“λαμπάδια ἔχοντες, διαδώσονσιυ ἀλλήλοις.”
“They, bearing torches, will pass them on from hand to hand.”
PLATO, _Repub._, 328.
Our appeal, we decided, must be made to the Nation. Letters had
previously been written by us during the autumn of 1869 to every member
of both Houses of Parliament, and to many leading men, lay and
ecclesiastical. To all these letters we received only some half-dozen
responses which were at all sympathetic. We received others which
contained only a strong denunciation of my own and other women’s action
in the matter. These latter came in some cases from highly esteemed
dignitaries in Church and State, several of whom, I am grateful to
acknowledge, wrote to me some years afterwards in a wholly different
tone.
Having received so little encouragement from the persons whom we had
vainly imagined would have taken an interest in the question, we turned
to the working populations of the Kingdom. Here our reception was wholly
different. I am well aware that the working classes have their faults,
and that neither they nor any other class of men are wholly free from
the taint of egotism ; but of one thing I am profoundly convinced, and
that is, that when an appeal is made to the people in the name of
justice, they will in general respond in the truest and most loyal
manner. Though I had always had confidence in the good sense of the
working classes, I was, nevertheless, often surprised to find how
readily they were carried up to the highest standard in judging of a
moral question, and how almost universally they acknowledged the
authority of the ethical truths which we endeavoured to put before them.
At times I recollect purposely placing the question on so high a level
that I doubted whether the mass of humble people before me would fully
apprehend and respond to an appeal based upon motives so lofty.
Sometimes a few moments of profound silence would follow such an appeal,
and then there would arise that grateful and inspiring sound of the
voice of the multitude, deliberately, intelligently and enthusiastically
accepting and endorsing the thought which had been presented to them.
Starting from Liverpool with my husband’s benediction sounding in my
ears, I went first to Crewe, and addressed a meeting prepared in advance
by our friend Professor Stuart, of Cambridge, consisting of railway
workmen, engine-makers and boiler-fitters. They perfectly understood the
message, and acted upon it with intelligence. From there I went
(January, 1870) to Leeds, Newcastle, Sunderland, Darlington, and other
places, and shortly afterwards a series of visits was paid to Birmingham
and other towns of the Midland district. Everywhere the working men
themselves organised meetings, writing or telegraphing in advance to
friends and acquaintances in other localities to be prepared to give
their verdict upon a very urgent question. The meetings were followed by
prompt organisation for action, headed in most cases by leading working
men. In Leeds, the Trades Union and other leaders worked valiantly with
Mr. Algernon Challis at their head, whose ardour and self-sacrifice in
this cause deserve to be specially mentioned; and in Newcastle, Lord
Armstrong’s and Mr. Hawthorne’s men, engaged in the engineering works on
Tyneside, supported us strongly. In Birmingham a very complete working
men’s organization was at once formed, an example followed some time
after by Sheffield, Liverpool, and other towns. Petitions were poured in
upon Parliament, and at bye-elections the candidates were severely
questioned by the working men electors. Such was the effect produced by
this movement in the Northern and Midland counties, followed by the
lessons of the Colchester Election, that the Government felt obliged to
move in the matter. It moved in the direction in which Governments
generally move when a question is raised by the people on which the
members of the Government themselves have little knowledge and less
conviction—they appointed a Commission to consider it. We did not accept
the proposal of a Commission at all gratefully, for we felt that
although Royal Commissions and Parliamentary Committees are useful, or
necessary, in regard to some subjects, the cause we had in hand could
not be served, or usefully treated, by a Commission. Great principles
cannot be modified by any assembly, even of the wisest men, sitting to
consider them. The people had very largely already pronounced their
verdict on the principles of Justice, Equality, and Morality involved in
our question.
The Abolitionist associations, in presenting a united protest to
Government against the appointment of a Commission gave as one of their
motives the following:—
“Because we maintain that the great principles which have hitherto
protected the freedom, the honour, and the bodily safety of
Englishwomen, as well as Englishmen, from the tyrannical control of the
Executive, ought not to be referred for discussion to any irresponsible
and delegated body: least of all to a Royal Commission. They must be
vindicated as axioms, not debated as doubtful questions, and on the
floor of Parliament itself, where every word may be heard by the
nation.”
