EARLY LECTURES AND DEBATES.
I do not know at what date or at what place my father delivered his
first provincial lectures, but the earliest of which I can find any
record occurred in January 1858, when on the 10th of that month he
delivered two lectures at Manchester, a town in which, as we shall
see later on, he was not altogether unknown, although in a totally
different capacity. In reading the little there is to read about these
early lecturing days I have been impressed with the fact that while
in London his lectures were favourably received, and he was evidently
gaining goodwill as he went from one hall to another, in the country he
seems to have touched the hearts and the feelings of his audiences for
or against him wherever he went. At these first Manchester lectures the
reporter writes: "His manly, earnest, and fearless style of advocacy
were much admired, and evidently produced a deep impression. Everybody
who heard him wished to hear him again." In the April following he
lectured in Sheffield, and from that time forward his visits to the
provinces were very frequent. Sheffield almost adopted him, and he went
there again and again; in 1858 and 1859 he went also to Newcastle,
Sunderland, Bradford, Northampton, Doncaster, Accrington, Blackburn,
Halifax, Bolton, and other towns, leaving a trail of excitement in his
wake wherever he went. The descriptions of his personal appearance and
the comments on his lectures at this time are more or less amusing.
The first I will note here shall be one from his own pen, written to
Mr Alfred Jackson in 1858, on the occasion of his earliest visit to
Sheffield. He says: "You ask me to tell you how you may know me. I am
6 ft. 1 in. in height, about twenty-five years of age, dress in dark
clothing, am of fair complexion, with only the ghost of a prospective
whisker."
In a brief account of his Sheffield lectures that year my father says
that when he reached the Temperance Hall a copy of the _Sheffield
Independent_ was put into his hands, in which the Rev. Brewin Grant
announced his intention to take no notice of him. But Mr Grant proved
to be of a rather fickle temper, for on the morning following this
first lecture "a small bill was printed and industriously circulated,
entitled 'Iconoclast clasted,' being a challenge to myself from this
very Brewin Grant who had previously determined not to notice me." On
the first night Mr Bradlaugh had "a perfect crowd of opponents;" on the
second he found that fresh troops had been levied against him. These
"were led to the fray by the Rev. Eustace Giles (a stout Dissenting
minister with a huge black bag). After the lecture this gentleman rose
to reply, and commenced by extracting from his bag three huge volumes
of Van der Hooght's Hebrew Bible, which he declared was the original
Word of God, and which he requested me to read aloud to the audience. I
complied by reading and translating a verse, to each word of which Mr
Giles and his coadjutors nodded approval."
Going to Newcastle in September, my father found that the description
of his personal appearance had so preceded him that the gentleman who
met him, Mr Mills, came "straight to me on the platform as though we
were old acquaintances instead of meeting for the first time." In
Newcastle he lectured twice in the Nelson Street Lecture Hall (which
has quite recently, I believe, been turned into a market), and was
fairly, if briefly, reported by the _Newcastle Daily Chronicle_. While
in the town he took the opportunity of listening to a lecture delivered
by "J. Cowen, jun.," as Mr Joseph Cowen was then styled.
From Newcastle he went to Sunderland, where a person who came from
the Rev. Mr Rees, a clergyman of that place, brought him a parody of
the Church service entitled "The Secularist's Catechism," which was
intended as some far-reaching and scathing sarcasm on the Secularist's
"creed," but which is really as pretty a piece of blasphemy as ever
issued from the pen of a Christian minister. Mr Bradlaugh tells how the
person who brought it "gave it to me in a fearful manner, keeping as
far away from me as possible, and evidently regarding me as a dangerous
animal; he backed towards the room door after putting the paper in
my hand, and seemed relieved in mind that I had not in some manner
personally assaulted him."
On his next visit to Sheffield, where he was announced to deliver
three lectures on three successive evenings, the walls were covered
with bills advising the people to keep away, and the clergy in church
and chapel publicly warned their congregations against attending the
lectures. In spite of all these precautions (or was it because of
them?) the lectures were a decided success, the audiences increasing
with each evening, until on the last evening "the large Temperance
Hall was full in every part, the applause was unanimous, and not one
opponent appeared." The visit of "Iconoclast" to Bradford produced a
great flutter in the clerical society of that town; and after he left
we hear that "almost every missionary and clerical speaker opened fire
upon him," and one sensitive gentleman wrote to the _Bradford Observer_
expressing his grief that the Teetotal Hall should be "prostituted" by
being let to the Freethought lecturer.
