CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
During all these months the intellectual life had not stood still; I
was slowly, cautiously feeling my way onward. And in the intellectual
and social side of my life I found a delight unknown in the old days
of bondage. First, there was the joy of freedom, the joy of speaking
out frankly and honestly each thought. Truly, I had a right to say:
"With a great price obtained I this freedom," and having paid the
price, I revelled in the liberty I had bought. Mr. Scott's valuable
library was at my service; his keen brain challenged my opinions,
probed my assertions, and suggested phases of thought hitherto
untouched. I studied harder than ever, and the study now was unchecked
by any fear of possible consequences. 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 a God at all He must be at least as good
as His highest creature," began with an "if," and to that "if" I
turned my attention. "Of all impossible things," writes Miss Frances
Power Cobbe, "the most impossible must surely 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 less noble than he had
dreamed." But, I questioned, are we sure that there is a Creator?
Granted that, if there is, He must be above His highest creature,
but--is there such a being? "The ground," says the Rev. Charles
Voysey, "on which our belief in God rests is man. Man, parent of
Bibles and Churches, inspirer of all good thoughts and good deeds.
Man, the masterpiece of God's thought on earth. Man, the text-book of
all spiritual knowledge. Neither miraculous nor infallible, man is
nevertheless the only trustworthy record of the Divine mind in things
pertaining to God. Man's reason, conscience, and affections are the
only true revelation of his Maker." But what if God were only man's
own image reflected in the mirror of man's mind? What if man were the
creator, not the revelation of his God?
It was inevitable that such thoughts should arise after the more
palpably indefensible doctrines of Christianity had been discarded.
Once encourage the human mind to think, and bounds to the thinking can
never again be set by authority. Once challenge traditional beliefs,
and the challenge will ring on every shield which is hanging in the
intellectual arena. Around me was the atmosphere of conflict, and,
freed from its long repression, my mind leapt up to share in the
strife with a joy in the intellectual tumult, the intellectual strain.
I often attended South Place Chapel, where Moncure D. Conway was then
preaching, and discussion with him did something towards widening my
views on the deeper religious problems; I re-read Dean Mansel's
"Bampton Lectures," and they did much towards turning me in the
direction of Atheism; I re-read Mill's "Examination of Sir William
Hamilton's Philosophy," and studied carefully Comte's "Philosophie
Positive." Gradually I recognised the limitations of human intelligence
and its incapacity for understanding the nature of God, presented as
infinite and absolute; I had given up the use of prayer as a
blasphemous absurdity, since an all-wise God could not need my
suggestions, nor an all-good God require my promptings. But God fades
out of the daily life of those who never pray; a personal God who is
not a Providence is a superfluity; when from the heaven does not smile
a listening Father, it soon becomes an empty space, whence resounds no
echo of man's cry. I could then reach no loftier conception of the
Divine than that offered by the orthodox, and that broke hopelessly
away as I analysed it.
At last I said to Mr. Scott, "Mr. Scott, may I write a tract on the
nature and existence of God?"
He glanced at me keenly. "Ah, little lady, you are facing, then, that
problem at last? I thought it must come. Write away."
While this pamphlet was in MS. an event occurred which coloured all my
succeeding life. I met Charles Bradlaugh. One day in the late spring,
talking with Mrs. Conway--one of the sweetest and steadiest natures
whom it has been my lot to meet, and to whom, as to her husband, I owe
much for kindness generously shown when I was poor and had but few
friends--she asked me if I had been to the Hall of Science, Old
Street. I answered, with the stupid, ignorant reflection of other
people's prejudices so sadly common, "No, I have never been there. 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,"
she answered, "except, perhaps, John Bright, and his power over a
crowd is something marvellous. Whether you agree with him or not, you
should hear him."
