour-and-twenty hours, " he said to me, after I had been with her for twodays. I told her his verdict, but it moved her little; "I do not feelthat I am going to die just yet, " she said resolutely, and she was right. There was an attack of fearful prostration, a very wrestling with death, and then the grim shadow drew backwards, and she struggled back to life. Soon, as is usual in cases of such disease, dropsy intervened, with allits weariness of discomfort, and for week after week her long martyrdomdragged on. I nursed her night and day, with a very desperation oftenderness, for now fate had touched the thing that was dearest to me inlife. A second horrible crisis came, and for the second time her tenacityand my love beat back the death-stroke. She did not wish to die--the loveof life was strong in her; I would not let her die; between us we keptthe foe at bay. 

At this period, after eighteen months of abstention, and for the lasttime, I took the Sacrament. This statement will seem strange to myreaders, but the matter happened in this wise:

My dear mother had an intense longing to take it, but absolutely refusedto do so unless I partook of it with her. 

"If it be necessary to salvation, " she persisted doggedly, "I will nottake it if darling Annie is to be shut out. I would rather be lost withher than saved without her. " In vain I urged that I could not take itwithout telling the officiating clergyman of my heresy, and that undersuch circumstances the clergyman would be sure to refuse to administer tome. She insisted that she could not die happy if she did not take it withme. I went to a clergyman I knew well, and laid the case before him; as Iexpected, he refused to allow me to communicate. I tried a second; theresult was the same. I was in despair; to me the service was foolish andsuperstitious, but I would have done a great deal more for my mother thaneat bread and drink wine, provided that the eating and drinking did not, by pretence of faith on my part, soil my honesty. At last a thoughtstruck me; there was Dean Stanley, my mother's favorite, a man known tobe of the broadest school within the Church of England; suppose I askedhim? I did not know him, though as a young child I had known his sisteras my mother's friend, and I felt the request would be something of animpertinence. Yet there was just the chance that he might consent, andthen my darling's death-bed would be the easier. I told no one, but setout resolutely for the Deanery, Westminster, timidly asked for the Dean, and followed the servant upstairs with a very sinking heart. I was leftfor a moment alone in the library, and then the Dean came in. I don'tthink I ever in my life felt more intensely uncomfortable than I did inthat minute's interval, as he stood waiting for me to speak, his clear, grave, piercing eyes gazing right into mine. 

Very falteringly I preferred my request, stating baldly that I was not abeliever in Christ, that my mother was dying, that she was fretting totake the Sacrament, that she would not take it unless I took it with her, that two clergymen had refused to allow me to take part in the service, that I had come to him in despair, feeling how great was the intrusion, but--she was dying. 

"You were quite right to come to me, " he said as I concluded, in thatsoft musical voice of his, his keen gaze having changed into one no lessdirect, but marvellously gentle: "of course, I will go and see yourmother, and I have little doubt that if you will not mind talking overyour position with me, we may see our way clear to doing as your motherwishes. "

I could barely speak my thanks, so much did the kindly sympathy move me;the revulsion from the anxiety and fear of rebuff was strong enough to bealmost pain. But Dean Stanley did more than I asked. He suggested that heshould call that afternoon, and have a quiet chat with my mother, andthen come again on the following day to administer the Sacrament. 

"A stranger's presence is always trying to a sick person, " he said, withrare delicacy of thought; "and joined to the excitement of the service itmight be too much for your dear mother. If I spend half-an-hour with herto-day, and administer the Sacrament to-morrow, it will, I think, bebetter for her. "

So Dean Stanley came that afternoon, and remained talking with my motherfor about half-an-hour, and then set himself to understand my ownposition. He finally told me that conduct was far more important thantheory, and that he regarded all as "Christians" who recognised and triedto follow the moral law. On the question of the absolute Deity of Jesushe laid but little stress; Jesus was, "in a special sense", the "Son ofGod", but it was folly to jangle about words with only human meaningswhen dealing with the mysteries of divine existence, and above all it wasfolly to make such words into dividing lines between earnest souls. Theone important matter was the recognition of "duty to God and man", andall who were one in that recognition might rightfully join in an act ofworship, the essence of which was not acceptance of dogma, but love ofGod and self-sacrifice for man. "The Holy Communion", he said, in hissoft tones, "was never meant to divide from each other hearts that aresearching after the one true God; it was meant by its founder as a symbolof unity, not of strife". 

On the following day he came again, and celebrated the "Holy Communion"by the bedside of my dear mother. Well was I repaid for the struggle ithad cost me to ask so great a kindness from a stranger, when I saw thecomfort that gentle noble heart had given to my mother. He soothed awayall her anxiety about my heresy with tactful wisdom, bidding her have nofear of differences of opinion where the heart was set on truth. "Remember", she told me he had said to her, "remember that our God is theGod of truth, and that therefore the honest search for truth can never bedispleasing in his eyes". 

Once again after that he came, and after his visit to my mother we hadanother long talk. I ventured to ask him, the conversation having turnedthat way, how, with views so broad as his own, he found it possible toremain in communion with the Church of England. "I think", he saidgently, "that I am of more service to true religion by remaining in theChurch and striving to widen its boundaries from within, than if I leftit and worked from without". And he went on to explain how, as Dean ofWestminster, he was in a rarely independent position, and could make theAbbey of a wider national service than would otherwise be possible. Inall he said on this his love for and his pride in the glorious Abbey weremanifest, and it was easy to see that old historical associations, loveof music, of painting, and of stately architecture, were the bonds thatheld him bound to the "old historic Church of England". His emotions, nothis intellect, kept him Churchman, and he shrunk with theover-sensitiveness of the cultured scholar from the idea of allowing theold traditions, to be handled roughly by inartistic hands. Naturally of arefined and delicate nature, he had been rendered yet more sensitive bythe training of the college and the court; the exquisite courtesy of hismanners was but the high polish of a naturally gentle and artisticspirit, a spirit whose gentleness sometimes veiled its strength. I haveoften heard Dean Stanley harshly spoken of, I have heard his honestyroughly challenged, but never in my presence has he been attacked that Ihave not uttered my protest against the injustice done him, and thusstriven to repay some small fraction of that great debt of gratitudewhich I shall owe to his memory as long as I live. 

As the spring grew warmer, my mother rallied wonderfully, and we began todare to hope. At last it was decided to move her down to Norwood; she waswearying for change, and it was thought that the purer air of the countrymight aid the system to recover tone and strength. The furniture waswaiting for me to send for it, and it was soon, conveyed to Colby Road;it only furnished two rooms, but I could easily sleep on the floor, and Imade the two rooms on the ground floor into bedroom and sitting-room formy dear invalid. One little servant-maid was all our slender resourcescould afford, and a very charming one was found for me by Mrs. Scott. Through the months of hard work and poor living that followed, Mary wasthe most thoughtful and most generous of comrades. And, indeed, I havebeen very fortunate in my servants, always finding in them willingness tohelp, and freely-rendered, ungrudging kindness. 

I have just said that I could only furnish two rooms, but on my nextvisit to complete all the arrangements for my mother's reception, I foundthe bedroom that was to be mine neatly and prettily furnished. The goodfairy was Mrs. Scott, who, learning the "nakedness of the land" fromMary, had determined that I should not be as uncomfortable as I hadexpected. 

It was the beginning of May, and the air was soft and bright and warm. Wehired an invalid carriage and drove slowly down to Norwood. My motherseemed to enjoy the drive, and when we lifted her into the bright cosyroom prepared for her, she was delighted with the change. On thefollowing morning the improvement was continued, but in the evening shewas taken suddenly worse, and we lifted her into bed and telegraphed forthe doctor. But now the end had come; her strength completely failed, andshe felt that death was upon her; but selfless to the last, her only fearwas for me. "I am leaving you alone, " she would sigh from time to time, and truly I felt, with an anguish I dared not realise, that when she diedI should indeed be alone on earth. 

For two days longer she was with me, and, miser with my last few hours, Inever left her side for five minutes. At last on the 10th of May theweakness passed into delirium, but even then the faithful eyes followedme about the room, until at length they closed for ever, and as thesun sank low in the heavens, the breath came slower and slower, till thesilence of death came down upon us and she was gone. 

All that followed was like a dream. I would have none touch my dead savemyself and her favorite sister, who was with us at the last; she weptover her, but I could not, not even when they hid her beneath thecoffin-lid, nor all that weary way to Kensal Green, whither we took herto lay her with her husband and her baby-son. I could not believe thatour day-dream was dead and buried, and the home destroyed ere it wasfairly made. My "house was left unto" me "desolate", and the rooms filledwith sunshine, but unlighted by her presence, seemed to reiterate to me:"You are all alone ". 

XI. 

The two months after my mother's death were the dreariest my life hasknown, and they were months of tolerably hard struggle. The little housein Colby Road taxed my slender resources heavily, and the search for workwas not yet successful. I do not know how I should have managed but forthe help, ever at hand, of Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Scott. During this time Iwrote for Mr. Scott pamphlets on Inspiration, Atonement, Mediation andSalvation, Eternal Torture, Religious Education of Children, Natural _v. _Revealed Religion, and the few guineas thus earned were very valuable. Their house, too, was always open to me, and this was no small help, foroften in those days the little money I had was enough to buy food for twobut not enough to buy it for three, and I would go out and study all dayat the British Museum, so as to "have my dinner in town", the said dinnerbeing conspicuous by its absence. If I was away for two evenings runningfrom the hospitable house in the terrace, Mrs. Scott would come down tosee what had happened, and many a time the supper there was of realphysical value to me. Well might I write, in 1879, when Thomas Scott laydead: "It was Thomas Scott whose house was open to me when my need wassorest, and he never knew, this generous noble heart, how sometimes, whenI went in, weary and overdone, from a long day's study in the BritishMuseum, with scarce food to struggle through the day--he never knew howhis genial 'Well, little lady', in welcoming tone, cheered the then utterloneliness of my life. To no living man or woman--save one--do I owe thedebt of gratitude that I owe to Thomas Scott. "

The small amount of jewellery I possessed, and all my superfluousclothes, were turned into more necessary articles, and the child, atleast, never suffered a solitary touch of want. Mary was a wonderfulcontriver, and kept house on the very slenderest funds that could be putinto a servant's hands, and she also made the little place so bright andfresh-looking that it was always a pleasure to go into it. Recallingthose days of "hard living", I can now look on them without regret. More, I am glad to have passed through them, for they have taught me how tosympathise with those who are struggling as I struggled then, and I nevercan hear the words fall from pale lips: "I am hungry", withoutremembering how painful a thing hunger is, and without curing that pain, at least for the moment. 

But I turn from this to the brighter side of my life, the intellectualand social side, where I found a delight unknown in the old days ofbondage. First, there was the joy of freedom, the joy of speaking outfrankly and honestly each thought. Truly, I had the right to say: "With agreat price obtained I this freedom, " and having paid the price, Irevelled in the Liberty I had bought. Mr. Scott's valuable library was atmy service; his keen brain challenged my opinions, probed my assertions, and suggested phases of thought hitherto untouched. I studied harder thanever, and the study now was unchecked by any fear of possibleconsequences. I had nothing left of the old faith save belief in "a God", and that began slowly to melt away. The Theistic axiom: "If there be aGod at all he must be at least as good as his highest creature", beganwith an "if", and to that "if" I turned my attention. "Of all impossiblethings", writes Miss Frances Power Cobbe, "the most impossible mustsurely be that a man should dream something of the good and the noble, and that it should prove at last that his Creator was less good and lessnoble than he had dreamed. " But, I questioned, are we sure that there isa Creator? Granted that, if there is, he must be above his highestcreature, but--is there such a being? "The ground", says the Rev. CharlesVoysey, "on which our belief in God rests is man. Man, parent of Biblesand Churches, inspirer of all good thoughts and good deeds. Man, themaster-piece of God's thought on earth. Man, the text-book of allspiritual knowledge. Neither miraculous nor infallible, man isnevertheless the only trustworthy record of the Divine mind in thingsperhaps pertaining to God. Man's reason, conscience, and affections arethe only true revelation of his Maker. " But what if God were only man'sown image reflected in the mirror of man's mind? What if man were thecreator, not the revelation of his God?

It was inevitable that such thoughts should arise after the more palpablyindefensible doctrines of Christianity had been discarded. Once encouragethe human mind to think, and bounds to the thinking can never again beset by authority. Once challenge traditional beliefs, and the challengewill ring on every shield which is hanging in the intellectual arena. Around me was the atmosphere of conflict, and, freed from its longrepression, my mind leapt up to share in the strife with a joy in theintellectual tumult, the intellectual strain. 

At this time I found my way to South Place Chapel, to which Mr. MoncureD. Conway was attracting many a seeker after truth. I was fortunateenough to be introduced to this remarkable religious leader, and to hischarming wife, one of the sweetest and steadiest natures which it hasbeen my lot to meet. It was from. Mrs. Conway that I first heard of Mr. Bradlaugh as a speaker that everyone should hear. She asked me one day ifI had been to the Hall of Science, and I said, with the stupid, ignorantreflexion of other people's prejudices which is but too common:

"No, I have never been. Mr. Bradlaugh is rather a rough sort of speaker, is he not?"

"He is the finest speaker of Saxon English that I have ever heard, " Mrs. Conway answered, "except, perhaps, John Bright, and his power over acrowd is something marvellous. Whether you agree with him or not, youshould hear him. "

I replied that I really did not know what his views were, beyond having avague notion that he was an Atheist of a rather pronounced type, but thatI would go and hear him when I had an opportunity. 

Mr. Conway had passed beyond the emotional Theism of Mr. Voysey, and talkwith him did something towards widening my views on the question of aDivine Existence. I re-read carefully Mansel's Bampton Lectures, andfound in them much to provoke doubt, nothing to induce faith. Take thefollowing phrases, and think whither they carry us. Dean Mansel isspeaking of God as Infinite, and he says: "That a man can be conscious ofthe Infinite is, then, a supposition which, in the very terms in which itis expressed, annihilates itself. .. . The Infinite, if it is to beconceived at all, must be conceived as potentially everything andactually nothing; for if there is anything in general which it cannotbecome, it is thereby limited; and if there is anything in particularwhich it actually is, it is thereby excluded from being any other thing. But again, it must also be conceived as actually everything andpotentially nothing: for an unrealised potentiality is likewise alimitation. If the infinite can be that which it is not, it is by thatvery possibility marked out as incomplete and capable of a higherperfection. If it is actually everything, it possesses no characteristicfeature by which it can be distinguished from anything else and discernedas an object of consciousness. "

Could any argument more thoroughly Atheistic be put before a mind whichdared to think out to the logical end any train of thought? Suchreasoning can lead but to one of two ends: despair of truth andconsequent acceptance of the incomprehensible as Divine, or else theresolute refusal to profess belief where reason is helpless, and wherefaith is but the credulity of ignorance. In my case, it had the lattereffect. 

At the same time I re-read Mill's "Examination of Sir W. Hamilton'sPhilosophy", and also went through a pretty severe study of Comte's_Philosophic Positive_. I had entirely given up the use of prayer, notbecause I was an Atheist but because I was still a Theist. It seemed tome to be absurd to pray, if I believed in a God who was wiser and betterthan myself. An all-wise God did not need my suggestions: an all-good Godwould do all that was best without my prompting. Prayer appeared to me tobe a blasphemous impertinence, and for a considerable time I haddiscontinued its use. But God fades gradually out of the daily life ofthose who never pray; a God who is not a Providence is a superfluity;when from the heaven does not smile a listening Father, it soon becomesan empty space whence resounds no echo of man's cry. 

At last I said to Mr. Scott: "Mr. Scott, may I write a tract on thenature and existence of God?"

He glanced at me keenly: "Ah, little lady; you are facing then thatproblem at last? I thought it must come. Write away. "

The thought that had been driving me forward found its expression in theopening words of the essay (published a few months later, with one or twoadditions that were made after I had read two of Mr. Bradlaugh's essays, his "Plea for Atheism", and "Is there a God?"): "It is impossible forthose who study the deeper religious problems of our time to stave offmuch longer the question which lies at the root of them all, 'What do youbelieve in regard to God?' We may controvert Christian doctrines oneafter another; point by point we may be driven from the various beliefsof our churches; reason may force us to see contradictions where we hadimagined harmony, and may open our eyes to flaws where we had dreamed ofperfection; we resign all idea of a revelation; we seek for God in Natureonly: we renounce for ever the hope (which glorified our former creedinto such alluring beauty) that at some future time we should verily'see' God; that 'our eyes should behold the King in his beauty', in thatfairy 'land which is very far off'. But every step we take onwardstowards a more reasonable faith and a surer light of Truth, leads usnearer and nearer to the problem of problems: 'What is THAT which mencall God?". 

I sketched out the plan of my essay and had written most of it when onreturning one day from the British Museum I stopped at the shop of Mr. Edward Truelove, 256 High Holborn. I had been working at some Comtistliterature, and had found a reference to Mr. Truelove's shop as one atwhich Comtist publications might be bought. Lying on the counter was acopy of the _National Reformer_, and attracted by the title I bought it. I had never before heard of nor seen the paper, and I read it placidly inthe omnibus; looking up, I was at first puzzled and then amused to see anold gentleman gazing at me with indignation and horror printed on hiscountenance; I realised that my paper had disturbed his peace of mind, and that the sight of a young woman, respectably dressed in crape, reading an Atheistic journal in an omnibus was a shock too great to beendured by the ordinary Philistine without sign of discomposure. Helooked so hard at the paper that I was inclined to offer it to him forhis perusal, but repressed the mischievous inclination, and read ondemurely. 

This first copy of the paper with which I was to be so closely connectedbore date July 19th, 1874, and contained two long letters from a Mr. Arnold of Northampton, attacking Mr. Bradlaugh, and a brief andsingularly self-restrained answer from the latter. There was also anarticle on the National Secular Society, which made me aware that therewas an organisation devoted to the propagandism of Free Thought. I feltthat if such a society existed, I ought to belong to it, and Iconsequently wrote a short note to the editor of the _National Reformer_, asking whether it was necessary for a person to profess Atheism beforebeing admitted to the Society. The answer appeared in the _NationalReformer_:--

"S. E. --To be a member of the National Secular Society it is onlynecessary to be able honestly to accept the four principles, as given inthe _National Reformer_ of June 14th. This any person may do withoutbeing required to avow himself an Atheist. Candidly, we can see nological resting-place between the entire acceptance of authority, as inthe Roman Catholic Church, and the most extreme nationalism. If, on againlooking to the Principles of the Society, you can accept them, we repeatto you our invitation. "

I sent my name in as an active member, and find it recorded in the_National Reformer_ of August 9th. Having received an intimation thatLondoners could receive their certificates at the Hall of Science fromMr. Bradlaugh on any Sunday evening, I betook myself thither, and it wason the 2nd August, 1874, that I first set foot in a Freethought hall. 

As I sat, much crushed, surveying the crowded audience with much interestand longing to know which were members of the brotherhood I had entered, a sudden roar of cheering startled me. I saw a tall figure passingswiftly along and mounting the stairs, and the roar deepened and swelledas he made a slight acknowledgment of the greeting and sat down. Iremember well my sensations as I looked at Charles Bradlaugh for thefirst time. The grave, quiet, _strong_ look, as he sat facing the crowd, impressed me strangely, and most of all was I surprised at the breadth offorehead, the massive head, of the man I had heard described as a mereignorant demagogue. 

The lecture was on "The ancestry and birth of Jesus", and was largelydevoted to tracing the resemblance between the Christ and Krishna myths. As this ground was well-known to me, I was able to judge of thelecturer's accuracy, and quickly found that his knowledge was as sound ashis language was splendid. I had never before heard eloquence, sarcasm, fire, and passion brought to bear on the Christian superstition, nor hadI ever before felt the sway of the orator, nor the power that dwells inspoken words. 

After the lecture, Mr. Bradlaugh came down the Hall with somecertificates of membership of the National Secular Society in his hand, and glancing round for their claimants caught, I suppose, some look ofexpectancy in my face, for he paused and handed me mine, with aquestioning, "Mrs. Besant?". Then he said that if I had any doubt at allon the subject of Atheism, he would willingly discuss it with me, if Iwould write making an appointment for that purpose. I made up my mind totake advantage of the opportunity, and a day or two later saw me walkingdown Commercial Road, looking for Turner Street. 

My first conversation with Mr. Bradlaugh was brief, direct, andsatisfactory. We found that there was little real difference between ourtheological views, and my dislike of the name "Atheist" arose from mysharing in the vulgar error that the Atheist asserted, "There is no God". This error I corrected in the draft of my essay, by inserting a fewpassages from pamphlets written by acknowledged Atheists, to which Mr. Bradlaugh drew my attention; with this exception the essay remained as itwas sketched, being described by Mr. Bradlaugh as "a very good Atheisticessay", a criticism which ended with the smiling comment: "You havethought yourself into Atheism without knowing it. "

Very wise were some of the suggestions made: "You should never say youhave an opinion on a subject until you have tried to study the strongestthings said against the view to which you are inclined". "You must notthink you know a subject until you are acquainted with all that the bestminds have said about it. " "No steady work can be done in public unlessthe worker study at home far more than he talks outside. " And let me sayhere that among the many things for which I have to thank Mr. Bradlaugh, there is none for which I owe him more gratitude than for the fashion inwhich he has constantly urged the duty of all who stand forward asteachers to study deeply every subject they touch, and the impetus he hasgiven to my own love of knowledge by the constant spur of criticism andof challenge, criticism of every weak statement, challenge of everyhastily-expressed view. It will be a good thing for the world when afriendship between a man and a woman no longer means protectivecondescension on one side and helpless dependence on the other, but whenthey meet on equal ground of intellectual sympathy, discussing, criticising, studying, and so aiding the evolution of stronger andclearer thought-ability in each. 

A few days after our first discussion, Mr. Bradlaugh offered me a placeon the staff of the _National Reformer_ at a small weekly salary; and myfirst contribution appeared in the number for August 30th, over thesignature of "Ajax"; I was obliged to use a _nom de guerre_ at first, forthe work I was doing for Mr. Scott would have been injured had my nameappeared in the columns of the terrible _National Reformer_, and untilthe work commenced and paid for was concluded I did not feel at libertyto use my own name. Later, I signed my _National Reformer_ articles, andthe tracts written for Mr. Scott appeared anonymously. 