In his _Autobiography_ my father himself puts the date of his first
lecturing visit to Northampton as the year 1857, and this year is again
given in the little book issued as a _souvenir_ of the unveiling of the
statue of their late member by the Northampton Radical Association in
June 1894; but I am inclined to think that this is a mistake, that my
father's memory misled him a little, and, that he put the date a few
months too early. In any case, although I have made diligent inquiry,
the first lectures of which I can find any note took place on Sunday
and Monday, January 30th and 31st, 1859, in the large room of the
Woolpack Inn, Kingswell Street. On the Monday evening the chair was
taken by the late Mr Joseph Gurney, J.P., who, in company with his
old friend Mr Shipman, had already heard Mr Bradlaugh lecture at the
John Street Institution in London, and had been much impressed by the
ability and earnest eloquence of the young speaker. The people crowded
the street outside the Woolpack Inn for some time before the doors of
the lecture-room were open, and the room was packed in a few moments.
I wonder how many times after that did Mr Gurney preside at densely
packed meetings for Mr Bradlaugh! Mr Gurney himself subsequently
attained all the municipal honours Northampton could bestow upon her
deserving townsman, nominated Charles Bradlaugh seven out of eight
times that he contested the borough, and only did not nominate him on
the eighth occasion because his position as chief magistrate prevented
him.
In the following March it was arranged that my father should lecture
in the Guildhall, at Doncaster. Doncaster, with its reputation as a
race town, was also in those days the abode of the "unco' guid." Some
of the inhabitants appear to have been much put out at the proposed
lecture, and certain "Friends of Religion," as they called themselves,
issued a "Caution to the public, especially the religious portion,"
in which they, the "People of Doncaster," are entreated to give
"Iconoclast the extacy (_sic_) of gazing on the unpeopled interior of
the Guildhall." The "Friends of Religion" prefaced their entreaty by
announcing that "the juvenile destroyer of images" had been engaged as
a "grand speculation!" Presumably this "Caution" resulted in a famous
advertisement, for the _Doncaster Herald_ says that the Guildhall was
"crowded to excess," and in writing his account of the lecture, which
he says was a "frantic panegyric in honour of hell and a blasphemous
denunciation of heaven," the reporter to this journal seems to have
worked himself up into a fine frenzy. One can almost see him with his
tossed-back hair, his rolling eyes and gnashing teeth, as he hurled
these dynamitic words at the readers of the _Herald_:--
"There boldly, defiantly, recklessly--with the air of the dreadnought
bravo or the Alpine bandit--stood the creator's work [elsewhere styled
'clayformed ingrate'] toiling, sweating, labouring strenuously, to
heap slander upon his creator, and to convert into odious lies the
book by which that creator has made himself known to the world!...
Need we go further to express our more than disgust--our horror--at
the fact of a young and accomplished man standing forth in crowded
halls, and, while the beauteous moon marches aloft in the vast and
indefinable firmament, and the myriad of silvery stars shoot their
refulgent rays upon the desecrated lecture-room, actually telling
the people that no God lives! no Supreme hand fretted the brave
o'erhanging firmament with golden fire--no Jehovah made the wide
carpet of fair nature bespangled with laughing flowers--no God made
roaring seas and mighty rivers--no God revealed the Bible--no God made
man!"
One really needs to draw breath after all that: the lecture-room
lighted by star rays, the firmament fretted with golden fire, the
laughing flowers and roaring seas, must surely have carried conviction.
The _Doncaster Chronicle_, if more prosaic, is not the less hostile.
Its report thus describes the lecturer:--
"He is a tall, beardless, whiskerless young man, with a pale face,
and has rather a harmless and prepossessing appearance"--[compare the
_Herald's_ 'Alpine bandit!']--"certainly not the fierce individual we
had previously imagined him to be from the elements of destruction
indicated in his name--'the image breaker!' He is a person possessing
great fluency of speech, of ready wit, and the declamatory style of
his oratory is well calculated to excite and carry away a popular
audience."
And the _Chronicle_, in a vain endeavour to outvie its colleague in
choice epithets, winds up by styling the arguments of Atheists as "the
miserable sophistry of these 'filthy dreamers,'" the delicate wording
of which phrase would be hard for even a "coarse" Atheist to match,
and urges that "for the sake of the youth of our town, the municipal
authorities will not again lend the Guildhall for such an object." In
Sheffield Mr Bradlaugh was rapidly growing in popularity; lecturing
there again immediately after his Doncaster lecture, he had an audience
of 2000 persons to hear his address on "Has Man a Soul?"
