Bygones Worth Remembering Volume I Part 2

"Yours faithfully, and ever,

"Wendell Phillips.

"Mr. G.J. Holyoake."

With Mr. Charles Bradlaugh I had personal relations all his life. I took the chair for him at the first public lecture he delivered. I gave him ready applause and support. At the time of what was called his "Parliamentary struggle," I was entirely with him and ready to help him.

It was with great reluctance and only in defence of principle, to which I had long been committed, that I appeared as opposed to him. He claimed to represent Free Thought, with which I had been identified long before his day. My conviction was that a Free Thinker should have as much courage, consistency, and self-respect as any Apostle, or Jew, or Catholic, or Quaker. All had in turn refused to make a profession of opinion they did not hold, at the peril of death, or, as in the case of O'Connell and the Jews, at the certainty of exclusion from Parliament.

They had only to take an oath, to the terms of which they could not honestly subscribe. Mr. Bradlaugh had no scruple about doing this. In the House of Commons he openly kissed the Bible, in which he did not believe--a token of reverence he did not feel. He even administered to himself the oath, which was contrary to his professed convictions. This seemed to be a reflection upon the honour of Free Thought. Had I not dissented from it, I should have been a sharer in the scandal, and Free Thought--so far as I represented it--would have been regarded as below the Christian or Pagan level.

The key to Mr. Bradlaugh's character, which unlocks the treasure-house of his excellences and defects, and enables the reader to estimate him justly, is the perception that his one over-riding motive and ceaseless aim was the ascendancy of the right _through him_. It was this pa.s.sion which inspired his best efforts, and also led to certain aberration of action. But what we have to remember now, and permanently, is that it was ascendancy of the _right_ in political and theological affairs that he mainly sought for, fought for, and vindicated. It is this which will long cause his memory to be cherished.

At the time of his death I wrote honouring notices of his career in the _Bradford Observer_ and elsewhere, which were reproduced in other papers. Otherwise, I found opportunity on platforms of showing my estimate of his character and public services. I had never forgotten an act of kindness he had, in an interval of goodwill, done me. When disablement and blindness came in 1876, he collected from the readers of his journal 170 towards a proposed annuity for me. It was a great pleasure to me to repay that kindness by devising means (which others neither thought of nor believed in) of adding thrice that sum to the provision being made for his survivors. It was a merit in him that devotion to pursuits of public usefulness did not, in his opinion, absolve him from keeping a financial promise, as I knew, and have heard friends who aided him testify--a virtue not universal among propagandists. No wonder the coa.r.s.e environments of his early life lent imperiousness to his manners. In later years, when he was in the society of equals, where masterfulness was less possible and less necessary, he acquired courtesy and a certain dignity--the attribute of conscious power. He was the greatest agitator, within the limits of law, who appeared in my time among the working people. Of his own initiative he incurred no legal danger, and those who followed him were not led into it. He was a daring defender of public right, and not without genius in discovering methods for its attainment. One form of genius lies in discovering developments of a principle which no one else sees. Had he lived in the first French Revolution, he had ranked with Mirabeau and Danton. Had he been with Paine in America, he had spoken "Common Sense"

on platforms. He died before being able to show in Parliament the best that was in him. Though he had no College training like Professor Fawcett, Indian lawyers found that Mr. Bradlaugh had a quicker and greater grasp of Indian questions than the Professor. It was no mean distinction--it was, indeed, a distinction any man might be proud to have won--that John Stuart Mill should have left on record, in one of his latest works, his testimony to Mr. Bradlaugh's capacity, which he discerned when others did not. Like Cobbett, the soldiers' barracks did not repress Bradlaugh's invincible pa.s.sion for the distinction of a political career. In the House of Commons he took, both in argument and debate, a high rank, and surpa.s.sed compeers there of a thousand times his advantages of birth and education. That from so low a station he should have risen so high, and, after reaching the very platform of his splendid ambition, he should die in the hour of his opportunity of triumph, was one of the tragedies of public life, which touched the heart of the nation, in whose eyes Mr. Bradlaugh had become a commanding figure.

It was in connection with the controversy concerning the Oath that I received a letter from John Stuart Mill, which when published in the _Daily News_, excited much surprise. Mr. Mill was of opinion, that the oath, being made the condition of obtaining justice, ordinary persons might take it. But one who was known to disbelieve the terms of it, and had for years publicly written and spoken to that effect, had better not take it. This was the well-known Utilitarian doctrine that the consequences of an act are the justification of it. Francis Place had explained to me that Bentham's doctrine was that the sacrifice of liberty or life was justifiable only on the ground that the public gained by it. A disciple should have very strong convictions who differs from his master, and I differ with diffidence from Mr. Mill as to the propriety of carrying the Utilitarian doctrine into the domain of morals. Truth is higher than utility, and goes before it. Truth is a measure of utility, and not utility the measure of truth. Conscience is higher than consequence. We are bound first to consider what is right.

There may be in some cases, reasons which justify departure from the right. But these are exceptions. The general rule is--Truth has the first claim upon us.

To take an oath when you do not believe in an avenging Deity who will enforce it, is to lie and know that you lie. This surely requires exceptional justification. It is nothing to the purpose to allege that the oath is binding upon you. The security of that are the terms of the oath. The law knows no other. To admit the terms to be unnecessary is to abolish the oath.