The name was suggested by the famous statue of "Ajax crying for light", acast of which stands in the centre walk of the Crystal Palace. The crythrough the darkness for light, even if light brought destruction, wasone that awoke the keenest sympathy of response from my heart:

 "If our fate be death, Give light, and let us die!"

To see, to know, to understand, even though the seeing blind, though theknowledge sadden, though the understanding shatter the dearest hopes, such has ever been the craving of the upward-striving mind of man. Someregard it as a weakness, as a folly, but I am sure that it exists moststrongly in some of the noblest of our race; that from the lips of thosewho have done most in lifting the burden of ignorance from theoverstrained and bowed shoulders of a stumbling world has gone out mostoften into the empty darkness the pleading, impassioned cry :--

"Give light. "

XII. 

My first lecture was delivered at the Co-operative Society's Hall, 55, Castle Street, on August 25, 1873. Twice before this, I had ventured toraise my voice in discussion, once at a garden-party at which I wasinvited to join in a brief informal debate, and discovered that wordscame readily and smoothly, and the second time at the Liberal SocialUnion, in a discussion on a paper read by a member--I forget by whom--dealing with the opening of Museums and Art Galleries on Sunday. 

My membership of that same "Liberal" Social Union was not, by the way, ofvery long duration. A discussion arose, one night, on the admissibilityof Atheists to the society. Dr. Zerffi declared that he would not remaina member if avowed Atheists were admitted. I declared that I was anAtheist, and that the basis of the Union was liberty. The result was thatI found myself coldshouldered, and those who had been warmly cordial tome as a Theist looked askance at me after I had avowed that my scepticismhad advanced beyond their "limits of religious thought". The LiberalSocial Union knew me no more, but in the wider field of work open beforeme the narrowmindedness of this petty clique troubled me not at all. 

To return from this digression to my first essay in lecturing work. Aninvitation to read a paper before the Co-operative Society came to mefrom Mr. Greenwood, who was, I believe, the Secretary, and as the subjectwas left to my own choice, I determined that my first public attempt atspeech should be on behalf of my own sex, and selected for it, "ThePolitical Status of Women". With much fear and trembling was that paperwritten, and it was a very nervous person who presented herself at theCo-operative Hall. When a visit to the dentist is made, and one stands onthe steps outside, desiring to run away ere the neat little boy inbuttons opens the door and beams on one with a smile of compassionatecontempt and implike triumph, then the world seems dark and life is as ahuge blunder. But all such feelings are poor and weak when compared withthe sinking of the heart, and the trembling of the knees, which, seizeupon the unhappy lecturer as he advances towards his first audience, andas before his eyes rises a ghastly vision of a tongue-tied would-bespeaker facing rows of listening faces, listening to--silence. 

All this miserable feeling, however, disappeared the moment I rose to myfeet and looked at the faces before me. No tremor of nervousness touchedme from the first word to the last. And a similar experience has beenmine ever since. I am still always nervous before a lecture, and feelmiserable and ill-assured, but, once on my feet, I am at my ease, and notonce on the platform after the lecture has commenced have I experiencedthe painful feeling of hesitancy and "fear of the sound of my own voice"of which I have often heard people speak. 

The death of Mr. Charles Gilpin in September left vacant one of the seatsfor Northampton, and Mr. Bradlaugh at once announced his intention ofagain presenting himself to the constituency as a candidate. He had atfirst stood for the borough in 1868, and had received 1086 votes; onFebruary 5th, 1874, he received 1653 votes, and of these 1060 wereplumpers; the other candidates were Messrs. Merewether, Phipps, Gilpin, and Lord Henley; Mr. Merewether had 12 plumpers; Mr. Phipps, 113; Mr. Gilpin, 64; Lord Henley, 21. Thus signs were already seen of the compactand personally loyal following which was to win the seat for its chief in1880, after twelve years of steady struggle. In 1868, Mr. John StuartMill had strongly supported Mr. Bradlaugh's candidature, and had sent adonation to his election fund. Mr. Mill wrote in his Autobiography (pp. 311, 312):

"He had the support of the working classes; having heard him speak I knewhim to be a man of ability, and he had proved that he was the reverse ofa demagogue by placing himself in strong opposition to the prevailingopinion of the Democratic party on two such important subjects asMalthusianism. And Personal Representation. Men of this sort, who, whilesharing the democratic feelings of the working classes, judge politicalquestions for themselves, and have courage to assert their individualconvictions against popular opposition, were needed, as it seemed to me, in Parliament; and I did not think that Mr. Bradlaugh's anti-religiousopinions (even though he had been intemperate in the expression of them)ought to exclude him. "

When the election was over, and after Mr. Mill had himself been beaten atWestminster, he wrote, referring to his donation: "It was the right thingto do, and if the election were yet to take place, I would do it again". The election in February, 1874 took place while Mr. Bradlaugh was away inAmerica, and this second one in the same year took place on the eve ofhis departure on another American lecturing tour. 

I went down to Northampton to report electioneering incidents for the_National Reformer_, and spent some days there in the whirl of thestruggle. The Whig party was more bitter against Mr. Bradlaugh than wasthe Tory, and every weapon that could be forged out of slander andfalsehood was used against him by "Liberals", who employed theirChristianity as an electioneering dodge to injure a man whose sturdyRadicalism they feared. Over and over again Mr. Bradlaugh was told thathe was an "impossible candidate", and gibe and sneer and scoff were flungat the man who had neither ancestors nor wealth to recommend him, whofought his battle with his brain and his tongue, and whose electionexpenses were paid by hundreds of contributions from poor men and womenin every part of the land. Strenuous efforts were made to procure a"Liberal" candidate, who should be able at least to prevent Mr. Bradlaugh's return by obtaining the votes of the Liberal as against theRadical party. Messrs. Bell and James and Dr. Pearce came on the sceneonly to disappear. Mr. Jacob Bright and Mr. Arthur Arnold were suggested. Mr. Ayrton's name was whispered. Major Lumley was recommended by Mr. Bernal Osborne. Dr. Kenealy proclaimed himself ready to rescue theLiberal party in their dire strait. Mr. Tillet of Norwich, Mr. Cox ofBelper, were invited, but neither of these would consent to oppose asound Radical, who had fought two elections at Northampton and who hadbeen before the constituency for six years. At last Mr. William Fowler, abanker, was invited, and accepted the task of handing over therepresentation of a Radical borough to a Tory. 

October 6th was fixed as the election day, and at 7. 30 on that day Mr. Merewether, the Tory, was declared elected with 2, 171 votes. Mr. Bradlaugh polled 1, 766, having added another 133 voters to those who hadpolled for him in the previous February. 

The violent abuse levelled against Mr. Bradlaugh by the Whigs, and thefoul and wicked slanders circulated against him, had angered almost tomadness those who knew and loved him, and when it was found that theunscrupulous Whig devices had succeeded in turning the election againsthim, the fury broke out into open violence. As Mr. Bradlaugh was sittingwell-nigh exhausted in the hotel, the landlord rushed in, crying to himto go out and try to stop the people, or there would be murder done atthe "Palmerston", Mr. Fowler's head-quarters; the crowd was charging thedoor, and the windows were being broken, with showers of stones. Weary ashe was, Mr. Bradlaugh sprang to his feet and swiftly made his way to therescue of those who had defeated him. Flinging himself before the door, he drove the crowd back, scolded them into quietness and dispersed them. But at nine o'clock he had to leave the town to catch the mail forQueenstown, where he was to join the steamer for America, and after hehad left, the riot he had quelled broke out afresh. The soldiers werecalled out, the Riot Act was read, stones flew freely, heads and windowswere broken, but no very serious harm was done. The "Palmerston" and theprinting office of the _Mercury_, the Whig organ, were the principalsufferers, windows and doors vanishing somewhat completely. 

In this same month of October I find I noted in the _National Reformer_that it was rumored "that on hearing that the Prince of Wales hadsucceeded the Earl of Ripon as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge ofEngland, Mr. Bradlaugh immediately sent in his resignation". "Thereport", I added demurely, "seems likely to be a true one". I had notmuch doubt of the fact, having seen the cancelled certificate. 

My second lecture was delivered on September 27th, during the electionstruggle, at Mr. Moncure D. Conway's Chapel in St. Paul's Road, CamdenTown, and was on "The true basis of morality. ". The lecture wasre-delivered a few weeks later at a Unitarian chapel, where the ministerwas the Rev. Peter Dean, and gave, I was afterwards told, great offenceto some of the congregation, especially to Miss Frances Power Cobbe, whodeclared that she would have left the chapel had not the speaker been awoman. The ground of complaint was that the suggested "basis" wasUtilitarian and human instead of Intuitional and Theistic. Published as apamphlet, the lecture has reached its seventh thousand. 

In October I had a severe attack of congestion of the lungs, and soonafter my recovery I left Norwood to settle in London. I found that mywork required that I should be nearer head-quarters, and I arranged torent part of a house--19, Westbourne Park Terrace, Bayswater--two ladyfriends taking the remainder. The arrangement proved a very comfortableone, and it continued until my improved means enabled me, in 1876, totake a house of my own. 

In January, 1875, I made up my mind to lecture regularly, and in the_National Reformer_ for January 17th I find the announcement that "Mrs. Annie Besant (Ajax) will lecture at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, on'Civil and religious liberty'", Mr. Conway took the chair at this firstidentification of "Ajax" with myself, and sent a very kindly notice ofthe lecture to the _Cincinnati Commercial_. Mr. Charles Watts wrote areport in the _National Reformer_ of January 24th. Dr. Maurice Daviesalso wrote a very favorable article in a London journal, butunfortunately he knew Mr. Walter Besant, who persuaded him to suppress myname, so that although the notice appeared it did me no service. Mystruggle to gain my livelihood was for some time rendered considerablymore difficult by this kind of ungenerous and underhand antagonism. Awoman's road to the earning of her own living, especially when she isweighted with the care of a young child, is always fairly thorny at theoutset, and does not need to be rendered yet more difficult by secretattempts to injure, on the part of those who trust that suffering andpoverty may avail to bend pride to submission. 

My next lecture was given in the Theatre Royal, Northampton, and in the_National Reformer_ of February 14th appears for the first time my listof lecturing engagements, so that in February next I shall complete myfirst decade of lecturing for the Freethought and Republican Cause. Never, since first I stood on the Freethought platform, have I felt onehour's regret for the resolution taken in solitude in January, 1875, todevote to that sacred Cause every power of brain and tongue that Ipossessed. Not lightly was that resolution taken, for I know no task ofweightier responsibility than that of standing forth as teacher, andswaying thousands of hearers year after year. But I pledged my word thento the Cause I loved that no effort on my part should be wanting torender myself worthy of the privilege of service which I took; that Iwould read, and study, and would train every faculty that I had; that Iwould polish my language, discipline my thought, widen my knowledge; andthis, at least, I may say, that if I have written and spoken much I havestudied and thought more, and that at least I have not given to mymistress, Liberty, that "which hath cost me nothing". 

A queer incident occurred on February 17th. I had been invited by theDialectical Society to read a paper, and selected for subject "Theexistence of God". The Dialectical Society had for some years held theirmeetings in a room in Adam Street rented from the Social ScienceAssociation. When the members gathered as usual on this 17th February, the door was found closed, and they were informed that Ajax's paper hadbeen too much for the Social Science nerves, and that entrance to theordinary meeting-place was henceforth denied. We found refuge in theCharing Cross Hotel, where we speculated merrily on the eccentricities ofreligious charity. 

On February 12th, I started on my first lecturing tour in the provinces. After lecturing at Birkenhead on the evening of that day, I started bythe night mail for Glasgow. Some races--dog races, I think--had beengoing on, and very unpleasant were many of the passengers waiting on theplatform. Some Birkenhead friends had secured me a compartment, andwatched over me till the train began to move. Then, after we had fairlystarted, the door was flung open by a porter and a man was thrust in whohalf tumbled on to the seat. As he slowly recovered, he stood up, and ashis money rolled out of his hand on to the floor and he gazed vaguely atit, I saw, to my horror, that he was drunk. The position was pleasant, for the train was an express and was not timed to stop for a considerabletime. My odious fellow-passenger spent some time on the floor hunting forhis scattered coins. Then he slowly gathered himself up, and presentlybecame conscious of my presence. He studied me for some time and thenproposed to shut the window. I assented quietly, not wanting to discuss atrifle, and feeling in deadly terror. Alone at night in an express, witha man not drunk enough to be helpless but too drunk to be controlled. Never, before or since, have I felt so thoroughly frightened, but I satthere quiet and unmoved, only grasping a penknife in my pocket, with adesperate resolve to use my feeble weapon as soon as the need arose. Theman had risen again to his feet and had come over to me, when a jarringnoise was heard and the train began to slacken. 

"What is that?" stammered my drunken companion. 

"They are putting on the brakes to stop the train, " I said very slowlyand distinctly, though a very passion of relief made it hard to sayquietly the measured words. 

The man sat down stupidly, staring at me, and in a minute or two more thetrain pulled up at a station. It had been stopped by signal. In a momentI was at the window, calling the guard. I rapidly explained to him that Iwas travelling alone, that a half-drunken man was with me, and I beggedhim to put me into another carriage. With the usual kindliness of arailway official, the guard at once moved my baggage and myself into anempty compartment, into which he locked me, and he kept a friendly watchover me at every station at which we stopped until he landed me safely atGlasgow. 

At Glasgow a room had been taken for me at a Temperance Hotel, and itseemed to me a new and lonely sort of thing to be "on my own account" ina strange city in a strange hotel. By the way, why are Temperance Hotelsso often lacking in cleanliness? Surely abstinence from wine andsuperfluity of "matter in the wrong place" need not necessarily becorrelated in hotel-life, and yet my experience leads me to look for thetwain together. Here and there I have been to Temperance Hotels in whichwater is used for other purposes than that of drinking, but these are, Iregret to say, the exceptions to a melancholy rule. 

From Glasgow I went north to Aberdeen, and from Aberdeen home again toLondon. A long weary journey that was, in a third-class carriage in thecold month of February, but the labor had in it a joy that outpaid allphysical discomfort, and the feeling that I had found my work in theworld gave a new happiness to my life. 

I reported my doings to the chief of our party in America, and found themonly half approved. "You should have waited till I returned, and at leastI could have saved you some discomforts, " he wrote; but the discomfortstroubled me little, and I think I rather preferred the independent launchout into lecturing work, trusting only to my own courage and ability towin my way. So far as health was concerned, the lecturing acted as atonic. My chest had always been a little delicate, and when I consulted adoctor on the possibility of my lecturing he answered: "It will eitherkill you or cure you". It has entirely cured the lung weakness, and Ihave grown strong and vigorous instead of being frail and delicate as ofold. 

On February 28th I delivered my first lecture at the Hall of Science, London, and was received with that warmth of greeting which Freethinkersare ever willing to extend to one who sacrifices aught to join theirranks. From that day to this that hearty welcome at our central Londonhall has never failed me, and the love and courage wherewith Freethinkershave ever stood by me have overpaid a thousandfold any poor services Ihave been fortunate enough to render to the common cause. 

It would be wearisome to go step by step over the ten years' journeys andlectures; I will only select, here and there, incidents illustrative ofthe whole. 

Some folk say that the lives of Freethought lecturers are easy, and thattheir lecturing tours are lucrative in the extreme. On one occasion Ispent eight days in the north lecturing daily, with three lectures on thetwo Sundays, and made a deficit of 11s. On the journey! I do not pretendthat such a thing would happen now, but I fancy that every Freethoughtlecturer could tell of a similar experience in the early days of "winninghis way". 

There is no better field for Freethought and Radical work thanNorthumberland and Durham; the miners there are as a rule shrewd andhard-headed men, and very cordial is the greeting given by them to thosewhom they have reason to trust. At Seghill and at Bedlington I have sleptin their cottages and have been welcomed to their tables, and I rememberone evening at Seghill, after a lecture, that my host invited about adozen miners to supper to meet me; the talk ran on politics, and I soonfound that my companions knew more of English politics and had a farshrewder notion of political methods than I had found among the ordinary"diners-out" in "society". They were of the "uneducated" class despisedby "gentlemen" and had not the vote, but politically they were far bettereducated than their social superiors, and were far better fitted todischarge the duties of citizenship. 

On May 16th I attended, for the first time, the Annual Conference calledby the National Secular Society. It was held at Manchester, in theSociety's rooms in Grosvenor Street, and it is interesting andencouraging to note how the Society has grown and strengthened since thatsmall meeting held nearly ten years ago. Mr. Bradlaugh was electedPresident; Messrs. A. Trevelyan, T. Slater, C. Watts, C. C. Cattell, R. A. Cooper, P. A. V. Le Lubez, N. Ridgway, G. W. Foote, G. H. Reddalls, and Mrs. Besant Vice Presidents. Messrs. Watts and Standring were elected asSecretary and Assistant-Secretary--both offices were then honorary, forthe Society was too poor to pay the holders--and Mr. Le Lubez Treasurer. The result of the Conference was soon seen in the energy infused into theFreethought propaganda, and from that time to this the Society hasincreased in numbers and in influence, until that which was scarcely morethan a skeleton has become a living power in the land on the side of allsocial and political reforms. The Council for 1875 consisted of butthirty-nine members, including President, Vice-Presidents, and Secretary, and of these only nine were available as a Central Executive. LetFreethinkers compare this meagre list with the present, and then let them"thank" man "and take courage". 

Lecturing at Leicester in June, I came for the first time across afalsehood of which I have since heard plenty. An irate Christian declaredthat I was responsible for a book entitled the "Elements of SocialScience", which was, he averred, the "Bible of Secularists". I had neverheard of the book, but as he insisted that it was in favor of theabolition of marriage, and that Mr. Bradlaugh agreed with it, I promptlycontradicted him, knowing that Mr. Bradlaugh's views on marriage wereconservative rather than revolutionary. On enquiry afterwards I foundthat the book in question had been written some years before by a Doctorof Medicine, and had been sent for review by its publisher to the_National Reformer_ among other papers. I found further that it consistedof three parts; the first dealt with the sexual relation, and advocated, from the standpoint of an experienced medical man, what is roughly knownas "free love"; the second was entirely medical, dealing with diseases;the third consisted of a very clear and able exposition of the law ofpopulation as laid down by Malthus, and insisted--as John Stuart Mill haddone--that it was the duty of married persons to voluntarily limit theirfamilies within their means of subsistence. Mr. Bradlaugh, in the_National Reformer_, in reviewing the book, stated that it was written"with honest and pure intent and purpose", and recommended to working menthe exposition of the law of population. Because he did this Christiansand Tories who desire to injure him still insist that he shares theauthor's views on sexual relations, and despite his reiteratedcontradictions, they quote detached pieces of the work, speaking againstmarriage, as containing his views. Anything more meanly vile anddishonest than this it would be difficult to imagine, yet such are theweapons used against Atheists in a Christian country. Unable to find inMr. Bradlaugh's own writings anything to serve their purpose, they takeisolated passages from a book he neither wrote nor published, but oncereviewed with a recommendation of a part of it which says nothing againstmarriage. 

That the book is a remarkable one and deserves to be read has beenacknowledged on all hands. Personally, I cordially dislike a large partof it, and dissent utterly from its views on the marital relation, butnone the less I feel sure that the writer is an honest, good, and rightmeaning man. In the _Reasoner_, edited by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, Ifind warmer praise of it than in the _National Reformer_; in the reviewthe following passage appears:--

"In some respects all books of this class are evils: but it would beweakness and criminal prudery--a prudery as criminal as vice itself--notto say that such a book as the one in question is not only a far lesserevil than the one that it combats, but in one sense a book which it is amercy to issue and courage to publish. "

The _Examiner_, reviewing the same book, declared it to be

"A very valuable, though rather heterogeneous book. .. . This is, webelieve, the only book that has fully, honestly, and in a scientificspirit recognised all the elements in the problem--How are mankind totriumph over poverty, with its train of attendant evils?--and fearlesslyendeavored to find a practical solution. "

The _British Journal of Homæopathy_ wrote:

"Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain fromstating that this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in manyrespects, we have ever met with. Though we differ _toto coelo_ from theauthor in his views of religion and morality, and hold some of hisremedies to tend rather to a dissolution than a reconstruction ofsociety, yet we are bound to admit the benevolence and philanthropy ofhis motives. The scope of the work is nothing less than the whole fieldof political economy. "

Ernest Jones and others wrote yet more strongly, but out of all theseCharles Bradlaugh alone has been selected for reproach, and has had thepeculiar views of the anonymous author fathered on himself. Why? Thereason is not far to seek. None of the other writers are active Radicalpoliticians, dangerous to the luxurious idleness of the non-producing butall-consuming "upper classes" of society. These know how easy it is toraise social prejudice against a man by setting afloat the idea that hedesires to "abolish marriage and the home". It is the most convenientponiard and the one most certain to wound. Therefore those whoseprofligacy is notorious, who welcome into their society the Blandfords, Aylesburys, and St. Leonards, rave against a man as a "destroyer ofmarriage" whose life is pure, and whose theories on this, as it happens, are "orthodox", merely because his honest Atheism shames theirhypocritical professions, and his sturdy Republicanism menaces theircorrupt and rotting society. 

XIII. 

