v. Moxon, that if the government were consistent in carrying out

prosecutions for blasphemy--Shakspere, Milton, Byron, Shelley, Southey--might be prohibited. This perhaps would be an agreeable result to a reverend gentleman well known in this court and county, who says all science should be destroyed; but I trust you entertain no such feelings, and that if I can show that my sentiments cannot be productive of harm, you will feel called upon to acquit me. I claim no inherent right of expressing my opinions, I only contend for liberty of expression because required for the public good. A doctrine was laid down by Lord John Russell upon the occasion of the presentation of the National Petition, which I will quote as a view of the subject of human rights well expressed.

'I am aware,' he said, 'that it is a doctrine frequently urged, and I perceive dwelt upon in this petition, that every male of a certain age has a right, absolute and inalienable, to elect a representative to take his place among the members in the Commons' House of Parliament. Now, sir, I never could understand that indefeasible right. It appears to me that that question, like every other in the practical application of politics, is to be settled by the institutions and the laws of the country of which the person is a native. I see no more right that a person twenty-one years of age has to elect a member of parliament than he has to be a juryman. I conceive that you may just as well say that every adult male has a right to sit upon a jury to decide the most complicated and difficult questions of property, or that every man has a right to exercise the judicial functions, as the people did in some of the republics of antiquity. These things, as it appears to me, are not matters of right; but if it be for the good of the people at large, if it be conducive to the right government of the state, if it tend to the maintenance of the freedom and welfare of the people, that a certain number, defined and limited by a reference to a fixed standard of property, should have the right of electing members of parliament, and if it be disadvantageous to the community at large that the right of suffrage should be universal, then I say that on such a subject the consideration of the public good should prevail, that legislation must act upon it as on every other, and that no inalienable right can be quoted against that which the good of the whole demands.'

If Lord Russell did not, I do see a difference between the claim of an elector and the right of a juryman. The elector is chiefly concerned with his own interests, the juryman with other people's--one is simple, the other complex. But with the measure of right laid down by his lordship in the sentiments I have quoted, I perfectly accord, and if it could be shown that freedom of expression produced public harm, then I would give it up. But I believe such a right would produce good, and therefore I claim it at your hands upon the ground of public good.

In what I urge, it is not faith but reason, as far as I understand it, that I take for my guide--a rule of argument I trust you will accept. 'Reason contents me,' was inscribed as the motto on the seal of the letter from Sir James Graham, acknowledging the receipt of the Cheltenham memorial. If reason 'contents' the Secretary of State, and 'fountain of justice,' surely it ought to 'content' the channels through which such justice is diffused over society. Reason would always be preferred by us were we not differently instructed. 'Bewildered,' says Diderot, 'in an immense forest during the night, and having only one small torch for my guide, a stranger approaches and thus addresses me: "_Friend, blow out thy light if thou wouldst make sure of the right path_" The "forest" was the world--the "light" was my reason---the "stranger" was a priest.'

After several quotations showing the dubious and often pernicious influence of sacred authority, Mr. Holyoake observed---Religious sanctions are regarded only by the ignorant, whom they confirm in folly. The good find their sanction in the satisfaction ef a virtuous act performed. In an address of the Rev. F. Close, delivered a short time since at the Church of England Tradesmen and Working Men's Association of Cheltenham, he said, 'that the more a man is advanced in human knowledge, the more is he opposed to religion, and the more deadly enemy he is to the truth of God.' If this Christian minister is to be believed, then may you burn your books--forsake all mental refinement--and be equal in piety and ignorance. If Christianity is opposed to human improvement, then should all systems of ignorance be patronised by Christians. Sentiments like these would lead us to give up Boyle, Locke, and Newton, and regard them, with the Rev. Mr. Close, with detestation.

Mr. Justice Erskine. Let me see the discourse of Mr. Close from which you are quoting.

The book was handed to his lordship.

Mr. Holyoake. If the correctness of that report be doubted, I may state that the sentiments of Mr. Close were replied to by Mr. G. Berkeley.

Permit me now to draw your attention strongly to what has been said by men in authority of the impolicy of these prosecutions--that even if you were justified in inflicting punishment on me, it would not be wise to do so, Lord Brougham, three or four years ago, said, 'I may underrate the power of truth opposed to error, and I may overrate the good sense of my fellow country men in rejecting it, but one thing I do not overrate--the power of persecution to spread that which persecution only can spread.' When I walk through any of those ancient places, as I did yesterday through your beautiful cathedral, I feel the majesty they ever present, and think of the manner in which our Catholic ancestors acted on the minds of men. There were sublimity and pageantry and pomp to create awe. We have none now of that beauty of architecture in our meagre churches and more meagre chapels. They had a service more imposing than we ever had. Recollecting all these things, I have wondered how anything could be found sufficiently powerful to shake them off. I have wondered how Luther, with his rude vulgarity, could have effected so much. I can only account for it in this way--that when the Catholics dragged his followers to gaol, it was found that human feelings were stronger than human creeds.

These prosecutions are entirely in opposition to the sentiments promulgated by yourselves, as appears from a book given me in gaol called the 'Manual of Devotion.' I amused myself by contracting the profession contained in it with the practice of my opponents. It is published by the 'Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.' In the 'Discourse concerning Prayer,' it is laid down that the 'second qualification for prayer is charity or love. There is nothing so contrary to the nature of God, nothing so wide of the true spirit of a Christian, as bitterness and wrath, malice and envy; and therefore it is vain to think that even our prayers can be acceptable to God, till we have put on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, as St. Paul commands.' Gentlemen, where are these sentiments evinced in this prosecution?

