Bygones Worth Remembering Volume Ii Part 5

So strange did this precaution in speech seem in my time, that it was believed that reticence was not honest precaution, but prudent concealment of actual conviction, intended to evade orthodox anger.

On problems relating to infinite existence and an unknown future, it requires infinite knowledge to give an affirmative answer. No one said he had infinite information, but everybody declaimed as though he had.

It appeared not to have occurred to many that there was a state of the understanding in which lack of conviction was owing to lack of evidence.

Where the desire to believe is hereditary, it is difficult to realise that there are questions upon which certainty may, to many minds, be unattainable, and that an honest man who felt this was bound to say so.

An American journal, which needed forbearance from its readers for its own heresy, published the opinion that Huxley was a "dodger" in philosophy. Whereas Huxley was for integrity in thought and speech. He was for scientific accuracy as far as attainable. His own outspokenness was the glory of philosophy and science in his day. He never denied his convictions; he never apologised for them; he never explained them away.

Is it over his n.o.ble tomb that we are to write, "Here lies a Dodger,"

because he invented an honest term to denote the measured knowledge of honest thinkers? Dogmatism is not demonstration, but when I was young n.o.body seemed to suspect it. It used to be said that "Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer were not really in a state of unknowingness concerning the great problem of the universe"--which meant that these eminent thinkers, upon whose lives no shadow of unveracity ever rested, described themselves as Limitationists when they were not so. They were not to be believed upon their word. The term was a mask. Such are the social penalties for taking sides with veracity.

The public has begun to discover that veracity of speech is not a mask, but a duty. None can calculate the calamities which arise in society from the perpetual misdirections disseminated by those who make a.s.sertions resting merely upon their inherited belief or prepossessions, with no personal knowledge upon which they are founded. This is the sin of pretension, which recedes before the integrity of science and reason, just as wild beasts recede before the march of civilisation.

Few would be prepared to believe that, in my polemical days, the desire to avoid committing the sin of pretension was supposed to indicate desperation of character, of which suicide would be the natural end.

This was a favourite argument, for a heterodox principle was held to be for ever confuted, if he who held it hanged himself. The best proclaimed champion of orthodox tenets, whom I met on many platforms, went about declaring that I intended suicide, and it was generally believed that I had committed it. The certainty of it, sooner or later, was little doubted, whereas it was not at all in my way.

The suicide of Eugene Aram, to escape the ignominy of an inevitable execution, is intelligible. If Blanco White, whose dying and hopeless sufferings excited the sympathy even of Cardinal Newman, had done the same thing, it would have been condonable. Suicide proceeding from disease of the mind is always pitiable. When Italian prisoners were given belladonna by their Austrian gaolers, to cause them to betray, unconsciously, their comrades, some committed suicide to prevent this, which was honourable though deplorable. When a murderer, knowing his desert, becomes his own executioner, he is not censurable though still infamous, since it saves society the expense of terminating his dangerous career. But in other cases, self-slaughter, to avoid trouble or the performance of inconvenient duty, is cowardly and detestable.

In my controversial days (which I hope are not yet ended) the clergy did not hesitate to say that if a man began to think for himself, he would end by killing himself.

When I thought the doctrine had died out, an instance recurred which led me to address the following letter to the Rev. R. P. Downes, LLD. (May 18, 1899), who thought the doctrine valid:--

"Dear Dr. Downes,--It has been reported to me that in Wesley Place Chapel, Tunstall (March 20, 1899), you, when preaching on the 'Roots of Unbelief,' ill.u.s.trated that troublesome subject by saying that 'when Mr.

Holyoake was imprisoned at Birmingham, he attempted suicide.' This is not true, nor was it in Birmingham, but in Gloucester where the imprisonment occurred. I never attempted suicide--it was never in my mind to do it. I had no motive that way. I experienced no moment of despair. Better men than I had been imprisoned before, for being so imprudent as to protest against intolerance and error. Besides, I never liked suicide. I was always against it Blowing out your brains makes an ill-conditioned splatter. Cutting your throat is a detestable want of consideration for those who have to efface the stains. Drowning is disagreeable, as the water is cold and not clean. Hanging is mean and ignominious, and I have always heard unpleasant The French charcoal plan makes you sick. Indeed, every form of suicide shows want of taste; and worse than that, it is a cowardly thing to flee from evils you ought to combat, and leave others, whom you may be bound to cherish and protect, to struggle unaided. So you see what you allege against me is not only irrelevant--it implies defect of taste, which is serious in the eyes of society, which will condone crime more readily than vulgarity.