Sometimes my lecturing experiences were not of the smoothest. In June, 1875, I visited Darwen in Lancashire, and found that stone-throwing wasconsidered a fair argument to be addressed to "the Atheist lecturer". Onmy last visit to that place in May, 1884, large and enthusiasticaudiences attended the lectures, and not a sign of hostility was to beseen outside the hall. At Swansea, in March, 1876, the fear of violencewas so great that no local friend had the courage to take the chair forme (a guarantee against damage to the hall had been exacted by theproprietor). I had to march on to the platform in solitary state, introduce myself, and proceed with my lecture. If violence had beenintended, none was offered: it would have needed much brutality to chargeon to a platform occupied by a solitary woman. (By the way, those whofancy that a lecturer's life is a luxurious one may note that the Swansealecture spoken of was one of a series of ten, delivered within eight daysat Wednesbury, Bilston, Kidderminster, Swansea, and Bristol, most of thetravelling being performed through storm, rain, and snow. ) On September, 4th, 1876, I had rather a lively time at Hoyland, a village nearBarnsley. A Mr. Hebblethwaite, a Primitive Methodist minister, "preparedthe way of the" Atheist by pouring out virulent abuse on Atheism ingeneral, and this Atheist in particular; two Protestant missionariesaided him vigorously, exhorting the pious Christians to "sweepSecularists out". The result was a very fair row; I got through thelecture, despite many interruptions, but when it was over a regular riotensued; the enraged Christians shook their fists at me, swore at me, andfinally took to kicking as I passed out to the cab; only one kick, however, reached me, and the attempts to overturn the cab were foiled bythe driver, who put his horse at a gallop. A somewhat barbarous village, that same village of Hoyland. Congleton proved even livelier on September25th and 26th. Mr. Bradlaugh lectured there on September 25th to anaccompaniment of broken windows; I was sitting with Mrs. WolstenholmeElmy in front of the platform, and received a rather heavy blow at theback of the head from a stone thrown by someone in the room. We had amile and a half to walk from the hall to Mrs. Elmy's house, and this wasdone in the company of a mud-throwing crowd, who yelled curses, hymns, and foul words with delightful impartiality. On the following evening Iwas to lecture, and we were escorted to the hall by a stone-throwingcrowd; while I was lecturing a man shouted "Put her out!" and awell-known wrestler of the neighborhood, named Burbery, who had come tothe hall with seven friends, stood up in the front row and loudlyinterrupted. Mr. Bradlaugh, who was in the chair, told him to sit down, and as he persisted in making a noise, informed him that he must eitherbe quiet or go out. "Put me out!" said Burbery, striking an attitude. Mr. Bradlaugh left the platform and walked up to the noisy swashbuckler, whoat once grappled with him and tried to throw him; but Mr. Burbery had notreckoned on his opponent's strength, and when the "throw" was completeMr. Burbery was underneath. Amid much excitement Mr. Burbery waspropelled to the door, where he was handed over to the police, and thechairman resumed his seat and said "Go on", whereupon on I went andfinished the lecture. There was plenty more stone-throwing outside, andMrs. Elmy received a cut on the temple, but no serious harm was done--except to Christianity. 

In the summer of 1875 a strong protest was made by the working classesagainst the grant of £142, 000 for the Prince of Wales visit to India, andon Sunday, July 18th, I saw for the first time one of the famous "HydePark Demonstrations". Mr. Bradlaugh called a meeting to support Messrs. Taylor, Macdonald, Wilfrid Lawson, Burt, and the other fourteen membersof the House of Commons who voted in opposition to the grant, and toprotest against burdening the workers to provide for the amusement of aspendthrift prince. I did not go into the meeting, but, with Mr. Bradlaugh's two daughters, hovered on the outskirts. A woman isconsiderably in the way in such a gathering, unless the speakers reachthe platform in carriages, for she is physically unfitted to push her waythrough the dense mass of people, and has therefore to be looked afterand saved from the crushing pressure of the crowd. I have always thoughtthat a man responsible for the order of such huge gatherings ought not tobe burdened in addition with the responsibility of protecting his femalefriends, and have therefore preferred to take care of myself outside themeetings both at Hyde Park and in Trafalgar Square. The method oforganisation by which the London Radicals have succeeded in holdingperfectly orderly meetings of enormous size is simple but effective. Alarge number of "marshals" volunteer, and each of these hands in to Mr. Bradlaugh a list of the "stewards" he is prepared to bring; the"marshals" and "stewards" alike are members of the Radical and Secularassociations of the metropolis. These officials all wear badges, arosette of the Northampton election colors; directions are given to themarshals by Mr. Bradlaugh himself, and each marshal, with his stewards, turns up at the appointed place at the appointed time, and does the shareof the work allotted to him. A ring two or three deep is formed round theplace whence the speakers are to address the meeting, and those who formthe ring stand linked arm-in-arm, making a living barrier round thisempty spot. There a platform, brought thither in pieces, is screwedtogether, and into this enclosure only the chosen speakers and newspaperreporters are admitted. The marshals and stewards who are not told offfor guarding the platform are distributed over the ground which themeeting is to occupy, and act as guardians of order. 

The Hyde Park meeting against the royal grant was a thoroughly successfulone, and a large number of protests came up from all parts of thecountry. Being from the poorer classes, they were of course disregarded, but none the less was a strong agitation against royal grants carried onthroughout the autumn and winter months. The National Secular Societydetermined to gather signatures to a "monster petition against royalgrants", and the superintendence of this was placed in my hands. Thepetition was drafted by Mr. Bradlaugh, and ran as follows:--

"TO THE HONORABLE THE COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, IN PARLIAMENTASSEMBLED. 

"The humble petition of the undersigned, "Prays, --That no further grant or allowance may be made to any member ofthe Royal Family until an account shall have been laid before yourHonorable House, showing the total real and personal estates and incomesof each and every member of the said Royal Family who shall be in receiptof any pension or allowance, and also showing all posts and places ofprofit severally held by members of the said Royal Family, and alsoshowing all pensions, if any, formerly charged on any estates now enjoyedby any member or members of the said Royal Family, and in case any suchpensions shall have been transferred, showing how and at what date suchtransfer took place. "

Day after day, week after week, month after month, the postman deliveredrolls of paper, little and big, each roll containing names and addressesof men and woman who protested against the waste of public money on ourgreedy and never-satisfied Royal House. The sheets often bore the marksof the places to which they had been carried; from a mining district somewould come coal-dust-blackened, which had been signed in the mines byworkers who grudged to idleness the fruits of toil; from an agriculturaldistrict the sheets bore often far too many "crosses", the "marks" ofthose whom Church and landlord had left in ignorance, regarding them onlyas machines for sowing and reaping. From September, 1875, to March, 1876, they came in steady stream, and each was added to the ever-lengtheningroll which lay in one corner of my sitting-room and which assumed everlarger and larger proportions. At last the work was over, and on June16th, 1876, the "monster"--rolled on a mahogany pole presented by aLondon friend, and encased in American cloth--was placed in a carriage tobe conveyed to the House of Commons; the heading ran: "The petition ofthe undersigned Charles Bradlaugh, Annie Besant, Charles Watts, and102, 934 others". Unrolled, it was nearly a mile in length, and a veryhappy time we had in rolling the last few hundred yards. When we arrivedat the House, Mr. Bradlaugh and Mr. Watts carried the petition upWestminster Hall, each holding one end of the mahogany pole. Messrs. Burtand Macdonald took charge of the "monster" at the door of the House, and, carrying it in, presented it in due form. The presentation causedconsiderable excitement both in the House and in the press, and the_Newcastle Daily Chronicle_ said some kindly words of the "labor andenthusiasm" bestowed on the petition by myself. 

At the beginning of August, 1875, the first attempt to deprive me of mylittle daughter, Mabel, was made, but fortunately proved unsuccessful. The story of the trick played is told in the _National Reformer_ ofAugust 22nd, and I quote it just as it appeared there :--

"PERSONAL. --Mrs. Annie Besant, as some of our readers are aware, was thewife of a Church of England clergyman, the Rev. Frank Besant, Vicar ofSibsey, near Boston, in Lincolnshire. There is no need, _at present_, tosay anything about the earlier portion of her married life; but when Mrs. Besant's opinions on religious matters became liberal, the conduct of herhusband rendered a separation absolutely necessary, and in 1873 a formaldeed of separation was drawn up, and duly executed. Under this deed Mrs. Besant is entitled to the sole custody and control of her infant daughterMabel until the child becomes of age, with the proviso that the littlegirl is to visit her father for one month in each year. Having recentlyobtained possession of the person of the little child under cover of theannual visit, the Rev. Mr. Besant sought to deprive Mrs. Besant entirelyof her daughter, on the ground of Mrs. Besant's Atheism. Vigorous stepswere at once taken by Messrs. Lewis and Lewis (to whom our readers willremember we entrusted the case of Mr. Lennard against Mr. Woolrych), bywhose advice Mrs. Besant at once went down herself to Sibsey to demandthe child; the little girl had been hidden, and was not at the Vicarage, but we are glad to report that Mrs. Besant has, after some littledifficulty, recovered the custody of her daughter. It was decided againstPercy Bysshe Shelley that an Atheist father could not be the guardian ofhis own children. If this law be appealed to, and anyone dares to enforceit, we shall contest it step by step; and while we are out of England, weknow that in case of any attempt to retake the child by force we maysafely leave our new advocate to the protection of the stout arms of ourfriends, who will see that no injustice of this kind is done her. So faras the law courts are concerned, we have the most complete confidence inMr. George Henry Lewis, and we shall fight the case to House of Lords ifneed be. 

CHARLES BRADLAUGH. "

The attempt to take the child from me by force indeed failed, but laterthe theft was successfully carried out by due process of law. It isalways a blunder from a tactical point of view for a Christian to usemethods of illegal violence in persecuting an Atheist in this Christianland; legal violence is a far safer weapon, for courage can checkmate thefirst, while it is helpless before the second. All Christians who adoptthe sound old principle that "no faith need be kept with the heretic"should remember that they can always guard themselves against unpleasantconsequences by breaking faith under cover of the laws against heresy, which still remain on our Statute Book _ad majorem Dei gloriam_. 

In September, 1875, Mr. Bradlaugh again sailed for America, leavingplenty of work to be done by his colleagues before he returned. TheExecutive of the National Secular Society had determined to issue a"Secular Song Book", and the task of selection and of editing wasconfided to me. The little book was duly issued, and ran through twoeditions; then, feeling that it was marred by many sins both ofcommission and omission, I set my face against the publication of a thirdedition, hoping that a compilation more worthy of Free Thought might bemade. I am half inclined to take the matter up again, and set to work ata fresh collection. 

The delivery and publication of a course of six lectures on the earlypart of the French Revolution was another portion of that autumn's work;they involved a large amount of labor, as I had determined to tell thestory from the people's point of view, and was therefore compelled toread a large amount of the current literature of the time, as well as thegreat standard histories of Louis Blanc, Michelet, and others. Fortunately for me, Mr. Bradlaugh had a splendid collection of works onthe subject, and before he left England he brought to me two cabs full ofbooks, French and English, from all points of view, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, democratic, and I studied these diligently andimpartially until the French Revolution became to me as a drama in whichI had myself taken part, and the actors therein became personal friendsand foes. In this, again, as in so much of my public work, I have tothank Mr. Bradlaugh for the influence which led me to read fully allsides of a question, and to read most carefully those from which Idiffered most, ere I judged myself competent to write or to speakthereon. 

The late autumn was clouded by the news of Mr. Bradlaugh's seriousillness in America. After struggling for some time against ill-health hewas struck down by an attack of pleurisy, to which soon was added typhoidfever, and for a time lay at the brink of the grave. Dr. Otis, his ablephysician, finding that it was impossible to give him the necessaryattendance at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, put him into his own carriage anddrove him to the Hospital of St. Luke's, where he confided him to thecare of Dr. Leaming, himself also visiting him daily. Of this illness the_Baltimore Advertiser_ wrote:

"Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, the famous English Radical lecturer, has been sovery dangerously ill that his life has almost been despaired of. He wastaken ill at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and partially recovered; but on theday upon which a lecture had been arranged from him before the LiberalClub he was taken down a second time with a relapse, which has been verynear proving fatal. The cause was overwork and complete nervousprostration which brought on low fever. His physician has allowed onefriend only to see him daily for five minutes, and removed him to St. Luke's Hospital for the sake of the absolute quiet, comfort, andintelligent attendance he could secure there, and for which he was gladto pay munificently. This long and severe illness has disappointed thehopes and retarded the object for which he came to this country; but heis gentleness and patience itself in his sickness in this strange land, and has endeared himself greatly to his physicians and attendants by hisgratitude and appreciation of the slightest attention. "

There is no doubt that the care so willingly lavished on the Englishstranger saved his life, and those who in England honor Charles Bradlaughas chief and love him as friend must always keep in grateful memory thosewho in his sorest need served him so nobly well. Those who think that anAtheist cannot calmly face the prospect of death might well learn alesson from the fortitude and courage shown by an Atheist as he lay atthe point of death, far from home and from all he loved best. The Rev. Mr. Frothingham bore public and admiring testimony in his own church toMr. Bradlaugh's perfect serenity, at once fearless and unpretending, and, himself a Theist, gave willing witness to the Atheist's calm strength. 

Mr. Bradlaugh returned to England at the end of December, worn to ashadow and terribly weak, and for many a long month he bore the traces ofhis wrestle with death. Indeed, he felt the effect of the illness foryears, for typhoid fever is a foe whose weapons leave scars even afterthe healing of the wounds it inflicts. 

The first work done by Mr. Bradlaugh on resuming the editorial chair ofthe _National Reformer_, was to indite a vigorous protest against theinvestment of national capital in the Suez Canal Shares. He exposed thefinancial condition of Egypt, gave detail after detail of the Khedive'sindebtedness, unveiled the rottenness of the Egyptian Government, warnedthe people of the danger of taking the first steps in a path which mustlead to continual interference in Egyptian finance, denounced theshameful job perpetrated by Mr. Disraeli in borrowing the money for thepurchase from the Rothschilds at enormous interest. His protest was, ofcourse, useless, but its justice has been proved by the course of events. The bombarding of Alexandria, the shameful repression of the nationalmovement in Egypt, the wholesale and useless slaughter in the Soudan, thewaste of English lives and English money, the new burden of debt and ofresponsibility now assumed by the Government, all these are the resultsof the fatal purchase of shares in the Suez Canal by Mr. Disraeli; yetagainst the chorus of praise which resounded from every side when thepurchase was announced, but one voice of disapproval and of warning wasraised at first; others soon caught the warning and saw the dangers itpointed out, but for awhile Charles Bradlaugh stood alone in hisopposition, and to him belongs the credit of at once seeing the perilwhich lay under the purchase. 

The 1876 Conference of the National Secular Society held at Leeds showedthe growing power of the organisation, and was made notable by a verypleasant incident--the presentation to a miner, William Washington, of asilver tea-pot and some books, in recognition of a very noble act ofself-devotion. An explosion had occurred on December 6th, 1875, atSwaithe Main pit, in which 143 miners were killed; a miner belonging to aneighboring pit, named William Washington, an Atheist, when every one washanging back, sprang into the cage to descend into the pit in forlornhope of rescue, when to descend seemed almost certain death. Othersswiftly followed the gallant volunteer, but he had set the example, andit was felt by the Executive of the National Secular Society that hisheroism deserved recognition, William Washington set his face against anygift to himself, so the subscription to a testimonial was limited to 6d. , and a silver teapot was presented to him for his wife and some books forhis children. At this same Conference a committee was appointed, consisting of Messrs. Charles Bradlaugh, G. J. Holyoake, C. Watts, R. A. Cooper, --Gimson, T. Slater, and Mrs. Besant, to draw up a fresh statementof the principles and objects of the National Secular Society; it wasdecided that this statement should be submitted to the ensuingConference, that the deliberation on the report of the Committee should"be open to all Freethinkers, but that only those will be entitled tovote on the ratification who declare their determination to enter theSociety on the basis of the ratified constitution". It was hoped that bythis means various scattered and independent societies might be broughtinto union, and that the National Secular Society might he therebystrengthened. The committee held a very large number of meetings andfinally decided on the following statement, which was approved of at theConference held at Nottingham in 1877, and stands now as the "Principlesand Object of the National Secular Society":--

"The National Secular Society has been formed to maintain the principlesand rights of Freethought, and to direct their application to the Secularimprovement of this life. 

"By the principle of Freethought is meant the exercise of theunderstanding upon relevant facts, and independently of penal or priestlyintimidation. 

"By the rights of Freethought are meant the liberty of free criticism forthe security of truth, and the liberty of free publicity for theextension of truth. 

"Secularism relates to the present existence of man, and to actions theissue of which can be tested by experience. 

"It declares that the promotion of human improvement and happiness is thehighest duty, and that morality is to be tested by utility. 

"That in order to promote effectually the improvement and happiness ofmankind, every individual of the human family ought to be well placed andwell instructed, and that all who are of a suitable age ought to beusefully employed for their own and the general good. 

"That human improvement and happiness cannot be effectually promotedwithout civil and religious liberty; and that, therefore, it is the dutyof every individual to actively attack all barriers to equal freedom ofthought and utterance for all, upon political, theological, and socialsubjects. 

"A Secularist is one who deduces his moral duties from considerationswhich pertain to this life, and who, practically recognising the aboveduties, devotes himself to the promotion of the general good. 

"The object of the National Secular Society is to disseminate the aboveprinciples by every legitimate means in its power. "

At this same Conference of Leeds was inaugurated the subscription to thestatue to be erected in Rome to the memory of Giordano Bruno, burned inthat city for Atheism in 1600; this resulted in the collection of £60. 

The Executive appointed by the Leeds Conference made great efforts toinduce the Freethinkers of the country to work for the repeal of theBlasphemy Laws, and in October 1876 they issued a copy of a petitionagainst those evil laws to every one of the forty branches of theSociety. The effort proved, however, of little avail. The laws had notbeen put in force for a long time, and were regarded with apathy as beingobsolete, and it has needed the cruel imprisonments inflicted by Mr. Justice North on Messrs. Foote, Ramsey, and Kemp, to arouse theFreethought party to a sense of their duty in the matter. 

The year 1877 had scarcely opened ere we found ourselves with a seriousfight on our hands. A pamphlet written early in the present century byCharles Knowlton, M. D. , entitled "The Fruits of Philosophy", which hadbeen sold unchallenged in England for nearly forty years, was suddenlyseized at Bristol as an obscene publication. The book had been suppliedin the ordinary course of business by Mr. Charles Watts, but the Bristolbookseller had altered its price, had inserted some indecent pictures init, and had sold it among literature to which the word obscene was fairlyapplied. In itself, Dr. Knowlton's work was merely a physiologicaltreatise, and it advocated conjugal prudence and parental responsibility;it argued in favor of early marriage, but as over-large families amongpersons of limited incomes imply either pauperism, or lack of necessaryfood, clothing, education, and fair start in life for the children, Dr. Knowlton advocated the restriction of the number of the family within themeans of existence, and stated the means by which this restriction shouldbe carried out. On hearing of the prosecution, Mr. Watts went down toBristol, and frankly announced himself as the publisher of the book. Soonafter his return to London he was arrested on the charge of havingpublished an obscene book, and was duly liberated on bail. Mr. And Mrs. Watts, Mr. Bradlaugh and myself met to arrange our plan of united actionon Friday, January 12th, and it was decided that Mr. Watts should defendthe book, that a fund should at once be raised for his legal expenses, and that once more the right of publication of useful knowledge in acheap form should be defended by the leaders of the Freethought party. After long and friendly discussion we separated with the plan of thecampaign arranged, and it was decided that I should claim the sympathyand help of the Plymouth friends, whom I was to address on the followingSunday, January 14th. I went down to Plymouth on January 13th, and therereceived a telegram from Mr. Watts, saying that a change of plan had beendecided on. I was puzzled, but none the less I appealed for help as I hadpromised to do, and a collection of £8 1s. 10d. For Mr. Watts' DefenceFund was made after my evening lecture. To my horror, on returning toLondon, I found that Mr. Watts had given way before the peril ofimprisonment, and had decided to plead guilty to the charge of publishingan obscene book, and to throw himself on the mercy of the Court, relyingon his previous good character and on an alleged ignorance of thecontents of the incriminated work. The latter plea we knew to be false, for Mr. Watts before going down to Bristol to declare himself responsiblefor the pamphlet had carefully read it and had marked all the passageswhich, being physiological, might be attacked as "obscene". This markedcopy he had sent to the Bristol bookseller, before he himself went toBristol to attend the trial, and under these circumstances any pretenceof ignorance of the contents of the book was transparently inaccurate. Mr. Watts' surrender, of course, upset all the arrangements we had agreedon; Mr. Bradlaugh and myself were prepared to stand by him in battle, butnot in surrender. I at once returned to the Secretary of the PlymouthBranch the money collected for defence, not for capitulation, and Mr. Bradlaugh published the following brief statement in the _NationalReformer_ for January 21st:

"PROSECUTION OF Mr. CHARLES WATTS. --Mr. Charles Watts, as most of ourreaders will have already learned, has been committed for trial at theCentral Criminal Court for February 5th, for misdemeanor, for publicationof a work on the population question, entitled "Fruits of Philosophy", byCharles Knowlton, M. D. This book has been openly published in England andAmerica for more than thirty years. It was sold in England by JamesWatson, who always bore the highest repute. On James Watson's retirementfrom business it was sold by Holyoake & Co. , at Fleet Street House, andwas afterwards sold by Mr. Austin Holyoake until the time of his death;and a separate edition was, up till last week, still sold by Mr. Brooks, of 282, Strand, W. C. When Mr. James Watson died, Mr. Charles Watts boughtfrom James Watson's widow a large quantity of stereotype plates, including this work. If this book is to be condemned as obscene, so alsoin my opinion must be many published by Messrs. W. H. Smith & Son, andother publishers, against whose respectability no imputation has beenmade. Such books as Darwin's 'Origin of Species' and 'Descent of Man'must immediately be branded as obscene, while no medical work must bepermitted publication; and all theological works, like those of Dulaure, Inman, etc. , dealing with ancient creeds, must at once be suppressed. Thebulk of the publications of the society for the repeal of the ContagiousDiseases Acts, together with its monthly organ, the _Shield_, would beequally liable. The issue of the greater part of classic authors, and ofLemprière, Shakspere, Sterne, Fielding, Richardson, Rabelais, etc. , mustbe stopped: while the Bible--containing obscene passages omitted from thelectionary--must no longer be permitted circulation. All these containobscenity which is either inserted to amuse or to instruct, and themedical work now assailed deals with physiological points purely toinstruct, and to increase the happiness of men and women. 