Later in the year he was again in Doncaster, and this time the "Friends
of Religion" had succeeded so far in their endeavours that the Granby
Music Hall was refused, and it was rumoured that the lectures would
not be permitted. A temporary platform was however erected under the
roof of the Corn Market, and, in lieu of the electric light of to-day,
the lecturer was made dimly visible to his audience by means of a lamp
raised upon a pole. The audience was said to number about 4000, "the
hollow and partly arched roof of the Corn Market served as a sounding
board, and the tones of Iconoclast, whilst speaking, were distinctly
heard through the surrounding streets. Although the town was in a
state of considerable excitement, the meeting was on the whole very
orderly." It was a beautiful evening; and when the lecture was over
several hundred persons escorted "Iconoclast in a sort of triumphant
procession" to his lodgings. As this was not exactly in accordance with
the anticipations of the "Friends of Religion," my father was informed
by the Mayor that several magistrates had protested against the use
of the Corporate property (the Corn Market), which they had occupied
without the express permission of the Corporation, and in consequence
the lectures must be given elsewhere. Accordingly, a large open yard
near the market was obtained for that night; and although no fresh
announcement was made, the news rapidly spread throughout the town.
At half-past seven Mr Bradlaugh began to speak from a waggon. The
subject was that of the "History and Teaching of Jesus Christ," and the
audience, which increased every moment until it spread into the grounds
of the adjoining Corn Market, ultimately numbering between 7000 and
8000 persons, was very quiet and attentive. Missiles were thrown from
a neighbouring house, and fireworks also were thrown into the midst of
the assemblage; they were soon put out, but "one cracker was kept by
the lecturer and placed among other Christian evidences." On returning
from the meeting to his lodgings, "a large stone was thrown, which
partially stunned Iconoclast, and cut his head slightly."
In April he should have lectured at Accrington, but the proprietor of
the hall was a publican, and the clergy and magistrates of the town
had so worked upon his fears by threatening to refuse his license
at the next Sessions that he drew back from his agreement. No other
room was to be obtained; and as numbers of people had come from long
distances to hear my father, he got leave to address them from a
showman's waggon; but when the showman--notorious for his intemperance
all over the district--"found that Iconoclast approached spiritual
subjects less freely than himself," he, too, retracted his permission.
Not to waste his time altogether, however, Mr Bradlaugh attended a
meeting of the Accrington Mutual Improvement Society, at which, as it
happened, the subject of the essay for the evening was "Jesus Christ."
At Bolton the Concert Hall was engaged for his lectures on the 20th and
21st September; but when Mr Bradlaugh came from London to deliver the
lectures, he found the walls placarded with the announcement that the
lectures would not be permitted to take place. He brought an action
against the Bolton Concert Hall Company for £7 damages for breach of
contract, the £7 representing the expense to which he had been put.
The jury, however, after being absent a considerable time, gave a
verdict for the defendants. Needless to say that the closing of the
Concert Hall did not prevent Mr Bradlaugh from lecturing in Bolton.
Shortly afterwards the Unitarian Chapel, Moore Lane, was obtained, and
he delivered three lectures on successive evenings, instead of two, as
formerly announced.
At Halifax, in this year, his lectures produced the usual excitement.
The town missionary rushed into verse upon the subject of "Iconoclast
and the Devil," and issued his polite reflections in the form of
a handbill. The lectures also resulted in a set debate between
"Iconoclast" and the Rev. Mr. Matthias, which I shall notice later on.
The story goes that at one of my father's lectures Mr Matthias was
present, and wished to offer some opposition at the conclusion. His
friends sought to dissuade him, and even to hold him in his seat, but
the reverend gentleman was so much in earnest, and was so excited, that
he shook off the restraining hands, crying, "Unhand me, gentlemen. By
heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me."
In Glasgow, that autumn, Mr Bradlaugh was threatened with prosecution
for blasphemy, with the result that his lectures at the Eclectic
Institute were better attended than they had been before. A little
later the Procurator Fiscal informed him that the prosecution was in
his hands, and that "in the course of law" he would have to answer for
his offence in Glasgow "against the Holy Christian religion." I cannot
find that the matter was carried beyond this, however, so I suppose the
Glasgow pietists contented themselves with empty threats.
* * * * *
Although thus actively engaged in the provinces during 1858 and 1859,
my father by no means neglected work in London. He lectured at various
halls on theological and political subjects, and took part in more
general public work. In the spring of 1858 he was elected President
of the London Secular Society in the place of Mr G. J. Holyoake,
and those who know anything of his unremitting labours as President
of the National Secular Society will comprehend that he was no mere
figure-head, or President in name only. Amongst other things, he
immediately set about issuing a series of tracts for distribution, of
which he himself wrote the first.
On May 16th Mr Bradlaugh spoke at the John Street Institution at the
celebration of Robert Owen's 88th and last birthday, and a little thing
happened then which he was always proud to recall. It was Mr Robert
Cooper's custom to read Mr Owen's papers to the public for him; but on
this particular evening he was himself in ill-health; and had already
exhausted his strength in addressing the meeting. Mr Owen had prepared
a discourse on the "Origin of Evil," which Mr Cooper commenced to read
as usual; but he being unable to continue, it fell to my father's lot
to take up the reading. This was the last paper of Mr Owen's read in
public, and almost the last public appearance of the aged reformer, who
died on the 17th of the following November.