There was no unanimous conclusion arrived at by the Commission. They
produced a Majority Report, which pronounced itself hostile to us, at
the same time that it condemned the compulsory treatment of the persons
of women, which is the centre and core of the whole system of State
Regulation of vice. There was a Minority Report, in our favour; while
several of the members of the Commission personally recorded their
opinion, apart from, or in addition to either of the Reports.[1]
Generally speaking, the evidence given by our opponents served our cause
in after years as well as, or better than, anything said by our friends.
It may not be uninteresting to recall the varied character of some of
the meetings which were constantly held throughout the country during
the first two or three years of our movement. The denial to us of
publicity in the press made it of urgent necessity that we should
continually address the public in other ways. I will mention briefly one
or two of the meetings of those first years which stand out most
prominently in my memory. After several large gatherings in Leeds,
promoted by the energy and enthusiasm of the working people there,
strongly aided by members of the Society of Friends, a larger assembly
than any yet held was organised in that town. The Town Hall being found
inadequate for the occasion, Mr. Challis and his friends managed to
place seats in a considerable portion of the immense Corn Exchange,
which in the evening was filled to overflowing, many hundreds standing
during the whole time. On the platform we had an encouraging array of
M.P.’s, the most prominent as a speaker being Mr. Jacob Bright, who,
with his talented wife, was from the first one of the foremost in our
cause.
The most interesting speech of the evening was, however, made by the
well-known anti-slavery leader, George Thomson. He was then growing old,
and was in failing health. His zeal for our cause led him to stand upon
our platform, but with no idea of speaking. As the evening went on,
however, the fire of the old anti-slavery apostolate was re-kindled in
his heart, and he could not hold his peace. I recollect his tall and
fragile figure as he rose. He supported himself against a pillar,
leaning heavily. He began to speak in a low, husky voice, in the midst
of hushed attention; for the audience looked upon him as little less
than an oracle on any subject connected with the sacredness of the human
person and of individual liberty. Before he had spoken many minutes he
became perfectly audible, and his voice continued to rise until it
sounded forth with the old bell-like, or rather trumpet-like, clearness
and power which had so often stirred the heart of multitudes in the
United States. That remarkable utterance was one of the last delivered
by him; I well recollect the profound emotion which was produced by it.
As a rule we had weighty meetings, and found an excellent spirit, in
Scotland; but there was one occasion on which we were for the moment
baffled. This was in the great City Hall in Glasgow. The medical
students of that town, incited (it was said) by some of their own
Professors, came in a body to the hall, determined that we should not
have a hearing. There were Town Councillors—or, as they are called in
Scotland, Baillies—on the platform. Notwithstanding this, the noise,
violence and rudeness of the students continued for about an hour, until
the patient chairman made up his mind quietly to call in the police,
although we never liked resorting to this measure. The police of Glasgow
were a powerful body of men, physically speaking. It was with some
amusement, mingled, perhaps, with a little compassion for the misguided
boys, that we watched from the platform, where we had been unable to
speak a single word, these huge officers entering quietly from the
gallery behind, taking the students one by one by the collar, and
dropping them over the edge of the galleries as lightly as if they had
been kittens. The fall was not a great one, and no one was hurt. The
meeting was then continued in peace, though much curtailed. I asked one
of the venerable Baillies on the following day to define for me the
exact offence for which some of these students, we were told, had been
locked up for the night, or fined. His reply was in broad Scotch, more
racy, perhaps, than clearly judicial. “They were punished,” he said,
“for the offences of barking like dogs, mewing like cats, crowing like
cocks, whistling and rattling with their sticks.”
From letters written to my husband at home, I take a sketch of some
meetings held in my own border county to illustrate the honesty of
judgment which we generally found in the North.
