Part 3 (1/2)
Now for the counts of our Indictment. There is danger in writing about them, as it is held that the publication of matter found blasphemous by a jury, except in a legal report for the profession, is itself blasphemy, and may be punished as such. I am not, however, likely to be deterred from my purpose by this consideration. On the other hand, as the incriminated pa.s.sages were all carefully selected from many numbers of a journal never remarkable for its tender treatment of orthodoxy, I do not see any particular advantage to be derived from their republication. They are, of course, far more calculated to shock religious susceptibilities (if these are to be considered) when they are picked out and ranked together than when they stand amid their context in their original places. Such a process of selection would be exceedingly hard on any paper or book handling very advanced ideas, and very backward ones, in a spirit of great freedom. Nay, it would prove a severe trial to most works of real value, whose scope extended beyond the respectabilities. Not to mention Byron's caustic remarks on the peculiar expurgation of Martial in Don Juan's edition, it is obvious that the Bible and Shakespeare could both be proved obscene by this process; and setting aside ancient literature altogether, half our own cla.s.sics, before the age of Wordsworth and Scott, would come under the same condemnation. I know I am intruding among my betters; but I do not claim equality with them; I merely ask the same liberal judgment. A man is no more to be judged by a few casual sentences from his pen, without any reference to all the rest, than he is to be judged by a few casual expressions he may let fall in a year's conversation.
Curiously, in all those twenty-eight folios of blasphemy, only three sentences were from my own pen, and two of them were extracted from long articles. One was a jocose reference to the Jewish tribal G.o.d, who, as Keunen allows, was carried about, probably as a stone fetish, in that wooden box known as the ”ark of the covenant.” Another occurred in a long review of Jules Soury's remarkable book on the subject of Jesus Christ's hallucinations and eccentricities, in which he endeavors to show that the Prophet of Nazareth pa.s.sed through certain recognised stages of brain disease. Referring to the close of his career, I wrote that, ”When Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem he was plainly crazed.” That one sentence was picked out from a long review, running through three numbers of the _Freethinker_, and filling six columns of print. The third sentence was a satirical comment on the sensational and blasphemous t.i.tle of Dr. Parker's book on ”The Inner Life of Christ.” I asked, ”How did he contrive to get inside his maker?”
There was a fourth sentence I wrote for the _Freethinker_, but as it was a verbatim report of some Bedlamite observations of a Salvationist at Halifax, published, as I said, ”to show what is being done and said in the name of Christianity,” I decline to be held responsible for it. Let General Booth be answerable for the blasphemies of his own followers.
All the other pa.s.sages in the Indictment were from the pens of contributors, over whom, as they signed their articles, I never held a tight rein. They were mostly amplifications of the sentence I have already quoted about the cruel character of the Bible G.o.d. I did not, however, dwell on this fact in my address to the jury. I took the full responsibility, and fought my contributors' battle as well my own. I bore their iniquities, the chastis.e.m.e.nt of their peace was upon me, and by my stripes they were healed.
Four of the Comic Bible Sketches were included in the Indictment. They appeared in the _Freethinker_ on the following dates:--January 29, April 23, May 28, and June 11 (1882). Readers who care to see what they were like can refer to the file in the British Museum. Those ill.u.s.trations have not been declared blasphemous, for when the Indictment I have been explaining was tried before Lord Coleridge, the jury, after several hours' deliberation, could not agree to a verdict of Guilty.
The Indictment on which I was found guilty, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment, was a later one. It was based on the Christmas Number, 1882, to which I previously referred. Let me now give a brief history of my second prosecution.
CHAPTER V. ANOTHER PROSECUTION.
