Ernest Jones and others wrote yet more strongly, but out of all these Charles Bradlaugh alone has been selected for reproach, and has had the peculiar views of the anonymous author fathered on himself.  Why?  The reason is not far to seek.  None of the other writers are active Radical politicians, dangerous to the luxurious idleness of the non-producing but all-consuming “upper classes” of society.  These know how easy it is to raise social prejudice against a man by setting afloat the idea that he desires to “abolish marriage and the home”.  It is the most convenient poniard and the one most certain to wound.  Therefore those whose profligacy is notorious, who welcome into their society the Blandfords, Aylesburys, and St. Leonards, rave against a man as a “destroyer of marriage” whose life is pure, and whose theories on this, as it happens, are “orthodox”, merely because his honest Atheism shames their hypocritical professions, and his sturdy Republicanism menaces their corrupt and rotting society.

XIII.

Sometimes my lecturing experiences were not of the smoothest.  In June, 1875, I visited Darwen in Lancashire, and found that stone-throwing was considered a fair argument to be addressed to “the Atheist lecturer”.  On my last visit to that place in May, 1884, large and enthusiastic audiences attended the lectures, and not a sign of hostility was to be seen outside the hall.  At Swansea, in March, 1876, the fear of violence was so great that no local friend had the courage to take the chair for me (a guarantee against damage to the hall had been exacted by the proprietor).  I had to march on to the platform in solitary state, introduce myself, and proceed with my lecture.  If violence had been intended, none was offered:  it would have needed much brutality to charge on to a platform occupied by a solitary woman. (By the way, those who fancy that a lecturer’s life is a luxurious one may note that the Swansea lecture spoken of was one of a series of ten, delivered within eight days at Wednesbury, Bilston, Kidderminster, Swansea, and Bristol, most of the travelling being performed through storm, rain, and snow.) On September, 4th, 1876, I had rather a lively time at Hoyland, a village near Barnsley.  A Mr. Hebblethwaite, a Primitive Methodist minister, “prepared the way of the” Atheist by pouring out virulent abuse on Atheism in general, and this Atheist in particular; two Protestant missionaries aided him vigorously, exhorting the pious Christians to “sweep Secularists out”.  The result was a very fair row; I got through the lecture, despite many interruptions, but when it was over a regular riot ensued; the enraged Christians shook their fists at me, swore at me, and finally took to kicking as I passed out to the cab; only one kick, however, reached me, and the attempts to overturn the cab were foiled by the driver, who put his horse at a gallop.  A somewhat barbarous village, that same village of Hoyland.  Congleton