The 'third qualification--Is faith. If any of you lack wisdom, says St. James, let him ask of God, but let him ask in faith.' My prosecutors have asked Mr. Bubb, have had faith in policemen, and confidence only in the 'common law.'

The 'fourth qualification is--That in all things of a temporal concern, we must exercise an entire submission to the will of God. A good Christian will be sure to leave the issue in God's hands.' In my case not the will of God, but the will of bigots was done, and the 'issue' left in the turnkey's hands.

The 'fifth qualification--Is that the person praying hath a good intention; that he asks for a good end. We must not pray as the revengeful man when he prays for authority, that he may have the more power to effect his evil designs.' What can be more wholly condemnatory of these proceedings than these instructions of the 'Manual of Devotion?'

When the 'Life of Christ,' by Dr. Strauss, appeared in Berlin, contrary to usages in such matters, the Prussian government consulted the clergy to ascertain from them whether it would not be prudent to prohibit this extraordinary production. The celebrated Bishop Neander was commissioned by the ecclesiastical body of Berlin, to peruse the book and to return an answer. Neander did so, and declared in reply, that the work submitted to his examination threatened, it was true, the demolition of all creeds; nevertheless, he requested that full liberty should not be denied to his adversary, in order that full and free discussion might be the only judges between truth and error. And when asked whether it should be prosecuted, said, 'No, I will answer it.'

Mr. Justice Erskine. That work was temperately written.

Mr. Holyoake. Neander did reply to it, and Strauss had the manliness to acknowledge that it had corrected many of his errors. Would that have been done had he been prosecuted? Dr. Strauss's work on the scriptures got him a professor's chair in Germany. In this country it would have made him amenable to the common law, and to one, two, or three years' imprisonment.

Gentlemen, in the pertinacity of my open reply to Maitland, you may find something objectionable, but I happen to be an admirer of that sentiment expressed by the honest 'Vicar of Wakefield'--'In all human institutions a smaller evil is allowed to procure a greater good; as in politics, a province may be given away, to secure a kingdom; in medicine, a limb may be lopt off, to preserve the body. But in religion, the law is written and inflexible, _never_ to do evil.' Then, gentlemen, I ought to be tolerated in the truthfulness of my answer. Milton, in his Prose Works,* in reference to an incident in his travels, says:--

* Milton's Prose Works, pp. 933-4, 8vo edit. Edited by Fletcher.

'While I was on my way back to Rome, some merchants informed me that the English Jesuits had formed a plot against me, if I returned to Rome, because I had spoken too freely of religion; for it was a rule which I laid down to myself in those places, never to be the first to begin any conversation on religion--but, if any questions were put to me concerning my faith, to declare it without any reserve or fear.'

This is the rule which I myself have followed in this case.

Since his lordship--with more liberality than is customary, and with more philosophy than I expected on matters of religion (on which I hear his lordship thinks very devoutly)--has said, that any religion may be discussed in temperate language, it is not necessary for me to prove, as I should have done, that it would be useless liberty for me to entertain opinions without permission to publish them. The only question is whether, in the expression of these opinions, I used a proper kind of language. I think I have proved that I was far from having any of those 'malicious' feelings the indictment presupposes. Many figures of speech have been used in this court from which my feelings revolted as much as those of any person could from what I said. No allowance is made for this, and too much importance is attached to what is assumed to be ridicule. A short time ago it was argued, that if the political squibs which are seen in shop windows were permitted to be published, they would bring government into contempt, and you would soon have no government. Their publication has been permitted. Have we no government now? I feel the utility of a government, and no force of ridicule could shake my belief in the importance of good government. So it is with religion. Nothing that is uttered, however contemptuous, can bring it into contempt, if it really is useful and beneficial. We might defy all the wits and caricaturists in the world to bring the problems of Euclid into contempt. No man can bring into contempt that which is essential and true.

The counsel who opened the case did not state whether the indictment was at statute or common law.

Mr. Justice Erskine. Common law.

Mr. Holyoake. Then, gentleman of the jury, I shall draw your attention to that, and I hope I shall be able to explain the law bearing on my case.

Mr. Justice Erskine. The jury must take the law from me. I am responsible for that.

Mr. Holyoake. I know, my lord; but still I may refer to it. A friend of mine consulted the works bearing upon the law of this case.* I have here the results of his labours, and, if I am wrong, your lordship will, in summing up, correct me.

* I was indebted to Mr. J. Homffrey Parry, barrister, for the revision of the argument I employed.

Gentleman of the jury, the common law is a judge-made law. A judge laid down, some years ago, that to say anything against the Christian religion was an indictable offence. Another judge followed him and said the same; and at last it came not to be doubted. If I show there is no law properly made in parliament assembled, you ought to acquit me.