"I am against your discourse because of its bad taste. Suicide is no argument against the truth of belief. Christians are continually committing it, and clergymen also. The Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge used to bring this argument from suicide forward in their tracts against heresy. But being educated gentlemen they abandoned it long ago, and it is now only used by the lower cla.s.s of preachers. I do not mean to suggest that you belong to that cla.s.s--only that you have condescended to use an argument peculiar to uncultivated reasoners.

"Personally, I have great respect for several eminent preachers of Wesleyan persuasion, but they think it necessary to inquire into the truth of an accusation before they make it You must have borrowed yours from the Rev. Brewin Grant, with whom in his last illness I had friendly communications, and he had long ceased to repeat what he said in days when it was not thought necessary to be exact in imputations against adversaries.

"I do not remember to have written before in refutation of the statement you made. No one who knows me would believe it for a moment; but as you are a responsible, and I understand a well-regarded, preacher, I inform you of the error, especially as it gives me the opportunity of putting on record not only my disinclination, but my dislike and contempt for suicide, and for those who, not being hopelessly diseased or insane, commit it."

Dr. Downes sent me a gentlemanly and candid letter, owning that the Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A., was the authority on which he spoke, whose representations he would not repeat, and I have reason to believe he has not.

Such are the vicissitudes of taking sides. He has to pay who takes the right, but he has honour in the end. But he pays more who takes the wrong side consciously, and with it comes infamy.

CHAPTER x.x.xI. THINGS WHICH WENT AS THEY WOULD

I commence with Judge Hughes' first candidature. There are cases in which grat.i.tude is submerged by prejudice, even among the cultivated cla.s.ses. There was Thomas Hughes, whose statue has been deservedly erected in Rugby. Three years before he became a member of Parliament I told him he might enter the House were he so minded. And when opportunity arose I was able to confirm my a.s.surance.

One Friday afternoon in 1865 some Lambeth politicians of the middle and working cla.s.ses, whom Bernal Osborne had disappointed of being their candidate (a vacancy having attracted him elsewhere), came to me at the House of Commons to inquire if I could suggest one to them. I named Mr. Hughes as a good fighting candidate, who had sympathy with working people, and who, being honest, could be trusted in what he promised, and being an athlete, could, like Feargus O'Connor, be depended upon on a turbulent platform. I was to see Mr. Hughes at once, which I did, and after much argument satisfied him that if he took the "occasion by the hand" he might succeed. He said, "he must first consult Sally"--meaning Mrs. Hughes. I had heard him sing "Sally in our Alley," and took his remark as a playful allusion to his wife as the heroine of the song.

That he might be under no illusion, I suggested that he should not enter upon the contest unless he was prepared to lose 1,000.

The next morning he consented. I took him to my friends of the Electoral Committee, by whom he was accepted. When he entered the vestibule of the hall of meeting I left him, lest my known opinions on other subjects should compromise him in the minds of some electors. This was on the Sat.u.r.day afternoon. I saw that by issuing an address in the Monday morning papers he would be first in the field. On Sunday morning, therefore, I waited for him at the Vere Street Church door, where the Rev. F. D. Maurice preached, to ask him to write at once his address to the electors. He thought more of his soul than of his success, and reluctantly complied with my request. His candidature might prevent a Tory member being elected, and the labours of the Liberal electors for years being rendered futile, education put back, the Liberal a.s.sociation discouraged, taxation of the people increased, and the moral and political deterioration of the borough ensue. To avert all such evils the candidate was loath to peril his salvation for an hour. Yet would it not have been a work of human holiness to do it, which would make his soul better worth saving? That day I had lunch at his table in Park Lane, while he thought the matter over. That was the first and last time I was asked to his house. That afternoon he brought the address to my home, then known as Dymoke Lodge, Oval Road, Regent's Park, and had tea with my family. I had collected several persons in another room ready to make copies of the address.

