Part 9 (1/2)

And here let me point a moral about hard work Hard work kills no one

I find a note in the _National Reforh: ”It is, we fear, useless to add that, in the judgment of her best friends, Mrs Besant has worked far too hard during the last two years” This is 1893, and the thirteen years' interval has been full of incessant work, and I a harder than ever now, and in splendid health Looking over the _National Reformer_ for all these years, it seems to me that it did really fine educational work; Mr

Bradlaugh's strenuous utterances on political and theological 's lus; and to my share fell much of the educative work on questions of political and national s eaker nations We put all our hearts into our work, and the influence exercised was distinctly in favour of pure living and high thinking

In the spring of 1881 the Court of Appeal decided against Mr

Bradlaugh's right to affirm as Member of Parliament, and his seat was declared vacant, but he was at once returned again by the borough of Northaainst hihtly described the election as ”the ht” His work in the House had won hinised as a power there; so Tory fear was added to bigoted hatred, and the efforts to keep him out of the House were increased

He was introduced to the House as a new member to take his seat by Mr

Labouchere and Mr Burt, but Sir Stafford Northcote intervened, and after a lengthy debate, which included a speech froh at the Bar, a majority of thirty-three refused to allow hi which Mr Bradlaugh declined to withdraw and the House hesitated to use force, the House adjourned, and finally the Govern in an Affirh promised, with the consent of his constituents, to await the decision of the House on this Bill Meantihts was forreherever Mr Bradlaugh went to speak vast croaited him, and he travelled fro his appeal for justice with no uncertain voice On July 2nd, in consequence of Tory obstruction, Mr Gladstone wrote to Mr Bradlaugh that the Governh thereupon determined to present hiust 3rd as the date of such action, so that the Irish Land Bill h the House ere any delay in business was caused by hiates were closed, reserves of police were packed in the law courts, and all through July this state of siege continued On August 2nd there was a large ates were present froh, and on Wednesday, August 3rd, Mr Bradlaugh went down to the House His last words to me were: ”The people know you better than they know any one, save myself; whatever happens, mind, whatever happens, let them do no violence; I trust to you to keep the, and into the House alone His daughters and I went together, and with so petitions--ten only with each petition, and the ten rigidly counted and allowed to pass through the gate, sufficiently opened to let one through at a time--reached West to the passage of the lobby

An inspector ordered us off I gently intihts Dramatic order: ”Four officers this way” Up they marched and looked at us, and we looked at the before you use violence,” I reht they had, and in a fewthat ere standing in a place where we had a right to be, and were doing no harm, he rebuked his over-zealous subordinates, and they retired and left us in peace AIndeed, all through this, the House of Commons police behaved admirably well Even in the attack they were ordered to h, the police used as little violence as they could It was Mr Erskine, the Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms, and his ushers, who showed the brutality; as Dr

Aveling wrote at the time: ”The police disliked their work, and, as brave men, had a syidly This done, they were kindness itself” Gradually the crowd of petitioners grew and grew; angry murmurs were heard, for no news came from the House, and they loved ”Charlie,” and were mostly north country ht to go into the lobby, and suddenly, with the ile action there was a roar, ”Petition, petition, justice, justice,” and they surged up the steps, charging at the policee, his words, ”I trust to you to keep the forward to meet the crowd I threw e of the position of the top of the steps that I had chosen, so that everycro me, and as they checked themselves in surprise I bade them stop for his sake, and keep for him the peace which he had bade us should not be broken I heard afterwards that as I sprang forward the police laughed--theymen; but I knew his friends would never trah died out, and they drew back and leftthe in their wrath, still for his sake Ah! had I knoas going on inside, would I have kept his trust unbroken! and, as many a man said to o ould have carried him into the House up to the Speaker's chair” We heard a crash inside, and listened, and there was sound of breaking glass and splintering wood, and in a few er came to me: ”He is in Palace Yard” And ent thither and saw hi, still and white, face set like h carved in stone, facing the members' door Noe know the whole shameful story: how as that one ht, alone so that he could do no violence, fourteenthemselves upon hi in their violence the glass and wood of the passage door; how he struck no blow, but used only his great strength in passive resistance--” Of all I have ever seen, I never saw one rily disdainful of the wrong he was forced to do--till they flung him out into Palace Yard An eye-witness thus reported the scene in the Press: ”The strong, broad, heavy, powerful frah was hard to move, with its every nerve andand straining against the overpowering nu tenacity, and only surrendered it after alht--little of it as was seen fro The overborne asp The face, in spite of the warle, had an ominous pallor The liar Square phrase that this ht be broken but not bent occurred to minds apprehensive at the present appearance of hi hied ”I nearly did wrong at the door,” he said afterwards, ”I was very angry