“At Berwick-on-Tweed I stayed at the house of the Mayor, Mr. Purvis, a
pleasant old gentleman of the old school. There was a great threatening
of opposition, which continued even till we drove up to the door of the
Town Hall. We were told that the doctors were all ready to fight. The
United Presbyterians and other Scottish ministers were my best friends
here. The Rev. Dr. Cairns was timid about holding a meeting, although he
was wholly in sympathy with us, and he did not at first like the
advocacy of ladies. He is a man of much influence in the Scotch Church,
and is said to be one of Sir William Hamilton’s most distinguished
pupils. On reaching the platform he offered up a fervent prayer. It was
a full and excellent meeting, and, towards the close, unanimous. The joy
of the ministers and kind ladies afterwards was very great. I had heard
so much of the approaching opposition that I had prepared my arguments
with great care. I quoted the weighty evidence of Lord Frederick
FitzClarence against the regulation system in India. You know that he
lived at Etal. His name is remembered here in the North, and the
audience seemed struck by his verdict, based upon his experience as
Commander-in-Chief of the forces in India. Dr. C——, of Berwick, had been
put up to oppose us. He came to curse, and lo! he blessed us altogether;
that is to say, he came on the platform and applauded as heartily as any
one. This so often threatened opposition, which is so often over-ruled,
shows, I think, how slight is the knowledge most people in England have
of the subject, and how ready they are to take up the cry initiated by a
few experts or great personages in favour of this regulation system. It
shows, too, that we need only to appeal to their better judgment and
sense of justice. Of course, there are everywhere some bad people as
well as good; but I imagine there are few of the ruffianly class of men
in Northumberland who troubled us so much in South Wales. I shall go
back to my home with a deeply grateful feeling to my own county.
“I had not thought of visiting other towns in Northumberland, but poor
little Alnwick gave me the most pressing invitation which I have had
from any town. A leading man there wrote, ‘You surely will not leave
your own county without visiting us. We should feel much hurt.’ I did
not expect opposition at Alnwick. I thought the only difficulty might be
to keep my audience awake! When I arrived I found the Town Hall already
crowded to excess. I dare say the meeting was an exciting event in the
dull old town. A brave doctor took the chair for me. He read a carefully
prepared speech which he had written, in which he expressed the fullest
sympathy with our cause. He had come into the room with splashed riding
boots, as if from a visit to a distant patient, and with a
weather-beaten face. I have a great respect for these hard-working
country doctors; they are very unlike some insolent State physicians
whom we know, who seem to desire to rule us all on their own
materialistic and despotic principles. A strong resolution was passed
unanimously at Alnwick. At the end of the meeting I observed a number of
pleasant brown faces at the edge of the platform, looking up in the
attitude of the cherubs in Raphael’s ‘Madonna di San Sisto.’ They seemed
to have some communication for me, and when I came forward they smiled,
and one said, ‘We all knew your father well—old Mr. Grey.’ This was all
their communication, but I was pleased with the sympathy expressed in
it.
“I then went on to Morpeth. The meeting there had not been much
prepared, for the time was short. We had no Chairman. I met the Hon. and
Rev. Vicar walking down the street, and asked him to take the Chair, but
he said, with many assurances of respect for you and me, that he had
signed a petition in favour of the vice-regulating Acts, and that,
therefore, it would not be consistent for him to take the chair. In the
ante-room of the hall I saw a very superior working man, a man who bears
so high a character, I was told, that although of humble rank, no one,
they said, would more recommend the movement in Morpeth by leading it. I
asked him to preside. He seemed startled, thought for a moment, and then
said, ‘Well, if ye’ll just wait till I run in and put on my best coat.’
He soon returned with his best coat, his face shining with soap, and his
hair stiffly brushed. The hall was quite crowded with a very respectable
audience—all the tradespeople, many pleasant ladies, ministers, working
men, and a few gentlemen. I think I never spoke to so agreeable an
audience. Their grave, sensible faces were so intent and full of
inquiry. Many of the men stood up and leaned forward, and if the meeting
expressed approval of any sentiment there was immediately a sound of
‘hush’ through the hall, lest they should lose a single word spoken. The
attention did not flag for one moment. An allusion I made to my father,
speaking of myself as a Northumbrian, was most affectionately responded
to. I felt supremely comfortable, for it was a thoroughly Northumbrian
atmosphere. The audience was grave and shrewd, not noisily enthusiastic,
but just and fair, and very warm-hearted; and also of superior
intelligence; they quickly took up the constitutional and political
aspect of the question.