"If the pamphlet now prosecuted had been brought to me for publication, Ishould probably have declined to publish it, not because of thesubject-matter, but because I do not like its style. If I had oncepublished it, I should defend it until the very last. Here Mr. Watts andmyself disagree in opinion; and as he is the person chiefly concerned, itis, of course, right that his decision should determine what is done. Hetells me that he thinks the pamphlet indefensible, and that he was misledin publishing it without examination as part of James Watson's stock. Ithink it ought to be fought right through. Under these circumstances Ican only leave Mr. Watts to speak for himself, as we so utterly differ inopinion on this case that I cease to be his proper interpreter. I have, therefore, already offered Mr. Watts the columns of the _NationalReformer_, that he may put before the party his view of the case, whichhe does in another column. "--C. BRADLAUGH. 

XIV. 

Up to this time (January, 1877) Mr. Watts had acted as sub-editor of the_National Reformer_, and printer and publisher of the books and pamphletsissued by Mr. Bradlaugh and myself. The continuance of this common workobviously became impossible after Mr. Watts had determined to surrenderone of his publications under threat of prosecution. We felt that for twomain reasons we could no longer publicly associate ourselves with him:(1) We could not retain on our publications the name of a man who hadpleaded guilty to the publication of an obscene work; (2) Many of ourwritings were liable to prosecution for blasphemy, and it was necessarythat we should have a publisher who could be relied on to stand firm intime of peril; we felt that if Mr. Watts surrendered one thing he wouldbe likely to surrender others. This feeling on my part was strengthenedby the remembrance of a request of his made a few months before, that Iwould print my own name instead of his as publisher of a political song Ihad issued, on the ground that it might come within the law of seditiouslibel. I had readily acceded at the time, but when absolute surrenderunder attack followed on timid precaution against attack, I felt that abolder publisher was necessary to me. No particular blame should be laidon persons who are constitutionally timid; they have their own line ofusefulness, and are often pleasant and agreeable folk enough; but theyare out of place in the front rank of a fighting movement, for theirdesertion in face of the enemy means added danger for those left to carryon the fight. We therefore decided to sever ourselves from Mr. Watts; andMr. Bradlaugh, in the _National Reformer_ of January 28th, inserted thefollowing statement:

"The divergence of opinion between myself and Mr. Charles Watts is socomplete on the Knowlton case, that he has already ceased to besub-editor of this journal, and I have given him notice determining ourconnexion on and from March 25th. My reasons for this course are asfollows. The Knowlton pamphlet is either decent or indecent. If decent itought to be defended; if indecent it should never have been published. Tojudge it indecent is to condemn, with the most severe condemnation, JamesWatson whom I respected, and Austin Holyoake with whom I worked. I holdthe work to be defensible, and I deny the right of any one to interferewith the full and free discussion of social questions affecting thehappiness of the nation. The struggle for a free press has been one ofthe marks of the Freethought Party throughout its history, and as long asthe Party permits me to hold its flag, I will never voluntarily lower it. I have no right and no power to dictate to Mr. Watts the course he shouldpursue, but I have the right and duty to refuse to associate my name witha submission which is utterly repugnant to my nature, and inconsistentwith my whole career. "

After a long discussion, Mr. Bradlaugh and I made up our minds as to thecourse we would pursue. We decided that we would never again placeourselves at a publisher's mercy, but would ensure the defence of all wepublished by publishing everything ourselves; we resolved to becomeprinters and publishers, and to take any small place we could find andopen it as a Freethought shop. I undertook the sub-editorship of the_National Reformer_, and the weekly Summary of News, which had hithertobeen done by Mr. Watts, was placed in the hands of Mr. Bradlaugh'sdaughters. The next thing to do was to find a publishing office. Somewhere within reach of Fleet Street the office must be; small it mustbe, as we had no funds and the risk of starting a business of which weknew nothing was great. Still "all things are possible to" those who areresolute; we discovered a tumble-down little place in Stonecutter Streetand secured it by the good offices of our friend, Mr. Charles Herbert; weborrowed a few hundred pounds from personal friends, and made our newtenement habitable; we drew up a deed of partnership, founding the"Freethought Publishing Company", Mr. Bradlaugh and myself being the onlypartners; we engaged Mr. W. J. Ramsey as manager of the business; and inthe _National Reformer_ of February 25th we were able to announce:

"The publishing office of the _National Reformer_ and of all the works ofCharles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant is now at 28, Stonecutter Street, E. C. , three doors from Farringdon Street, where the manager, Mr. W. J. Ramsey, will be glad to receive orders for the supply of any Freethoughtliterature". 

A week later we issued the following address:

"ADDRESS FROM THE FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY TO THE READERS OF THE'NATIONAL REFORMER'. 

"When the prospectus of the _National Reformer_ was issued by thefounder, Charles Bradlaugh, in 1859, he described its policy as'Atheistic in theology, Republican in politics, and Malthusian in socialeconomy', and a free platform was promised and has been maintained forthe discussion of each of these topics. In ventilating the populationquestion the stand taken by Mr. Bradlaugh, both here and on the platform, is well known to our old readers, and many works bearing on this vitalsubject have been advertised and reviewed in these columns. In this the_National Reformer_ has followed the course pursued by Mr. George JacobHolyoake, who in 1853 published a 'Freethought Directory', giving a listof the various books supplied from the 'Fleet Street House', and whichlist contained amongst others:

"'Anti-Marcus on the Population Question. '

"Fowler's Tracts on Physiology, etc. 

"Dr. C. Knowlton's 'Fruits of Philosophy'. 

"'Moral Physiology: a plain treatise on the Population Question. '

"In this Directory Mr. G. J. Holyoake says:

"'No. 147 Fleet Street is a Central Secular Book Depot, where all worksextant in the English language on the side of Freethought in Religion, Politics, Morals, and Culture are kept in stock, or are procured at shortnotice. '

"We shall try to do at 28 Stonecutter Street that which Mr. Holyoake'sDirectory promised for Fleet Street House. 

"The partners in the Freethought Publishing Company are Annie Besant andCharles Bradlaugh, who have entered into a legal partnership for thepurpose of sharing the legal responsibility of the works they publish. 

"We intend to publish nothing that we do not think we can morally defend. All that we do publish we shall defend. We do not mean that we shallagree with all we publish, but we shall, so far as we can, try to keepthe possibility of free utterance of earnest, honest opinion. 

"It may not be out of place here to remind new readers of this journal ofthat which old readers well know, that no articles are editorial exceptthose which are unsigned or bear the name of the editor, or that of thesub-editor; for each and every other article the author is allowed to sayhis own say in his own way; the editor only furnishes the means toaddress our readers, leaving to him or to her the right andresponsibility of divergent thought. 

"ANNIE BESANT"CHARLES BRADLAUGH. "

Thus we found ourselves suddenly launched on a new undertaking, and withsome amusement and much trepidation I realised that I was "in business", with business knowledge amounting to _nil_. I had, however, fair abilityand plenty of goodwill, and I determined to learn my work, feeling proudthat I had become one of the list of "Freethought publishers", whopublished for love of the cause of freedom, and risked all for thetriumph of a principle ere it wore "silver slippers and walked in thesunshine with applause". 

On February 8th Mr. Watts was tried at the Old Bailey. He withdrew hisplea of "Not Guilty", and pleaded "Guilty". His counsel urged that he wasa man of good character, that Mr. George Jacob Holyoake had sold theincriminated pamphlet, that Mr. Watts had bought the stereo-plates of itin the stock of the late Mr. Austin Holyoake, which he had taken overbodily, and that he had never read the book until after the Bristolinvestigation. "Mr. Watts pledges himself to me", the counsel stated, "that he was entirely ignorant of the contents of this pamphlet until heheard passages read from it in the prosecution at Bristol". The counselfor the prosecution pointed out that this statement was inaccurate, andread passages from Mr. Watts' deposition made on the first occasion atBristol, in which Mr. Watts stated that he had perused the book, and wasprepared to justify it as a medical work. He, however, did not wish topress the case, if the plates and stock were destroyed, and Mr. Watts wasaccordingly discharged on his own recognisances in £500 to come up forjudgment when called on. 

While this struggle was raging, an old friend of Mr. Bradlaugh's, Mr. George Odger, was slowly passing away; the good old man lay dying in hispoor lodgings in High Street, Oxford Street, and I find recorded in the_National Reformer_ of March 4th, that on February 28th we had been tosee him, and that "he is very feeble and is, apparently, sinking fast;but he is as brave and bright, facing his last enemy, as he has ever beenfacing his former ones". He died on March 4th, and was buried in BromptonCemetery on the 10th of the same month. 

A grave question now lay before us for decision. The Knowlton pamphlethad been surrendered; was that surrender to stand as the last word of theFreethought party on a book which had been sold by the most prominent menin its ranks for forty years? To our minds such surrender, leftunchallenged, would be a stain on all who submitted to it, and we decidedthat faulty as the book was in many respects it had yet become the symbolof a great principle, of the right to circulate physiological knowledgeamong the poor in pamphlets published at a price they could afford topay. Deliberately counting the risk, recognising that by our action weshould subject ourselves to the vilest slander, knowing that Christianmalice would misrepresent and ignorance would echo the misrepresentation--we yet resolved that the sacrifice must be made, and made by us invirtue of our position in the Freethought Party. If the leaders flinchedhow could the followers be expected to fight? The greatest sacrifice hadto be made by Mr. Bradlaugh. How would an indictment for publishing anobscene book affect his candidature for Northampton? What a new weaponfor his foes, what a new difficulty for his friends! I may say here thatour worst forebodings were realised by the event; we have been assailedas "vendors of obscene literature", as "writers of obscene books", as"living by the circulation of filthy books". And it is because suchaccusations have been widely made that I here place on permanent recordthe facts of the case, for thus, at least, some honest opponents willlearn the truth and will cease to circulate the slanders they may haverepeated in ignorance. 

On February 27th our determination to republish the Knowlton pamphlet wasannounced by Mr. Bradlaugh in an address delivered by him at the Hall ofScience on "The Right of Publication". Extracts from a brief report, published in the _National Reformer_ of March 11th, will show the driftof his statement:

"Mr. Bradlaugh was most warmly welcomed to the platform, and reiteratedcheers greeted him as he rose to make his speech. Few who heard him thatevening will forget the passion and the pathos with which he spoke. Thedefence of the right to publish was put as strongly and as firmly aswords could put it, and the determination to maintain that right, in dockand in jail as on the platform, rang out with no uncertain sound. Truly, as the orator said: 'The bold words I have spoken from this place wouldbe nothing but the emptiest brag and the coward's boast, if I flinchednow in the day of battle'. Every word of praise of the fighters of oldwould fall in disgrace on the head of him who spoke it, if when the timecame to share in their peril he shrunk back from the danger of thestrife. .. . Mr. Bradlaugh drew a graphic picture of the earlier strugglesfor a free press, and then dealt with the present state of the law; fromthat he passed on to the pamphlet which is the test-question of the hour;he pointed out how some parts of it were foolish, such as the'philosophical proem', but remarked that he knew no right in law toforbid the publication of all save wisdom; he then showed how, had heoriginally been asked to publish the pamphlet, he should have raised someobjections to its style, but that was a very different matter frompermitting the authorities to stop its sale; the style of many booksmight be faulty without the books being therefore obscene. He contendedthe book was a perfectly moral medical work, and was no more indecentthan every other medical work dealing with the same subject. Theknowledge it gave was useful knowledge; many a young man might be savedfrom disease by such a knowledge as was contained in the book; if it wasargued that such books should not be sold at so cheap a rate, he repliedthat it was among the masses that such physiological knowledge wasneeded, 'and if there is one subject above all others', he exclaimed, 'for which a man might gladly sacrifice his hopes and his life, surely itis for that which would relieve his fellow-men from poverty, the motherof crimes, and would make happy homes where now only want and sufferingreign'. He had fully counted the cost; he knew all he might lose; butCarlile before him had been imprisoned for teaching the same doctrine, 'and what Carlile did for his day, I, while health and strength remain, will do for mine'. "

The position we took up in republishing the pamphlet was clearly statedin the preface which we wrote for it, and which I here reprint, as itgives plainly and briefly the facts of the case:

"PUBLISHERS' PREFACE TO DR. KNOWLTON'S 'FRUITS OF PHILOSOPHY'. 

"The pamphlet which we now present to the public is one which has beenlately prosecuted under Lord Campbell's Act, and which we now republishin order to test the right of publication. It was originally written byCharles Knowlton, M. D. , an American physician, whose degree entitles himto be heard with respect on a medical question. It is openly sold andwidely circulated in America at the present time. It was first publishedin England, about forty years ago, by James Watson, the gallant Radicalwho came to London and took up Richard Carlile's work when Carlile was injail. He sold it unchallenged for many years, approved it, andrecommended it. It was printed and published by Messrs. Holyoake and Co. , and found its place, with other works of a similar character, in their'Freethought Directory' of 1853, and was thus identified with Freethoughtliterature at the then leading Freethought _depôt_ . Mr. Austin Holyoake, working in conjunction with Mr. Bradlaugh at the _National Reformer_office, Johnson's Court, printed and published it in his turn, and thiswell-known Freethought advocate, in his 'Large or Small Families'. Selected this pamphlet, together with R. D. Owen's 'Moral Physiology' andthe 'Elements of Social Science', for special recommendation. Mr. CharlesWatts, succeeding to Mr. Austin Holyoake's business, continued the sale, and when Mr. Watson died in 1875, he bought the plates of the work (withothers) from Mrs. Watson, and continued to advertise and to sell it untilDecember 23rd, 1876. For the last forty years the book has thus beenidentified with Freethought, advertised by leading Freethinkers, published under the sanction of their names, and sold in thehead-quarters of Freethought literature. If during this long period theparty has thus--without one word of protest--circulated an indecent work, the less we talk about Freethought morality the better; the work has beenlargely sold, and if leading Freethinkers have sold it--profiting by thesale--in mere carelessness, few words could be strong enough to brand theindifference which thus scattered obscenity broadcast over the land. Thepamphlet has been withdrawn from circulation in consequence of theprosecution instituted against Mr. Charles Watts, but the question of itslegality or illegality has not been tried; a plea of 'Guilty' was put inby the publisher, and the book, therefore, was not examined, nor was anyjudgment passed upon it; no jury registered a verdict, and the judgestated that he had not read the work. 

"We republish this pamphlet, honestly believing that on all questionsaffecting the happiness of the people, whether they be theological, political, or social, fullest right of free discussion ought to bemaintained at all hazards. We do not personally endorse all that Dr. Knowlton says: his 'Philosophical Proem' seems to us full ofphilosophical mistakes, and--as we are neither of us doctors--we are notprepared to endorse his medical views; but since progress can only bemade through discussion, and no discussion is possible where differingopinions are suppressed, we claim the right to publish all opinions, sothat the public, enabled to see all sides of a question, may have thematerials for forming a sound judgment. 

"The alterations made are very slight; the book was badly printed, anderrors of spelling and a few clumsy grammatical expressions have beencorrected; the sub-title has been changed, and in one case four lineshave been omitted, because they are repeated word for word further on. Wehave, however, made some additions to the pamphlet, which are in allcases kept distinct from the original text. Physiology has made greatstrides during the past forty years, and not considering it right tocirculate erroneous physiology, we submitted the pamphlet to a doctor inwhose accurate knowledge we have the fullest confidence, and who iswidely known in all parts of the world as the author of the "Elements ofSocial Science"; the notes signed "G. R. " are written by this gentleman. References to other works are given in foot notes for the assistance ofthe reader, if he desires to study the subject further. 

"Old Radicals will remember that Richard Carlile published a workentitled 'Every Woman's Book', which deals with the same subject, andadvocates the same object, as Dr. Knowlton's pamphlet. E. D. Owen objectedto the 'style and tone' of Carlile's 'Every Woman's Book' as not being'in good taste', and he wrote his 'Moral Physiology', to do in Americawhat Carlile's work was intended to do in England. This work of Carlile'swas stigmatised as 'indecent' and 'immoral' because it advocated, as doesDr. Knowlton's, the use of preventive checks to population. In strivingto carry on Carlile's work, we cannot expect to escape Carlile'sreproach, but whether applauded or condemned we mean to carry it on, socially as well as politically and theologically. 

"We believe, with the Rev. Mr. Malthus, that population has a tendency toincrease faster than the means of existence, and that _some_ checks musttherefore exercise control over population; the checks now exercised aresemi-starvation and preventible disease; the enormous mortality among theinfants of the poor is one of the checks which now keeps down thepopulation. The checks that ought to control population are scientific, and it is these which we advocate. We think it more moral to prevent theconception of children, than, after they are born, to murder them by wantof food, air, and clothing. We advocate scientific checks to population, because, so long as poor men have large families, pauperism is anecessity, and from pauperism grow crime and disease. The wage whichwould support the parents and two or three children in comfort anddecency is utterly insufficient to maintain a family of twelve orfourteen, and we consider it a crime to bring into the world human beingsdoomed to misery or to premature death. It is not only the hand-workingclasses which are concerned in this question. The poor curate, thestruggling man of business, the young professional man, are often madewretched for life by their inordinately large families, and their yearsare passed in one long battle to live; meanwhile the woman's health issacrificed and her life embittered from the same cause. To all of these, we point the way of relief and of happiness; for the sake of these wepublish what others fear to issue, and we do it, confident that if wefail the first time, we shall succeed at last, and that the Englishpublic will not permit the authorities to stifle a discussion of the mostimportant social question which can influence a nation's welfare. 

"CHARLES BRADLAUGH. "ANNIE BESANT. "

We advertised the sale of the pamphlet in the _National Reformer_ ofMarch 25th (published March 22nd) in the following words:

FRUITS OF PHILOSOPHY. By CHARLES KNOWLTON, M. D. PRICE SIXPENCE. 

This Pamphlet will be republished on Saturday, March 24th, _in extenso_, with some additional Medical Notes by a London Doctor of Medicine. Itwill be on sale at 28, Stonecutter Street, E. G. , after 4 p. M. Until closeof shop. No one need apply before this time, as none will be on sale. Mr. Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Annie Besant will be in attendance from thathour, and will sell personally the first hundred copies. 

FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY, 28, Stonecutter Street, E. C. 

In addition to this we ourselves delivered copies on March 23rd to Mr. Martin, the Chief Clerk of the magistrates at Guildhall, to the officerin charge at the City Police Office in Old Jewry, and to the Solicitorfor the City of London. With each pamphlet we handed in a notice that weshould attend personally to sell the book on March 24th, at StonecutterStreet, from 4 to 5 p. M. These precautions were taken in order to forcethe authorities to prosecute us, and not any of our subordinates, if theyprosecuted at all. The account of the first sale will interest many:

"On Saturday we went down to Stonecutter Street, accompanied by theMisses Bradlaugh and Mr. And Mrs. Touzeau Parris; we arrived at No. 28 atthree minutes to four, and found a crowd awaiting us. We promptly filledthe window with copies of the pamphlet, as a kind of general notice ofthe sale within, and then opened the door. The shop was filledimmediately, and in twenty minutes over 500 copies were sold. No one soldsave Mr. Bradlaugh and myself, but Miss Bradlaugh sorted dozens with askill that seemed to stamp her as intended by nature for the business, while her sister supplied change with a rapidity worthy of a bank clerk. Several detectives favored us with a visit, and one amused us by comingin and buying two copies from Mr. Bradlaugh, and then retiringgracefully; after an interval of perhaps a quarter of an hour hereappeared, and purchased one from me. Two policemen outside madethemselves useful; one patrolled the street calmly, and the other verykindly aided Norrish, Mr. Eamsey's co-worker, in his efforts to keep thestream flowing quietly, without too much pressure. Mr. Bradlaugh's voicewas heard warningly from time to time, bidding customers not to crowd, and everything went well and smoothly, save that I occasionally got intofearful muddles in the intricacies of 'trade price'; I disgusted onecustomer, who muttered roughly 'Ritchie', and who, when I gave him twocopies, and put his shilling in the till, growled: 'I shan't take them'. I was fairly puzzled, till Mr. Bradlaugh enlightened me as to thedifficulty, 'Ritchie' to me being unknown; it appeared that 'Ritchie', muttered by the buyer, meant that the copies were wanted by a booksellerof that name, and his messenger was irate at being charged full price. Friends from various parts appeared to give a kindly word; a number ofthe members of the Dialectical Society came in, and many were thecongratulations and promises of aid in case of need. Several who came inoffered to come forward as bail, and their names were taken by Mr. Parris. The buyer that most raised my curiosity was one of Mr. Watts'sons, who came in and bought seven copies, putting down only trade-priceon the counter; no one is supplied at trade-price unless he buys to sellagain, and we have all been wondering why Mr. Watts should intend to sellthe Knowlton pamphlet, after he has proclaimed it to be obscene andindecent. At six o'clock the shutters were put up, and we gave up ouramateur shop-keeping; our general time for closing on Saturday is 2 p. M. , but we kept the shop open on Saturday for the special purpose of sellingthe Knowlton pamphlet. We sold about 800 copies, besides sending out alarge number of country parcels, so that if the police now amusethemselves in seizing the work, they will entirely have failed instopping its circulation. The pamphlet, during the present week, willhave been sold over England and Scotland, and the only effect of thefoolish police interference will be to have sold a large edition. We mustadd one word of thanks to them for the kindly aid given us by theirgratuitous advertisement. "

[I may note here, in passing, that we printed our edition verbatim fromthat issued by James Watson, not knowing that various editions were incirculation. It was thereupon stated by Mr. Watts that we had notreprinted the pamphlet for which he was prosecuted, so we at once issuedanother edition, printed from his own version. ]

The help that flowed in to us from all sides was startling both inquantity and quality; a Defence Committee was quickly formed, consistingof the following persons:

"C. R. Drysdale, M. D. , Miss Vickery, H. R. S. Dalton, B. A. , W. J. Birch, M. A. , J. Swaagman, Mrs. Swaagman, P. A. V. Le Lubez, Mdme. Le Lubez, MissBradlaugh, Miss H. Bradlaugh, Mrs. Parris, T. Allsop, E. Truelove, MarkE. Marsden, F. A. Ford, Mrs. Fenwick Miller, G. N. Strawbridge, W. W. Wright, Mrs. Rennick, Mrs. Lowe, W. Bell, Thomas Slater, G. F. Forster, J. Scott, G. Priestley, J. W. White, J. Hart, H. Brooksbank, Mrs. Brooksbank, G. Middleton, J. Child, Ben. W. Elmy, Elizabeth WolstenholmeElmy, Touzeau Parris (Hon. Sec. ), Captain R. H. Dyas, Thomas Roy(President of the Scottish Secular Union), R. A. Cooper, Robert Forder, William Wayham, Mrs. Elizabeth Wayham, Professor Emile Acollas (ancienProfesseur de Droit Français à l'Université de Berne), W. Reynolds, C. Herbert, J. F. Haines, H. Rogers (President of the Trunk and PortmanteauMakers' Trade Society), Yves Guyot (Redacteur en chef du _Radical_ et du_Bien Public), _ W. J. Ramsey, J. Wilks, Mrs. Wilks, J. E. Symes, E. Martin, W. E. Adams, Mrs. Adams, John Bryson (President of the NorthumberlandMiners' Mutual Confident Association), Ralph Young, J. Grout, Mrs. Grout, General Cluseret, A. Talandier (Member of the Chamber of Deputies), J. Baxter Langley, LL. D. , M. R. C. S. , F. L. S. "

Mrs. Fenwick Miller's letter of adhesion is worthy republication; it putsso tersely the real position:

"59, Francis Terrace. Victoria Park. "March 31st. 

