willing to take the oath as a necessary form if obligatory, but, believing it to be optional, he preferred affirmation.  On May 3rd he presented himself and, according to the evidence of Sir Erskine May, the Clerk of the House, given before the second Select Committee on his case, he “came to the table and delivered the following statement in writing to the Clerk:  ’To the Right Honourable the Speaker of the House of Commons.  I, the undersigned, Charles Bradlaugh, beg respectfully to claim to be allowed to affirm, as a person for the time being by law permitted to make a solemn affirmation or declaration, instead of taking an oath.  (Signed) Charles Bradlaugh.’  And being asked by the Clerk upon what grounds he claimed to make an affirmation, he answered:  ’By virtue of the Evidence Amendment Acts, 1869 and 1870.’  Whereupon the Clerk reported to Mr. Speaker” the claim, and Mr. Speaker told Mr. Bradlaugh that he might address the House on the matter.  “Mr. Bradlaugh’s observations were very short.  He repeated that he relied upon the Evidence Further Amendment Act, 1869, and the Evidence Amendment Act, 1870, adding:  ’I have repeatedly, for nine years past, made an affirmation in the highest courts of jurisdiction in this realm.  I am ready to make such a declaration or affirmation.’  Substantially those were the words which he addressed to the Speaker.”  This was the simple, quiet, and dignified scene which took place in the House.  Mr. Bradlaugh was directed to withdraw, and he withdrew, and, after debate, a Select Committee was appointed to consider whether he could make affirmation; that Committee decided against the claim, and gave in its report on May 20th.  On the following day Mr. Bradlaugh presented himself at the table of the House to take the oath in the form prescribed by the law, and on the objection of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, who submitted a motion that he should not be allowed to take the oath, another Committee was appointed.

Before this Committee Mr. Bradlaugh stated his case, and pointed out that the legal obligation lay on him to take the oath, adding:  “Any form that I went through, any oath that I took, I should regard as binding upon my conscience in the fullest degree.  I would go through no form, I would take no oath, unless I meant it to be so binding.”  He wrote in the same sense to the Times, saying that he should regard himself “as bound, not by the letter of its words, but by the spirit which the affirmation would have conveyed, had I been permitted to use it.”  The Committee reported against him, and on June 23rd he was heard at the Bar of the House, and made a speech so self-restrained, so noble, so dignified, that the House, in defiance of all its own rules, broke out over and over again into applause.  In the debate that preceded his speech, members had lost sight of the ordinary rules of decency, and had used expressions against myself wholly gratuitous in such a quarrel; the grave rebuke to him who “was