“After the meeting the Chairman took me into his bright kitchen, as
there was still an hour to wait for the night mail. I sat by the fire,
and a circle sat round—his handsome, comely wife and daughter, and his
son, who had all been to the meeting. His wife is a grand, clever woman.
What a difference there is between the intellect of such working women
and some Society ladies whom I have met! I could make a companion of
this woman at any time. T had a lovely walk to the station, and as the
train was not due for half an hour I wandered a little way into the
fields. It was a perfectly beautiful moonlight night—the air calm,
crisp, and not too cold. A light hoar-frost lay like a coating of silver
on the fields in the moonlight. The silence, the calm, the pure air, and
the beauty around me, with the memory of the kind reception I had had,
filled my heart with gratitude. I sent many loving thoughts to you all
at home. At last the express broke upon the stillness, bowling along
with its red eyes in front, and brought me to Newcastle in little more
than half an hour, where I found my kind Quaker friends waiting for me.”
Besides influencing electors throughout the country, we felt it our duty
to fling ourselves into the midst of contested Parliamentary elections
now and again. At this time the question of our army was much before the
Government, and there was a strong desire for a more capable
administration of military matters, both at home and abroad. An able
military man was wanted in the Government. Sir Henry Storks was a man of
world-wide experience, and of great reputation as an administrator. He
had been Governor of Malta, and had there administered the Regulation
system with so strong a hand that he boasted of having practically
stamped out in that colony the diseases incident to vice. The Government
had a special interest in securing this man for one of the new offices
which had been created in the War Department. To this end it was
necessary that a seat in the House of Commons should be found for him.
His first essay in that direction was at Newark. There he was strongly
opposed, even by persons of his own political party, and chiefly by our
excellent medical friends Dr. Bell Taylor and Mr. Worth, and a group who
followed them. He was signally defeated in his attempt to secure the
seat there. Colchester was next regarded as a place which would be
easily won for this purpose. It is a military depôt; the system we
opposed was in full operation there, and a Liberal candidate had been
called for. I must give some prominence to this hotly-contested election
at Colchester, as it proved to be somewhat of a turning-point in the
history of our crusade.
_The Shield_, commenting on the result, wrote as follows:—“Sir Henry
Storks’ name is prominently identified with legislation which is
abhorrent to the moral sense of right-thinking people. Our opponents may
laugh at the formation of a _new party_ on this question, just as their
prototypes in America were filled with derision when a ‘nigger party’
was first organized in that country. This new party here is to the cause
of insulted and down-trodden woman what the American Abolitionists were
to the despised negro. Our opponents are welcome to their hilarity. All
the coarse satire, all the virulent abuse, all the disgraceful rowdyism
in the world, will not prevent votes and seats being lost by the party
which has employed these ignoble tactics. Mobs were freely employed at
Colchester. There was a saturnalia of rioting which those who are so
sensitive about the antics of mobs in Paris and New York would do well
to take to heart.”
The Committee of the National Association in London undertook the
formidable business of organizing opposition to the Government
candidate. Their tactics and measures were excellent, and ultimately
successful. Dr. Baxter Langley very unselfishly consented to be put up
as a third candidate in order to divide the votes. The battle was a
severe one, for those were the days of hustings harangues, and open
voting. The former I have always considered a very useful and healthy
outlet for the free expression of opinion and the judgment of the people
concerning their candidates and the principles proclaimed by them.
My own personal recollections are chiefly of the numerous meetings which
we Abolitionists held for consultation day after day in a modest hotel,
the master of which was favourable to our views.