In the provinces there was often considerable difficulty in the matter
of hiring halls or in keeping the proprietor to his contract after the
hall had been hired, but in London there was either less intolerance
or more indifference, and the trouble arose less frequently. On one
occasion, however, in March 1859, when Mr Bradlaugh was to have
lectured in the Saint Martin's Hall on "Louis Napoleon," he recalls
in his _Autobiography_ that "the Government--on a remonstrance by
Count Walewski as to language used at a previous meeting, at which I
had presided for Dr Bernard--interfered; the hall was garrisoned by
police, and the lecture prevented. Mr Hullah, the then proprietor,
being indemnified by the authorities, paid damages for his breach of
contract, to avoid a suit which I at once commenced against him."
* * * * *
In the winter of 1858 my father became editor of the _Investigator_,
originally edited by Robert Cooper, and he was full of enthusiasm and
belief in his ability to make the little paper a success. It had at
that time a circulation of 1250, and he estimated that it needed twice
that number to enable it to pay its printing and publishing expenses.
He commenced his conduct of the paper by a statement of his policy,
and by a trenchant letter to Louis Napoleon. From the former I take
the opening and concluding words as giving his first editorial
utterance:[24]--
[Footnote 24: _Investigator_, November 1st, 1858, p. 124.]
"We are investigators, and our policy is to ascertain facts and present
them to our readers in clear and distinct language. If we find a mind
bound round with Creeds and Bibles, we will select a sharp knife to
cut the bonds; if we find men prostrating themselves, without inquiry,
before idols, our policy is iconoclastic--we will destroy those
idols. If we find a rock in our path, we will break it; but we will
not quarrel with our brother who deems his proper work to be that of
polishing the fragments. We believe all the religions of the world
are founded on error, in the ignorance of natural causes and material
conditions, and we deem it our duty to endeavour to expose their
falsity. Our policy is therefore aggressive. We are, at present, of
opinion that there is much to do in the mere clod-crushing sphere, in
uprooting upas trees, hewing down creed-erected barriers between man
and man, and generally in negating the influence of the priest. Our
policy is of a humble character; we are content to be axebearers and
pioneers, cutting down this obstacle and clearing away that. We respect
the sower who delights in the positive work of scattering seed on the
ground, but we fear that the weeds destroy much of the fruit of his
labours....
"There is no middle ground between Theism and Atheism. The genuineness
and authenticity of the Scriptures are questions relevant to
Secularism. It is as necessary for the Secularist to destroy Bible
influence as for the farmer to endeavour to eradicate the chickweed
from his clover field. We appeal to those who think our work fairly
done to aid us in our labours; to those who will not work with us we
simply say, do not hinder us.
"Our only wish and purpose is to make man happy, and this because in so
doing we increase our own happiness. The secret of true happiness and
wisdom lies in the consciousness that you are working to the fullest
of your ability to make your fellows happy and wise. Man can never be
happy until he is free; free in body and in mind; free in thought and
in utterance; free from crowns and creeds, from priest, from king; free
from the cramping customs created by the influences surrounding him,
and which have taught him to bow to a lord and frown upon a beggar.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! That true liberty, which infringes not
the freedom of my brother; that equality which recognises no noblemen
but the men of noble thoughts and noble deeds; that fraternity which
links the weak arm-in-arm with the strong, and, teaching humankind that
union is strength, compels them to fraternise, and links them together
in that true brotherhood for which we strive."
The second number of the _Investigator_ under his editorship is
interesting to-day, as containing his earliest printed views upon
"Oath-taking;" the third is also notable for its paper on "Emerson,"
the first article from the pen of "B. V." (James Thomson); and in the
fourth Mr W. E. Adams commenced his contributions. It is evident that
my father spared no effort to make the paper "undoubtedly useful," as
he put it; but in spite of all his energy and his able contributors
the _Investigator_ did not pay its way. In April, too, he fell ill
from a very severe attack of rheumatic fever, and was laid up for many
weeks; so that at length, "being unable to sustain any longer the
severe pecuniary burden cast upon him, and not wishing to fill his
pages with appeals for charitable assistance," the journal was, with
much regret, discontinued in August 1859. In the final number he pens
a few "last words," which are worth the reading, and in which he says
that his reason for the discontinuance is very simple--"I am poor"--and
in a rarely despondent mood he bids his readers "farewell," as he may
perchance never address them again.
