language and conduct during this debate were condemned in the most unqualified terms by persons altogether unfriendly to his antagonist.[47]
In the fourth night of the debate, Mr. Grant, harping on the alleged immoralities of Paine and Carlile, twitted his antagonist with calling him "my friend." When the time came for my father to reply, he rose, evidently in a white heat of anger, to defend these two great dead men from their living calumniator. His speech produced such an effect, not only upon the audience, but upon Mr. Grant, that the latter grew quite uneasy under his words and under his gaze; he asked "Iconoclast" to look at the audience and not at him. Mr. Bradlaugh replied: "I will take it that you are, as indeed you ought to be, ashamed to look an earnest man in the face, and I will look at you no more. Mr. Grant complains that I have called him 'my friend.' It is true, in debate I have accustomed myself to wish all men my friends, and to greet them as friends if possible. The habit, like a garment, fits me, and I have in this discussion used the phrase 'my friend;' but, believe me, I did not mean it. Friendship with you would be a sore disgrace and little honour."
A verbatim report was taken of this debate; but when the MS. of his speeches was sent the Rev. Brewin Grant for approval, he refused to return it, and thus the debate was never published.
Another person who came forward to champion Christianity against "Infidels" generally, and Mr. Bradlaugh in particular, was the Rev. Dr. Brindley. This gentleman, well known as a confirmed drunkard and a bankrupt, was yet announced as the "Champion of Christianity, the well-known controversialist against Mr. Robert Owen, and the Socialists, the Mormons, and the Secularists." A four nights' debate was arranged to take place at Oldham in June in the Working Men's Hall.
The meagre reports show nothing of any interest beyond the fact that on each evening there were enormous audiences. Mr. Bradlaugh had another four nights' debate with Dr. Brindley at Norwich a few months later, but this did not appear to be worth reporting at all. Dr. Brindley was not by any means so clever as Mr. Grant, nor did he use quite such scandalous language upon the public platform and to his adversary's face, although, if rumour did not belie him, he was more unrestrained both as to matter and manner when relieved of his antagonist's presence.[48] One thing at least he and Mr. Grant had in common—an overwhelming antagonism to Mr. Bradlangh. This feeling led each man into continuous hostile acts, overt or covert, each according to his temperament and opportunity. Dr. Brindley's rage amounted to fever heat when Mr. Bradlaugh became candidate for Northampton, and in that town he frantically used every endeavour to hinder his return. When Mr. Bradlaugh determined to go to America in 1873, Dr. Brindley's feelings quite overpowered him, and he rushed after his enemy to New York, with, I suppose, some sort of idea of hunting down the wicked Atheist, though really, looking back on the past, it is difficult to see that the poor creature could have had any clear ideas as to what he was going to do to Mr. Bradlaugh when he reached America. He must have been carried away by some sort of wild frenzy, which amounted to insanity. My father's first lecture upon the Republican Movement in England, at the Steinway Hall, New York, proved to be an immense success, and at its close Dr. Brindley offered some opposition. By his language he aroused such a storm of hisses and uproar, that Mr. Bradlaugh was obliged to interpose on his behalf, which he did by appealing to the audience "to let the gentleman who represents the aristocracy and the Church of England go on." This convulsed the assembly, who—in laughter and amusement—consented to hear the rev. gentleman out. Four days later Dr. Brindley publicly answered Mr. Bradlaugh at the Cooper Institute, and the Germantown Chronicle (Philadelphia) gives the following amusing account of the proceedings:—