A great public meeting had been arranged for in the theatre. I was with
our friends previous to this meeting in a room in this hotel. Already we
heard signs of the mob gathering to oppose us. The dangerous portion of
this mob was headed and led on by a band of keepers of houses of
prostitution in Colchester, who had sworn that we should be defeated and
driven from the town. On this occasion the gentlemen who were preparing
to go to the meeting left with me all their valuables, watches, etc. I
remained alone during the evening. The mob were by this time collected
in force in the streets. Their deep-throated yells and oaths, and the
horrible words spoken by them, sounded sadly in my ears. I felt more
than anything pity for these misguided people. It must be observed that
these were not of the class of honest working people, but chiefly a
number of hired roughs, and persons directly interested in the
maintenance of the vilest of human institutions. The master of the hotel
came in, and said in a whisper, “I must turn down the lights; and will
you, Madam, consent to go to an attic which I have, a little apart from
the house, and remain there until the mob is quieter, in order that I
may tell them truly that you are not in the house?” I consented to this
for his sake. His words were emphasised at the moment by the crashing in
of the window near which I sat, and the noise of heavy stones hurled
along the floor, the blows from which I managed to evade. Our friends
returned in about an hour, very pitiful objects, covered with mud,
flour, and other more unpleasant things, their clothes torn, but their
courage not in the least diminished. Professor Stuart, who had come
purposely during the intervals of his duties at Cambridge to lend his
aid in the conflict, had been roughly handled. Chairs and benches had
been flung at him and Dr. Baxter Langley; and a good deal of lint and
bandages was quickly in requisition; but the wounds were not severe.
I should have prefaced my recollections of this Election Conflict by
saying that on our first arrival in Colchester we went, as was our wont,
straight to the house of a Quaker family. Mrs. Marriage, a well-known
member of the Society of Friends, received us with the utmost cordiality
and self-possession. At her suggestion we began our campaign with a
series of devotional meetings, gathering together chiefly women, in
groups, to ask of God that the approaching events might be over-ruled
for good, and might open the eyes of our Government to the vital nature
of the cause for which we were incurring so much obloquy. Among the
women who helped us most bravely were Mrs. King and Mrs. Hampson; there
were also many others.
I may be excused, perhaps, for mentioning an amusing incident of the
election. I was walking down a bye-street one evening after we had held
several meetings with the wives of electors, when I met an immense
workman, a stalwart man, trudging along to his home after work hours. By
his side trotted his wife—a fragile woman, but with a fierce
determination on her small thin face. At that moment she was shaking her
little fist in her husband’s face, and I heard her say, “Now you know
all about it; if you vote for that man Storks, Tom, _I’ll kill ye_.” Tom
seemed to think that there was some danger of her threat being put in
execution. This incident did not represent exactly the kind of influence
which we had entreated the working women to use with their husbands who
had votes, but I confess it cheered me not a little.
The following letter, which I have found among some preserved by my
children, may be interesting. It was written from Colchester to my young
sons at home:—
“I have tried several Hotels; each one rejects me after another; at last
I came to a respectable Tory Hotel, not giving my name. I had gone to
bed, very tired, and was dropping asleep, when I heard some excitement
in the street and a rap at my door. It was the master of the hotel; he
said, ‘I am sorry, madam; I have a very unpleasant announcement to
make.’ ‘Say on,’ I replied. He said, ‘I find you are Mrs. Josephine
Butler, and the mob outside have found out that you are here and have
threatened to set fire to the house unless I send you out at once.’ I
said, ‘I will go immediately; but how is it that you get rid of me when
you know that though I am a Liberal, I am practically working into the
hands of Colonel Learmont, the Conservative candidate?’ He replied: ‘I
would most gladly keep you, madam; undoubtedly your cause is a good one;
but there is a party so much incensed against you that my house is not
safe while you are in it.’ He saw that I was very tired, and I think his
heart was touched. He said, ‘I will get you quietly out under another
name, and will find some little lodging for you.’ I packed up my things,
and he sent a servant with me down a little bye-street, to a small
private house of a working man and his wife. Next day I went to the C——
Inn, the headquarters of our party. It was filled with gentlemen in an
atmosphere of stormy canvassing. The master of the inn whispered to me,
‘Do not let your friends call you by your name in the streets.’ A