The offence with which I am charged is an offence at common law. There is no statute which punishes a man simply for denying the existence of God. There is a statute (9 and 10 Wm. III., c. 32) directed against those who denied the Trinity and who renounced Christianity. But the former part has been repealed in favour of Unitarians, by the 53rd Geo. III., e. 160; and the words I am charged with having spoken cannot be brought within the latter. There is a statute against profane cursing and swearing (19 Geo. II., c. 21), but it takes no cognisance of this offence. Human beings have also been put to death for witchcraft (33 Hen. VIII., c. 8; and 1 James I., c. 12), under the merciless statutes which were enacted in times of the grossest ignorance and superstition; but those statutes have been repealed (9 Geo. II., c. 5). This offence, therefore, is an offence against the common law, if it is an offence at all. It is to be found in the recorded decisions of the judges, if it is to be found anywhere; and the punishment for it is in their discretion. Had it been an offence under a statute, it would have been impossible for me to have denied the authority of the statute; but, as it is an offence at common law, it is quite competent for me to show that the authorities which have been supposed to constitute the offence do not warrant such a construction. Should your lordship even declare that you had no doubt upon the subject, it would still be competent for me to bring before you the decisions of former judges, to argue upon those decisions, and to show, if I could, that there was some mistake or error running throughout the whole of them. Your lordship, I am sure, will admit that judges are fallible, and that a blind, unreasoning submission to them no man should give. As some excuse for presuming to doubt the decision of some of your lordship's predecessors, I shall quote the following passage from the preface to Mr. Watkin's treatise on Conveyancing, allowed to be a master-piece of legal sagacity and method. 'I believe,' writes that gentleman, 'it will be found, on examination, that an implicit submission to the assertions of our predecessors, whatever station those predecessors may have held, has been one of the most certain sources of error, Perhaps there is nothing which has so much shackled the human intellect, nothing which has so greatly promoted whatever is tyrannic, preposterous, and absurd, nothing perhaps which has so much degraded the species in the scale of being as the implicit submission to individual dicta.' And he then goes on in vigorous terms to reprobate the practice of allowing 'authority to shoulder out common sense, or adhering to precedent in defiance of principle.' Upon the principle contained in this passage I shall act, in claiming the attention of your lordship, and you, gentlemen of the jury, whilst I examine the authorities for the doctrine which brings the offence with which I am charged within the jurisdiction of the temporal courts. Your lordship will, perhaps, refer to these books.

Mr. Justice Erskine, No need of that. If it is not an offence at common law, this indictment is worth nothing. You can take it before the fifteen judges on a writ of error. I sit here, not to correct the law, but merely to administer it.*

* I have been told by a legal friend of great experience, that at this point I might have taken the judge at his word, and have carried the case before the judges for decision; but I was unacquainted with the forms of law in such cases, and I moreover distrusted the judge.

Mr. Holyoake resumed. In the fourth volume of 'Blackstone's Commentaries,' p. 59, in speaking of offences against God and religion, that writer says, 'The fourth species of offences, therefore, more immediately against God and religion, is that of blasphemy against the Almighty, by denying his being or providence, or by contumelious reproaches of our saviour, Christ. Whither also may be referred all profane scoffing at the holy scripture, or exposing it to contempt and ridicule. These are offences punishable at common law by fine and imprisonment, or other infamous corporal punishment; _for Christianity is part of the laws of England_.' Blackstone quotes, in support of the first species, a volume of 'Ventris' Reports,' p. 298; and the second from the second volume of 'Strange's Reports,' p. 834. Mr. Christian, the commentator upon Blackstone, adds, in a note, a passage from the 'Year Book' (34 Henry VI.), folio 43.

The earliest case is that from the year book, in the 34th year of Henry VI. (1458). Mr. Christian quotes from it this passage--'Scripture est common ley, sur quel toutes manieres de leis sont fondes' (i.e., Scripture is common law, upon which all descriptions of laws are founded). Were this quotation correct, and did the word scripture here mean 'holy scripture,' or what is generally understood by the Bible, then I admit this passage would be a good foundation to build up Mr. Judge Blackstone's law. But it is no such thing. The case in the year book is a case of _quare impedit_, and, in the course of the argument the question arose whether, in a matter of induction to a benefice by the ordinary (i.e., the bishop) the common law would take notice of, or be bound by, the law or practices of the church. Where-. upon, Chief Justice Prisot says--'To such laws, which they of the holy church have in "ancient writing," it becomes us to give credence, for such is common law, upon which all descriptions of laws are founded. And therefore, sir, we are obliged to recognise their law of the holy church--likewise they are obliged to recognise our law. And, sir, if it appears to us now that the bishop has done as an ordinary should do in such a case, then we ought to judge it good--if otherwise, bad.'

In this passage, then, there is not one word about scripture in the sense of 'holy scripture.' Judge Prisot says, 'To such laws as the church has in ancien scripture (t. e.9 ancient writing) we ought to give credence.' And what does he mean by 'laws which the church has in ancient writing?' not any laws that are to be found in the Bible, but the canon or ecclesiastical laws by which the temporal concerns of the church are guided. And the reason he uses the phrase 'ancien scripture,' or ancient writing, is that the laws were not then printed; the only record of them was in writing. Printing had not been introduced into England, and was only just discovered on the continent, the laws therefore of the spiritual and temporal courts were only to be seen in writing. And as though there should be no doubt as to his meaning, he goes on to say, 'And as we are obliged to recognise their laws (that is the ecclesiastical laws, or laws of the spiritual courts), so they are obliged to recognise our laws (that is, the laws of the temporal courts).' It must therefore be evident that this quotation of Mr. Christian is a perversion or mistake, a judicial forgery or a judicial blunder, and in either case its authority is of no value. It must be dismissed altogether from our minds in considering what the law is upon this point--that is, whether Christianity is or is not a part and parcel of the law of England. Unfortunately, however, we shall find that this case is actually made the substratum of the law. In proving, therefore, that it cannot warrant such a law, surely I prove that at common law, at least to speak against Christianity, is not an offence.