I said to Inspector Denning, 'I shall coh to overcome it,' He said, 'When?' I said, 'Within a minute if I raise ate was a vast sea of heads, the land for love of hiht he represented of a constituency to send to Parliareater than in that ; with all the passion of a proudwithin him, insulted by physical violence, injured by the cruel wrenching of all his muscles--so that for weeks his arreater than when he conquered his orath, crushed down his own longing for battle, stirred to flale, and the bodily injury, and with thousands waiting within sound of his voice, longing to leap to his side, he gave the word to tell the away from the scene of conflict, and meanwhile to disperse quietly, ”no riot, no disorder” But how he suffered mentally no words ofhis heart who does not kno he reverenced the great Parlialand, how he honoured la he believed in justice being done; it was the breaking down of his national ideals, of his pride in his country, of his belief that faith would be kept with a foe by English gentleht, held honour and chivalry dear ”No ht,” he said to me that day; ”no woman can blaony swept over his face, and froh was never the sahtly, but his heart-strings were twined round his; solish, to his heart's core, of the type of the seventeenth-century patriot, holding England's honour dear It was the treachery that broke his heart; he had gone alone, believing in the honour of his foes, ready to submit to expulsion, to imprisonment, and it was the latter that he expected; but he never dreast his foes, they would use brutal and cowardly violence, and shae on a duly-elected reat Commons House, the House of Hauarded its own froes in the teeth of kings

These storht about a proet any legal redress, as, indeed, he expected to fail, on the ground that the officials of the House were covered by the House's order, but the Govern the next session, and thus prevented the caainst them on which we had resolved I had solely on ed to refrain from the use of all excisable articles after a certain date, and to withdraw all theirthe financial resources of the Government The response froreat and touching One man wrote that as he never drank nor sh tobacco was their one luxury, they would forego it; and so on Somewhat reluctantly, I asked the people to lay aside this forht to embarrass the Government financially save when they refuse to do the first duty of a Government to maintain law They have now promised to do justice, and we h, rupturing the sheaths of some of the hts went on during the tele I turned up in the House two or three tih not in person, by the people who kept Mr

Bradlaugh out, and a speech of mine became the subject of a question by Mr Ritchie, while Sir Henry Tyler waged war on the science classes Another joy was added to life by the use of ained a marketable value--as author of paery of ood deal of annoyance In the strengthening of the constitutional agitation in the country, the holding of an International Congress of Freethinkers in London, the studying and teaching of science, the delivering of courses of scientific lectures in the Hall of Science, a sharp correspondence with the Bishop of Manchester, who had libelled Secularists, and which led to a fiery pae,” as retort--in all these matters the autumn months sped rapidly away One incident of that autue of the nature of the experiments performed, and by my fear that if scientific s they would perforce experiment with them on the poor in hospitals, to write two articles, republished as a paainst Sir Eardley Wilmot's Bill for the ”Total Suppression of Vivisection” I liinal investigations, and took the representations made of the character of the experiments without sufficient care to verify the I ever wrote for which I feel deep regret and shaainst the whole trend and efforts of sford answered my articles, and I readily inserted her replies in the paper in which mine had appeared--our _National Reformer_--and she touched that question of the moral sense to which my nature at once responded

Ultimately, I looked carefully into the subject, found that vivisection abroad was very different froland, saw that it was in very truth the fiendishly cruel thing that its opponents alleged, and destroyed my partial defence of even its less brutal forles in which Mr Bradlaugh and those who stood by him were involved On February 7th he was heard for the third time at the Bar of the House of Commons, and closed his speech with an offer that, accepted, would have closed the contest ”I am ready to stand aside, say for four or five weeks, without co to that table, if the House within that tiht demand, would discuss whether an Affirmation Bill should pass or not I want to obey the law, and I tell you how I ht meet the House still further, if the House will pardonto advise it Hon h Relief Bill Bradlaugh isto elections that have taken place previously, and I will undertake not to claim my seat, and when the Bill has passed I will apply for the Chiltern Hundreds I have no fear If I am not fit for my constituents, they shall disrave alone shallHe had asked for 100,000 signatures in favour of his constitutional right, and on February 8th, 9th, and 10th 1,008 petitions, bearing 241,970 signatures, were presented; the House treated them with contemptuous indifference The House refused to declare his seat vacant, and also refused to allow hi Northaal redress Mr Labouchere--who did all a loyal colleague could do to assist his brother ht in an Affirmation Bill; it was blocked Mr Gladstone, appealed to support the law declared by his own Attorney-General, refused to do anything An _impasse_ was created, and all the enemies of freedom rejoiced Out of this position of what the _Globe_ called ”quiet omnipotence” the House was shaken by an audacious defiance, for on February 21st the th took the oath in its startled face, went to his seat, and--waited events