I wrote letters to various editors, took a cab, and left a copy of the address myself, before ten o'clock, at the offices of all the chief newspapers published on Monday morning. The editor of the _Daily News_ and one or two others I saw personally. All printed the address as news, free of expense. Next morning the Liberal electors were amazed to see their candidate "first in the field" before any other had time to appear. All the while I knew Mr. Hughes would vote against three things which I valued, and in favour of which I had written and spoken. He would vote against the ballot, against opening picture galleries and museums on Sunday, and against the separation of the Church from the State. But on the whole he was calculated to promote the interests of the country, and therefore I did what I could to promote his election.

I wrote for the election two or three bills. The following is one:--

HUGHES FOR LAMBETH.

Vote for "Tom Brown."

Vote for a Gentleman who is a friend of the People.

Vote for a Churchman who will do justice to Dissenters.

Vote for a tried Politician who will support just measures and can give sensible reasons for them.

Vote for a distinguished writer and raise the character of metropolitan const.i.tuencies.

Vote for a candidate who can defend your cause in the Press as well as in Parliament

Vote for a man known to be honest and who has long worked for the industrious cla.s.ses.

Electors of Lambeth,

Vote for Thomas Hughes.

Mr. Hughes would have had no address out but for me. Had he spent 100 in advertis.e.m.e.nts a day or two later he could not have purchased the advantage this prompt.i.tude gave him. I worked very hard all that Sunday, a son and daughter helping--but our souls did not count Two weeks went by--during which I ceaselessly promulgated his candidature--and I heard nothing from the candidate. As I had paid the emergency expenses of the Sunday copyists, found them refreshments while they wrote, and paid for the cab on its round to the offices, I found myself 2 "out of pocket,"

as lawyers put it, and I sent a note to Mr. Hughes to say that amount would cover costs incurred. He replied in a curt note saying I should "find a cheque for 2 within"--giving me the impression that he regarded it as an extortion, which he thought it better to submit to than resent.

He never thanked me, then or at any time, for what I did. Never in all his life did he refer to the service I had rendered him.

A number of friends were invited to Great Ormond Street College to celebrate his election, but I was not one. This was not handsome treatment, but I thought little of it. It was not Mr. Hughes's natural, but his ecclesiastical self. I withstood him and his friends, the Christian Socialists, who sought to colour Co-operation with Church tenets, which would put distraction into it. a.s.sociation with me was at that time repugnant to Mr. Hughes. Nevertheless, I continued to serve him whenever I could. He was a friend of Co-operation, to his cost, and was true to the Liberal interests of the people. My daughter, Mrs.

Praill, and her husband gave their house as a committee-room when Mr.

Hughes was subsequently a candidate in Marylebone, and she canva.s.sed for him so a.s.siduously that he paid her a special visit of acknowledgment.

The Christian Socialist propaganda is another instance of the wilfulness of things which went as you did not want them to go. In those days not only did I fail to find favour in the eyes of Mr. Hughes--even Mr.

Vansittart Neale, the most liberal of Christian Socialists, thought me, for some years, an unengaging colleague. General Maurice, in the Life of his eminent father (Professor Denison Maurice), relates that Mr. Maurice regarded me as an antagonist. This was never so. I had always respect for Professor Maurice because of his theological liberality. He believed that perdition was limited to aeons. The duration of an aeon he was not clear upon; but whatever its length, it was then an unusual and merciful limitation of eternal torture. This cost him his Professorship at King's College, through the enmity, it was said, of Professor Jelf. I endeavoured to avenge Professor Maurice by dedicating to Dr. Jelf my "Limits of Atheism." Elsewhere I a.s.sailed him because I had honour for Professor Maurice, for his powerful friendship to Co-operation. When the news of his death came to the Bolton Congress it was I who drew up and proposed the resolution of honour and sorrow which we pa.s.sed.

It was always the complaint against the early "Socialists"--as the Co-operators were then called--that they mixed up polemical controversy with social advocacy. The Christian Socialists strenuously made this objection, yet all the while they were seeking to do the same thing.