The next case is that in Ventris' Report, vol. 1, p. 293. It is called Taylor's case, and Chief Justice Hale certainly declares explicitly in this case, 'that Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.' But he cites no authority whatever.

In the case analysed from the year book, it is expressly said, that the common law is to be found in 'ancient writings,' and the unsupported dictum of a judge in the middle of the seventeenth century cannot be construed as a part of the ancient writings of the common law. Either the law already existed or it did not. If it did, the question is--where is it? If it did not, Chief Justice Hale could not then make it for the first time; and this case in Ventris' cannot be said to lay down the law. The case in the second volume of Strange is the King v. Woolston. The defendant had been convicted of writing four blasphemous discourses against the divinity and character of Christ; and upon attempting to move in arrest of judgment, the court declared they would not suffer it to be debated whether to write against Christianity in general was an offence punishable in the temporal courts of common law. And they cited Taylor's case, which has been shown to be an insufficient authority, or rather no authority at all, and the King v. Hale, in the same volume of Strange, p. 416, but which was an indictment under the statute (9 & 10 Wm. HI.) for speaking against the Trinity, and therefore cannot in any way support the common law doctrine.

The first person who called attention to the utter want of authority in the common law for the dictum 'that Christianity was part of the common law,' was Jefferson, the second president of America--himself a profound lawyer, and to his references I am indebted for the foregoing authorities, which, however, have been carefully verified. Mr. Jefferson, in a letter to Major Cart-wright, to be found in vol. ii., p. 272, of his 'Memoirs,' exposes the mode in which this law was created. Alluding to the case of Prisot, he says, 'Finch in his first book, c. 3, is the first who afterwards quotes this case. He misstates it thus: "To such laws of the church as have warrant in holy scripture, our law giveth credence," and cites Prisot, mistranslating "ancien scripture" into holy scripture. This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot. Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot. Shephard, title "Religion," in 1675, copies the same mistranslation, quoting the year book, finch, and Wingate. Hale expresses it in these words, "Christianity is parcel of the laws of England," but quotes no authority. Wood, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and says, "that all blasphemy and prophaneness are offences by the common law," and Blackstone repeats the words of Hale.' In the case of the the King v. Carlile, decided since Mr. Jefferson wrote this letter, there was no argument as to the common law. The question was as to whether the statute (9 & 10 Wm. III.) had superseded the common law. But the common law itself was not called in question, which I submit it should be, and by a wise example superseded.

But let us see what Christianity is according to common law? We may remark--

1. Its inconsistency.--It calls blasphemy the greatest crime man can commit. Yet in the case of Hetherington v. Moxon, it permits the _respectable_ blasphemer to go free. Blasphemy in guinea volumes it allows, but exhibits the holiest horror at it when in penny pamphlets.

2. Its barbarity, as in Peter Annet's case.--In Michaelmas term, M. 3. G. 3. Peter Annet was convicted on an information for writing 'a most blasphemous libel,' in weekly papers called the _Free Inquirer_, to which he pleaded guilty; in consideration of which, and of his poverty, of his having confessed his errors in an affidavit, and of his being 74 years old, and some symptoms of wildness that appeared on his inspection in court, the court declared they had mitigated his punishment to the following: To be imprisoned in Newgate for one month; to stand twice in the pillory with a paper on his forehead, inscribed Blasphemy; to be sent to the House of Correction to hard labour for a year; to pay a fine of 6s. 8d., and to find security himself in L100, and two sureties in L50 each for his good behaviour during life.*

3. Its capriciousness.--The common law before the time of Henry VIII. was one thing, but afterwards it was another. The language which was blasphemy at the first period, was not so in the other. Those expressions which insulted God before Henry the Eighth was born, did not insult him afterwards. Henry the Eighth's opinion made the difference. Lord Commissioner White-locke (5 Howell's State Trials, p. 826), in Debate whether James Nayler the quaker should suffer death, remarked, 'I remember a case in our book H. 7, where the bishop committed one to prison for a heretic, and the heresy was denying that tythes were due to the parson. This at that time was a very great heresy.'

4. Its disregard of equal justice.--A British subject would be punished for firing into a Turkish vessel; but he is not punishable for attacking the captain and sailors with Bibles and tracts, which, if they read and believe, will make them apostates from the faith of Mahomet, and blasphemers of the Koran. While on terms of amity with the Sublime Porte, the laws of England restrain us from despoiling them of their property, but not from despoiling them of their religion.**

* Blackstone's Reports, p. 305.

** Vide Freethinker's Information for the People.

5. It debases religion as best set forth.--'Religion (says Miss Martineau) is, in its widest sense, "the tendency of human nature to the infinite;" and its principle is manifested in the pursuit of perfection in any direction whatever. It is in this widest sense that some speculative atheists have been religious men; religious in their efforts after self-perfection; though unable to personify their conception of the infinite. In a somewhat narrower sense, religion is the relation which the highest human sentiments bear towards an infinitely perfect being. There can be no further narrowing than this. Any account of religion which restricts it within the boundaries of any system, which connects it with any mode of belief, which implicates it with hope of reward, or fear of punishment, is low and injurious, and debases religion into superstition.' How much more is religion degraded that is made the subject of reward and punishment here?