The House then expelled hi else after such defiance--and Mr Laboucherethat Northah, expelled this House” Northampton, ever steadfast, returned hi an increase of 359 over the second bye-election--and the triuland ild enthusiasm By the small majority of fifteen in a House of 599 members--and this due to the vacillation of the Governht to take his seat

But now the whole Liberal Press took up his quarrel; the oath question became a test question for every candidate for Parlia its best friends The _Pall Mall Gazette_ voiced the general feeling ”What is the evidence that an Oaths Bill would injure the Govern we ood to themselves at the elections nobody doubts that it will be made a test question, and any Liberal who declines to vote for such a Bill will certainly lose the support of the Northampton sort of Radicalishout the country is absolutely unanimous The political Non-conformists are for it The local clubs are for it All that is wanted is that the Governnise that even in practice honesty is the best policy” The Government did not think so, and they paid the penalty, for one of the causes that led to their defeat at the polls was the disgust felt at their vacillation and cowardice in regard to the rights of constituencies Not untruly did I write, in May, 1882, that Charles Bradlaugh was ahad becoitation in the country grew and grew, until, returned again to Parliament at the General Election, he took the oath and his seat, brought in and carried an Oaths Bill, not only giving Me Freethinkers co witnesses fro; he thus ended an unprecedented struggle by a co his name for ever into the constitutional history of his country

In the House of Lords, Lord Redesdale brought in a Bill disqualifying Atheists fro aroused in the country, the Lords, with ret, declined to pass it But,out for prosecutions for blaspheh and his friends, while he carried on his crusade against Mr Bradlaugh's daughters, Dr Aveling, and myself, as science teachers I su soe: ”This short-lived 'Parliamentary Declaration Bill' is but one of the e a storm of prosecution The reiterated attempts in the House of Co heretics for blasphemy; the petty and vicious attacks on the science classes at the Hall; the odious and wicked efforts of Mr Newdegate to drive Mr Bradlaugh into the Bankruptcy Court; all these are but signs that the heterogeneous arether their forces for a furious attack on those who have silenced theument, but whom they hope to conquer by main force, by sheer brutality Let the, never so united, never so well organised as they are to-day Strong in the goodness of our cause, in our faith in the ultiive up all save fidelity to the sacred cause of liberty of huravely and fearlessly the successors of the men who burned Bruno, who imprisoned Galileo, who tortured Vanini--the men who have in their hands the blood-red cross of Jesus of Nazareth, and in their hearts the love of God and the hate of man”