What they rightly objected to was that the chief Co-operators gave irrelevant prominence to the alien question of theology, and repelled all persons who differed from them.

All the while, what they objected to was not theology, but to a kind of theology not their own, and this kind, as soon as they acquired authority, they proceeded to introduce. They proceeded to compile a handbook intended to pledge the Co-operators to the Church of England, and I received proofs, which I still have, in which Mr. Hughes made an attack on all persons of Freethinking views. I objected to this as violating the principle on which we had long agreed, namely, of Co-operative neutrality in religion* and politics, as their introduction was the signal of disputation which diverted the attention of members from the advancement of Co-operation in life, trade, and labour. At the Leeds Congress I maintained that the congress was like Parliament, where, as Canning said, no question is introduced which cannot be discussed. If Church views were imported into the societies, Heretics and Nonconformists, who were the originators of the movement, would have the right of introducing. Personally, I preferred controversy _outside_ Co-operation. Their tenets. Mr. Hughes was so indignant at my protest that he, being in the chair, refused to call upon me to move a resolution officially a.s.signed to me upon another subject. At the meeting of the United Board for revising motions to be brought before Congress, I gave notice that if the Church question should be raised I should object to it, as it would then be in order (should the introduction of theology be sanctioned) for an Atheist (Agnostic was not a current word then) to propose the adoption of his views, and an Atheist, as such, might be a president. Whereupon Mr. Vansittart Neale, our general secretary, declared with impa.s.sioned vehemence that he hoped the day would never come when an Atheist would be elected president.

Yet when, some years later, I was appointed president of the Carlisle Congress (1887)--though I was still considered entirely deficient in proper theological convictions--Mr. Hughes and Mr. Neale, who were both present, were most genial, and with their concurrence 100,000 copies of my address were printed--a distinction which befel no other president.

In another instance I had to withstand Church ascendancy.

I was the earliest and foremost advocate of the neutrality of pious opinion in Co-operation; when others who knew its value were silent--afraid or unwilling to give pain to the Christian Socialists, whom we all respected, and to whom we were all indebted for legal and friendly a.s.sistance.

But integrity of principle is higher than friendship. Some Northumbrian societies, whose members were largely Nonconformists, were greatly indignant at the attempt to give ascendancy to Church opinions, and volunteered to support my protest against it But when the day of protest came at the Leeds Congress they all deserted me--not one raised a voice on my side; though they saw me browbeaten in their interest My argument was, that if we a.s.sented to become a Church party we might come to have our proceedings opened with a collect, or by prayer, to which it would be hypocrisy in many to pretend to a.s.sent. At the following Derby Congress this came to pa.s.s: Bishop Southwell, who opened the Industrial Exhibition, made a prayer and members of the United Board knelt round him. I was the only one who stood up, it being the only seemly form of protest there. This scene was never afterwards repeated. Bishop Southwell was a devout, kindly, and intellectually liberal prelate, but he did not know, or did not respect, as other Bishops did, the neutrality of Congress.

For myself, I was always in favour of the individuality of the religious conscience in its proper place. I love the picturesqueness of personal conviction. It was I who first proposed that we should accept offers of sermons on Congress Sunday by ministers of every denomination.

Co-operators included members of all religious persuasions, and I was for their opportunity of hearing favourite preachers apart from Co-operative proceedings.

It is only necessary for the moral of these instances to pursue them.

There is education in them and public suggestiveness which may justify the continuance of the subject.

When the _Co-operative News_ was begun in Manchester (1871), I wrote its early leaders, and as its prospects were not hopeful, it was agreed that the _Social Economist_, which I and Mr. E. O. Greening had established in London in 1868, should cease in favour of the _Co-operative News_, as we wished to see one paper, one interest, and one party. As the Manchester office was too poor to purchase our journal, we agreed that it should be paid for when the Manchester paper succeeded, and the price should be what the cessation of the _Social Economist_ should be thought to be worth to the new paper. It was sixteen years before the fulfilment of their side of the bargain. The award, if I remember rightly, was 15, but I know the period was as long and the amount as small. The _Co-operative News_ had then been established many years. It was worth much more than 100 to the Manchester paper to have a London rival out of the way. It was not an encouraging transaction, and but for Mr.