heaven sends her rain upon the just and upon the unjust, as the wheat and the tares grow together unto the harvest; so must we strive to learn that a judicious cultivation of our vices, not as vices but as instincts, is as essential to the welfare of society as is that of virtues. Nay, it is questionable if nine-tenths of all the ills our flesh is heir to, may not be traced to an erroneous and a depraved admiration of the virtues. Man, not nature, is the protectionist. Happy, most happy are they who can look but skin deep upon the frailties of our nature."-(p. 90.) This fastidious gentleman next proposes to ANNIHILATE CONSCIENCE, as the most troublesome part of our constitution, though he before found, that vices being natural, should be fostered; the same rule will not save conscience, since this is the great disturber of secular peace; accordingly, it is decided,-"We MUST ANNIHILATE CONSCIENCE; then, and not till then, shall the kingdom be ours. There always has been evil, and always will be, and what is more, I pray my God there always may be evil: it requires no Rochefoucault to tell us, as much individual happiness is fostered and procured by the worser as by the more estimable qualities of our nature."-(p. 91.) Again, says this tender moralist,-"I WOULD AWAY with conscience, as the parent of duplicity, shame, and concealment :'-the struggles in the first place to counteract nature, and the agonies of shame and remorse when all has failed, being no mean items in the category of human ills and woes; than which no more terrible element can be devised to the overthrow of noble minds; first crimes being mostly undertaken as it were naturally, or in ignorance or contempt of the value of the act, or under a mistaken estimate of the capacity to obliterate the remembrance; whilst with those constitutionally inaccessible to reproach, there is nothing either gained or lost."-(p. 91, 92.) But the climax of moral turpitude is reached in the next, with which we conclude the immorality of this shameless book:-" In the pleasures of hope, the sanguine may rejoice; the abject, in those of memory; the voluptuary may revel in the riot of the senses, but to the virtuous alone it is given to know the pleasures of regret. I have lived with the good, the noble, the virtuous, persons like myself whose delight was in virtue, and who hated deceit; and my lot has been cast with the libertine, the vagrant, the pedlar, and the harlot ;-yet never, not in my most hallowed moments, have I aught comparable tasted to the indignant joys administered by such profanation. These are the joys, the pains; the crowns, the martyrdoms; the crucifyings of the noble spirit; this is that life which is not of this world."—(pp. 92, 93.) The world would scarcely believe that men could be found to write and publish such infamous doctrines; some, from ignorance, plead for charity to such pretenders, and it may be, but this is scarcely possible now, that some solitary person may be found to believe the smooth platitudes of this publisher Holyoake,-that he wishes to provide the world with a pure systematic morality." The word is disgraced when they use it; and here we leave this Omicron, in the gutter of secular morality; next month we shall exhibit his insanity. 66 *This must be a mistake; he means unlike, unless he is speaking in Secular dialect. -[ED.] 130 THE KING OF THE BEGGARS; OR THE POSITIVE SIDE OF FREE THOUGHT. (Concluded from page 120.) TOWARDS the close of this volume, we are favoured with a letter on the "Progress of Atheism," (a title now abandoned,) in which letter Mr. Holyoake explains to his patron Aliquis,-who with Birch is the main support of the cause, or shilling list,-that "the increase in our circulation naturally suggests the notion of increased funds at our disposal; but this does not follow in our case. Though the sale is doubled, the cost of production, on the new plan, is more than double. So that, as respects paying, we are about where we were. The cause has benefited in credit and efficiency, and the reader has benefited in receiving double for his money, but the treasury of the paper has not been advantaged in the same degree. The cost of the increase in quantity, for this volume of twelve months, will be £300, and the increased sale will return about £150; the subscriptions of W. J. B. and yourself, a Friend of Reason, our Publisher, and the shilling list, amounting to 851 shillings, is the proportion received towards the commercial deficiency." (Vol. ix., p. 277.) The last announcement, page 311, makes the