The Battle of The Press Part 19

The Chief Justice: If you have any good legal defence, proceed with it.

Mr. Carlile: I do not know that I am wrong. If there be an allegation that I have published a work in which it is stated that there is an obscene story in the Bible, surely you would not prevent me from referring to the Bible to prove the truth of the a.s.sertion?

The Chief Justice: I cannot hear this. The Bible is the history of a sinful people, and of the vengeance of G.o.d on them.

Mr. Carlile: I do not think the Bible is true, as a history.

[Considerable agitation was created in Court by this declaration.

Murmurs of dissatisfaction were heard from every quarter.]

Mr. Carlile was proceeding with another pa.s.sage from Sir W. Drummond's book, when he was interrupted by The Solicitor-General, who objected that he was going on in the way which had already been deprecated by the Court.

The Chief Justice: I cannot allow it. If I am mistaken there are means of correcting my error; but I think I am not mistaken when I say, that I cannot and ought not sit in my place and suffer any person to revile the Holy Scriptures.

Mr. Carlile: I have no wish to revile, but merely to examine them.

The Chief Justice: Examination does not consist in, and cannot be supported by, bold denials. It is a repet.i.tion of the offence.

Mr. Carlile: Can we compel our minds to receive as true what we do not believe because there is a law in support of it?

The Chief Justice: As long as a man keeps his opinion to himself, it is of no consequence to the community, and no human power can take cognizance of it.

Mr. Carlile: Your lordship's observations argue nothing but the absurdity of legislating on matters of opinion. He was proceeding with Sir W. Drummond's work, when The Solicitor-General again interrupted him. The defendant, he said, wanted to prove that other persons had written on the subject as well as Mr. Paine, which he contended formed no point of defence.

The Chief Justice: I cannot allow such a course to be taken.

Mr. Carlile: I have a right to go on with what I think necessary for my defence.

The Chief Justice: You have no right to go on with a defence of a mischievous nature. It would be a high misdemeanor in me to allow it.

Mr. Carlile: My wish is to defend my conduct from the imputation of malicious intention. In the course of their practice, these learned gentlemen quote precedents on all occasions; why then should not I quote Sir W. Drummond, a man of great talent and research?

The Chief Justice: His book has nothing to do with the case before the jury.

Mr. Carlile: The authority of Sir W. Drummond is as good as that of Lord Ellenborough.

The Chief Justice: You had better conduct yourself with propriety.

Mr. Carlile: In my mind, the authority of Sir W. Drummond possesses far greater weight.

The Chief Justice: Don't suppose, because great forbearance has been shown, that there may not come a time when forbearance must end.

Mr. Carlile: I don't want forbearance, I only want justice.

The Chief Justice: Justice you shall have, according to law; but to let you proceed contrary to law would not be justice. It is no justification for you to say that others have committed the same offence.

Mr. Carlile: I am not willing to take your lordship's-opinion that it is an offence.

The Chief Justice: I have said, all along, that the character of the publication would be ultimately left to the decision of the jury.

Mr. Carlile was proceeding, but the Solicitor-General again interposed.

The Chief Justice: I say it is no justification; but still I would not prevent the defendant from going on if the quotation be not offensive. I do not know that to be the work of Sir W. Drummond.

Mr. Carlile: It is his, for it has been answered by the Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. That is the best way to elicit truth. Sir W.

Drummond's name is to it.

The Chief Justice: No matter by whom it is written. I cannot stay in this place and hear the doctrines of Christianity impugned.

Mr. Carlile: It is not yet proven that I have committed error.

The Chief Justice: I know that--I have stated so all along; but you must not revile and calumniate the Christian religion.

Mr. Carlile: I do not calumniate. I wish to enter on a fair examination.

The Chief Justice: You are not allowed, neither is any man, to read in this place matter calumniating the Holy Scriptures.

Mr. Carlile: It is not calumniating.

The foreman of the jury now addressed his lordship. He said the gentlemen of the jury thought the defendant could not do himself any service by going on with such a defence

Mr. Carlile: Am I to understand that to be the sentiment of the jury?

Several Jurymen: Certainly.

After a short pause, Mr. Carlile proceeded. He at length came to a pa.s.sage in which Sir W. Drummond stated that he did not believe G.o.d had ever spoken to Moses.

Mr. Gurney submitted that was the denial of the truth and divine origin of part of the Old Testament, and was punishable by the statute law. It could not therefore be tolerated in that Court.

Mr. Carlile: To what are we to appeal, if not to reason?

The Chief Justice: You are charged with publishing a calumny on the Christian religion; show that the book does not contain such calumny.

You cannot prove that there is no calumny in it by reading works of a similar nature.

Mr. Carlile: There are pa.s.sages in the Bible which I view with as much horror as your lordship does this book. I do not believe them--your lordship does, or you profess that you do. Now it is only by reading controversial disputes on the subject of religion that we can know what is right or what is wrong.

The Chief Justice: We are not here trying the verity of pa.s.sages of Scripture. I cannot put it to the jury to say whether the Holy Scriptures contain the will of G.o.d. This cannot be done in a Christian country.

Mr. Carlile: I am obliged to read, in my defence, things that are disgusting to myself, and which I would not read if I were not compelled to do so.

The Chief Justice: You are not compelled. It can do you no service to read pa.s.sages of a similar tendency with those which you are charged with having published.

Mr. Carlile: As there is no other pa.s.sage in this book essential to my defence, I shall now go to the Bible. In reading that work, which the information charges me with calumniating, I can only express my own opinion, as a justification of what I have done. If that opinion is not satisfactory to the minds of the jury, still it would afford some ground for believing that I act from conviction.--[Here Mr. Carlile exhibited a large Bible, which was interleaved for the purpose of entering remarks on different pa.s.sages.]--The Old Testament, like many other books, begins with giving an account of the creation.--[Mr. Carlile here read several verses from the book of Genesis: "In the beginning G.o.d created the heaven and the earth," etc.]--Now (continued he) I have to state to you that that part of society who believe in this book differ in their ideas of the account of the creation. Some believe it to be an allegory--others consider it a statement of a real transaction. Some of the greatest fathers of the Christian Church, one of whom was Origen, considered it an allegory. When we see persons, who call themselves Christians, and who rest all their future hopes on this book, differing on such a pa.s.sage, I think an individual, whose mind is not made up on the subject, is at liberty to enquire into the reasons offered for one party believing it to be an allegory, and the other for taking it literally. Moses is stated to be the author of the book of Genesis, but I think it is proved by Paine that he did not write it. Whether it was written by him or not did not, however, invalidate the work. When you read, "In the _beginning_ G.o.d created the heaven and the earth," the philosopher naturally asks, what beginning? If it were said, from the beginning of time, then the world had existed through all eternity, for, to deny the eternity of time, is to deny the eternity of G.o.d. But this doctrine did not coincide with that of the Old Testament, although it was founded in reason.

Mr. Carlile was then proceeding with an enquiry into the nature and probability of such a revelation as was mentioned in the Old Testament, but was interrupted by

The Attorney-General, who submitted that no such enquiry could be gone into.

The Chief Justice: It is a very difficult thing to stop a person on his defence, at the commencement of every sentence. I would wish to err on the side of forbearance rather than of severity. Of all cases that can be brought into a Court of Justice, this is the most painful to a Judge.