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To him whose highest interest is centred in his own miserable self, to him who cares only to gain his own ends, to him who seeks only his own individual comfort, to that man Freethought can have no attraction.
It may make him a little more modest when he next applies his orthodox tape and callipers to the character of his betters. Goethe is Mr. Watkinson's first infidel hero, and we are glad to see that he makes this great poet a present to Freethought. Some Christians claim Goethe as really one of themselves, but Mr. Watkinson will have none of him.
Out of date as the work is now, it was the artillery of the movement of progress then. As Mr. Morley says, it "rallied all that was best in France round the standard of light and social hope." Less original, but nearly as bold and industrious, D'Holbach placed his fortune and abilities at the service of Freethought. Mr. Morley calls the System of Nature "a thunderous engine of revolt."
And through all the struggles the organised strength of the Freethought party grew, 650 new members being enrolled in the National Secular Society in the year 1878-79, and in July, 1879, the public adhesion of Dr. Edward B. Aveling brought into the ranks a pen of rare force and power, and gave a strong impulse to the educational side of our movement.
WITNESS: I have the best authority for saying that no shadow of difference had ever come between them. CORONER: Was the deceased left-handed? WITNESS: Certainly not. He was not even ambidexter. A JURYMAN: Isn't Shoppinhour one of the infidel writers, published by the Freethought Publication Society? WITNESS: I do not know who publishes his books.
He is a Freethinker as well as a Republican; and it was inevitable that the younger school of writers in England, who acknowledge him as a lofty master, should drink from his inexhaustible spring the living waters of Democracy and Freethought. French influence on our very recent literature is evident in such works as Mr. John Morley's Studies on Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and Condorcet; Mr.
I had, however, fair ability and plenty of goodwill, and I determined to learn my work, feeling proud that I had become one of the list of "Freethought publishers", who published for love of the cause of freedom, and risked all for the triumph of a principle ere it wore "silver slippers and walked in the sunshine with applause". On February 8th Mr. Watts was tried at the Old Bailey.
How well the ecclesiastical psychologists have grasped this fact, and how well they have fashioned a strong chain for the mind out of this weakness of human minds! Church and government have been well aware of this psychology, and have fought constantly the spread of Freethought literature to the masses.
It would be wearisome to go step by step over the ten years' journeys and lectures; I will only select, here and there, incidents illustrative of the whole. Some folk say that the lives of Freethought lecturers are easy, and that their lecturing tours are lucrative in the extreme.
There is no better field for Freethought and Radical work than Northumberland and Durham; the miners there are as a rule shrewd and hard-headed men, and very cordial is the greeting given by them to those whom they have reason to trust.
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