* * * * *
Delivering Freethought lectures and editing a Freethought journal
undoubtedly absorbed much of Mr Bradlaugh's time, but these occupations
engrossing as they were did not make him unmindful of his duties as
a good citizen, and he was always taking some part or other in the
political movements going on around him. At a meeting held in the
Cowper Street Schoolroom in November 1858, to advocate the principles
of the Political Reform League, at which the League was represented by
Mr Passmore Edwards and Mr Swan, and the Chartists by Ernest Jones, Mr
Bradlaugh is reported as seconding a resolution in an "earnest, lucid,
and eloquent manner," and as having "enforced the duty of every man
to preserve the public rights, by unitedly demanding and steadfastly,
peaceably, and determinedly persevering to obtain that position of
equality in the State to which they were as men entitled;" now, as
always hereafter, urging the _peaceful_ demand of constitutional
rights: a point I am anxious to lay stress upon, as this is the time
when some of my father's later critics assert that he was rude, coarse,
and, above all, violent.
The chairman of the meeting, who was also the churchwarden of
Shoreditch, and a man apparently much respected, at the close quaintly
said "he had not met that young man (Mr Bradlaugh) before that night,
but he was most highly pleased to find in him such an able advocate of
principle; he hoped he would be as good and faithful an advocate when
he became old."
On the first Sunday in March 1859, the working men of London held a
great meeting in Hyde Park to protest against the Government Reform
Bill. They were very much in earnest, and although the time for the
speaking was fixed for three o'clock in the afternoon, long before
that hour the Park was thronged with people. About half-past two a man
was hoisted on the shoulders of two others, and was greatly cheered
by the crowd, who thought this was the opening of the proceedings.
When, however, the person so elevated proclaimed to his listening
auditors that "those who dared to take part in a political meeting on
the Sabbath would be grossly offending the Almighty," the cheering was
changed to uproar and confusion, which only the advent of the real
chairman sufficed to calm. The _Times_ says that after the meeting had
been duly opened, "Mr Bradlaugh, a young man well known in democratic
circles, came forward and addressed the meeting." The report which
follows is probably the first vouchsafed to Charles Bradlaugh by the
great daily; and, judging from the number of "Cheers" and "Hear,
hears," and even "Loud cheers" that the reporter managed to include in
his score of lines of report, it was much more generous to him in '59
than at any later period. This meeting, like so many of its kind, and
like the great majority of those with which my father was concerned,
was remarkable for its orderliness; there was no police interference
at any of the groups (several meetings were held simultaneously), and
there was hardly a constable visible. On the Friday following, the
11th, a meeting was held at the Guildhall "to consider the measure
of Parliamentary Reform introduced by the Ministry." The chair was
taken by the Lord Mayor, and the speakers included Baron Rothschild,
one of the three members for the City, Samuel Morley, P. A. Taylor,
and Serjeant Parry. Ernest Jones, who rose to move an amendment,
was refused a hearing--under a misapprehension, it is said. When
Baron Rothschild began to speak he was considerably interrupted.
"Loud calls," said the _Times_ on the following day (when it was a
trifle less polite than on the previous Monday), "were also raised
for 'Bradlaugh'--a youthful orator who seemed a great favourite with
the noisier Democrats." The poor Lord Mayor vainly tried to restore
order, but louder grew the tumult and "more deafening" the calls for
"Bradlaugh." Baron Rothschild was at length obliged to limit his speech
to "I beg to second the motion;" and even these few words were only
audible to those within two or three yards of him. When the meeting was
drawing to a close, and the usual vote of thanks to the chair had been
proposed--
* * * * *
"The Lord Mayor acknowledged the compliment, at the same time
expressing his deep regret that persons should have come to the hall
bent on creating a disturbance. At this juncture a young man, with
fair hair and thin but intelligent features, was seen gesticulating
vehemently at the extreme end of the platform, to which he had worked
his way unobserved amid the general confusion. His name, it appeared,
is Bradlaugh, and his object evidently was to gratify his admirers
by delivering an harangue. His words were, however, drowned by the
conflicting clamour from the body of the hall. The Lord Mayor seemed
to beckon him to the rostrum, as though his claim to speak were to be
allowed; but a minute or two of indescribable confusion intervening,
his Lordship came forward and then declared the meeting to be
dissolved. This announcement had hardly been made when Mr Bradlaugh
reached the part of the platform for which he had been struggling. His
triumph was, however, very short lived. In an instant the Lord Mayor,
though having one of his arms in a sling, was upon the refractory
Chartist leader, and collared him with the energy and resolution of
a Sir William Walworth. Two of the city officers promptly seconding
his Lordship's assertion of his authority, Mr Bradlaugh was dragged
forcibly to the back of the platform, and fell in the scuffle. All
this was but the work of a moment, yet the uproar which it provoked
continued after every occupant of the platform had retired. The
undaunted orator found his way to the body of the hall unhurt, where
he addressed such portions of the crowd as had not dispersed in
frantic and excited eloquence. A considerable time elapsed before
the building was cleared, during which Anarchy and Bradlaugh had
undisputed possession of the scene."
