without even the semblance of religious sympathy between them.  If it be urged that the woman would never discover the piety of the man to be a counterfeit, we reply that unless her own piety were of the merely formal kind, she would be sure to make the discovery.  The congregation in the old story were untouched by the disguised devil’s eloquence on behalf of religion:  it lacked unction.  The verbal conformity of the unbeliever lacks unction, and its hollowness is speedily revealed to the quick apprehension of true faith.[24]

Let us not be supposed to be arguing in favour of incessant battle of high dialectic in the household.  Nothing could be more destructive of the gracious composure and mental harmony, of which household life ought to be, but perhaps seldom is, the great organ and instrument.  Still less are we pleading for the freethinker’s right at every hour of day or night to mock, sneer, and gibe at the sincere beliefs and conscientiously performed rites of those, whether men or women, whether strangers or kinsfolk, from whose religion he disagrees.  ’It is not ancient impressions only,’ said Pascal, ’which are capable of abusing us.  The charm of novelty has the same power.’  The prate of new-born scepticism may be as tiresome and as odious as the cant of gray orthodoxy.  Religious discussion is not to be foisted upon us at every turn either by defenders or assailants.  All we plead for is that when the opportunity meets the freethinker full in front, he is called upon to speak as freely as he thinks.  Not more than this.  A plain man has no trouble in acquiring this tact of reasonableness.  We may all write what we please, because it is in the discretion of the rest of the world whether they will hearken or not.  But in the family this is not so.  If a man systematically intrudes disrespectful and unwelcome criticism upon a woman who retains the ancient belief, he is only showing that freethinker may be no more than bigot differently writ.  It ought to be essential to no one’s self-respect that he cannot consent to live with people who do not think as he thinks.  We may be sure that there is something shallow and convulsive about the beliefs of a man who cannot allow his house-mates to possess their own beliefs in peace.

On the other hand, it is essential to the self-respect of every one with the least love of truth that he should be free to express his opinions on every occasion, where silence would be taken for an assent which he does not really give.  Still more unquestionably, he should be free from any obligation to forswear himself either directly, as by false professions, or by implication, as when he attend services, public or private, which are to him the symbol of superstition and mere spiritual phantasmagoria.  The vindication of this simple right of living one’s life honestly can hardly demand any heroic virtue.  A little of the straightforwardness which men are accustomed to call manly, is the only quality that is needed;