Thus speaks the common law upon these points, and thus, as part of the common law, speaks Christianity. Will you, by a verdict of guilty this day, send forth to the world this card of credentials of the religion of Jesus?

The intention of a libel constitutes its criminality. It is for you, gentlemen, to say whether I knowingly, wickedly, and maliciously offended the law? Malice is necessary to a libel--conscientious words are allowable, 'Contumely and contempt are what no establishment can tolerate: but on the other hand it would not be proper to lay any restraint upon rational and dispassionate discussions of the rectitude and propriety of the established mode of worship.' 4 Bla. Com. 51; 1 Pmp. 219. And Mr. Starkie, on the subject, says 'that it may not be going too far from the principles and decisions, that no author or preacher who fairly and conscientiously promulgates the opinions with whose truth he is impressed for the benefit of others, is for so doing amenable as a criminal, that a malicious and mischievous intention is in such case the broad boundary between right and wrong; and that if it can be collected from the offensive levity with which so serious a subject is treated, or from other circumstances, that the act of the party was malicious, then, since the law has no means of distinguishing between different degrees of evil tendency, if the matter published contain any such tendency, the publisher becomes amenable to justice.'*

* Starkie on Libel, pp. 496-7.

As to the duty of the jury, I have Lord Chief Justice Abbott's opinion, in his charge to the jury in summing up the evidence against Mr. Joseph Russell at the Warwick Summer Assizes, on Friday, August 13, 1819, for a political libel, being Mr. Hone's 'Parody on the litany.' Mr. Russell argued that as Hone had been acquitted for publishing it, he also ought to be. 'No one,' says his lordship, 'is more inclined than myself to speak reverently of the decision of juries. But, gentlemen, you cannot, under the sanction of an oath, take the verdict of those juries either directly or indirectly as your guide in the verdict you are called upon to give in this case. Those juries, no doubt, returned their verdicts honestly and conscientiously according to the evidence that was layed before them. What that evidence was you can know nothing of. You are to try the question by your own consciences and by your own reason. They might have been right in their decision, and you should be careful that you are right in yours.'

After this, you will see it is clear that though a jury had before found a person guilty of the offence I am charged with, it will be no justification of your doing so too. Here Mr. Holyoake, perceiving that he would be heard fairly, and that no attempts to put him down were practised, laid aside a handful of notes, and said:--

I have to thank your lordship, and you, gentlemen of the jury, for the courtesy and attention with which I have been heard. Gentlemen, if I have occupied you long you will find my apology in the circumstance that your verdict against me will occupy me longer. I could wish that justice to me and your convenience had permitted brevity. The length of my defence has originated with the charge against me, and not with myself.

It is said, that when Southey was asked if he were not ashamed of having written _Wat Tyler_, he answered, no more ashamed than I am of having been young. Meaning, any man may err in youth. So I erred in being religious in my early days. If I am not religious now, deem me not criminal. Religion never did me a service, how then should I love it? But it assailed my youth with gloomy dogmas, now it assails my liberty.

Gentlemen, if during my address to you I have offended by the frankness of my avowals, it has not proceeded from a disregard of your feelings, but from the belief that, as men, you would prefer independence to servility of speech.

Of the nature of the charge against me I add no further word. My only crime has been the discharge of what I considered a duty. For my difference in opinion with you upon the question of Deity, I offer no apology. I have made no contract to think as you do, and I owe you no obligation to do it. If I commanded you to abjure your belief, you would disregard it as impertinence, and if you punish me for not adjuring mine, how will you reconcile it with 'doing as you would wish to be done unto?'

Had I said, that there is no God, still I should not deserve the penalties of the law. If I point to the wrong I see in this Christian country, and ask, is this Christianity? you would reply, 'No; what you refer to results from men who live without God in the world.' Then, gentlemen, would you punish me for simply saying that which other men, unpunished, are every day doing?

If I have said that religious revenues should be reduced one half, I spoke only the dictates of humanity at this season of national suffering. Surely it is not blasphemous to argue that human misery should be alleviated at the expense of spiritual pride.

I ask not equal rights with yourselves. You, as Christians, can imprison those who differ from you. I do not offend your pride by asking to be admitted your equals here. I desire not such privileges. I claim merely the right to speak my convictions; to show a man the right path when I think he takes the wrong one.

It is a melancholy maxim in these courts of law, that the greater the truth the greater the libel; and so it would be with me this day could I demonstrate to you that there is no Deity. The more correct I am the severer would be my punishment, because the law regards the belief in a God to be the foundation of obedience among men. But I trust I have convinced you that my views of this question are compatible with the practice of all our duties to our fellow-men, borne out by eminent authority and long experience.

Setting aside the reprobation of persecution by Middleton, by Clarke, by Latimer, and other divines I have quoted; Leslie, Reid, and Bulwer have contended that the objections of the sceptic merely strengthen the fabric of piety they pretend to assail. Gentlemen, which is to be believed, divines and philosophers, or the common law? These persons speak as though they believed Christianity to be true; the common law punishes as though it knew it to be false.

If the state religion be true, my opinion can never overcome it; and by convicting me you publish your consciousness of error in the cause you are placed there to defend as truth. If God be truth you libel him and his power, and publish the omnipotence of error.