CHAPTER XII

STILL FIGHTING

All this hot fighting on the religious field did not render me blind to thein the cruel grip of Mr Forster's Coercion Act An article ”Coercion in Ireland and its Results,” exposing the wrongs done under the Act, was reprinted as a paainst eviction--7,020 persons had been evicted during the quarter ending in March--for the trial of those imprisoned on suspicion, for indeainst wrongs the Land Act had been carried to prevent, and I urged that ”no chance is given for the healing measures to cure the sore of Irish disaffection until not only are the prisoners in Ireland set at liberty, but until the brave, unfortunate Michael Davitt stands once more a free man on Irish soil” At last the Governs; it sent Lord Frederick Cavendish over to Ireland, carrying with him the release of the ”suspects,” and scarcely had he landed ere the knife of assassination struck hier of peace I was at Blackburn, to lecture on ”The Irish Question,” and as I alking towards the platforra the assassination was placed in et the shock, the incredulous horror, the wave of despair ”It is not only two men they have killed,” I wrote, a day or two later; ”they have stabbed the new-born hope of friendshi+p between two countries, and have reopened the gulf of hatred that was just beginning to close” Alas! the crime succeeded in its object, and hurried the Governht in, and rushed through its stages in Parlia the storm of public excitement, I pleaded still, ”Force no remedy,” despite the hardshi+p of the task ”There is excessive difficulty in dealing with the Irish difficulty at the present e on a whole nation as answer to the cri the outcry;that 'soto ask whether the 'so A few stand firm, but they are very few--too few to prevent the new Coercion Bill froh we be who lift up the voice of protest against the wrong which we are powerless to prevent, we may yet dopublic opinion as to bring about its early repeal When the measure is understood by the public half the battle will be won; it is accepted at the moment from faith in the Governrasped The iven birth to this repressive measure came with a shock upon the country, which was the ladness and hope to darkness and despair The new policy elcoer of the new policy was slain ere yet the pen was dry which had signed the orders of mercy and of liberty Small wonder that cry of horror should be followed by eance; but the murders were the work of a few crieance strikes the whole of the Irish people I plead against the panic which confounds political agitation and political redressal of wrong with cris every mouth in Ireland, and puts, as we shall see, all political effort at the istracy, and the police” I then sketched the rip of absentee landlords, the turning out on the roadside to die of the mother with new-born babe at her breast, the loss of ”all thought of the sanctity of human life when the lives of the dearest are reckoned as less worth than the shi+llings of overdue rack-rental” I analysed the new Act: ”When this Act passes, trial by jury, right of public , liberty of press, sanctity of house, will one and all be held at the will of the Lord-Lieutenant, the irresponsible autocrat of Ireland, while liberty of person will lie at theIreland in the year 1882 And this is supposed to be a Bill for the 'repression of crime'” Bluntly, I put the bald truth: ”The plain fact is that the murderers have succeeded

They saw in the new policy the reconciliation of England and Ireland; they knew that friendshi+p would follow justice, and that the two countries, for the first ti a new gulf, which they hoped the English nation would not span; they sent a river of blood across the road of friendshi+p, and they flung two corpses to bar the newly-opened gate of reconciliation and peace They have succeeded”

Into this whirl of political and social strife came the first whisper to me of the Theosophical Society, in the shape of a statement of its principles, which conveyed, I remarked, ”no very definite idea of the requirements for membershi+p, beyond a dreaio-philosophic fancies of the past” Also a report of an address by Colonel Olcott, which led e theory of 'apparitions' of the dead, and to some existence outside the physical and apart from it” These came to me from some Hindu Freethinkers, who askedthe Theosophical Society, and Theosophists being ad froht to refuse to enrol Theosophists, if they desired it, a their members, there is a radical difference between the mysticism of Theosophy and the scientific materialism of Secularism The exclusive devotion to this world implied in the profession of Secularism leaves no room for other-worldism; and consistent members of our body cannot join a society which professes belief therein”[27]

HP Blavatsky penned a brief article in the _Theosophist_ for August, 1882, in which she coenerous way, that itunder entirely misconceived notions about the real nature of our society For one so highly intellectual and keen as that renoriter to dogmatise and issue autocratic ukases, after she has herself suffered so cruelly and undeservedly at the hands of blind bigotry and social prejudice in her lifelong struggle for _freedoht_ see raph she went on: ”Until proofs to the contrary, we prefer to believe that the above lines were dictated to Mrs Besant by some crafty misrepresentations froe rather than a desire to remain consistent with the principles of 'the scientificto assure the Radical editors of the _National Reforely misled by false reports about the Radical editors of the _Theosophist_ The term 'supernaturalists' can no more apply to the latter than to Mrs A Besant and Mr C Bradlaugh”

HP Blavatsky, when she co on in England, took of theenerous view She referred with h's work and to his Parliale, and spoke warain, in pointing out that spiritualistic trance orations by no means transcended speeches that made no such claim, I find her first reat faood Mrs Annie Besant--without believing in controlling spirits, or for that matter in her own spirit, yet speaks and writes such sensible and wise things, that we ht almost say that one of her speeches or chapters contains more matter to benefit humanity than would equip a modern trance-speaker for an entire oratorical career”[28] I have sometimes wondered of late years whether, had I s, I should have become her pupil I fear not; I was still too much dazzled by the triumphs of Western Science, too self-assertive, too fond of combat, too much at the mercy of my own emotions, too sensitive to praise and blame I needed to sound yet more deeply the depths of hureat Orphan,” Hue and of clearer light if I were to give effective help to man, ere I could bow my pride to crave admittance as pupil to the School of Occultism, ere I could put aside my prejudices and study the Science of the Soul