hurried consultation was held as to whether our party should attempt to
hold other public meetings or not. It seemed uncertain whether we should
get a hearing, and it was doubtful if I personally would be allowed by
the mob to reach the hall where we had planned to hold a women’s
meeting. Some of the older men said, ‘Do not attempt it, Mrs. Butler; it
is a grave risk.’ For a moment a cowardly feeling came over me as I
thought of you all at home; then it suddenly came to me that now was
just the time to trust in God and claim His loving care; and I want to
tell you, my darlings, how He helped me, and what the message was which
He sent to me at that moment. I should like you never to forget it, for
it is in such times of trial that we feel Him to be in the midst of us—a
living Presence—and that we prove the truth of His promises. As I prayed
to Him in my heart, these words came pouring into my soul as if spoken
by some heavenly voice: ‘I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my
fortress: my God; in Him will I trust. Surely He shall deliver thee from
the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover
thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust; His truth
shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror
by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence
that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at
noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy
right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Because thou hast made the
Lord, which is my refuge, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall
thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For He shall give
His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.’[2] Are they
not beautiful words? I felt no more fear, and, strong in the strength of
these words, I went out into the dark street with our friends.
“The London Committee had commissioned the two Mr. Mallesons to come
down to help us. I like them much; they are so quiet and firm. Someone
had also sent us from London twenty-four strong men of the sandwich
class, as a body guard! I did not care much about this ‘arm of flesh.’
It was thought better that these men should not keep together or be
seen, so they were posted about in the crowd near the door of the Hall.
Apparently they were yelling with the Regulationist party, but ready to
come forward for us at a given signal. The two Mr. Mallesons managed
cleverly, just as we arrived, to mislead the crowd into fancying that
one of themselves was Dr. Baxter Langley, thus directing all their
violence of language and gestures against themselves. Meanwhile Mrs.
Hampson and I slipped into the Hall in the guise of some of the humbler
women going to the meeting. I had no bonnet or gloves—only an old shawl
over my head—and looked quite a poor woman. We passed safely through
crowded lines of scoundrel faces and clenched fists, and were
unrecognised. It was a solemn meeting. The women listened most
attentively while we spoke to them. Every now and then a movement of
horror went through the room when the threats and groans outside became
very bad. At the close of the meeting some friend said to me, in a low
voice, ‘Your best plan is to go quietly out by a back window which is
not high from the ground, while the mob is waiting for you at the
front.’ The Mallesons and two friendly constables managed admirably.
They made the mob believe I was always coming, though I never came. Mrs.
Hampson and I then walked off at a deliberate pace from the back of the
Hall, down a narrow, quiet, star-lit street: about thirty or forty kind,
sympathising women followed us, but had the tact to disperse quickly,
leaving us alone. Neither of us knew the town, and we emerged again upon
a main street, where the angry cries of the mob seemed again very near.
I could not walk any further, being very tired, and asked Mrs. Hampson
to leave me and try to find a cab. She pushed me into a dark, unused
warehouse, filled with empty soda-water bottles and broken glass, and
closed the gates of it. I stood there in the darkness and alone, hearing
some of the violent men tramping past, never guessing that I was so
near. Presently one of the gates opened slightly, and I could just see
in the dim light the poorly clad, slight figure of a forlorn woman of
the city. She pushed her way in, and said in a low voice, ‘Are you the
lady the mob are after? Oh, what a shame to treat a lady so! I was not
at the meeting, but I heard of you and have been watching you.’ The
kindness of this poor miserable woman cheered me, and was a striking
contrast to the conduct of the roughs. Mrs. Hampson returned, saying,
‘There is not a cab to be seen in the streets;’ so we walked on again.
We took refuge at last in a cheerfully lighted grocer’s shop, where a
very kind, stout grocer, whose name we knew, a Methodist, welcomed us,
and seemed ready to give his life for me! He installed me amongst his
bacon, soap, and candles, having sent for a cab; and rubbing his hands,
he said, ‘Well, this is a capital thing, here you are, safe and sound!’