When in gaol, I one day opened the rules drawn up by the judges. The 167th opens thus: 'No prisoner shall lie.' Now, gentlemen, how is a man to act under these circumstances in which I am placed? If you find me guilty upon the indictment before you, my case stands in this manner--if I do not lie you imprison me, and if I do you punish me. Turning back to the morality of ancient days, and meditating with delight on their noble sincerity and love of truth, am I to count it a misfortune to live in modern times and among a Christian people?

In your churches, as I have read to you, you implore that truth and justice may descend among men, and: the supplication is a noble one. Gentlemen, will you pray for truth in your churches and brand it in your courts?

The atmosphere of your gaols as little assimilates with my taste as their punishments will accord with my constitution, I seek not these things, I assure you, but when they lie in the path of duty I trust I shall ever prefer them to a dereliction from it.

But, gentlemen, supposing that they are my sentiments that you are requested to punish; you should first do yourselves the justice to reflect what has been said about them and insinuated in this court. Learned divines, and sage writers on atheism, agree that it is too absurd to need refutation--too barren to satisfy, too monstrous to attract, too fearful to allure, too dumb to speak, and too deathly not to appal its own votaries. It is styled too grave to entertain youth, and too devoid of consolation for the trembling wants of age--too abstract for the comprehension of the ignorant, and too unreasonable to gain the admiration of the intelligent. That it is alarming to the timid, and disquieting to the brave-that it negatives everything, and sets up nothing, and is so purely speculative that it can never have a practical bearing on the business of life. Gentlemen, will you disturb the harmony of these conclusions by a verdict against me, and attack that which never existed, and place upon the grave records of this court a slaying of the self-slain? Will you thus draw attention to a subject you perhaps think had better be forgotten, and create a conviction that it must be a greatly important one, since you erect it into public notice by directing the thunders of the law at young and comparatively inexperienced believer in its principle?

Would you test my opinions by my emotions on the bed of death? Let me assure you, that if men can expect to die in peace who can send their fellow men to a gaol because of honest difference of opinion, I have nothing to fear.

I am told I may hold opinions, but must keep them to myself--which means, I may know and feel what is right, but must never do it. I must see my fellow-men in error, but never put them right. Must live every day below the standard of right my sense of duty and conscience sets up, and all my life long 'prove all things' and never 'hold fast to the good.'

The indictment charges me with having 'wickedly, maliciously, and with evil design,' against the peace of the Queen, uttered certain words. What shadow of evidence has been adduced to substantiate this extravagant charge?

Will you suffer this court to proclaim the sacred nature of an oath, and openly violate it in the same hour and under the same roof? I might ask in the spirit of that Christianity you sit there to administer, how do you propose to answer to your God in that day when the secrets of all hearts are to be opened, when all dissembling is to be exposed, and all perjury punished; how do you pro-pose to answer for having invoked the name of God in this assembly only to disregard it, on the poor plea of precedent--that others have done so before? For, gentlemen, there is nothing else that even the subtlest sophistry can conjure up to justify you. But I best prefer appealing to you as honest men, in the spirit of my own reasoning, and thinking; as men with an eye to the improvement of mankind, who would break the unjust shackles that bind them, who would discard prejudice in order to be just, who will not condemn me because I am not rich, and who will listen to humanity rather than to bigotry, and respect truthfulness wherever you may find it. I believe that in every honest heart there is a sense of rectitude that rises superior to creeds, that respects all virtue and protects all truth, that asks for no names and seeks no precedents before resolving to do rightly, that fears no man's frowns, and dares to be just without custom's permit. To this feeling, gentlemen, only do I appeal, and by its verdict I am willing to abide.

Mr. Justice Erskine: Gentlemen of the jury, although the lengthened address of the defendant has demanded from you so long endurance, in this vitiated atmosphere, I still trust we shall have enough of power left to direct our minds to the parts of this case which are important. The greater part of the time has been wasted on subjects with which you have nothing to do. We are not sitting here as a deliberative assembly to consider whether in respect of such cases as this it is politic or wise to imprison for opinions--whether men ought to be punished for uttering such sentiments--and I shall have nothing to say to you on that point. We have to decide on the law as we find it. I shall make no law--the judges made no law, but have handed it down from the earliest ages. I should have no more power to alter this than to say the eldest son is not the heir of his father. Allusion has been made to some expressions of mine, when in the course of my duty I directed the attention of the grand jury to these cases. Certainly the printed report was highly incorrect. I said nothing to prejudice them. Inasmuch as this offence directly tended to take away that foundation on which real morality can alone be safely based, I told them what I feel, that without religion there is no morality. I recommended that that foundation may be made by early education and habits of thought, but in so doing I did not mean to prejudge, nor do I seem to have been considered as doing so, I am not going to lay down as law that no man has a right to entertain opinions opposed to the religion of the state, nor to express them. Man is only responsible for his opinions to God, because God only can judge of his motives, and we arrogate his duties if we judge of men's sentiments. If men will entertain sentiments opposed to the religion of the state we require that they shall express them reverently, and philosophers who have discussed this subject all agree that this is right Mr. Archdeacon Paley has stated this in language so plain, far better than any words I could supply myself. 'Serious arguments are fair on all sides. Christianity is but ill-defended by refusing audience or toleration to the objections of unbelievers. But whilst we would have freedom of inquiry restrained by no laws but those of decency, we are entitled to demand, on behalf of a religion which holds forth to mankind assurances of immortality, that its credit be assailed by no other weapons than those of sober discussion and legitimate reasoning.' Our law has adopted that as its rule, and men are not permitted to make use of indecent language in reference to God and the Christian religion, without rendering themselves liable to punishment. You have had a great number of books read to you, arguing whether it was politic to prosecute in such cases. One of the sentiments was a dignitary's reply, 'I will answer it.' That points out the difference in these cases.