"Brindley's purpose in life is to go for Bradlaugh hammer and tongs, and he has actually paid his way out here, cabin passage, to hunt up and show up and finally shut up the six foot leader of the English Radicals. He is determined to keep on after Bradlaugh hot foot, and wherever that eminent individual leaves a trace of his presence, there will the indefatigable Brindley be, with his orthodox whitewash brush, to wipe out the name and memory of his Freethinking countryman. Dr. Brindley is an interesting orator, and the most simple-minded Briton that has presented himself at the Cooper Institute for some time. His voice is as funny as a Punch and Judy's, and when the audience of last night roared with laughter, it was impossible to tell whether it was at what Brindley had said, or Brindley's method and voice in saying it. Some of the audience were beery, and disposed to ask beery questions. The speaker said England was full of wealth, and that labour was never so well paid. Everybody was happy, and Bradlaugh was an incendiary, a story-teller, a nuisance, who would make a rumpus and make everybody miserable, even in the Garden of Eden. 'Were you ever in a casual ward?' asked a smudgy fellow in the back of the hall. 'No,' answered the bold Brindley, 'but if you were there now it would save the police trouble.' And so he replied to other impertinent questions, until he made the impression that he was not quite such a fool as he looked. He said Bradlaugh was an Atheist, whose belief is that 'brain power is the only soul in man,' and that as he was played out in England he had come over here to air his theories, and pick up pennies. 'You know where Cheshire is?' said Brindley, 'Cheshire, where the cheese is made,' and Brindley was about to tell a story on this head, when a donkey at the back end of the hall cried out, 'There ain't no cheese made there now. It's all done in Duchess county.' No telling what a good thing this fellow spoiled by his remark. Bradlaugh, anyhow, was scalped and vivisected, and Brindley took his tomahawk and himself away soon after."
But the farce was to end in a tragedy. Overcome by chagrin and mortification, Dr. Brindley died within a month of his appearance on the Steinway Hall platform. He died in New York in poverty and neglect, and was buried in a pauper's grave. The Chicago Times, alluding to the terms of Mr. Bradlaugh's appeal to the New York audience to give Dr. Brindley a hearing, said that the rev. gentleman was "slain by satire." "Since Keats, according to Byron, was snuffed out by a single article, there has been no parallel except this of a human creature snuffed out by a single sentence."
Following quickly upon the heels of the debate at Oldham with Dr. Brindley came one with the Rev. Joseph Baylee, D.D., Principal of St. Aidan's College, Birkenhead. Dr. Baylee himself proposed the conditions on which alone he would consent to discuss. These conditions threw the entire trouble and expense of the three nights' discussion upon Mr. Bradlaugh's committee. They provided that Dr. Baylee and his friends might open and conclude the proceedings with prayer, and they also provided that the debate should consist of questions and categorical answers with no speeches whatever on either side. Those who recall Mr. Bradlaugh's marvellous rapidity of thought, and the way in which he could instantly grasp and reason out a position, will see that this condition would certainly be no disadvantage to my father. The audiences, as usual, crowded the hall, and listened to both speakers with the utmost attention. This discussion, which was reported at length and published in pamphlet form,[49] has had a very wide circulation. It is in many respects a remarkable debate; but as it is easily obtainable, I will leave it to speak for itself, more especially as, from its peculiar form of question and answer, it does not lend itself conveniently to quotation.
Were it possible it would be tedious to follow Mr. Bradlaugh through the hundreds of lectures which he delivered during these ten years, but it will be interesting, and will give us a clearer idea of the turmoil and work of his life, to note some of the difficulties he had to meet thirty or so years ago. Nowadays, as soon as Parliament rises nearly every member of the House of Commons thinks himself called upon to go and air his views throughout the length and breadth of the country; then, public speaking was much more uncommon, and Freethought lectures in especial were few and far between. To-day, almost every town of any size has its own Freethought speakers, and speakers come to it with more or less frequency from adjoining districts and from London. Little difficulties create great stir and excitement now: then, great difficulties came almost as a matter of course. But even when difficulties were frequent and not altogether unexpected, that did not make them the easier to endure. A brick-bat which reaches its aim hurts just as much whether it is one out of many thrown or just one thrown by itself.
At Wigan, in October 1860, my father went to deliver two lectures in the Commercial Hall. The conduct of the people in this town was so disgraceful, that he said in bitter jest that if he did much more of this "extended propaganda" he should