In the month of November (1882) I announced my intention to bring out a new monthly magazine ent.i.tled _Progress_. Several friends thought it impolitic to launch my new venture in such troubled waters, and advised me to wait for the issue of the prosecution. But I resolved to act exactly as though the prosecution had never been initiated. It seemed to me the wisest course to go on with my work until I was stopped, and risk the consequences whatever they might be. The result has proved that I was right; but I do not wish to boast of my judgment, for when I was imprisoned all my interests were fearfully imperilled, and everything depended on the loyal exertions of a few staunch Freethinkers (of whom more anon) who stepped into the breach and defended them with great courage and ability until I was able to resume my post. _Progress_ made its due appearance in January, 1883, and, notwithstanding the extraordinary vicissitudes of its career, it has flourished ever since without any solution of continuity.
While I was advertising _Progress_ I was also preparing the second Christmas Number of the _Freethinker_. The announcement of its contents caused a great deal of excitement, and I am prepared to admit that it was, to use a common phrase, the ”warmest” publication ever issued. It was full from cover to cover of what the orthodox call blasphemy, and it was speedily described by the Christian press as more ”outrageous” than any of the ordinary numbers for which we were already prosecuted.
The description was perfectly correct. I had concluded that my wisest policy, as it was certainly the most courageous, was to disregard the Blasphemy Laws and defy the bigots; to show that Freethought was not to be cowed or intimidated by threats of imprisonment. Facing the enemy boldly appeared to me better than running away; a course in which I could see neither glory, honor, nor profit. Even if I had consulted my safety above all things, I should have seen little wisdom in flight; and being shot in the back, while no less dangerous, is far more ignominious than being shot in the front. I have paid the full penalty of my policy; I have suffered twelve months' torture in a Christian gaol; yet I do not repent the course I took; and ever since my release from prison I have felt it my duty to continue doing the very thing for which I was punished.
Being tastefully got-up, well printed, profusely ill.u.s.trated, and extensively denounced by the organs of Toryism and piety, this Christmas Number had a very large sale. Yet, strange as it may sound to some bigoted ears, Mr. Ramsey and I were after all several pounds out of pocket by it, the expenses being altogether out of proportion to the price, and our object being less material gain than the wide dissemination of our views. With the knowledge of this pecuniary loss in our minds, it may be imagined how grimly we smiled when the counsel sternly alluded to our ”nefarious profits.”
I shall have occasion to deal with the contents of this Christmas Number when I explain our second Indictment; which, I repeat, as there is general misunderstanding on the subject, was tried before the first, and resulted in Judge North's atrocious and almost unparalleled sentence.
During the interval between the publication of this ”budget of blasphemy” and the date of our summons to answer a criminal charge founded on it, I had several interviews with Mr. E. Truelove, a gentleman well known to all advanced people in London as a veteran champion of the freedom as the press. At the age of seventy, after a long life _sans peur et sans reproche_, this fine old reformer was dragged by the paid Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice (or the Vice Society as Cobbett always called it) into a criminal court to answer a charge of obscenity. The objectionable matter was contained in an extremely mild, not to say mawkish, essay on the population question by Robert Dale Owen, a man of literary eminence in the United States, and once an amba.s.sador of the great Republic. Like ourselves, Mr. Truelove was tried twice before a verdict of guilty could be obtained. His sentence was four months' imprisonment like a common felon. Mr. Truelove was indisposed to reveal the secrets of his prison-house out of a tender regard for my feelings, but seeing that I preferred to know the worst, he told me all about the felon's cell, the plank bed, the oak.u.m picking, the wretched diet, and the horribly monotonous life. My chief feeling on hearing this sad tale was one of indignation at the thought that a man of honest convictions and blameless life should be subjected to such privations and indignities.
It did not weaken my resolution; it only deepened my hatred of the system which sanctioned such iniquities.
From America, however, came a piece of bitter-sweet news. Mr. D. M.
Bennett, editor of the New York _Truthseeker_, had just died. His end was hastened by the heart-disease he contracted while undergoing imprisonment for an ”offence” similar to that of Mr. Truelove. Yet almost at the moment of Mr. Bennett's death, another jury had found another publisher of the very same work Not Guilty. I learned from the New York papers that the acquittal was partly due to the impartiality of the judge, partly to the progress the public mind had made on the population question, and partly to the fact that the accused publisher conducted his own defence. Here was a gleam of hope. I also might meet with an impartial judge, I also might find a jury reflecting an enlightened public opinion, and I also was resolved to defend myself.