Sober argument you may answer, but indecent reviling you cannot, and therefore the law steps in and punishes it. You have been told you have to consider what is blasphemy. He asked the witness what he considered blasphemy, and he gave him a very sensible answer. What you have to try is, whether the defendant wickedly and devisedly did intend to bring the Christian religion into contempt among the people, by uttering words of and concerning Almighty God, the holy Scriptures, and the Christian religion. The charge is, that he uttered these words with the intention of bringing Almighty God, the Christian religion, and the holy Scriptures, into contempt. You are not called upon to say whether in your judgment the opinions of the defendant are right or wrong--whether it is right or wrong that words like these should be punished, but whether he uttered these words with the intent charged in the indictment. These words were proved by a witness who admits that others were used, that they did not follow consecutively, and that other words were interspersed. It is right that you should have the whole set before you, for a man is not to be judged for what is partly set before you, and therefore it was necessary you should have the whole of what was said. The way in which the witness related the statements made by defendant was this: He said he had been lecturing on 'Home Colonisation, Emigration, and Poor-Laws superseded.' After the lecture had been closed, some man whose name he did not then know, said the lecturer had been speaking of our duty to our fellow-men, but he had not spoken of our duty to our God, and it is important that you should notice that the words were not the subject of the lecture, but uttered in answer to a question put to him. There is no evidence that he intended to have said anything--there is no evidence that this person is a friend of the other person, or that this question was asked so as to give him an opportunity of uttering these sentiments,* If that had been the case it would have made it worse than if he had introduced it. This challenge having been made by this person, whoever it was, the defendant said--'I am of no religion at all; I do not believe in such a thing as a God.' There is nothing in the introduction of the word 'thing' to show that he intended to-treat the subject with levity and contempt. You might take it that he said he did not believe there is such a being as a God.

* The artifice which Mr. Justice Erskine here suggested to the jury never entered into my imagination. The evidence could not have given the jury any such idea, and I was pained and astonished to hear the judge employ it.

The witness went on: 'He said the people of this country are too poor to have any religion, he would serve the Deity as the government did the subaltern officers--place him on half-pay; I was near the door; you said the reason was the expense of religion. And then he was asked as to his opinion of blasphemy. He is then cross-examined as to his knowledge of some report made by another person. You did not lay any emphasis on the word thing; you said the word in the ordinary tone of voice.' There is something which defendant has alleged himself to have stated* which gives a stronger sting than that which was given by the witness--'I flee the Bible as a viper.' The question is whether these words were uttered with the intention of bringing God and the Christian religion into contempt. Then the charge is made out, for I tell you that it is an offence at common law. If it is not an offence, the indictment is not worth the parchment it is written upon--if there is no such authority as that which I have laid down. Any man who treats with contempt the Christian religion, is guilty of an indictable misdemeanour. You have to consider the language and a passage read to you from a charge of a learned judge. 'It may not be going too far to state, that no author or preacher is forbidden stating his opinions sincerely. By maliciously is not meant malice against any particular individual, but a mischievous intent. This is the criterion, and it is a fair criterion, if it can be collected from the offensive levity in which the subject is treated, if the matter placed in the indictment contains any such tendency.' If the words had appeared in the course of a written paper you would have entertained no doubt that the person who had uttered these words had uttered them with levity. The only thing in his favour is, that it was not a written answer. The solution given by the defendant is, that although his opinions are unhappily such that he has no belief in a God, he had no intention of bringing religion into contempt. He went on to state that he considered it the duty of the clergymen of the establishment to have reduced their incomes one-half. If he had meant this, he ought to have made use of other language. You will dismiss from your minds all statements in newspapers, or other statements made out of court, and consider it in reference to the evidence. If you are convinced that he uttered it with levity, for the purpose of treating with contempt the majesty of Almighty God he is guilty of the offence. If you think he made use of these words in the heat of argument without any such intent, you will give him the benefit of the doubt. If you are convinced that he did it with that object you must find him guilty, despite of all that has been addressed to you. If you entertain a reasonable doubt of his intention, you will give him the benefit of it.

* In the report of my original speech to Maitland, which I read to the court from the Oracle.

The jury, after a very brief deliberation, returned a verdict of _Guilty_.

[One of the jury was a Deist, a professed friend of free speech, and who had said that he never could convict me, but he wanted courage when the hour of the verdict came, and gave in against me. For myself, I never for a moment expected an acquittal. During the few moments of the jury's consultation, I took my watch from my neck and gave it, with my keys, to my friend, Mr. Knight Hunt. My papers I consigned to my friend Mr. W. B. Smith, as for all I knew they might the next moment become the property of the court by virtue of the sentence.]

Mr. Justice Erskine. George Jacob Holyoake, if you had been convicted as the author of that paper which Adams has been convicted of publishing, my sentence must have been very severe. But, although the name is the same, there is no evidence of it.* You have been convicted of uttering language, and although yom have been adducing long arguments to show the impolicy of these prosecutions, you are convicted of having uttered these words with improper levity. The arm of the law is not stretched out to protect the character of the Almighty; we do not assume to be the protectors of our God, but to protect the people from such indecent language. And if these words had been written for deliberate circulation, I should have passed on you a severer sentence. You uttered them in consequence of a question--I have no evidence that this question was put to draw out these words. Proceeding on the evidence that has been given, trusting that these words have been uttered in the heat of the moment, I shall think it sufficient to sentence you to be _imprisoned in the Common Gaol for Six calendar months_.