We overheard women going past in groups, who had been at the meeting,
and their conversation was mostly of the following description:—‘Ah,
she’s right; depend upon it she’s right. Well, what a thing! Well, to be
sure! I’m sure I’ll vote for her whenever I have a vote!’
“I always expected when it came to an election contest on this question
that men’s passions would be greatly roused, and that the poorest among
women would gather to us; and so it was.
“I went in the cab to the Priory, where all our friends were assembled,
looking rather anxious and awed. Mr. Heritage said, ‘I prayed for you
all the time.’ I have now got to my lodgings in the working man’s house,
which are very small, but clean. I hope to be with you on Saturday. What
a blessed Sunday it will be in my quiet home!”
To my husband:—“Dr. Baxter Langley, I hear, has had a letter from Mr.
Glyn, on behalf of the Government, entreating him to retire and let Sir
Henry Storks get in. Mr. Glyn says the Government are ‘quite aware of
the vast importance of the question’ we are contending about. They have
never been aware of its importance till now!! Dr. Langley answers that
he will _not_ retire, and is ready to be stoned out of the town if it
will advance our cause. It is cheering to see the consternation of Sir
Henry Storks’ party. The Government will have learnt a useful lesson by
the dogged and gallant opposition made. Dr. Langley has quite recovered
from the effect of the rough handling he has had. And now, do not fear
for me, dear husband. My part is over here, so far as public action
goes. God bless you all. If I telegraph to you it will be in the name of
Grey; you will understand.”
On such occasions as these, my husband’s calmness of faith was called
into full exercise. His duties as Principal of a great school made it
impossible for him always to accompany me to such scenes of labour and
difficulty. But his faith was in proportion to his unfailing affection
and kindness. On one occasion I was returning home from a distant town
in the depth of a very severe winter. The train was delayed by the
weather, extra engines having to be obtained to drag it through deep
snowdrifts. Due in Liverpool (our home at that time) at seven o’clock,
it did not arrive till some time after midnight. He met me at our door,
and on my remarking that I feared he must have been very anxious about
me (as many accidents had occurred) he replied, with an expression of
countenance which was a revelation to me of his implicit trust in God:
“No, I was not anxious (though I feared you would feel the cold), for I
believe that no evil will happen to you, so long as you are engaged in
this mission. God will keep you alive and strengthen you, until you have
finished the work to which He has called you.”
The day after the Colchester Election I was seated at dinner with my
family when the following brief telegram arrived, containing only two
words, “Shot dead.” We understood that this implied the defeat of Sir
Henry Storks. He was defeated by a large majority. Six hundred voters,
it was said, who were Liberals, and would have voted for him had they
not been enlightened on the subject of his views on our question, left
the town on the polling day, or stayed in their houses and abstained
altogether from voting.[3]
The moral of this election was not lost on the Government. They learned
that this question was not one which they could trifle with or ignore.
Some time after, Sir Henry Storks succeeded in getting into Parliament
by becoming a candidate for what was then known as “a pocket-borough”;
but his advocacy of the unjust and cruel laws in Parliament was reduced
to a simple vote. He also had learned his lesson.
On a later occasion Mr. Lewis, of Devonport, a very strong advocate and
practical supporter of the system we opposed, was defeated three times
at three different places in his attempt to get into Parliament. I think
his last defeat was at Oxford. I was not myself present at that
election, but the battle was bravely and skilfully fought by Mr. Henry
J. Wilson, now M.P., and members of the National Association. These were
severe and very needful lessons for our opponents.
Shortly after the Colchester triumph an immense mass meeting was held in
the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Mr. William Fowler, M.P., who was then
our leader in Parliament, and had brought in a Bill for the repeal of
the vice-regulating Acts, was among those on the platform, and with him
were Mr. Jacob Bright, M.P., Rev. Nassau Molesworth, Mr. Thomasson, our
true and staunch friend from the first, Professor Sheldon Amos, Rev.
Canon Butler, and others. Mr. Bright spoke forcibly on that occasion.