"My dear Mrs. Besant, --I feel myself privileged in having the opportunityof expressing both to you and to the public, by giving you my small aidto your defence, how much I admire the noble position taken up by Mr. Bradlaugh and yourself upon this attempt to suppress free discussion, andto keep the people in enforced ignorance upon the most important ofsubjects. It is shameful that you should have to do it through thecowardice of the less important person who might have made himself a heroby doing as you now do, but was too weak for his opportunities. Since youhave had to do it, however, accept the assurance of my warm sympathy, andmy readiness to aid in any way within my power in your fight. Please addmy name to your Committee. You will find a little cheque within: I wish Ihad fifty times as much to give. 

"Under other circumstances, the pamphlet might well have been withdrawnfrom circulation, since its physiology its obsolete, and consequently itspractical deductions to some extent unsound. But it must be everywherecomprehended that _this is not the point_. The book would have beenequally attacked had its physiology been new and sound; the prosecutionis against the right to issue a work upon the special subject, andagainst the freedom of the press and individual liberty. --Believe me, yours very faithfully, R. FENWICK MILLER. "

Among the many received were letters of encouragement from GeneralGaribaldi, M. Talandier, Professor Emile Acollas, and the Rev. S. D. Headlam. 

As we did not care to be hunted about London by the police, we offered tobe at Stonecutter Street daily from 10 to 11 a. M. Until we were arrested, and our offer was readily accepted. Friends who were ready to act as bailcame forward in large numbers, and we arranged with some of them thatthey should be within easy access in case of need. There was a littledelay in issuing the warrants for our arrest. A deputation from theChristian Evidence Society waited on Mr. (now Sir Richard) Cross, to askthat the Government should prosecute us, and he acceded to their request. The warrants were issued on April 3rd, and were executed on April 5th. The story of the arrest I take from my own article in the _NationalReformer, _ premising that we had been told that "the warrants were in thehands of Simmons". 

"Thursday morning found us again on our way to Stonecutter Street, and aswe turned into it we were aware of three gentlemen regarding usaffectionately from beneath the shelter of a ladder on the off-side ofFarringdon Street. 'That's Simmons, ' quoth Mr. Bradlaugh, as we went in, and I shook my head solemnly, regarding 'Simmons' as the unsubstantialshadow of a dream. But as the two Misses Bradlaugh and myself reached theroom above the shop, a gay--'I told you so', from Mr. Bradlaughdownstairs, announced a visit, and in another moment Mr. Bradlaugh cameup, followed by the three unknown. 'You know what we have come for, ' saidthe one in front; and no one disputed his assertion. Detective-SergeantR. Outram was the head officer, and he produced his warrant at Mr. Bradlaugh's request; he was accompanied by two detective officers, Messrs. Simmons and Williams. He was armed also with a search warrant, amost useful document, seeing that the last copy of the edition (of 5, 000copies) had been sold on the morning of the previous day, and a high pileof orders was accumulating downstairs, orders which we were unable tofulfil. Mr. Bradlaugh told him, with a twinkle in his eye, that he wastoo late, but offered him every facility for searching. A large packet of'Text Books'--left for that purpose by Norrish, if the truth were known--whose covers were the same color as those of the 'Fruits', attracted Mr. Outram's attention, and he took off some of the brown paper wrapper, butfound the goods unseizable. He took one copy of the 'Cause of Woman', byBen Elmy, and wandered up and down the house seeking for goods to devour, but found nothing to reward him for his energy. Meanwhile we wrote a fewtelegrams and a note or two, and after about half-an-hour's delay, westarted for the police-station in Bridewell Place, arriving there at10. 25. The officers, who showed us every courtesy and kindness consistentwith the due execution of their duty, allowed Mr. Bradlaugh and myself towalk on in front, and they followed us across the roar of Fleet Street, down past Ludgate Hill Station, to the Police Office. Here we passed intoa fair-sized room, and were requested to go into a funny iron-barredplace; it was a large oval railed in, with a brightly polished iron barrunning round it, the door closing with a snap. Here we stood while twoofficers in uniform got out their books; one of these reminded Mr. Bradlaugh of his late visits there, remarking that he supposed the'gentleman you were so kind to will do you the same good turn now'. Mr. Bradlaugh dryly replied that he didn't think so, accepting service andgiving it were two very different things. Our examination then began;names, ages, abodes, birth-places, number of children, color of hair andeyes, were all duly enrolled; then we were measured, and our heights putdown; next we delivered up watches, purses, letters, keys--in factemptied our pockets; then I was walked off by the housekeeper into aneighboring cell and searched--a surely most needless proceeding; itstrikes me this is an unnecessary indignity to which to subject anuncondemned prisoner, except in cases of theft, where stolen propertymight be concealed about the person. It is extremely unpleasant to behandled, and on such a charge as that against myself a search was anabsurdity. The woman was as civil as she could be, but, as she fairlyenough said, she had no option in the matter. After this, I went back tothe room and rejoined my fellow prisoner and we chatted peaceably withour guardians; they quite recognised our object in our proceedings, andone gave it as his opinion that we ought to have been summoned, and nottaken by warrant. Taken, however, we clearly were, and we presently droveon to Guildhall, Mr. Outram in the cab with us, and Mr. Williams on thebox. 

"At Guildhall, we passed straight into the court, through the dock, anddown the stairs. Here Mr. Outram delivered us over to the gaoler, and themost uncomfortable part of our experiences began. Below the court are anumber of cells, stone floored and whitewashed walled; instead of doorsthere are heavy iron gates, covered with thick close grating; thepassages are divided here and there with similar strong iron gates, onlysome of which are grated. The rules of the place of course divided thesexes, so Mr. Bradlaugh and myself were not allowed to occupy the samecell; the gaoler, however, did the best he could for us, by allowing meto remain in a section of the passage which separated the men's from thewomen's cells, and by putting Mr. Bradlaugh into the first of the men's. Then, by opening a little window in the thick wall, a grating wasdiscovered, through which we could dimly see each other. Mr. Bradlaugh'sface, as seen from my side, scored all over with the little oblong holesin the grating reflected by the dull glimmer of the gas in the passage, was curious rather than handsome; mine was, probably, not moreattractive. In this charming place we passed two hours-and-a-half, and itwas very dull and very cold. We solaced ourselves, at first, by readingthe _Secular Review_, Mr. Bradlaugh tearing it into pages, and passingthem one by one through the grating. By pushing on his side and pullingon mine, we managed to get them through the narrow holes. Our positionwhen we read them was a strange satire on one article (which I read withgreat pain), which expressed the writer's opinion that the book was soaltered as not to be worth prosecuting. Neither the police nor themagistrate recognised any difference between the two editions. As I knewthe second edition, taken from Mr. Watts', was almost ready for deliveryas I read, I could not help smiling at the idea that no one 'had thecourage' to reprint it. 

"Mr. Bradlaugh paced up and down his limited kingdom, and after I hadfinished correcting an _N. R. _, I sometimes walked and sometimes sat, andwe chatted over future proceedings, and growled at our long detention, and listened to names of prisoners being called, until we were at lastsummoned to 'go up higher', and we joyfully obeyed. It was a strange sortof place to stand in, the dock of a police-court the position struck oneas really funny, and everyone who looked at us seemed to feel the sameincongruity: officials, chief clerk, magistrate, all were equally polite, and Mr. Bradlaugh seemed to get his own way from the dock as much aseverywhere else. The sitting magistrate was Alderman Figgins, a nice, kindly old gentleman, robed in marvellous, but not uncomely, garments ofblack velvet, purple, and dark fur. Below the magistrate, on either hand, sat a gentleman writing, one of whom was Mr. Martin, the chief clerk, whotook the purely formal evidence required to justify the arrest. Thereporters all sat at the right, and Mr. Touzeau Parris shared theirbench, sitting on the corner nearest us. Just behind him Mr. Outram hadkindly found seats for the two Misses Bradlaugh, who surveyed usplacidly, and would, I am sure, had their duty called them to do so, havegladly and willingly changed places with us. The back of the court wasfilled with kindly faces, and many bright smiles greeted us; among thepeople were those who so readily volunteered their aid, those describedby an official as 'a regular waggon-load of bail'. Their presence therewas a most useful little demonstration of support, and the telegrams thatkept dropping in also had their effect. 'Another of your friends, Mr. Bradlaugh, ' quoth the chief clerk, as the fourth was handed to him, and Ihear that the little buff envelopes continued to arrive all theafternoon. I need not here detail what happened in the court, as a fullreport by a shorthand writer appears in another part of the paper, and Ionly relate odds and ends. It amused me to see the broad grin which ranround when the detective was asked whether he had executed the seizurewarrant, and he answered sadly that there was 'nothing to seize'. Whenbail was called for, Dr. Drysdale, Messrs. Swaagman, Truelove, and Bellwere the first summoned, and no objections being raised to them, norfurther securities asked for, these four gentlemen were all that wereneeded. We were then solemnly and severally informed that we were boundover in our own recognizances of £200 each to appear on Tuesday, April17th, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, to answer, etc. , etc. , etc. , towhich adjuration I only replied by a polite little bow. After all this wepassed into a small room at one side, and there waited till divers paperswere delivered unto us, and we were told to depart in peace. A number ofpeople had gathered outside and cheered us warmly as we came out, onevoice calling: 'Bravo! there's some of the old English spirit left yet'. Being very hungry (it was nearly three o'clock), we went off to luncheon, very glad that the warrant was no longer hanging over our heads, and onour way home we bought a paper announcing our arrest. The evening papersall contained reports of the proceedings, as did also the papers of thefollowing morning. I have seen the _Globe, Standard, Daily News, Times, Echo, Daily Telegraph_, and they all give perfectly fair reports of whattook place. It is pleasant that they all seem to recognise that ourreason for acting as we have done is a fair and honorable desire to testthe right of publication. "

XV. 

The preliminary investigation before the magistrates at Guildhall dulycame on upon April 17th, the prosecution being conducted by Mr. DouglasStraight and Mr. F. Mead. The case was put by Mr. Straight with extremecare and courtesy, the learned counsel stating, "I cannot conceal frommyself, or from those who instruct me, that everything has been done inaccordance with fairness and _bona fides_ on the part of Mr. Bradlaughand the lady sitting by the side of him". Mr. Straight contended that thegood intentions of a publisher could not be taken as proving that a bookwas not indictable, and laid stress on the cheapness of the work, "theprice charged is so little as sixpence". Mr. Bradlaugh proved that therewas no physiological statement in Knowlton, which was not given in farfuller detail in standard works on physiology, quoting Carpenter, Dalton, Acton, and others; he showed that Malthus, Professor Fawcett, Mrs. Fawcett, and others, advocated voluntary limitation of the family, establishing his positions by innumerable quotations. A number of eminentmen were in Court, subpoenaed to prove their own works, and I find onthem the following note, written by myself at the time:--

"We necessarily put some of our medical and publishing witnesses to greatinconvenience in summoning them into court, but those who were reallymost injured were the most courteous. Mr. Trübner, although sufferingfrom a painful illness, and although, we had expressed our willingness toaccept in his stead some member of his staff, was present, kindly andpleasant as usual. Dr. Power, a most courteous gentleman, called awayfrom an examination of some 180 young men, never thought of asking thathe should be relieved from the citizen's duty, but only privately askedto be released as soon as possible. Dr. Parker was equally worthy of thenoble profession to which he belonged, and said he did not want to staylonger than he need, but would be willing to return whenever wanted. Needless to say that Dr. Drysdale was there, ready to do his duty. Dr. W. B. Carpenter was a strange contrast to these; he was rough anddiscourteous in manner, and rudely said that he was not responsible for'Human Physiology, by Dr. Carpenter', as his responsibility had ceasedwith the fifth edition. It seems a strange thing that a man of eminence, presumably a man of honor, should disavow all responsibility for a bookwhich bears his name as author on the title-page. Clearly, if the 'HumanPhysiology' is not Dr. Carpenter's, the public is grossly deceived by thepretence that it is, and if, as Dr. Carpenter says, the wholeresponsibility rests on Dr. Power, then that gentleman should have thewhole credit of that very useful book. It is not right that Dr. Carpentershould have all the glory and Dr. Power all the annoyance resulting fromthe work. "

Among all the men we came into contact with during the trial, Dr. Carpenter and Professor Fawcett were the only two who shrank fromendorsing their own written statements. 

The presiding magistrate, Mr. Alderman Figgins, devoted himself gallantlyto the unwonted task of wading through physiological text books, the poorold gentleman's hair sometimes standing nearly on end, and his composurebeing sadly ruffled when he found that Dr. Carpenter's florid treatise, with numerous illustrations of a, to him, startling character, was givento young boys and girls as a prize in Government examinations. Hecompared Knowlton with the work of Dr. Acton's submitted to him, and saiddespondingly that one was just the same as the other. At the end of theday the effect made on him by the defence was shown by his letting us gofree without bail. Mr. Bradlaugh finished his defence at the next hearingof the case on April 19th, and his concluding remarks, showing theposition we took, may well find their place here:

"The object of this book is to circulate amongst the masses of the poorand wretched (as far as my power will circulate it), and to seek toproduce in their minds such prudential views on the subject of populationas shall at least hinder some of the horrors to be witnessed amongst thestarving. I have not put you to the trouble of hearing proof--even if Iwere, in this court, permitted to do so--of facts on the PopulationQuestion, because the learned counsel for the prosecution, with thefrankness which characterises this prosecution, admitted there was thetendency on the part of animated nature to increase until checked by theabsence or deficiency of the means of subsistence. This being so, somechecks must step in; these checks must be either positive or preventiveand prudential. What are positive checks? The learned counsel has toldyou what they are. They are war, disease, misery, starvation. They are inChina--to take a striking instance--accompanied by habits so revoltingthat I cannot now allude to them. See the numbers of miserable starvingchildren in the great cities and centres of population. Is it right to goto these people and say, 'bring into the world children who cannot live', who all their lives are prevented by the poverty-smitten frames of theirparents, and by their own squalid surroundings, from enjoying almostevery benefit of the life thrust on them! who inherit the diseases andadopt the crimes which poverty and misery have provided for them? Thevery medical works I have put in in this case show how true this is intoo many cases, and if you read the words of Dr. Acton, crime issometimes involved of a terrible nature which the human tongue governedby training shrinks from describing. We justly or erroneously believethat we are doing our duty in putting this information in the hands ofthe people, and we contest this case with no kind of bravado; the penaltywe already have to pay is severe enough, for even while we are defendingthis, some portion of the public press is using words of terrorismagainst the witnesses to be called, and is describing myself and myco-defendant in a fashion that I feel sure will find no sanction here, and that I hope will never occur again. We contest this because theadvocacy of such views on population has been familiar to me for manyyears. The _Public Journal of Health_, edited by Dr. Hardwicke, thecoroner for Central Middlesex, will show you that in 1868 I was known, inrelation to this question, to men high in position in the land asoriginal thinkers and political economists; that the late John StuartMill has left behind him, in his Autobiography, testimony concerning meon this subject, according unqualified praise to me for the views thereonwhich I had labored to disseminate; and that Lord Amberley thanked me, ina society of which we were then both associates, for having achieved whatI had in bringing these principles to the knowledge of the poorer classesof the people. With taxation on every hand extending, with the cost ofliving increasing, and with wages declining--and, as to the last element, I am reminded that recently I was called upon to arbitrate in a wages'dispute in the north of England for a number of poor men, and, havingminutely scrutinised every side of the situation, was compelled to reducetheir wages by 15 per cent. , there having been already a reduction of 35per cent, in the short space of some twenty months previously--I say, with wages declining, with the necessaries of life growing dearer andstill dearer, and with the burden of rent and taxation ever increasing--if, in the presence of such a condition of life among the vast industrialand impoverished masses of this land, I am not to be allowed to tell themhow best to prevent or to ameliorate the wretchedness of their lot--if, with all this, I may not speak to them of the true remedy, but the law isto step in and say to me, 'Your mouth is closed'; then, I ask you, whatremedy is there remaining by which I am to deal with this awful misery?"

The worthy magistrate duly committed us for trial, accepting our ownrecognizances in £200 each to appear at the Central Criminal Court on May7th. To the Central Criminal Court, however, we had not the smallestintention of going, if we could possibly avoid it, so Mr. Bradlaughimmediately took steps to obtain a writ of _certiorari_ to remove theindictment to the Court of Queen's Bench. On April 27th Mr. Bradlaughmoved for the writ before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and Mr. JusticeMellor, and soon after he began his argument the judge stopped him, saying that he would grant the writ if, "upon, looking at it we think itsobject is the legitimate one of promoting knowledge on a matter of humaninterest, then, lest there should be any miscarriage resulting from anyundue prejudice, we might think it is a case for trial by a judge and aspecial jury. I do not say it is so, mark, but only put it so, that if, on the other hand, science and philosophy are merely made the pretence ofpublishing a book which is calculated to arouse the passions of those whoperuse it, then it follows that we must not allow the pretence toprevail, and treat the case otherwise than as one which may come beforeanybody to try. If we really think it is a fair question as to whether itis a scientific work or not, and its object is a just one, then we shouldbe disposed to accede to your application, and allow it to be tried by ajudge and special jury, and for that purpose allow the proceedings to beremoved into this court. But, before we decide that, we must look intothe book and form our own judgment as to the real object of the work. "

Two copies of the book were at once handed up to the Bench, and on April30th the Court granted the writ, the Lord Chief Justice saying: "We havelooked at the book which is the subject-matter of the indictment, and wethink it really raises a fair question as to whether it is a scientificproduction for legitimate purposes, or whether it is what the indictmentalleged it to be, an obscene publication. " Further, the Court acceptedMr. Bradlaugh's recognisances for £400 for the costs of the prosecution. 

Some, who have never read the Knowlton pamphlet, glibly denounce it as afilthy and obscene publication. The Lord Chief Justice of England and Mr. Justice Mellor, after reading it, decided to grant a writ which they haddetermined not to grant if the book had merely a veneer of science andwas "calculated to arouse the passions". Christian bigotry has ever since1877 striven to confound our action with the action of men who sell filthfor gain, but only the shameless can persist in so doing when theirfalsehoods are plainly exposed, as they are exposed here. 

The most touching letters from the poor came to us from all parts of thekingdom. One woman, who described herself as "very poor", and who had hadthirteen children and was expecting another, wrote saying, "if you wantmoney we will manage to send you my husband's pay one week". An armyofficer wrote thanking us, saying he had "a wife, seven children, andthree servants to keep on 11s. 8d. A day; 5d. Per head per diem keepslife in us. The rest for education and raiment. " A physician wrote of hishospital experience, saying that it taught him that "less dangerouspreventive checks to large families [than over-lactation] should betaught to the lower classes". Many clergymen wrote of their experienceamong the poor, and their joy that some attempt was being made to teachthem how to avoid over-large families, and letter after letter came to mefrom poor curates' wives, thanking me for daring to publish informationof such vital importance. In many places the poor people taxed themselvesso much a week for the cost of the defence, because they could not affordany large sum at once. 

As soon as we were committed for trial, we resigned our posts on theExecutive of the National Secular Society, feeling that we had no rightto entangle the Society in a fight which it had not authorised us tocarry on. We stated that we did not desire to relinquish our positions, "but we do desire that the members of the Executive shall feel free toact as they think wisest for the interest of Freethought". The letter wassent to the branches of the Society, and of the thirty-three who answeredall, except Burnley and Nottingham, refused to accept our resignation. Onthe Executive a very clever attempt was made to place us in a difficultposition by stating that the resignations were not accepted, but that, aswe had resigned, and as the Council had no power to renew appointmentsmade by the Conference, it could not invite us to resume our offices. This ingenious proposal was made by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, who allthrough the trial did his best to injure us, apparently because he hadhimself sold the book long before we had done so, and was anxious toshield himself from condemnation by attacking us. His resolution wascarried by five votes to two. Mr. Haines and Mr. Ramsey, detecting itsmaliciousness, voted against it. The votes of the Branches, of course, decided the question overwhelmingly in our favor, but we declined to siton the Executive with such a resolution standing, and it was thencarried--Mr. Holyoake and Mr. Watts only voting against--that "ThisCouncil acknowledge the consideration shown by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant for the public repute of the National Secular Society by tenderingtheir resignations, and whilst disclaiming all responsibility for thebook, 'Fruits of Philosophy', decline to accept such resignations". Sothoroughly did we agree that the Society ought not to be held responsiblefor our action, that we published the statement: "The Freethought partyis no more the endorser of our Malthusianism than it is of ourRepublicanism, or of our advocacy of Woman Suffrage, or of our support ofthe North in America, or of the part we take in French politics". I mayadd that at the Nottingham Conference Mr. Bradlaugh was re-electedPresident with only four dissentients, the party being practicallyunanimous in its determination to uphold a Free Press. 

The next stage of the prosecution was the seizure of our book packets andletters in the Post-office by the Tory Government. The "Freethinker'sText Book", the _National Reformer_, and various pamphlets were seized, as well as the "Fruits of Philosophy", and sealed letters were opened. Many meetings were held denouncing the revival of a system of Government_espionage_ which, it was supposed, had died out in England, and so greatwas the commotion raised that a stop was soon put to this form ofGovernment theft, and we recovered the stolen property. On May 15th Mr. Edward Truelove was attacked for the publication of Robert Dale Owen's"Moral Physiology", and of a pamphlet entitled "Individual, Family, andNational Poverty", and as both were pamphlets dealing with the PopulationQuestion, Mr. Truelove's case was included in the general defence. 