In the following July I went into the shop of Mr. Edward Truelove,
256, High Holborn, in search of some Comtist publications, having come
across his name as a publisher in the course of my study at the
British Museum. On the counter was a copy of the _National Reformer_,
and, attracted by the title, I bought it. I read it placidly in the
omnibus on my way to Victoria Station, and found it excellent, and was
sent into convulsions of inward merriment when, glancing up, I saw an
old gentleman gazing at me, with horror speaking from every line of
his countenance. To see a young woman, respectably dressed in crape,
reading an Atheistic journal, had evidently upset his peace of mind,
and he looked so hard at the paper that I was tempted to offer it to
him, but repressed the mischievous inclination.
This first copy of the paper with which I was to be so closely
connected bore date July 19, 1874, and contained two long letters from
a Mr. Arnold of Northampton, attacking Mr. Bradlaugh, and a brief and
singularly self-restrained answer from the latter. There was also an
article on the National Secular Society, which made me aware that
there was an organisation devoted to the propagandism of Free Thought.
I felt that if such a society existed, I ought to belong to it, and I
consequently wrote a short note to the editor of the _National
Reformer_, asking whether it was necessary for a person to profess
Atheism before being admitted to the Society. The answer appeared in
the _National Reformer_:--
"S.E.--To be a member of the National Secular Society it is only
necessary to be able honestly to accept the four principles, as given
in the _National Reformer_ of June 14th. This any person may do
without being required to avow himself an Atheist. Candidly, we can
see no logical resting-place between the entire acceptance of
authority, as in the Roman Catholic Church, and the most extreme
Rationalism. If, on again looking to the Principles of the Society,
you can accept them, we repeat to you our invitation."
I sent my name in as an active member, and find it is recorded in the
_National Reformer_ of August 9th. Having received an intimation that
Londoners could receive their certificates at the Hall of Science from
Mr. Bradlaugh on any Sunday evening, I betook myself thither, and it
was on August 2, 1874, that I first set foot in a Freethought hall.
The Hall was crowded to suffocation, and, at the very moment announced
for the lecture, a roar of cheering burst forth, a tall figure passed
swiftly up the Hall to the platform, and, with a slight bow in answer
to the voluminous greeting, Charles Bradlaugh took his seat. I looked
at him with interest, impressed and surprised. The grave, quiet,
stern, strong face, the massive head, the keen eyes, the magnificent
breadth and height of forehead--was this the man I had heard described
as a blatant agitator, an ignorant demagogue?
He began quietly and simply, tracing out the resemblances between the
Krishna and the Christ myths, and as he went from point to point his
voice grew in force and resonance, till it rang round the hall like a
trumpet. Familiar with the subject, I could test the value of his
treatment of it, and saw that his knowledge was as sound as his
language was splendid. Eloquence, fire, sarcasm, pathos, passion, all
in turn were bent against Christian superstition, till the great
audience, carried away by the torrent of the orator's force, hung
silent, breathing soft, as he went on, till the silence that followed
a magnificent peroration broke the spell, and a hurricane of cheers
relieved the tension.
He came down the Hall with some certificates in his hand, glanced
round, and handed me mine with a questioning "Mrs. Besant?" Then he
said, referring to my question as to a profession of Atheism, that he
would willingly talk over the subject of Atheism with me if I would
make an appointment, and offered me a book he had been using in his
lecture. Long afterwards I asked him how he knew me, whom he had never
seen, that he came straight to me in such fashion. He laughed and said
he did not know, but, glancing over the faces, he felt sure that I was
Annie Besant.