How much of fact and how much of fiction there is in this lively
account the _Times_ only knoweth. The idea that a "Sir William
Walworth" with one arm in a sling could "collar" a man of my father's
herculean strength is sufficiently ridiculous. I myself saw him as late
as 1877 at a stormy meeting take two unruly medical students in one
hand and one in the other, and force them down the hall to the door,
where he cast them out. His resistance to his fourteen assailants on
August 3rd, 1881, is historic. It is hardly probable that a man who
could do these things when he had passed the fulness of his strength
would, when in the height of his vigour, have tamely submitted to be
"collared" by a one-armed man and then dragged back and thrown to the
ground by two "city officers;" and all "the work of a moment!"
Gatherings opposing the Government Reform Bill were held in different
parts of London and the country; and Mr Joseph Cowen, himself President
of the Northern Reform Union, writing to a friend in reference to them,
on the 16th March, says incidentally: "Bradlaugh is a clever young
fellow--full of vigour and daring--and is altogether a likely man to go
ahead if he has any backing."
Considering the limited time at his disposal, there is really a
tremendous record of public work for these two years, 1858 and 1859;
for in addition to that which I have already mentioned, my father held
several debates, some of them continuing for three or four nights in
succession. He had his first formal encounter in June 1858. Prior to
this, he had gained a little practice in discussing with the numerous
opponents who used to rise after his lectures; then there was the
more extended, but apparently informal, debate with Mr Douglas, to
which I referred some time ago; and also, in the early part of 1858,
Mr Bradlaugh seems to have arranged to speak at considerable length
in opposition to the lectures given by Thomas Cooper in the Hall of
Science, City Road; but the brief notices of these which appeared
do not enable one to form any opinion, beyond remarking a decided
irritability on the part of Mr Cooper, who permitted himself to use
distinctly unparliamentary language. The first formally arranged
debate in which he took part was a four nights' discussion with the
Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., then a dissenting minister at Sheffield, and
was held in that town on the 7th, 8th, 14th, and 15th June. In 1873
my father, writing of this occasion, said: "Mr Grant was then a man
of some ability, and, if he could have forgotten his aptitudes as a
circus jester, would have been a redoubtable antagonist." The audiences
were very large; the numbers of persons present on the different
nights ranged from eleven to sixteen hundred; and, considering the
heat of the weather and the still greater heat of the discussion, my
father's testimony is that they "behaved bravely." Writing shortly
afterwards, he says: "The chairmen (both chosen by Mr Grant) behaved
most courteously to me, and, in fact, the only disputed point of order
was decided in my favour." He seems to have been particularly impressed
by Alderman H. Hoole, the Chairman for the first two nights, who by an
act of kindly courtesy quite outside the debate, showed that the gibes
and sneers in which Mr Grant so freely indulged had little weight even
with his own friends.
A friend in Sheffield has lent me the report of the discussion, printed
at the time by Mr Leader of the _Sheffield Independent_, and which both
disputants agreed was a very fair representation of what was said.
According to the arranged terms, Mr Bradlaugh led the first night, and
the Rev. Brewin Grant on each succeeding evening. The proposition to
be affirmed by "Iconoclast" on the first evening was: "The God of the
Bible, revengeful, inconstant, unmerciful, and unjust. His attributes
proven to be contradicted by the book which is professed to reveal
them." His opening speech was made in clear, concise language, was
directly to the point, and was listened to with the utmost attention.