When a youth, attending lectures at the Mechanics' Inst.i.tution, I soon discerned that the more eminent speakers were the clearer. They knew their subjects, were masters of the outlines, which by making bold and plain, we were instructed. Outline is the beginning of art and the charm of knowledge. Remembering this, I found no difficulty in teaching very little children to write in a week.

It is a great advantage to children to take care that their first notions are true. The primary element of truth is simplicity--with children it is their first fascination. I had only to show them that the alphabet meant no more than a line and a circle. A little child can make a "straight stroke" "and a round O."

The alphabet is made up of fifteen straight line and dozen curved line letters. The root of the fifteen straight line letters is J placed in various ways. The root of the eleven curved line letters is O or parts of O and I joined together.

A is made by two straight lines leaning against each other at the top, and a line across the middle.

H is made of two upright lines with a straight line between them.

V is made of two straight lines meeting at the bottom. If two upright lines are added to the V it becomes M.

Two V's put together make W. The letters L and T and X and Z make themselves, so easy is it to place the straight lines which compose them.

O makes itself. A short line makes it into Q. If the side of O be left open it is a C. If two half O's are joined together they make S. Half O and an upright line make D. An upright line and a half O make P. Another half added and B is made.

After a second or third time a child will understand the whole alphabet.

Such is the innate faculty of imitation and construction in children that they will put the letters together themselves when the method is made plain to them, and within a week will compose their own name and their mother's. At the same time they learn to read as well as to write. What they are told they are apt to forget, what they write they remember.

Reason is the faculty of seeing what follows as a consequence from what is, but to define distinction well is a divine gift. My one aim was to make things clear.

One of my suggestions to the young preachers, who had two sermons on Sunday to prepare, was that they should give all their strength to the evening discourse and arrange with their congregation to deliver the other from one of the old divines of English or Continental renown, which would inform as well as delight hearers. It would be an attraction to the outside public. Few congregations know anything of the eloquence, the happy and splendid ill.u.s.trations and pa.s.sages of thought to be found in the fathers of the Church of every denomination. Professor Francis William Newman, whose wide knowledge and fertility of thought had few equals in his day, told me that he should shrink from the responsibility of having to deliver a proficient and worthy discourse fifty-two times a year. Anyhow, for the average preacher, better one bright ruddy discourse, than two pale-faced sermons every Sunday.

Those who remained true to Chartism till the end of it are recorded in the following paragraph under the t.i.tle of the "National Charter a.s.sociation," which appeared in _Reynolds's Newspaper_, January 4, 1852:--

"On Wednesday evening last, the scrutineers appointed by the metropolitan localities attended at the office, 14, Southampton Street, Strand, and having inspected the votes received, gave the following as the result, in favour of the following nine:--

"Ernest Jones (who received 900 votes), Feargus O'Connor, John Arnott, T. M. Wheeler, James Gra.s.sby, John Shaw, W. J. Linton, J. J. Bezer, G.

J. Holyoake.

"Messrs. J. B. O'Brien, Gerald Ma.s.sey, and Arthur Trevelyan having declined to serve, the votes received on their behalf have not been recognised.

"We, the undersigned, hereby declare the nine persons first named to be duly elected to form the Executive Committee for the ensuing year.

"John Washington, City Locality.

"Edwd. John Loomes, Finsbury Locality.

"December 31, 1851."

After I became an octogenarian, I was asked whether my years might be ascribed to my habits. I could only explain what my habits were. In the first half of my life I ate whatever came to hand, and as not enough came I easily observed moderation. But then I was disposed to be moderate on principle, having read in the _Penny Magazine_, about 1830, that Dr. Abernethy told a lady "she might eat anything eatable in moderation." In the second and later half of my life I gave heed to Carnaro, and sought to limit each meal to the least quant.i.ty necessary for health. The limitation of quant.i.ty included liquids as well as solids, decreasing the amount of both "in relation to age and activity,"

as Sir Henry Thompson advised. Not thinking much of meat, I limited that to a small amount, and cereals to those that grow above ground. A tepid bath for the eye (on the recommendation of the Rev. Dr. Molesworth, of Rochdale) and a soap bath for the body every morning ends the catalogue of my habits.

My general mode of mind has been to avoid excess in food, in pleasure, in work, and in expectation. By not expecting much, I have been saved from worry if nothing came. When anything desirable did arrive, I had the double delight of satisfaction and surprise. Shakespeare's counsel--

"Be not troubled with the tide which bears O'er thy contents its strong necessities, But let determined things to destiny Hold, unbewailed their way"--

ought to be part of every code of health.

The conduciveness of my habits to longevity may be seen in this. More than forty of my colleagues, all far more likely to live than myself, have long been dead. Had I been as strong as they, I also should have died as they did. Lacking their power of hastening to the end, I have lingered behind.

For the rest--

"From my window is a glimpse of sea Enough for me, And every evening through the window bars Peer in the friendly stars."

The principles and aims of earlier years are confirmed by experience at 88. Principles are like plants and flowers. They suit only those whom they nourish. Nothing is adapted to everybody.

Goethe said: "When I was a youth I planted a cherry-tree, and watched its growth with delight. Spring frost killed the blossoms, and I had to wait another year before the cherries were ripe--then the birds ate them--another year the caterpillars ate them--another year a greedy neighbour stole them--another year the blight withered them.

Nevertheless, when I have a garden again, I shall plant another cherry-tree." My years now are "dwindling to their shortest span "; if I should have my days over again, I shall plant my trees again--certain that if they do grow they will yield verdure and fruit in some of the barren places of this world.