Among the witnesses we desired to subpoena was Charles Darwin, as weneeded to use passages from his works; he wrote back a most interestingletter, telling us that he disagreed with preventive checks to populationon the ground that over-multiplication was useful, since it caused astruggle for existence in which only the strongest and the ablestsurvived, and that he doubted whether it was possible for preventivechecks to serve as well as positive. He asked us to avoid calling him ifwe could: "I have been for many years much out of health, and have beenforced to give up all society or public meetings, and it would be greatsuffering to me to be a witness in court. .. . If it is not asking toogreat a favor, I should be greatly obliged if you would inform me whatyou decide, as apprehension of the coming exertion would prevent the restwhich I require doing me much good. " Needless to add that I at once wroteto Mr. Darwin that we would not call him, but his gentle courtesy hasalways remained a pleasant memory to me. Another kind act was that of thefamous publisher, Mr. H. G. Bohn, who volunteered himself as a witness, and drew attention to the fact that every publisher of serious literaturewas imperilled by the attempt to establish a police censorship. 

The trial commenced on June 18th, in the Court of Queen's Bench atWestminster, before the Lord Chief Justice of England and a special jury. Sir Hardinge Giffard, the Solicitor-General of the Tory Government, Mr. Douglas Straight, and Mr. Mead, were the prosecuting counsel. The specialjury consisted of the following: Alfred Upward, Augustus Voelcker, Captain Alfred Henry Waldy, Thomas Richard Walker, Robert Wallace, EdmundWaller, Arthur Walter, Charles Alfred Walter, John Ward, Arthur Warre;the two talesmen, who were afterwards added to make up the number, wereGeorge Skinner and Charles Wilson. 

The Solicitor-General made a bitter and violent speech, full of partyhate and malice, endeavoring to prejudice the jury against the work bypicking out bits of medical detail and making profuse apologies forreading them, and shuddering and casting up his eyes with all the skillof a finished actor. For a man accustomed to Old Bailey practice he wasreally marvellously easily shocked; a simple physiological fact broughthim to the verge of tears, while the statement that people often had toolarge families covered him with such modest confusion that he found ithard to continue his address. It fell to my lot to open the defence, andto put the general line of argument by which we justified thepublication; Mr. Bradlaugh dealt with the defence of the book as amedical work--until the Lord Chief Justice suggested that there was no"redundancy of details, or anything more than it is necessary for amedical man to know"--and strongly urged that the knowledge given by thepamphlet was absolutely necessary for the poor. We called as witnessesfor the defence Miss Alice Vickery--the first lady who passed theexamination of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, and who hassince passed the examinations qualifying her to act as a physician--Dr. Charles Drysdale, and Mr. H. G. Bohn. Dr. Drysdale bore witness to themedical value of the pamphlet, stating that "considering it was writtenforty years ago . .. The writer must have been a profound student ofphysiology, and far advanced in the medical science of his time". "I havealways considered it an excellent treatise, and I have found among myprofessional brethren that they have had nothing to say against it. " Mr. Bohn bore witness that he had published books which "entirely coveredyour book, and gave a great deal more. " Mr. Bradlaugh and myself thenseverally summed up our case, and the Solicitor-General made a speech forthe prosecution very much of the character of his first one, doing all hecould to inflame the minds of the jury against us. The Lord ChiefJustice, to quote a morning paper, "summed up strongly for an acquittal". He said that "a more ill-advised and more injudicious proceeding in theway of a prosecution was probably never brought into a Court of Justice". He described us as "two enthusiasts, who have been actuated by the desireto do good in a particular department of Society". He bade the jury becareful "not to abridge the full and free right of public discussion, andthe expression of public and private opinion on matters which areinteresting to all, and materially affect the welfare of society. " Thencame an admirable statement of the law of population, and of his own viewof the scope of the book which I present in full as our bestjustification. 

"The author, Doctor Knowlton, professes to deal with the subject ofpopulation. Now, a century ago a great and important question ofpolitical economy was brought to the attention of the scientific andthinking world by a man whose name everybody is acquainted with, namely, Malthus. He started for the first time a theory which astonished theworld, though it is now accepted as an irrefragable truth, and has sincebeen adopted by economist after economist. It is that population has astrong and marked tendency to increase faster than the means ofsubsistence afforded by the earth, or that the skill and industry of mancan produce for the support of life. The consequence is that thepopulation of a country necessarily includes a vast number of personsupon whom poverty presses with a heavy and sad hand. It is true that theeffects of over-population are checked to a certain extent by thosepowerful agencies which have been at work since the beginning of theworld. Great pestilences, famines, and wars have constantly swept awaythousands from the face of the earth, who otherwise must have contributedto swell the numbers of mankind. The effect, however, of this tendency toincrease faster than the means of subsistence, leads to still moreserious evils amongst the poorer classes of society. It necessarilylowers the price of labor by reason of the supply exceeding the demand. It increases the dearth of provisions by making the demand greater thanthe supply, and produces direful consequences to a large class of personswho labor under the evils, physical and moral, of poverty. You find it, as described by a witness called yesterday, in the overcrowding of ourcities and country villages, and the necessarily demoralising effectsresulting from that over-crowding. You have heard of the way in whichwomen--I mean child-bearing women--are destroyed by being obliged tosubmit to the necessities of their position before they are fullyrestored from the effects of child-birth, and the effects thus producedupon the children by disease and early death. That these are evils--evilswhich, if they could be prevented, it would be the first business ofhuman charity to prevent--there cannot be any doubt. That the evils ofover-population are real, and not imaginary, no one acquainted with thestate of society in the present day can possibly deny. Malthus suggested, years ago, and his suggestion has been supported by economists since histime, that the only possible way of keeping down population was byretarding marriage to as late a period as possible, the argument beingthat the fewer the marriages the fewer would be the people. But anotherclass of theorists say that that remedy is bad, and possibly worse thanthe disease, because, although you might delay marriage, you cannotrestrain those instincts which are implanted in human nature, and peoplewill have the gratification and satisfaction of passions powerfullyimplanted, if not in one way, in some other way. So you have the evils ofprostitution substituted for the evils of over-population. Now, what saysDr. Knowlton? There being this choice of evils--there being thisunquestioned evil of over-population which exists in a great part of thecivilised world--is the remedy proposed by Malthus so doubtful thatprobably it would lead to greater evils than the one which it is intendedto remedy? Dr. Knowlton suggests--and here we come to the critical pointof this inquiry--he suggests that, instead of marriage being postponed, it shall be hastened. He suggests that marriage shall take place in thehey-day of life, when the passions are at their highest, and that theevils of over-population shall be remedied by persons, after they havemarried, having recourse to artificial means to prevent the procreationof a numerous offspring, and the consequent evils, especially to thepoorer classes, which the production of a too numerous offspring iscertain to bring about. Now, gentlemen, that is the scope of the book. With a view to make those to whom these remedies are suggestedunderstand, appreciate, and be capable of applying them, he enters intodetails as to the physiological circumstances connected with theprocreation of the species. The Solicitor-General says--and that was thefirst proposition with which he started--that the whole of this is adelusion and a sham. When Knowlton says that he wishes that marriageshould take place as early as possible--marriage being the most sacredand holy of all human relations--he means nothing of the kind, but meansand suggests, in the sacred name of marriage, illicit intercourse betweenthe sexes, or a kind of prostitution. Now, gentlemen, whatever may beyour opinion about the propositions contained in this work, when you cometo weigh carefully the views of this undoubted physician and would-bephilosopher, I think you will agree with me that to say that he meant todepreciate marriage for the sake of prostitution, and that all he saysabout marriage is only a disguise, and intended to impress upon the mindsentiments of an entirely different character for the gratification ofpassion, otherwise than by marriage, is a most unjust accusation. (Applause in court. ) I must say that I believe that every word he saysabout marriage being a desirable institution, and every word he says withreference to the enjoyments and happiness it engenders, is said ashonestly and truly as anything probably ever uttered by any man. I canonly believe that when the Solicitor-General made that statement he hadnot half studied the book. But I pass that by. I come to the plain issuebefore you. Knowlton goes into physiological details connected with thefunctions of the generation and procreation of children. The principlesof this pamphlet, with its details, are to be found in greater abundanceand distinctness in numerous works to which your attention has beendirected, and, having these details before you, you must judge foryourselves whether there is anything in them which is calculated toexcite the passions of man and debase the public morals. If so, everymedical work is open to the same imputation. "

The Lord Chief Justice then dealt with the question whether conjugalprudence was in itself immoral, and pointed out to the jury that thedecision of this very serious question was in their hands:

"A man and woman may say, 'We have more children than we can supply withthe common necessaries of life: what are we to do? Let us have recourseto this contrivance. ' Then, gentlemen, you should consider whether thatparticular course of proceeding is inconsistent with morality, whether itwould have a tendency to degrade and deprave the man or woman. TheSolicitor-General, while doubtless admitting the evils and mischiefs ofexcessive population, argues that the checks proposed are demoralising intheir effects, and that it is better to bear the ills we have than haverecourse to remedies having such demoralising results. These arequestions for you, twelve thinking men, probably husbands and fathers offamilies, to consider and determine. That the defendants honestly believethat the evils that this work would remedy, arising from over-populationand poverty, are so great that these checks may be resorted to as aremedy for the evils, and as bettering the condition of humanity, although there might be things to be avoided, if it were possible toavoid them, and yet remedy the evils which they are to prevent--that suchis the honest opinion of the defendants, we, who have read the book, andwho have heard what they have said, must do them the justice ofbelieving. I agree with the Solicitor-General if, with a view to what isadmitted to be a great good, they propose something to the world, andcirculate it especially among the poorer classes, if they proposesomething inconsistent with public morals, and tending to destroy thedomestic purity of women, that it is not because they do not see theevils of the latter, while they see the evils of the former, that theymust escape; if so, they must abide the consequences of their actions, whatever may have been their motive. They say, 'We are entitled to submitto the consideration of the thinking portion of mankind the remedieswhich we propose for these evils. We have come forward to challenge theinquiry whether this is a book which we are entitled to publish. ' They doit fairly, I must say, and in a very straightforward manner they come todemand the judgment of the proper tribunal. You must decide that with adue regard and reference to the law, and with an honest and determineddesire to maintain the morals of mankind. But, on the other hand, youmust carefully consider what is due to public discussion, and with ananxious desire not, from any prejudiced view of this subject, to stiflewhat may be a subject of legitimate inquiry. But there is another view ofthis subject, that Knowlton intended to reconcile with marriage theprevention of over-population. Upon the perusal of this work, I cannotbring myself to doubt that he honestly believed that the remedies heproposed were less evils than even celibacy or over-population on the onehand, or the prevention of marriage on the other hand--in that honesty ofintention I entirely concur. But whether, in his desire to reconcilemarriage with a check on over-population, he did not overlook one veryimportant consideration connected with that part of society which shouldabuse it, is another and a very serious consideration. "

When the jury retired there was but one opinion in court, namely, thatwe had won our case. But they were absent for an hour and thirty-fiveminutes, and we learned afterwards that several were anxious to convict, not so much because of the book as because we were Freethinkers. At lastthey agreed to a compromise, and the verdict delivered was: "We areunanimously of opinion that the book in question is calculated to depravepublic morals, but at the same time we entirely exonerate the defendantsfrom any corrupt motives in publishing it. "

The Lord Chief Justice looked troubled, and said gravely that he wouldhave to direct them to return a verdict of guilty on such a finding. Theforeman, who was bitterly hostile, jumped at the chance withoutconsulting his colleagues, some of whom had turned to leave the box, andthus snatched a technical verdict of "guilty" against us. Mr. GeorgeSkinner, of 27, Great Chapel Gate, Westminster, wrote to me on thefollowing day to say that six of the jurymen did not consent to theverdict of "guilty", and that they had agreed that if the judge would notaccept the verdict as handed in they would then retire again, and thatthey would never have given a verdict of guilty; but the stupid men hadnot the sense to speak out at the right time, and their foreman had hisway. The Lord Chief Justice at once set us free to come up for judgmenton that day week, June 28th--the trial had lasted till the 21st--and wewent away on the same recognizances given before by Mr. Bradlaugh, anabsolutely unprecedented courtesy to two technically "convictedprisoners". [1]

[Footnote 1: A Report of the Trial can be obtained from the FreethoughtPublishing Company, price 5s. It contains an exact report of all that wassaid and done. ]

XVI. 

The week which intervened between the verdict of the jury and the day onwhich we were ordered to appear in Court to receive sentence was spent byus in arranging all our affairs, and putting everything in train for ouranticipated absence. One serious question had to be settled, but it didnot need long consideration. What were we to do about the Knowltonpamphlet? We promptly decided to ignore the verdict and to continue thesale. Recognising that the fact of this continued sale would be broughtup against us in Court and would probably seriously increase oursentence, we none the less considered that as we had commenced the fightwe were bound to maintain it, and we went on with the sale as before. 

On June 28th we attended the Court of Queen's Bench to receive judgment, the Lord Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Mellor being on the Bench. Wemoved to quash the indictment, on arrest of judgment, and for a newtrial, the first on the ground that the indictment did not set out thewords complained of. The judges were against us on this, but it isinteresting to note that the Lord Chief Justice remarked that "thelanguage of the book is not open to any particular objection". I arguedthat the jury, having exonerated us from any corrupt motive, could not beregarded as having found us guilty on an indictment which charged us witha corrupt motive: the Lord Chief Justice held that "in the unnecessaryand superfluous part of the indictment, there is no judgment againstyou", and refused to believe that anyone would be found afterwards sobase as to accuse us of evil intent, because of the formal words of theindictment, the jury having acquitted us of any corrupt intention. Thejudge unfortunately imputed to others his own uprightness, and we havefound many--among them Sir W. T. Charley, the present Common Sergeant--vile enough to declare what he thought impossible, that we were foundguilty of wilfully corrupting the morals of the people. The judgesdecided against us on all the points raised, but it is due to them to saythat in refusing to quash the indictment, as Mr. Bradlaugh asked, theywere misled by the misrepresentation of an American case by Sir HardingeGiffard, and, to quote the words of the Lord Chief Justice, theysheltered themselves "under the decisions of the American Courts, andleft this matter to be carefully gone into by the Court of Error". 

The question of sentence then arose, and two affidavits were put in, oneby a reporter of the _Morning Advertiser_, named Lysaght. This individualpublished in the _Advertiser_ a very garbled report of a meeting at theHall of Science on the previous Sunday, evidently written to anger theLord Chief Justice, and used by Sir Hardinge Giffard with the sameobject. In one thing, however, it was accurate, and that was in statingthat we announced our intention to continue the sale of the book. On thisarose an argument with the Lord Chief Justice; he pointed out that we didnot deny that the circulation of the book was going on, and we assentedthat it was so. It was almost pathetic to see the judge, angry at ourresolution, unwilling to sentence us, but determined to vindicate the lawhe administered. "The question is, " he urged, "what is to be the futurecourse of your conduct? The jury have acquitted you of any intention todeliberately violate the law; and that, although you did publish thisbook, which was a book that ought not to have been published, you werenot conscious of the effect it might have, and had no intention toviolate the law. That would induce the Court, if it saw a readysubmission on your part, to deal with the case in a very lenient way. Thejury having found that it was a violation of the law, but with a goodmotive or through ignorance, the Court, in awarding punishment upon sucha state of things, would, of course, be disposed to take a most indulgentview of the matter. But if the law has been openly set at defiance, thematter assumes a very different aspect, and it must be dealt with as avery grave and aggravated case. " We could not, however, pledge ourselvesto do anything more than stop the sale pending the appeal on the writ oferror which we had resolved to go for. "Have you anything to say inmitigation?" was the judge's last appeal; but Mr. Bradlaugh answered: "Irespectfully submit myself to the sentence of the Court"; and I: "I havenothing to say in mitigation of punishment". 

The sentence and the reason for its heavy character have been somisrepresented, that I print here, from the shorthand report taken at thetime, the account of what passed:--

"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, after having conferred for some minutes with Mr. Justice Mellor, said: The case has now assumed a character of very, verygrave importance. We were prepared, if the defendants had announcedopenly in this Court that having acted in error as the jury found--ofwhich finding I think they are entitled to the benefit--but still havingbeen, after a fair and impartial trial, found by the jury guilty of doingof that which was an offence against the law, they were ready to submitto the law and to do everything in their power to prevent the furtherpublication and circulation of a work which has been declared by the juryto be a work calculated to deprave public morals, we should have beenprepared to discharge them on their own recognizances to be of goodbehavior in the future. But we cannot help seeing in what has been saidand done pending this trial, and since the verdict of the jury waspronounced, that the defendants, instead of submitting themselves to thelaw, have set it at defiance by continuing to circulate this book. Thatbeing so I must say that that which before was an offence of acomparatively slight character--looking to what the jury have found inreference to the contention of the defendants--now assumes the form of amost grave and aggravated offence, and as such we must deal with it. Thesentence is that you, Charles Bradlaugh, and you, Annie Besant, beimprisoned for the term of six calendar months; that you each pay a fineof £200 to the Queen; and that you enter further into your ownrecognizances in a sum of £500 each to be of good behavior for the termof two years; and I tell you at the same time that you will not be of'good behavior' and will be liable to forfeit that sum if you continue topublish this book. No persuasion or conviction on your part that you aredoing that which is morally justifiable can possibly warrant you inviolating the law or excuse you in doing so. No one is above the law; allowe obedience to the law from the highest to the lowest, and if youchoose to set yourself at defiance against the law--to break it and defyit--you must expect to be dealt with accordingly. I am very sorry indeedthat such should be the result, but it is owing to your being thuscontumacious, notwithstanding that you have had a fair trial, and theverdict of a competent jury, which ought to have satisfied you that youought to abstain from doing what has been clearly demonstrated and shownto be wrong. 

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: Would your lordship entertain an application to stayexecution of the sentence?

"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: Certainly not. On consideration, if you willpledge yourselves unreservedly that there shall be no repetition of thepublication of the book, at all events, until the Court of Appeal shallhave decided contrary to the verdict of the jury and our judgment; if wecan have that positive pledge, and you will enter into your recognizancesthat you will not avail yourselves of the liberty we extend to continuethe publication of this book, which it is our bounden duty to suppress, or do our utmost to suppress, we may stay execution; but we can show noindulgence without such a pledge. 

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: My lord, I meant to offer that pledge in the fullest andmost unreserved sense, because, although I have my own view as to what isright, I also recognise that the law having pronounced sentence, that isquite another matter so far as I, as a citizen, am concerned. I do notwish to ask your lordship for a favor without yielding to the Courtduring the time that I take advantage of its indulgence. 

"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: I wish you had taken this position sooner. 

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: If the sentence goes against us, it is another matter;but if you should consent to give us time for the argument of this writof error, we would bind ourselves during that time. I should not likeyour lordship to be induced to grant this request on the understandingthat in the event of the ultimate decision being against me I should feelbound by that pledge. 

"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: I must do you the justice to say that throughoutthe whole of this battle our conduct has been straightforward since youtook it up. 

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: I would not like your lordship to think that, in theevent of the ultimate decision being against us, there was any sort ofpledge. I simply meant that the law having pronounced against us, if yourlordship gives us the indulgence of fighting it in the higher Court, nosort of direct or indirect advantage shall be taken of the indulgence. 

"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: You will not continue the publication?

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: Not only will I stop the circulation of the book myself, but I will do all in my power to prevent other people circulating it. 

"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: Then you can be discharged on your ownrecognizances for £100, 'to be of good behavior, ' which you willunderstand to mean, that you will desist from the publication of thiswork until your appeal shall have been heard, and will engage toprosecute the appeal without delay. 

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: Certainly; until the present, I have undoubtedlycirculated the book. Although there is a blunder in the affidavits I donot disguise the matter of fact. I shall immediately put the thing undermy own control, and I will at once lock up every copy in existence, andwill not circulate another copy until the appeal is decided. 

"Mr. JUSTICE MELLOR: It must be that you will really, to the best of yourability, prevent the circulation of this book until this matter has beendetermined. 

"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: And what Mr. Bradlaugh says, I understand thatyou, Mrs. Besant, also assent to?

"Mrs. BESANT: Yes: that is my pledge until the writ of error has beendecided. I do not want to give a pledge which you may think was not givenhonestly. I will give my pledge, but it must be understood that thepromise goes no further than that decision. 

"Mr. JUSTICE MELLOR: You will abstain yourself from circulating the book, and, so far as you can, suppress its circulation?

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: Every copy that is unsold shall be at once put under lockand key until the decision of the case. 

"The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: My lord, I think there should be nomisunderstanding upon this; I understand that the defendants haveundertaken that during the pendency of the appeal this book shall not becirculated at all. But if the decision should be against them they areunder no pledge not to publish. 

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: I hope your lordship will not ask us what we shall do infuture. 

"The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: We have meted out the amount of punishment uponthe assumption--there being no assertion to the contrary, but rather anadmission--that they do intend to set the law at defiance. If we hadunderstood that they were prepared to submit themselves to the law, weshould have been disposed to deal with them in the most indulgent manner;but as we understood that they did not intend this, we have meted out tothem such a punishment as we hope, when undergone, will have a deterrenteffect upon them, and may prevent other people offending in like manner. We have nothing to do with what may happen after the defendants obtain ajudgment in their favor, if they do so, or after the sentence is carriedout, if they do not. Our sentence is passed, and it will stand, subjectonly to this, that we stay execution until a writ of error may bedisposed of, the defendants giving the most unqualified and unreservedpledge that they will not allow another copy of the book to be sold. 

"Mr. BRADLAUGH: Quite so, my lord; quite so. "

We were then taken into custody, and went down to the Crown Office to getthe form for the recognizances, the amount of which, £100, after such asentence, was a fair proof of the view of the Court as to our good faithin the whole matter. As a married woman, I was unable to giverecognizances, being only a chattel, not a person cognisable by law; theCourt mercifully ignored this--or I should have had to go to prison--andaccepted Mr. Bradlaugh's sole recognizance as covering us both. Itfurther inserted in the sentence that we were "to be placed in the FirstClass of Misdemeanants", but as the sentence was never executed, we didnot profit by this alleviation. 