He drew the picture of the Deity who, reviewing his creation,
pronounced everything that he had made "very good" (Gen. i. 31); "yet
in a short period the same Deity looks round and declares that man
is so bad that he repented that he had made man on the earth, and it
grieved him at his heart [Gen. vi. 6]; and in consequence God, to
relieve himself from this source of grief, determined to destroy every
living thing, and he did destroy them by deluge, for it repented him
that he had made them, because man was so very wicked." He dwelt upon
this at some length; then passed on to the selection of Noah and his
family, "part of the old stock of mankind having personal acquaintance
with all pre-existing evil," to re-people the earth; and concluded
his first half-hour by asking where was the love, where the justice
towards the Amalek, against whom "the Lord hath sworn" to have war
"from generation to generation"? It was now the turn of the Rev. Brewin
Grant to reply to this terrible indictment against the Deity whose
professed servant he was; and it is interesting to mark the manner in
which he set about his task. He commenced by unburdening himself of
a few minor personalities against my father, and when a few of these
petty sneers--the only possible object of which could be to provoke ill
feeling--were off his mind, he indulged his overwhelming passion for
raising a laugh. For this he made an opportunity in dealing with the
causes which led to "the Flood," asking whether "Iconoclast imagines
that, because God knew of these sins before they were committed, he
should have drowned men before they were created." This, of course,
provoked the desired merriment, and, temporarily satisfied, Mr Grant
proceeded to his argument with acuteness and ability. Unfortunately,
his peculiar temperament would not allow him to keep this up for
very long; and while still in his first half-hour speech he drew a
comparison of God's repentance with that of a merchant who repents him
of engaging a certain clerk, and made the merchant say, "Wherein can
you find fault? Am I a Secularist that I should lie, or an infidel
committee-man that I should violate a ratified agreement?" "Iconoclast"
is once more taunted with blindness and ignorance; and "infidels" with
amusing "auditors in holes of progress;" and so the reverend (never
was a title more meaningless) gentleman's speech came to a conclusion.
It would have been small wonder if a young, hotly enthusiastic man
as my father then was, had been roused to angry retaliation, and so
turned aside from the real points in dispute; but he did not so soon
lose the coolness with which he had started. He made a few short
answers to the personalities, and proceeded at once to deal with the
arguments urged by Mr Grant; and, these disposed of, continued to
build up his own position. The greater part of Brewin Grant's next
speech was argumentative, but not all; he made an opportunity to tell
his antagonist that his strength lay "not in his logic, but in his
lungs;" that one of his objections was "too foolish," but he (Grant)
"condescended to notice it;" and further, that "no class of men with
which I am acquainted has had all honesty so thoroughly eaten out by
trickery and falsehood as the infidel class." The next quarter of an
hour fell to my father, who hardly noticed Mr Grant's gibes; but when
the latter made his speech, the final one of the evening, he still
interlarded it with innuendoes against the "infidel." The propositions
affirmed by Mr Grant on the succeeding nights were shortly as follows:
The Creation story consistent with itself and with science; the Deluge
story consistent with itself and physically possible; and finally,
"Iconoclast" as a commentator on the Bible, "deficient in learning,
logic, and fairness." But the story of the first night was merely
repeated on the later evenings; as feeling grew a little warmer,
or there was something more than usually offensive in Mr Grant's
personalities, Mr Bradlaugh was once or twice evidently roused to
anger; but after reading the debate I only wonder that he had the
patience to carry it through to the end.
I have dwelt upon this debate much longer, as I am well aware, than it
really deserves; but I have done so for two reasons: (1) That being
the first set debate, formally arranged and fairly reported, it should
have a special interest, inasmuch as we should expect it to show to a
certain extent the measure of Mr Bradlaugh's debating powers at the age
of twenty-six; and (2) because the idea has been so diligently spread
abroad, and possibly received with credence by those who were not
personally acquainted with either disputant, that Mr Bradlaugh found in
the Rev. Brewin Grant a powerful opponent. By my father's testimony,
Mr Grant was a man of ability; by his own--as shown by quotations I
have here given--he was an unscrupulous slanderer. He had a power,
it is true, and that power consisted in his willingness to weary and
disgust his antagonist and his audience (friends as well as foes) by
low jests and scandalous personalities. In the course of this debate he
scornfully told his audience that he was not speaking to them but to
the thousands outside: by those thousands, if perchance he has so many
readers, will he be judged and condemned.
In March 1859 a debate between Mr Bradlaugh and Mr John Bowes was
arranged at Northampton. My father describes Mr Bowes as "a rather
heavy but well-meaning old gentleman, utterly unfitted for platform
controversy." The _Northampton Herald_, which professed to give an
"outline" of this debate, announced that the "mighty champion" of the
Secularists was "a young man of the name of Bradlaugh, who endeavoured
to impose upon the credulity of the multitude by arrogating to himself
the high-sounding title of 'Iconoclast.'" Mr John Bowes the _Herald_
put forward as a "gentleman well known for his contests with the
Socialists and the Mormonites." The _Herald's_ outline-report was
reprinted in the _Investigator_, with a few additions in parentheses;
but a note is appended that it is very imperfect, and my father having
by this time fallen ill with rheumatic fever, he was unable to revise
it. There is just one passage in Mr Bradlaugh's opening speech which is
given fairly fully, and which it is desirable to repeat here, for in it
he lays down his position as an Atheist, a position to which he adhered
until his last hour.
"He did not deny that there was 'a God,' because to deny that which was
unknown was as absurd as to affirm it. As an Atheist he denied the God
of the Bible, of the Koran, of the Vedas, but he could not deny that of
which he had no knowledge."