The crowded state of that great hall was an indication that the mass of
the people were fully awake to the wickedness and danger of the
legislation we opposed. We felt more and more that publicity was one of
the necessary conditions of success for us. The stratagems of our
opponents only raised deeper indignation because they were covert and
secret. About 6,000 people attended that meeting, and yet, except in a
local and partial manner, it was unnoticed by the Press. A marked
feature in the demonstration was the wonderful silence of the assembly
between the outbursts of applause which rang now and again through the
vast building. Their attention seemed more than usually absorbed, and
the temper of the audience was impatient of any interruption, lest a
single word or sentence should be lost. There was a resolute earnestness
and a sense of conscious power such as could only be manifested by a
great audience of more than average intelligence and moral feeling.
My husband was called several times to bear almost alone the brunt of
the opposition which arose occasionally at public meetings in which I
took no part, or only a subordinate one. The chief of these was the
Church Congress, held at Nottingham in October, 1871. It was a very
crowded meeting, presided over by the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Wordsworth.
My husband had prepared very carefully a paper on “The Duty of the
Church of England in matters of Morality,” in which he introduced, in
the most refined and unobjectionable manner, the question of the
regulation of vice. Such was the animus against our crusade at that time
amongst the upper and more educated classes, that the moment his
allusion was understood such a loud and continuous expression of
disapprobation arose from that great assembly that he could not proceed.
The majority of the clergy present had been carefully trained by evil
advisers to consider this legislation an excellent thing, while there
was a minority present who were better instructed, and who, the
following day, came to tender to us their expressions of sympathy and
offers of support. We had many times before heard rough and defiant
cries, and noisy opposition at meetings, but never so deep and angry a
howl as now arose from the throats of a portion of the clergy of the
National Church. I watched my husband’s attitude during the prolonged
tumult. He continued to stand upright, his paper in his hand, with an
expression of combined firmness and gentleness in his face. The
President, Dr. Wordsworth, though wishing to do justice to a favourite
old pupil of his own and to the subject, was forced to bow to the
tempestuous will of the assembly, and to ask my husband to withdraw his
paper and to sit down. William Lloyd Garrison once said in the midst of
his great anti-slavery conflict, “A shower of brickbats is an excellent
tonic.” Brickbats are not so much in use in polite and clerical society,
but hard words, groans and hisses supply their place to some extent as a
tonic to the person at whom they are hurled. I do not think my husband
required any such tonic; and as a matter of fact his keen sense of
humour led him to recognise a somewhat comic element in this otherwise
pitiful outburst of misguided indignation. He afterwards printed his
paper in pamphlet form, and continued to labour, during such rare
intervals of leisure as his arduous school work afforded him, to win
personally the clergy of the Church of England to our cause. In this he
was aided by other excellent clergymen, notably Mr. Collingwood, of
Sunderland.
Professor Sheldon Amos afterwards said of this meeting: “Mr. Butler
alluded to an objection frequently made, that it is not the business of
the Church to meddle with politics, or to make the people discontented
with the laws by keeping up such an agitation as ours. In other words,
it is the business of the Church to encourage political indifferentism,
to resist any progressive movement which involves changes in law, and to
dissociate herself and her influence from all the most ennobling and
invigorating parts of the true citizen’s duty. On the contrary, it is a
part of the Church’s work to refine the critical sagacity of her
children. The single-eye for moral purity is hard enough to retain
amongst the distorting and blinding colours of earthly interests; it is
for the Church and her ministers to be ever calling her children to the
acceptation of an absolutely equal standard of purity and goodness.”
In 1872, shortly after the Royal Commission had reported, Mr. Bruce,
then Home Secretary, gave notice of his intention to bring in a measure
as a substitute for the existing Acts. This Bill was printed on March 1,
1872. Its appearance marked an era in the crusade, for the controversy
upon it, which arose in our own ranks, resulted in a great sifting of
adherents, many of whom were not sufficiently clear-sighted to see its
dangers. In fact, it was so cleverly drawn, the good being so mixed with
the evil elements, that it required acuteness and careful study in order
fully to comprehend its real tendency. It was finally rejected.