The rest of the story of the Knowlton pamphlet is soon told. We appearedin the Court of Appeal on January 29th, 30th, and 31st, 1878. Mr. Bradlaugh argued the case, I only making a brief speech, and on February12th the Court, composed of Lords Justices Bramwell, Brett, and Cotton, gave judgment in our favor and quashed the indictment. Thus we triumphedall along the line; the jury acquitted us of all evil motive, and left usmorally unstained; the Court of Appeal quashed the indictment, and set uslegally free. None the less have the ignorant, the malicious, and thebrutal, used this trial and sentence against us as a proof of moralobliquity, and have branded us as "vendors of obscene books" on this soleground. 

With the decision of the Court of Appeal our pledge not to sell theKnowlton pamphlet came to an end, and we at once recommenced the sale. The determination we came to was announced in the _National Reformer_ ofMarch 3rd, and I reprint here the statement I wrote at the time in Mr. Bradlaugh's name as well as my own. 

"THE PLAN OF THE CAMPAIGN. 

"The first pitched battle of the new campaign for the Liberty of thePress has, as all our readers know, ended in the entire defeat of theattacking army, and in the recapture of the position originally lost. There is no conviction--of ours--registered against the KnowltonPamphlet, the whole of the proceedings having been swept away; and theprosecutors are left with a large sum out of pocket, and no one any theworse for all their efforts. The banker's account of the unknownprosecutor shows a long and melancholy catalogue of expenses, and thereis no glory and no success to balance them on the other side of theledger. On the contrary, our prosecutors have advertised the attackedpamphlet, and circulated it by thousands and by hundreds of thousands;they have caused it to be reprinted in Holland and in America, and havespread it over India, Australia, New Zealand, and the whole continent ofEurope; they have caused the Population Question to be discussed, both athome and abroad, in the press and in the public meeting; they havecrammed the largest halls in England and Scotland to listen to thepreaching of Malthusianism; they have induced the publication of a modernpamphlet on the question which is selling by thousands; they haveenormously increased the popularity of the defendants, and made newfriends for them in every class of society; in the end, Knowlton is beingcirculated as vigorously as ever, and since the case was decided morecopies have been sold than would have been disposed of in ten years atthe old rate of sale. Truly, our prosecutors must feel delighted at theresults of their labors. 

"So much for the past: what as to the future? Some, fancying we shouldact as they themselves would do under the like circumstances, dream thatwe shall now give way. We have not the smallest intention of doinganything of the kind. We said, nearly a year ago, that so long asKnowlton was prosecuted we should persist in selling him; we repeated thesame determination in Court, and received for it a heavy sentence; werepeat the same to-day, in spite of the injudicious threat of LordJustice Brett. Before we went up for judgment in the Court of Appeal wehad made all preparations for the renewal of the struggle; parcels wereready to be forwarded to friends who had volunteered to sell in varioustowns; if we had gone to jail from the Court these would at once havebeen sent; as we won our case, they were sent just the same. On thefollowing day orders were given to tell any wholesale agents who inquiredthat the book was again on sale, and the bills at 28, Stonecutter Street, announcing the suspension, of the sale, were taken down; from that dayforward all orders received have been punctually attended to, and thesale has been both rapid and steady. There is, however, one differencebetween the sale of Knowlton and that of our other literature: Knowltonis not sold across the counter at Stonecutter Street. When we werearrested in April 1877, we stopped the sale across counter, and we donot, at present, intend to recommence it. Our reason is very simple. Thesale across counter does not, in any fashion, cause us any additionalrisk; the danger of it falls entirely on Mr. Ramsey and on Mr. And Mrs. Norrish; we fail to see that there is any courage in running other peopleinto danger, and we prefer, therefore, to take the risk on ourselves. Wedo not intend to go down again and personally sell behind the counter; wethought it right to challenge a prosecution once, but, having done so, weintend now to go quietly on our ordinary way of business, and wait forany attack that may come. 

"Meanwhile, we are not only selling the 'Fruits of Philosophy', but wealso are striving to gain the legal right to do so. In the appeal fromMr. Vaughan's decision Mr. Bradlaugh again raises all the disputedquestions, and that appeal will be argued as persistently as was the onejust decided in our favor. We are also making efforts to obtain analteration of the law of libel, and we hope soon to be able to announcethe exact terms of the proposed Bill. 

"My own pamphlet, on 'The Law of Population', is another effort in thesame direction. At our trial the Lord Chief Justice said, that it was theadvocacy of the preventive checks which was the assailable part ofKnowlton; that advocacy is strongly and clearly to be found in the newpamphlet, together with facts useful to mothers, as to the physicalinjury caused by over-rapid child-bearing, which Knowlton did not give. The pamphlet has the advantage of being written fifty years later thanthe 'Fruits of Philosophy', and is more suitable, therefore, forcirculation at the present day. We hope that it may gradually replaceKnowlton as a manual for the poor. While we shall continue to print andsell Knowlton as long as any attempt is made to suppress it, we hope thatthe more modern pamphlet may gradually supersede the old one. 

"If another prosecution should be instituted against us, our prosecutorswould have a far harder task before them than they had last time. In thefirst place, they would be compelled to state, clearly and definitely, what it is to which they object; and we should, therefore, be able tobring our whole strength to bear on the assailed point. In the secondplace, they would have to find a jury who would be ready to convict, andafter the full discussion of the question which has taken place thefinding of such a jury would be by no means an easy thing to do. Lastly, they must be quite sure not to make any legal blunders, for they may besure that such sins will find them out. Perhaps, on the whole, they hadbetter leave us alone. 

"I believe that our readers will be glad to have this statement of ouraction, and this assurance that we feel as certain of winning the battleof a Free Press as when we began it a year ago, and that ourdetermination is as unwavering as when Serjeant Outram arrested us in thespring of last year. --ANNIE BESANT. "

Several purchases were made from us by detectives, and we were more thanonce threatened with prosecution. At last evidence for a new prosecutionwas laid before the Home Office, and the Government declined to institutefresh proceedings or to have anything more to do with the matter. Thebattle was won. As soon as we were informed of this decision, we decidedto sell only the copies we had in stock, and not to further reprint thepamphlet. Out-of-date as was much of its physiology, it was defended as asymbol, not for its intrinsic worth. We issued a circular stating that--

"The Knowlton pamphlet is now entirely out of print, and, 185, 000 havingbeen printed, the Freethought Publishing Company do not intend tocontinue the publication, which has never at any time been advertised bythem except on the original issue to test the question. 'The Law ofPopulation', price 6d. , post free 8d. , has been specially written by Mrs. Besant to supersede the Knowlton pamphlet. "

Thus ended a prolonged resistance to an unfair attempt to stiflediscussion, and, much as I have suffered in consequence of the part Itook in that fight, I have never once regretted that battle for thesaving of the poor. 

In July, 1877, a side-quarrel on the pamphlet begun which lasted untilDecember 3rd, 1878, and was fought through court after court right out toa successful issue. We had avoided a seizure warrant by removing all ourstock from 28, Stonecutter Street, but 657 of the pamphlets had beenseized at Mr. Truelove's, in Holborn, and that gentleman was alsoproceeded against for selling the work. The summons for selling waswithdrawn, and Mr. Bradlaugh succeeded in having his name and mineinserted as owners of the books in the summons for their destruction. Thebooks remained in the custody of the magistrate until after the decisionof the Court of Queen's Bench, and on February 12th, 1878, Mr. Bradlaughappeared before Mr. Vaughan at Bow Street, and claimed that the booksshould be restored to him. Mr. Collette, of the Vice Society, argued onthe other hand that the books were obscene, and ought therefore to bedestroyed. Mr. Vaughan reserved his decision, and asked for the LordChief Justice's summing-up in the Queen _v. _ Bradlaugh and Besant. OnFebruary 19th he made an order for the destruction of the pamphlets, against which Mr. Bradlaugh appealed to the General Sessions on thefollowing grounds:

"1st. That the said book is not an obscene book within the meaning of the20th and 21st Victoria, cap. 83. 2nd. That the said book is a scientifictreatise on the law of population and its connexion with poverty, andthat there is nothing in the book which is not necessary and legitimatein the description of the question. 3rd. That the advocacy ofnon-life-destroying checks to population is not an offence either atcommon law or by statute, and that the manner in which that advocacy israised in the said book, 'The Fruits of Philosophy', is not such as makesit an indictable offence. 4th. That the discussion and recommendation ofchecks to over-population after marriage is perfectly lawful, and thatthere is in the advocacy and recommendations contained in the book'Fruits of Philosophy' nothing that is prurient or calculated to inflamethe passions. 5th. That the physiological information in the said book issuch as is absolutely necessary for understanding the subjects treated, and such information is more fully given in Carpenter's treatises onPhysiology, and Kirke's 'Handbook of Physiology', which later works areused for the instruction of the young under Government sanction. 6th. That the whole of the physiological information contained in the saidbook, 'The Fruits of Philosophy', has been published uninterruptedly forfifty years, and still is published in dear books, and that thepublication of such information in a cheap form cannot constitute anoffence. "

After a long argument before Mr. Edlin and a number of other Middlesexmagistrates, the Bench affirmed Mr. Vaughan's order, whereupon Mr. Bradlaugh promptly obtained from the Lord Chief Justice and Mr. JusticeMellor a writ of _certiorari_, removing their order to the Queen's BenchDivision of the High Court of Justice with a view to quashing it. Thematter was not argued until the following November, on the 9th of whichmonth it came on before Mr. Justice Mellor and Mr. Justice Field. TheCourt decided in Mr. Bradlaugh's favor and granted a rule quashing Mr. Vaughan's order, and with this fell the order of the Middlesexmagistrates. The next thing was to recover the pamphlets thus rescuedfrom destruction, and on December 3rd Mr. Bradlaugh appeared before Mr. Vaughan at Bow Street in support of a summons against Mr. Henry Wood, apolice inspector, for detaining 657 copies of the "Fruits of Philosophy". After a long argument Mr. Vaughan ordered the pamphlets to be given up tohim, and he carried them off in triumph, there and then, on a cab. Welabelled the rescued pamphlets and sold every one of them, in mockingdefiance of the Vice Society. 

The circulation of literature advocating prudential checks to populationwas not stopped during the temporary suspension of the sale of theKnowlton pamphlet between June, 1877, and February, 1878. In October, 1877, I commenced in the _National Reformer_ the publication of apamphlet entitled: "The Law of Population, its consequences, and itsbearing upon human conduct and morals". This little book included astatement of the law, evidence of the serious suffering among the poorcaused by over-large families, and a clear statement of the checksproposed, with arguments in their favor. The medical parts were omittedin the _National Reformer_ articles, and the pamphlet was publishedcomplete early in November, at the price of sixpence--the same asKnowlton's--the first edition consisting of 5, 000 copies. A secondedition of 5, 000 was issued in December, but all the succeeding editionswere of 10, 000 copies each. The pamphlet is now in its ninetieththousand, and has gone all over the civilised world. It has beentranslated into Swedish, Danish, Dutch, French, German, and Italian, and110, 000 copies have been sold of an American reprint. On the whole, theprosecution of 1877 did not do much in stopping the circulation ofliterature on the Population Question. 

The "Law" has been several times threatened with prosecution, and theinitial steps have been taken, but the stage of issuing a warrant for itsseizure has never yet been reached. Twice I have had the stock removed toavoid seizure, but on each occasion the heart of the prosecutors hasfailed them, and the little book has carried its message of mercyunspeeded by the advertisement of prosecution. 

The struggle on the right to discuss the prudential restraint ofpopulation did not, however, conclude without a martyr. Mr. EdwardTruelove, alluded to above, was prosecuted for selling a treatise byRobert Dale Owen on "Moral Physiology", and a pamphlet entitled, "Individual, Family, and National Poverty". He was tried on February 1st, 1878, before the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Queen's Bench, andwas most ably defended by Professor W. A. Hunter. The jury spent two hoursin considering their verdict, and then returned into Court and statedthat they were unable to agree. The majority of the jury were ready toconvict, if they felt sure that Mr. Truelove would not be punished, butone of them boldly declared in Court: "As to the book, it is written inplain language for plain people, and I think that many more persons oughtto know what the contents of the book are". The jury was discharged, inconsequence of this one man's courage, but Mr. Truelove's persecutors--the wretched Vice Society--were determined not to let their victim free. They proceeded to trial a second time, and wisely endeavored to secure aspecial jury, feeling that as prudential restraint would raise wages bylimiting the supply of labor, they would be more likely to obtain averdict from a jury of "gentlemen" than from one composed of workers. This attempt was circumvented by Mr. Truelove's legal advisers, who let a_procedendo_ go which sent back the trial to the Old Bailey. The secondtrial was held on May 16th at the Central Criminal Court before BaronPollock and a common jury, Professor Hunter and Mr. J. M. Davidsonappearing for the defence. The jury convicted, and the brave old man, sixty-eight years of age, was condemned to four months' imprisonment and£50 fine for selling a pamphlet which had been sold unchallenged, duringa period of forty-five years, by James Watson, George Jacob Holyoake, Austin Holyoake, and Charles Watts. Mr. Grain, the counsel employed bythe Vice Society, most unfairly used against Mr. Truelove my "Law ofPopulation", a pamphlet which contained, Baron Pollock said, "the headand front of the offence in the other [the Knowlton] case". I find anindignant protest against this odious unfairness in the _NationalReformer_ for May 19th: "'My Law of Population' was used against Mr. Truelove as an aggravation of his offence; passing over the uttermeanness--worthy only of Collette--of using against a prisoner a bookwhose author has never been attacked for writing it--does Mr. Collette, or do the authorities, imagine that the severity shown to Mr. Truelovewill in any fashion deter me from continuing the Malthusian propaganda?Let me here assure them, one and all, that it will do nothing of thekind; I shall continue to sell the 'Law of Population' and to advocatescientific checks to population, just as though Mr. Collette and his ViceSociety were all dead and buried. In commonest justice they are bound toprosecute me, and if they get, and keep, a verdict against me, andsucceed in sending me to prison, they will only make people more anxiousto read my book, and make me more personally powerful as a teacher of theviews which they attack. "

A persistent attempt was made to obtain a writ of error in Mr. Truelove'scase, but the Tory Attorney-General, Sir John Holker, refused it, although the ground on which it was asked was one of the grounds on whicha similar writ had been granted to Mr. Bradlaugh and myself. Mr. Truelovewas therefore compelled to suffer his sentence, but memorials, signed by11, 000 persons, asking for his release, were sent to the Home Secretaryfrom every part of the country, and a crowded meeting in St. James' Hall, London, demanded his liberation with only six dissentients. The wholeagitation did not shorten Mr. Truelove's sentence by a single day, and hewas not released from Coldbath Fields' Prison until September 5th. On the12th of the same month the Hall of Science was crowded with enthusiasticfriends, who assembled to do him honor, and he was presented with abeautifully-illuminated address and a purse containing £177 (subsequentsubscriptions raised the amount to £197 16s. 6d. ). 

It is scarcely necessary to say that one of the results of theprosecution was a great agitation throughout the country, and a widepopularisation of Malthusian views. Some huge demonstrations were held infavor of free discussion; on one occasion the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, was crowded to the doors; on another the Star Music Hall, Bradford, was crammed in every corner; on another the Town Hall, Birmingham, had not a seat or a bit of standing-room unoccupied. Whereverwe went, separately or together, it was the same story, and not only wereMalthusian lectures eagerly attended, and Malthusian literature eagerlybought, but curiosity brought many to listen to our Radical andFreethought lectures, and thousands heard for the first time whatSecularism really meant. 

The press, both London and provincial, agreed in branding the prosecutionas foolish, and it was widely remarked that it resulted only in the widercirculation of the indicted book, and the increased popularity of thosewho had stood for the right of publication. The furious attacks sincemade upon us have been made chiefly by those who differ from us intheological creed, and who have found a misrepresentation of ourprosecution served them as a convenient weapon of attack. During the lastfew years public opinion has been gradually coming round to our side, inconsequence of the pressure of poverty resulting from widespreaddepression of trade, and during the sensation caused in 1884 by "TheBitter Cry of Outcast London", many writers in the _Daily News_--notablyMr. G. R. Sims--boldly alleged that the distress was to a great extent dueto the large families of the poor, and mentioned that we had beenprosecuted for giving the very knowledge which would bring salvation tothe sufferers in our great cities. 

Among the useful results of the prosecution was the establishment of theMalthusian League, "to agitate for the abolition of all penalties on thepublic discussion of the population question", and "to spread among thepeople, by all practicable means, a knowledge of the law of population, of its consequences, and of its bearing upon human conduct and morals". The first general meeting of the League was held at the Hall of Scienceon July 26th, 1877, and a council of twenty persons was elected, and thisCouncil on August 2nd elected Dr. C. R. Drysdale, M. D. President, Mr. Swaagman Treasurer, Mrs. Besant Secretary, Mr. Shearer AssistantSecretary, and Mr. Hember Financial Secretary. Since 1877 the League, under the same indefatigable president, has worked hard to carry out itsobjects; it has issued a large number of leaflets and tracts; it supportsa monthly journal, the _Malthusian_; numerous lectures have beendelivered under its auspices in all parts of the country; and it has nowa medical branch, into which none but duly qualified medical men andwomen are admitted, with members in all European countries. 

Another result of the prosecution was the accession of "D. " to the staffof the _National Reformer_. This able and thoughtful writer came forwardand joined our ranks as soon as he heard of the attack on us, and hefurther volunteered to conduct the journal during our imprisonment. Fromthat time to this--a period of eight years--articles from his pen haveappeared in our columns week by week, and during all that time not onesolitary difficulty has arisen between editors and contributor. In publica trustworthy colleague, in private a warm and sincere friend, "D. " hasproved an unmixed benefit bestowed upon us by the prosecution. 

Nor was "D. " the only friend brought to us by our foes. I cannot everthink of that time without remembering that the prosecution brought mefirst into close intimacy with Mrs. Annie Parris--the wife of Mr. TouzeauParris, the Secretary of the Defence Committee throughout all the fight--a lady who, during that long struggle, and during the, for me, far worsestruggle that succeeded it, over the custody of my daughter, proved to methe most loving and sisterly of friends. One or two other friendshipswhich will, I hope, last my life, date from that same time of strife andanxiety. 

The amount of money subscribed by the public during the Knowlton andsucceeding prosecutions gives some idea of the interest felt in thestruggle. The Defence Fund Committee in March, 1878, presented abalance-sheet, showing subscriptions amounting to £1, 292 5s. 4d. , andtotal expenditure in the Queen _v. _ Bradlaugh and Besant, the Queen _v. _Truelove, and the appeal against Mr. Vaughan's order (the last two up todate) of £1, 274 10s. This account was then closed and the balance of £1715s. 4d. Passed on to a new Fund for the defence of Mr. Truelove, thecarrying on of the appeal against the destruction of the Knowltonpamphlet, and the bearing of the costs incident on the petition lodgedagainst myself. In July this new fund had reached £196 16s. 7d. , andafter paying the remainder of the costs in Mr. Truelove case, a balanceof £26 15s. 2d. Was carried on. This again rose to £247 15s. 2-1/2d. , andthe fund bore the expenses of Mr. Bradlaugh's successful appeal on theKnowlton pamphlet, the petition and subsequent proceedings in which I wasconcerned in the Court of Chancery, and an appeal on Mr. Truelove'sbehalf, unfortunately unsuccessful, against an order for the destructionof the Dale Owen pamphlet. This last decision was given on February 21st, 1880, and on this the Defence Fund was closed. On Mr. Truelove's release, as mentioned above, a testimonial to the amount of £197 16s. 6d. Waspresented to him, and after the close of the struggle some anonymousfriend sent to me personally £200 as "thanks for the courage and abilityshown". In addition to all this, the Malthusian League received no lessthan £455 11s. 9d. During the first year of its life, and started on itssecond year with a balance in hand of £77 5s. 8d. 

The propaganda of Freethought was not forgotten while this Malthusianquarrel was raging, and in August 1877 the Freethought Publishing Companyissued the first English edition of lectures by Colonel Robert Ingersoll, the eminent Freethought advocate of the United States. Since that timevarious other publishers have circulated thousands of his lectures, butit has always been to me a matter of satisfaction that we were the firstto popularise the eloquent American in England. The ruling of the LordChief Justice that a book written with pure intention and meant to conveyuseful knowledge might yet be obscene, drew from me a pamphlet entitled, "Is the Bible Indictable?", in which I showed that the Bible came clearlywithin the judge's ruling. This turning of the tables on our persecutorscaused considerable sensation at the time, and the pamphlet had, andstill has, a very wide circulation. It is needless to add that the SundayFreethought lectures were carried on despite the legal toils of the week, and, as said above, the large audiences attracted by the prosecution gavea splendid field for the inculcation of Freethought views. The NationalSecular Society consequently increased largely in membership, and ageneral impulse towards Freethought was manifest throughout the land. 

The year 1878, so far as lecturing work was concerned, was largely takenup with a crusade against the Beaconsfield Government and in favor ofpeace. Lord Beaconsfield's hired roughs broke up several peace meetingsduring the winter, and on February 24th Mr. Bradlaugh and Mr. AuberonHerbert, at the request of a meeting of working-class delegates, held inHyde Park a "Demonstration in favor of Peace". The war party attacked themeeting and some sharp fighting took place, but a resolution "That thismeeting declares in favor of peace" was carried despite them. A secondmeeting was called by the Working Men's Committee for March 10th, and alarge force of medical students, roughs, militia-men, and "gentlemen", armed with loaded bludgeons, heavy pieces of iron, sticks with metaltwisted round them, and various sharp-cutting weapons, went to Hyde Parkto make a riot. The meeting was held and the resolution carried, butafter it had dissolved there was some furious fighting. We learnedafterwards that a large money reward had been offered to a band of roughsif they would disable Mr. Bradlaugh, and a violent organised attack wasmade on him. The stewards of the meeting carried short policemen'struncheons to defend themselves, and a number of these gathered roundtheir chief and saved his life. He and his friends had to fight their wayout of the park; a man, armed with some sharp instrument, struck at Mr. Bradlaugh from behind, and cut one side of his hat from top to brim; histruncheon was dinted with the jagged iron used as weapon; and his leftarm, with which he guarded his head, was one mass of bruises from wristto elbow. Lord Beaconsfield's friends very nearly succeeded in theirattempt at murder, after all, for a dangerous attack of erysipelas setin, in the injured arm, and confined Mr. Bradlaugh to his room forsixteen days. 