From that first meeting in the Hall of Science dated a friendship that
lasted unbroken till Death severed the earthly bond, and that to me
stretches through Death's gateway and links us together still. As
friends, not as strangers, we met--swift recognition, as it were,
leaping from eye to eye; and I know now that the instinctive
friendliness was in very truth an outgrowth of strong friendship in
other lives, and that on that August day we took up again an ancient
tie, we did not begin a new one. And so in lives to come we shall meet
again, and help each other as we helped each other in this. And let me
here place on record, as I have done before, some word of what I owe
him for his true friendship; though, indeed, how great is my debt to
him I can never tell. Some of his wise phrases have ever remained in
my memory. "You should never say you have an opinion on a subject
until you have tried to study the strongest things said against the
view to which you are inclined." "You must not think you know a
subject until you are acquainted with all that the best minds have
said about it." "No steady work can be done in public unless the
worker study at home far more than he talks outside." "Be your own
harshest judge, listen to your own speech and criticise it; read abuse
of yourself and see what grains of truth are in it." "Do not waste
time by reading opinions that are mere echoes of your own; read
opinions you disagree with, and you will catch aspects of truth you do
not readily see." Through our long comradeship he was my sternest as
well as gentlest critic, pointing out to me that in a party like ours,
where our own education and knowledge were above those whom we led, it
was very easy to gain indiscriminate praise and unstinted admiration;
on the other hand, we received from Christians equally indiscriminate
abuse and hatred. It was, therefore, needful that we should be our own
harshest judges, and that we should be sure that we knew thoroughly
every subject that we taught. He saved me from the superficiality that
my "fatal facility" of speech might so easily have induced; and when I
began to taste the intoxication of easily won applause, his criticism
of weak points, his challenge of weak arguments, his trained judgment,
were of priceless service to me, and what of value there is in my work
is very largely due to his influence, which at once stimulated and
restrained.
One very charming characteristic of his was his extreme courtesy in
private life, especially to women. This outward polish, which sat so
gracefully on his massive frame and stately presence, was foreign
rather than English--for the English, as a rule, save such as go to
Court, are a singularly unpolished people--and it gave his manner a
peculiar charm. I asked him once where he had learned his gracious
fashions that were so un-English--he would stand with uplifted hat as
he asked a question of a maidservant, or handed a woman into a
carriage--and he answered, with a half-smile, half-scoff, that it was
only in England he was an outcast from society. In France, in Spain,
in Italy, he was always welcomed among men and women of the highest
social rank, and he supposed that he had unconsciously caught the
foreign tricks of manner. Moreover, he was absolutely indifferent to
all questions of social position; peer or artisan, it was to him
exactly the same; he never seemed conscious of the distinctions of
which men make so much.
Our first conversation, after the meeting at the Hall of Science, took
place a day or two later in his little study in 29, Turner Street,
Commercial Road, a wee room overflowing with books, in which he looked
singularly out of place. Later I learned that he had failed in
business in consequence of Christian persecution, and, resolute to
avoid bankruptcy, he had sold everything he possessed, save his books,
had sent his wife and daughters to live in the country with his
father-in-law, had taken two tiny rooms in Turner Street, where he
could live for a mere trifle, and had bent himself to the task of
paying off the liabilities he had incurred--incurred in consequence of
his battling for political and religious liberty. I took with me my
MS. essay "On the Nature and Existence of God," and it served as the
basis for our conversation; we found there was little difference in
our views. "You have thought yourself into Atheism without knowing
it," he said, and all that I changed in the essay was the correction
of the vulgar error that the Atheist says "there is no God," by the
insertion of a passage disclaiming this position from an essay pointed
out to me by Mr. Bradlaugh. And at this stage of my life-story, it is
necessary to put very clearly the position I took up and held so many
years as Atheist, because otherwise the further evolution into
Theosophist will be wholly incomprehensible. It will lead me into
metaphysics, and to some readers these are dry, but if any one would
understand the evolution of a Soul he must be willing to face the
questions which the Soul faces in its growth. And the position of the
philosophic Atheist is so misunderstood that it is the more necessary
to put it plainly, and Theosophists, at least, in reading it, will see
how Theosophy stepped in finally as a further evolution towards
knowledge, rendering rational, and therefore acceptable, the loftiest
spirituality that the human mind can as yet conceive.
In order that I may not colour my past thinkings by my present
thought, I take my statements from pamphlets written when I adopted
the Atheistic philosophy and while I continued an adherent thereof. No
charge can then be made that I have softened my old opinions for the
sake of reconciling them with those now held.