* This is another of those unwarranted suppositions in which the judge ought not to have indulged. 'That paper' was written by my friend Mr. Chilton, Editor of the Oracle in my absence, and signed with his initials. The judge might have known that I was in Gloucester Gaol when it was written and published. I should have stopped the judge and corrected him, but I feared by seeming to separate myself from Adams, to be thought capable of saving myself at his expense, or exposing him to new rigour.

Mr. Holyoake. My lord, am I to be classed with thieves and felons?

Mr. Justice Erskine. No; thieves and felons are sentenced to the Penitentiary, you to the Common Gaol.

The court adjourned at ten o'clock.

What was advanced by the counsel and the judge has been rendered in full in the foregoing report, but I have contented myself with an abstract of what I urged myself. The _Times_ said I quoted from more than thirty authors, which is very likely; but it was not because I was not sensible of the good taste of brevity that I occupied the bench so long. I was standing that day in court fourteen hours, and, including the cross examinations, I was speaking more than eleven hours. I prepared notes to last me two days; and after the first six hours, my voice, usually shrill and weak, became full and somewhat sonorous. I could have spoken all night, and I should have done it had the judge attempted to put me down. But I willingly acknowledge that, on the whole, the conduct of the judge was fair to me, and patient to a degree that inspired me with great respect for the dignity of the bench, and I dedicated my 'Short and Easy Method with the Saints' to Mr. Justice Erskine, as an actual expression of my respect. The governor of the gaol one day said to me, that I ought not to regret six months' imprisonment after occupying the court and public so many hours. I did not regret it. Indeed, I more deserved the sentence for the length of my defence than for the words for which I was indicted. But it was the menace of the magistrates (before recounted) that I should not be heard, that did me the harm, and exposed me to the imputation of wanting good sense, which is a worse imputation than that of wanting orthodoxy. This came of inexperience in imprisonment. The menaces of magistrates will not so mislead me another time.

When I now read the notices of these proceedings which I furnished to the _Oracle_ at the time, I smile at the juvenility of comment in which I indulged. When similarly-worded reports reach me for the _Reasoner_, my practice is to extract the simple facts--and, of course, the writers remonstrate with me; but how grateful should I be now if some one had done the same by me then. The principle on which we proceeded with our _Oracle_ was that every man should express himself in his own words and in his own way, and we thought it a crime against freedom to distinguish between weak comment and the report of essential facts, or the expression of vital principle. The report of the proceedings rendered in these pages is given in some measure upon the rule of discrimination which I have described. But, in this, I have been impartial to others, and have omitted many things on the part of my opponents which I believe they would not repeat, and which I, therefore, have no wish to perpetuate. The remaining variations between this report and that which formerly appeared will be found to be partly on the side of greater accuracy in some respects, and more fulness in others. The original report presented most of the quotations, calling them a string of pearls, but left in a very unravelled state the string which tied them--and hence they read like abrupt interpolations. I have now given the connecting observations, the spirit of the extracts, and, in cases where the extracts have not since that time grown familiar to the public ear, I have given them also.

The influence of my defence upon the public at Gloucester and Cheltenham, notwithstanding the difficulties under which I laboured, was in my favour beyond my expectation. The newspapers stated that the court and jury were attentive throughout, and the numbers who thronged the court behaved in the most decorous manner, testifying their interest in the proceedings by a uniform silence, manifesting neither approbation nor disapprobation.' Several newspapers gave nine or ten columns of the proceedings, which was valuable propagandism. And it is due to the _Cheltenham Examiner_ (whose parallel between me and Francis the reader will not have forgotten), to state that it gave an effective rendering of my defence, and added these compensatory words to its report:--'The defendant spoke throughout in a temperate manner, and his defence appeared to tell in his favour, so far as regarded the honesty of his motives.'

Let me say here that my grateful acknowledgments are due to the editor of the _Cheltenham Free Press_. That paper reported whatever concerned my liberty, my conscience, or my character. It risked much in defending, alone among its local contemporaries, the freedom of speech violated in my person. It opened its columns to Goodwyn Barmby's proclamations, to Catherine Barmby's letters, to Richard Carlile's defences, and to the numerous communications of my friends on my behalf.

My acknowledgments are also due to the _Weekly Dispatch_. On my visiting London 'Publicola,' then Captain Williams, invited me to call upon him, and inform him of my position with respect to the pending trial; and his able Letters to Justice Erg-kine, after my conviction, produced great uneasiness at the gaol, and each number of the _Dispatch_ was awaited for some weeks by the authorities around me, as I learned from the gaolers, with anxiety.

My defence, considered as a defence of the wide and momentous question of atheism, was crude enough. No one can be more sensible of that than I am. On the moral aspects of atheism and its relation to public polity I feared to enter, lest in my own newness to the study of so large a subject I should compromise it by unskilfulness of statement; I therefore confined myself to pleading that the right of public expression was the sequence of the right of private judgment--that the right of expression was consonant to the common law as well as to reason, and that the right of expression being necessary to private morality, it could not be incompatible with the public peace.