The provinces were far more strongly against war than was the capital, and in them we held many large and enthusiastic meetings in favor ofpeace. At Huddersfield the great Drill Hall was crammed for a lecture byme against war, and throughout Yorkshire and Lancashire scarcely a voicewas ever raised in crowded meetings in defence of the Beaconsfieldianpolicy. A leaflet of mine, entitled "Rushing into War", was reprinted invarious parts of the country, and was circulated in tens of thousands, and each Freethought leader worked with tongue and pen, on platform andin press, to turn the public feeling against war. The Freethought partymay well take credit to itself for having been first in the field againstthe Tory policy, and for having successfully begun the work later carriedon by Mr. Gladstone in his Midlothian campaign. They did more than anyother party in the country to create that force of public opinion whichoverthrew the Tory Government in 1880. 

XVII. 

The year 1878 was a dark one for me; it saw me deprived of my littledaughter, despite the deed of separation by which the custody of thechild had been assigned to me. The first notice that an application wasto be made to the High Court of Chancery to deprive me of this custodyreached me in January, 1878, while the decision on the Knowlton case wasstill pending, but the petition was not filed till April. The time wasill-chosen; Mabel had caught scarlet fever at a day-school she wasattending, and for some days was dangerously ill. The fact of her illnesswas communicated to her father, and while the child was lying ill in bed, and I had cancelled all engagements so that I might not leave her side, Ireceived a copy of the petition to deprive me of her custody. Thisdocument alleged as grounds for taking away the child:

"The said Annie Besant is, by addresses, lectures, and writings, endeavoring to propagate the principles of Atheism, and has published abook intituled: 'The Gospel of Atheism'. She has also associated herselfwith an infidel lecturer and author, named Charles Bradlaugh, in givinglectures and in publishing books and pamphlets, whereby the truth of theChristian religion is impeached, and disbelief in all religion isinculcated. 

"The said Annie Besant has also, in conjunction with the said CharlesBradlaugh, published an indecent and obscene pamphlet called 'The Fruitsof Philosophy'. 

"The said pamphlet has recently been the subject of legal proceedings, inthe course of which the said Annie Besant publicly justified its contentsand publication, and stated, or inferred, that in her belief it would beright to teach young children the physiological facts contained in thesaid pamphlet. [This was a deliberate falsehood: I had never stated orinferred anything of the kind. ] The said Annie Besant has also edited andpublished a pamphlet intituled 'The Law of Population; its consequences, and its bearing upon human conduct and morals', to which book or pamphletyour petitioners crave leave to refer. "

The petition was unfortunately heard before the Master of the Rolls, SirGeorge Jessel, a man animated by the old spirit of Hebrew bigotry, andwho had superadded to this the coarse time-serving morality of "a man ofthe world", sceptical of all sincerity, and contemptuous of allself-devotion to a cause that did not pay, as of a weakness by which hewas himself singularly unassailable. The treatment I received at hishands on my first appearance in Court told me what I had to expect. Aftermy previous experience of the courtesy of English judges, I was startledto hear a harsh, loud voice exclaim, in answer to a statement from Mr. Ince. Q. C. , that I appeared in person:

"Appear in person? A lady appear in person? Never heard of such a thing!Does the lady really appear in person?"

After a variety of similar remarks, delivered in the most grating tonesand with the roughest manner, Sir George Jessel tried to attain hisobject by browbeating me directly. 

"Is this the lady?"

"I am the respondent to the petition, my lord--Mrs. Besant. " "Then Iadvise you, Mrs. Besant, to employ counsel to represent you, if you canafford it, and I suppose you can. "

"With all submission to your lordship, I am afraid I must claim my rightof arguing my case in person. "

"You will do so if you please, of course, but I think you had much betterappear by counsel. I give you notice that, if you do not, you must notexpect to be shown any consideration. You will not be heard by me at anygreater length than the case requires, nor allowed to go into irrelevantmatter, as persons who argue their own cases generally do. "

"I trust I shall not do so, my lord; but in any case I shall be arguingunder your lordship's complete control. "

This encouraging beginning may be taken as a sample of the case. Mr. Ince, the counsel on the other side, was constantly practising in theRolls' Court, knew all the judge's peculiarities, how to flatter andhumor him on the one hand, and how to irritate him against his opponenton the other. Nor was Mr. Ince above using his influence with the Masterof the Rolls to obtain an unfair advantage, knowing that whatever he saidwould be believed against any contradiction of mine: thus he tried toobtain costs against me on the ground that the public helped me, whereashis client received no subscriptions in aid of his suit; yet as a matterof fact subscriptions had been collected for his client, and the Bishopof Lincoln, and many of the principal clergy and churchmen of the diocesehad contributed liberally towards the persecution of the Atheist. 

Mr. Ince and Mr. Bardswell argued that my Atheism and Malthusianism mademe an unfit guardian for my child; Mr. Ince declared that Mabel, educatedby me, would "be helpless for good in this world", and "hopeless for goodhereafter"; outcast in this life and damned in the next; Mr. Bardswellimplored the Judge to consider that my custody of her "would bedetrimental to the future prospects of the child in society, to saynothing of her eternal prospects". I could have laughed, had not thematter been so terribly serious, at the mixture of Mrs. Grundy, marriage-establishment, and hell, presented as an argument for robbing amother of her child. Once only did judge and counsel fall out; Mr. Bardswell had carelessly forgotten that Sir George Jessel was a Jew, andlifting eyes to heaven said:

"Your lordship, I think, will scarcely credit it, but Mrs. Besant says ina later affidavit that she took away the Testament from the child, because it contained coarse passages unfit for a child to read. "

To his horror, Sir George Jessel considered there were "some passageswhich a child had better not read in the New Testament", and went on:

"It is not true to say there are no passages that are unfit for a child'sreading, because I think there are a great many. 

"Mr. BARDSWELL: I do not know of any passages that could fairly be calledcoarse. 

"Sir G. JESSEL: I cannot quite assent to that. "

With the exception of this little outburst of religious feeling againstthe book written by apostate Jews, Jewish judge and Christian counselwere united in their hatred of the Atheist. My argument fell on deafears; I distinctly admitted that I was an Atheist, that I had withdrawnthe child from religious instruction at school, that I was the author ofthe "Gospel of Atheism", "The Fruits of Christianity", "The Freethinkers'Text Book, Part II. ", and "The Law of Population", produced against me: Iclaimed her custody on the ground that it was given me by the deed ofseparation executed by the father who was trying to set it aside, andthat no pretence was made that the child was neglected, the admissionbeing, on the contrary, that she was admirably cared for: I offeredlastly, if she were taken from me, to devote £110 a-year to hermaintenance and education, provided that she were placed in the hands ofa third person, not of her father. Sir George Jessel decided against me, as he had clearly intended to do from the very outset, and as the part ofhis judgment affecting Freethinkers as parents is of continued interest Ireprint it here. 

"I am glad to say that, so far as I can see, Mrs. Besant has been kindand affectionate in her conduct and behavior towards the child, and hastaken the greatest possible care of her so far as regards her physicalwelfare. I have no doubt she entertains that sincere affection for thechild which a mother should always feel, and which no merely speculativeopinions can materially affect. But, unfortunately, since her separationfrom her husband, Mrs. Besant has taken upon herself not merely to ignorereligion, not merely to believe in no religion, but to publish and avowthat non-belief--to become the publisher of pamphlets written by herself, and to deliver lectures composed by herself, stating her disbelief inreligion altogether, and stating that she has no belief in the existenceof a providence or a God. She has endeavored to convince others, by herlectures and by her pamphlets, that the denial of all religion is a rightand proper thing to recommend to mankind at large. It is not necessaryfor me to express any opinion as to the religious convictions of any one, or even as to their non-religious convictions. But I must, as a man ofthe world, consider what effect on a woman's position this course ofconduct must lead to. I know, and must know as a man of the world, thather course of conduct must quite cut her off, practically, not merelyfrom the sympathy of, but from social intercourse with, the greatmajority of her sex. I do not believe a single clergyman's wife inEngland living with her husband would approve of such conduct, orassociate with Mrs. Besant; and I must take that into consideration inconsidering what effect it would have upon the child if brought up by awoman of such reputation. But the matter does not stop there. Not onlydoes Mrs. Besant entertain those opinions which are reprobated by thegreat mass of mankind--whether rightly or wrongly I have no business tosay, though I, of course, think rightly--but she carries thosespeculative opinions into practice as regards the education of the child, and from the moment she does that she brings herself within the lines ofthe decisions of Lord Chancellors and eminent judges with reference tothe custody of children by persons holding speculative opinions, and inthose cases it has been held that before giving the custody of a child tothose who entertain such speculative opinions the Court must considerwhat effect infusing those opinions as part of its practical educationwould have upon the child. That is undoubtedly a matter of the greatestimportance. Upon this point there is no conflict of testimony whatever. Mrs. Besant herself says that she prohibited the governess from givingany religious education to the child, and has prevented the child fromobtaining any religious education at all. When the child went to school--a day school, as I understand--Mrs. Besant prohibited the governess ofthat school from imparting any religious education, in the same way thatshe had prohibited the former governess, who was a home governess, fromgiving any religious education, and Mrs. Besant gave none herself. It is, therefore, not only the entertaining and publishing these opinions, butshe considers it her duty so to educate the child as to prevent herhaving any religious opinions whatever until she attains a proper age. Ihave no doubt that Mrs. Besant is conscientious in her opinions upon allthese matters, but I also have a conscientious opinion, and I am bound togive effect to it. I think such a course of education not onlyreprehensible but detestable, and likely to work utter ruin to the child, and I certainly should upon this ground alone decide that this childought not to remain another day under the care of her mother. "

As to the publication of the Knowlton pamphlet, Sir George Jessel decidedthat that also was a good ground for separating mother and child. Hecommitted himself to the shameful statement, so strongly condemned by theLord Chief Justice, that Dr. Knowlton was in favor of "promiscuousintercourse without marriage", and then uttered the gross falsehood thathis view "was exactly the same as was entertained by the Lord ChiefJustice of England". After this odious misrepresentation, I was notsurprised to hear from him words of brutal insult to myself. I print herean article on him written at the time, not one word of which I nowregret, and which I am glad to place on record in permanent form, nowthat only his memory remains for me to hate. 

"SIR GEORGE JESSEL. 

"During the long struggle which began in March, 1877, no word has escapedme against the respective judges before whom I have had to plead. Somehave been harsh, but, at least, they have been fairly just, and even if asign of prejudice appeared, it was yet not sufficient to be a scandal tothe Bench. Of Sir George Jessel, however, I cannot speak in terms even ofrespect, for in his conduct towards myself he has been rough, coarse, andunfair, to an extent that I never expected to see in any English judge. Sir George Jessel is subtle and acute, but he is rude, overbearing, andcoarse; he has the sneer of a Mephistopheles, mingled with a curiousmonkeyish pleasure in inflicting pain. Sir George Jessel prides himselfon being 'a man of the world', and he expresses the low morality commonto that class when the phrase is taken in its worst sense; he holds, likethe 'men of the world', who 'see life' in Leicester Square and theHaymarket, that women are kept chaste only through fear and from lack ofopportunity; that men may be loose in morals if they will, and that womenare divided into two classes for their use--one to be the victims and thetoys of the moment, the others to be kept ignorant and strictly guarded, so as to be worthy of being selected as wives. Sir George Jesselconsiders that a woman becomes an outcast from society because she thinksthat women would be happier, healthier, safer, if they had some slightacquaintance with physiology, and were not condemned, through ignorance, to give birth to human lives foredoomed to misery, to disease, and tostarvation. Sir George Jessel says that no 'modest woman' will associatewith one who spreads among her sex the knowledge which will enable hersisters to limit their families within their means. The old brutal Jewishspirit, regarding women as the mere slaves of men, breaks out in thecoarse language which disgraced himself rather than the woman at whom itwas aimed. Sir George Jessel might have been surprised, had he been inthe Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on the following day, and had seen itfilled with men and women, quiet looking, well dressed, and respectable, and had heard the cries of 'Shame on him!' which rang round the hall, when his brutal remark was quoted. Such language only causes a re-actiontowards the insulted person even among those who would otherwise beantagonistic, and Sir George Jessel has ranged on my side many a womanwho, but for him, would have held aloof. 

"Sir George Jessel is a Jew; he thinks that a parent should be deprivedof a child if he or she withholds from it religious training. Two hundredyears ago, Sir George Jessel's children might have been taken from himbecause he did not bring them up as Christians; Sir George Jessel and hisrace have been relieved from disabilities, and he now joins thepersecuting majority, and deals out to the Atheist the same measure dealtto his forefathers by the Christians. The Master of the Rolls pretendedthat by depriving me of my child he was inflicting no punishment on me!If the Master of the Rolls have any children, he must be as hard-heartedin the home as he is on the bench, if he would not feel that any penaltywas inflicted on him if his little ones were torn from him and handedover to a Christian priest, who would teach them to despise him as a Jew, and hate him as a denier of Christ. Even now, Jews are under many socialdisabilities, and even when richly gilt, Christian society looks uponthem with thinly-concealed dislike. The old wicked prejudice stillsurvives against them, and it is with shame and with disgust thatLiberals see a Jew trying to curry favor with Christian society byreviving the obsolete penalties once inflicted on his own people. 

"Sir George Jessel was not only brutally harsh; he was also utterlyunfair. He quoted the Lord Chief Justice as agreeing with him in hisjudgment on Knowlton, on points where the Chief had distinctly expressedthe contrary opinion, and he did this not through ignorance, but with theeloquent words of Sir Alexander Cockburn lying in front of him, and afterI had pointed out to him, and he had deliberately read, or professed toread, the passages which contained the exact contrary of that which heput into the Chief's mouth. 

"Of one thing Sir George Jessel and his Christian friends may be sure:that neither prosecution nor penalty will prevent me from teaching bothAtheism and Malthusianism to all who will listen to me, and sinceChristianity is still so bigoted as to take the child from the motherbecause of a difference of creed, I will strain every nerve to convertthe men and women around me, and more especially the young, to a creedmore worthy of humanity. 

"Sir George Jessel pretended to have the child's interests at heart: inreality he utterly ignored them. I offered to settle £110 a year on thechild if she was placed in the charge of some trustworthy and respectableperson, but the Master did not even notice the offer. He takes away thechild from plenty and comfort, and throws her into comparative poverty;he takes her away from most tender and watchful care, and places herunder the guardianship of a man so reckless of her health, that he chosethe moment of her serious illness to ask for her removal; he takes heraway from cultured and thoughtful society to place her amonghalf-educated farmers. Nay, he goes further: Dr. Drysdale's affidavitstated that it was absolutely necessary at present that she should haveher mother's care; and Sir George Jessel disregards this, and, in herstill weak state, drags her from her home and from all she cares for, and throws her into the hands of strangers. If any serious resultsfollow, Sir George Jessel will be morally, though not legally, responsible for them. In her new home she can have no gentle womanlyattendance. No Christian lady of high character will risk themisconstruction to which she would be exposed by living alone at SibseyVicarage with a young clergyman who is neither a bachelor nor a widower;the child will be condemned either to solitary neglect at home, or to thecold strictness of a boarding-school. She is bright, gay, intelligent, merry now. What will she be at a year's end? My worst wish for Sir GeorgeJessel is that the measure he has meted out to me may, before he dies, bemeasured out to him or his. "

There is little to add to the story. I gave the child up, as I wascompelled to do, and gave notice of appeal to the Court of Appeal againstthe order of the Master of the Rolls. Meanwhile, as all access to thechildren was denied me by the father, I gave him notice that unlessaccess were given I would sue for a restitution of conjugal rights, merely for the sake of seeing my children. As the deed of separation hadbeen broken by his action, I supposed that the courts would not permit itto be broken for his advantage while holding it binding on me. Unhappily, at this critical point, my health gave way; the loneliness and silence ofthe house, of which my darling had always been the sunshine and themusic, weighed on me like an evil dream: at night I could not sleep, missing in the darkness the soft breathing of the little child; her criesas she clung to me and was forcibly carried away rang ever in my ears; atlast, on July 25th, I was suddenly struck down with fever, and had therest of pain and delirium instead of the agony of conscious loss. While Iwas lying there prostrate an order was served on me from the Master ofthe Rolls, granted on Mr. Besant's application, to restrain me frombringing any suit against him. As soon as I recovered, I took steps forcontesting this order, but no definite action could be taken until afterthe Long Vacation. The case came on for hearing first in November, 1878, and then in January, 1879. All access to the children had been denied me, and the money due to me had been withheld. By this my opponent had puthimself so completely in the wrong that even the Master of the Rollsuttered words of severe condemnation of the way in which I had beentreated. Then a curious interlude took place. The Master of the Rollsadvised me to file a counter-claim for divorce or for judicialseparation, and I gladly agreed to do so, feeling very doubtful as to theMaster of the Rolls' power to do anything of the kind, but very glad thathe should think he had the authority. While the claim was being prepared, I obtained access to the children under an interim order, as well as themoney owing to me, and at the end of March the case again came before theMaster of the Rolls. The claim filed alleged distinct acts of cruelty, and I brought witnesses to support the claim, among them the doctor whohad attended me during my married life. Mr. Ince filed an answer ofgeneral denial, adding that the acts of cruelty, if any, were "done inthe heat of the moment". He did not, however, venture to contest thecase, although I tendered myself for cross-examination, but pleaded thedeed of separation as a bar to further proceedings on my part; I arguedon the other hand that as the deed had been broken by the plaintiff'sact, all my original rights revived. Sir George Jessel held that the deedof separation condoned all that had gone before it, if it was raised as abar to further proceedings, and expressed his regret that he had notknown there would be "any objection on the other side", when he advised aclaim for a judicial separation. On the final hearing of the case inApril in the Rolls' Court Sir George Jessel decided that the deed ofseparation was good as protecting Mr. Besant from any suit on my part toobtain a decree for the restitution of conjugal rights, although it hadbeen set aside on the one matter of value to me--the custody of my child. The net result of the proceedings was that had I gone to the DivorceCourt in 1873, I might at least have obtained a divorce _a mensa ethoro_; that in my desire to avoid publicity, and content in what Ibelieved to be secure possession of my child, I had agreed to a deedwhich fully protected Mr. Besant against any action on my part, but whichcould be set aside by him for the purpose of robbing me of my child. 

The argument in the Court of Appeal came on during April, and was, as Iexpected, decided against me, the absolute right of the father beingdeclared, and a married mother held to have no sort of claim over her ownchildren. The worst stigma affixed to marriage by the law of England isthis ignoring of any right of the married mother to her child; the lawprotects the unmarried, but insults the married, mother, and places inthe hands of the legal husband an instrument of torture whose power toagonise depends on the tenderness and strength of the motherliness of thewife. In fact the law says to every woman: "Choose which of these twopositions you will have: if you are legally your husband's wife you canhave no legal claim to your children; if legally you are your husband'smistress, then your rights as mother are secure". 

But one thing I gained in the Court of Appeal. The Court expressed astrong view as to my right of access, and directed me to apply to SirGeorge Jessel for it, stating that it could not doubt that he would giveit. I made the application and obtained an order of access to thechildren, seeing them alone, once a month; of a visit of the children toLondon twice a year, with their governess, for a week each time; of aweek at the seaside in similar fashion once a year; of a weekly letterfrom each of them with the right of reply. This order, obtained aftersuch long struggle, has proved useless. The monthly visit so upset mypoor little daughter, and made her fret so constantly after me, that inmercy to her I felt compelled to relinquish it; on the first visit to theseaside, I was saddled with the cost of maintaining the Rev. Mr. And Mrs. Child, who were placed as guardians of the children, and who treated mein their presence as though I were a dangerous animal from whom they wereto be protected. To give but an instance of the sort of treatment Ireceived, I wished Mabel to have the benefit of sea-bathing, and was toldthat she could not be allowed to bathe with me, and this with asuggestiveness that sorely taxed my self-control. I could not apply tothe Court against the ingenious forms of petty insult employed, while Ifelt that they must inevitably estrange the children from me if practisedalways in their presence. After a vain appeal that some sort ofconsideration should be shown to me, an appeal answered by a mockingsuggestion that I should complain to the Master of the Rolls, I made upmy mind as to my future course. I resolved neither to see nor to write tomy children until they were old enough to understand and to judge forthemselves, and I know that I shall win my daughter back in herwomanhood, though I have been robbed of her childhood. By effacing myselfthen, I saved her from a constant and painful struggle unfitted forchildhood's passionate feelings, and left her only a memory that sheloves, undefaced by painful remembrances of her mother insulted in herpresence. 

Unhappily Sir George Jessel has terribly handicapped her future; left tome she would have had the highest education now open to girls; left toher present guardian she receives only fifth-rate teaching, utterlyunfitted for the present day. Twice I have offered to bear the wholeexpense of her education in the High School at Cheltenham, or in someLondon College, without in any way appearing in the matter, but each timemy offer has been roughly and insultingly refused, and the influence thatmarred the mother's life is undermining the future happiness of thechild's. But I am not without hope that I may be able to obtain from theCourt of Chancery an order for the benefit of its ward, and I trustbefore very long that I shall be able to insure to my child an educationwhich will fit her to play her part worthily when she reaches womanhood. I had hoped to save her from the pain of rejecting a superstitious faith, but that is now impossible, and she must fight her way out of darknessinto light as her mother did before her. But in order that she may do so, education now is of vital importance, and that I am striving to obtainfor her. I live in the hope that in her womanhood she may return to thehome she was torn from in her childhood, and that, in faithful work andnoble endeavor, she may wear in future years in the Freethought ranks aname not wholly unloved or unhonored therein, for the sake of the womanwho has borne it in the van through eleven years of strife. 

THE END.