Alas! I did not know that I was to meet with the most bigoted judge on the bench, and to plead to a jury exactly calculated to effect his vindictive purpose.
On Thursday, December 7, 1882, we published our second Christmas Number of the Freethinker. I will deal with its contents presently, when I have narrated how it led to our second prosecution. Let it here suffice to say that it was undoubtedly a very ”warm” publication, and well calculated to arouse the slumbering Blasphemy Laws. Some Freethinkers even were astonished at its audacity. A few belonging to an old-fas.h.i.+oned school, and a few more who were a.s.siduously courting ”respectability,” resented our action; although, as the vast majority of our party were of an opposite opinion, they refrained from expressing their reprobation too loudly. In reply to their murmurs I wrote an article in my paper on ”Superst.i.tious Freethinkers.” It appeared in the number for December 31, and thus appropriately closed a year of combat.
A few pa.s.sages are, perhaps, worth insertion here.
”It has been said of Robert Burns that, although his head and heart rejected Calvinism, he never quite got it out of his blood.
There is much truth in this metaphor. Burns was, in religious matters, one of a very large cla.s.s. Many men rid their intellects of a superst.i.tion, without being able to resist its power over their feelings. Even so profound a sceptic as Renan has admitted that his life is guided by a faith he no longer possesses. And we are all familiar with instances of the same thing...”
”Reverting to avowed Freethinkers, it is evident that some of them who have lost belief in G.o.d are afraid to speak too loud lest he should overhear them. 'How old are you, Monsieur Fontenelle?' asked a pretty young French lady. 'Hush, not so loud, dear Madame!' replied the witty nonagenarian, pointing upwards. What Fontenelle did as a piece of graceful wit, some Freethinkers do without any wit at all. They object to laughing at the G.o.ds, whether Christian, Brahmanic or Mohammedan; and perhaps they would extend the same friendly consideration to Mumbo Jumbo. Strange that people should be so tender about ghosts! Especially when they don't even believe them to be real ghosts. To the Atheist all G.o.ds are fancies, mere delusions (not _illusions_), like the philosopher's stone, witchcraft, astrology, holy water and miracles. I am as much ent.i.tled to ridicule the G.o.ds of Christianity as any other Freethinker is ent.i.tled to ridicule the miracles at Lourdes; and when 'taste' is dragged into the question, I simply reply that there is as much ill taste in the one case as in the other.
All that this 'taste' can mean is that no devout delusion should be ridiculed, which is itself one of the greatest pieces of absurdity ever perpetrated. It would s.h.i.+eld every form of 'spiritual' lunacy in the world.
”These squeamish Freethinkers don't object to ridicule in politics, literature or social life. They rather approve _Punch_ and the other comic journals, even when these satirise living persons who feel the sting. Why, then, do they object to ridicule in religion? Simply because they still _feel_ that there is something sacred about it. Now I insist that on the Atheist's principles there can be no such sacredness, and I decline to recognise it. I take the full consequences and claim the full liberty of my belief.
”Christians may, of course, urge that their _feelings_ on such a subject as religion _are sacred_, and a few superst.i.tious Freethinkers may concede this monstrous position. I do not.
The feelings of a Christian about Father, Son and Holy Ghost, are no more sacred than my feelings on any other subject.
I have no quarrel with persons, and I recognise how many are hurt by satire. But the world is not to be regulated by their feelings, and much as I respect them, I have a greater respect for truth. Every mental weapon is valid against mental error.
And as ridicule has been found the most potent weapon of religious enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, we are bound to use it against the wretched superst.i.tions which c.u.mber the path of progress. Intellectually, it is as absurd to give quarter as it is absurd to expect it.
”My answer to the Freethinkers who would coquet with Christianity, and gain a fict.i.tious respectability by courting compliments from Christian teachers, is that they are playing with fire.