This statement Mr Bradlaugh made, in varying words, over and over
again, and yet over and over again religious writers and speakers have
described, and probably they always will describe, the Atheist as "one
who denies God."
In the years 1859 and 1860, despite the fact that in the former year
he lay for many weeks very seriously ill, discussions, as he himself
says, grew on him "thick and fast." "At Sheffield I debated with a
Reverend Dr Mensor, who styled himself a Jewish Rabbi. He was then in
the process of gaining admission to the Church of England, and had
been put forward to show my want of scholarship. We both scrawled
Hebrew characters for four nights on a black board, to the delight
and mystification of the audience, who gave me credit for erudition
because I chalked the square letter characters with tolerable rapidity
and clearness. At Glasgow I debated with a Mr Court, representing the
Glasgow Protestant Association, a glib-tongued missionary, who has
since gone to the bad; at Paisley with a Mr Smart, a very gentlemanly
antagonist; and at Halifax with the Rev. T. D. Matthias, a Welsh
Baptist minister, unquestionably very sincere."
I have not been able to get a report of the debate with Dr Mensor, and
indeed I do not think one was ever printed. The discussion with the
Rev. T. D. Matthias was for many years on sale with other Freethought
publications, and has doubtless been read by many. The subject of the
debate was "The Credibility and Morality of the Four Gospels," and
it was continued for five successive nights--October 31st, November
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 1859. It grew, as we have already seen, out of
lectures delivered in Halifax by Mr Bradlaugh, and was with one or two
exceptions conducted with such calmness, courtesy, and good feeling,
that at the conclusion each gentleman expressed his appreciation of
the other. The Court debate was not held until 1860, and was a four
nights' debate, terminating on March 20. The use of the City Hall was
refused on the ground "that such meetings tend to riot and disorder,"
and the discussions were therefore held in the Trades' Hall, which
on each evening was crowded to the door. The chair was taken by the
late Alexander Campbell, whom Mr Bradlaugh speaks of as "a generous,
kindly-hearted old Socialist missionary, who, at a time when others
were hostile, spoke encouragingly to me, and afterwards worked with
me for a long time on the _National Reformer_." Mr Campbell edited
the _Glasgow Sentinel_, and in the issue of March 17, 1860, there is
an allusion to the debate then being carried on between "Iconoclast"
and Mr Court, of "The Protestant Layman's Association." Says the
_Sentinel_, "Few Scottish clergymen are fit for the platform. The
pulpit, indeed, unfits for logical debate, but the Protestant
community ought to feel well pleased that in Mr Court ... they have
a skillful and redoubtable champion of Christianity." The _Glasgow
Daily Bulletin_, giving a few words to the final night, says that "the
speaking during the evening was excellent and occasionally excited, but
the conduct of the audience was orderly in the extreme. Mr Bradlaugh
was animated and forcible, and exhibited many of the traits of a
great speaker. Mr Court's university career is evidently polishing and
improving him." The audience passed a resolution of censure upon the
authorities who refused the City Hall, regarding it as involving a
slander upon the community of Glasgow. A friend, after much searching,
came across and sent to me a fragment of the published debate; but as
it contains only one complete speech from each disputant and parts
of two others, one cannot say much about it. Mr Court seems to have
been unusually smart, and the _Daily Bulletin's_ reference to his
"university career" accounts for the numerous literary quotations which
adorned his speech.
The _Paisley Journal_ gives a short notice of the debate with Mr John
Smart of the Neilson Institute, which was held for two successive
nights in the Paisley Exchange Rooms in March 1860. Speaking of the
first night's audience, it says it "was the largest we ever saw in the
Exchange Rooms, the whole area, gallery, and passages being crowded;"
on the second night the audience was estimated at between 1100 and
1200. The discussion for the first night was upon the four Gospels; and
the editor remarks: "Of course, there will be differences of opinion
as to which of the debaters had the best of the argument; but those
who could clear their minds of partisanship will perhaps be of opinion
that Mr Bradlaugh's speeches displayed boldness and vigour, with great
information on the subjects at issue; that Mr Smart showed himself as
an accomplished scholar, with a mass of knowledge ever ready to bring
up in illustration of his views; and that each had a foeman worthy of
his steel." The subject for the second night was a consideration of
the teachings of Christ. The _Journal_ thought that "both speakers
brought their best arguments and greatest powers of intellect into the
subject." Mr Bradlaugh enforced his objections "in powerful voice and
vigorous language, and with telling effect. In his own quiet scholarly
way--closely, tersely, and clearly, Mr Smart took up most of the
objections and discussed them _seriatim_." It will be seen that the
_Paisley Journal_, at least, tried to clear its mind of "partisanship,"
and to hold the scales evenly.