shilling list for vol. ix., 799 shillings and sixpence; but this is increased in vol x., page 19, to 1016 shillings and tenpence; this, together with the sales, is said to be £15 10s. less than the expenses of the volume. (vol x., p. 251.) The next list for the tenth volume opens with 100 shillings from Arthur Trevelyan (p. 19), and Mr. Birch promises (p. 31) the continuance of his ten shillings per week. This vol. x. raises 1,621 shillings and sixpence; vol. xi. raises 1,035 shillings (p. 407), to which Birch contributes his usual quantum, and so gets his insults on the Redeemer circulated by his organ. This, together with the sale and advertisements, left a deficiency of £5 9s. 6d. (Vol. xii., p. 62.) Holyoake, Tyndall, and Co., thus state the case of vol. xi. : "To 87,850 Reasoners' printing Part Covers printed, Posters, &c. Correspondence, Stationery and Advertisements £227 18 0 7 8 0 26 13 0 £261 19 0" (Vol. xii., p. 62.) The Reasoner Propaganda Fund, towards the deficiency between sale and trading expenses, is put down at £51 15s.Od. The twelfth volume ends (page 475) with Total 847s. 7d." Vol. xiii. begins with an article on the "Positive Side of Free Inquiry;" which is positively nothing more or less than the SHILLING LIST, the only positive thing developed in the Gazette, except positive lies, pretences, hypocrisy, and perversion. The readers are too wise to notice this coincidence," the positive side of free inquiry, or ways and means "of increasing the shilling list: the second article on this subject insists that £4 a week ought to be raised by this list, or 2,000 shillings a volume, to meet the expenses 'over that which is realised from the sale of the Reasoner." Vol. xiii., p. 19.) Formerly we have seen that a pound per week was required, now it has "developed or progressed" into four pounds; under the party of progress-in begging. The profession in this article, that the Editor is the greatest contributor to the cause, by losing two pounds a week, as well as receiving the list, provoked an answer from Charles Southwell, who declares that Holyoake "does not and never did lose anything by the Reasoner" in fact, that "the representations on this head are intentionally false." This leads to a long reckoning, in which Holyoake intimates to Southwell "you are another;" and clearly proves to his own satisfaction, and that of his subscribers, that it is he and not they, the receiver not the giver of the shillings, that makes the sacrifice. (Vol. ii, p. 241-245.) It is a very pretty quarrel, but the shilling list makes George more than a match for Charles. The latter thinks, that "if a paper does not pay, it ought not to exist," and the former replies, upon this rule, there could be no Reasoner, nor any other publication for the same party." (Vol. xiii., p. 244.) This is a confession, that he has "erected reason into a force;"--the force being outside, as a buttress made up of stacks of shillings, which Holyoake receives like a poor victim of "the positive side." This volume affords more victimization than any of the preceding, the total being 2,503s. 8d. Of this, 1,000 shillings are presented by "J. W. J." (page 450), there occurs one subscription from Arthur Trevelyan, of 50s. (p. 126.) Birch paid his 10s. weekly, and in addition to this sum (p. 367), a present of £20 (not apparently reckoned in the list), to comfort Holyoake in the prospect of "the three years' mission" which had been dreadfully depicted by Holyoake under an article headed "The Enemy at the Door."-(p. 321.) The positive side of vol. xiii. is therefore very respectable, £20 added to a list of 2,503 shillings. In vol. xiv. came the famous Cowper-street debate, of the proceeds of which (p. 215), Mr. Holyoake gives a balance, because he did not get much, and so makes it a kind of feeler for the subscription then about to be raised for him: but he never mentions what he gets for the volume from the publisher, lest that should diminish the sympathy of his followers. Besides, as he cunningly observed, that was a private arrangement, a matter of business between him and the publisher; though he does not think the same reason sufficient to omit the private arrangement with the Reporter, which is printed of course. And we have at last a sympathy meeting, to present Mr. Holyoake with £250, recognition of practical services to the right of private judgment, and the expression thereof." (p. 369.) Now it is one of the "positive as a 66 * Perhaps a misprint for J. W. B.-Birch. sides" or falsehoods of freethinkers to imagine or pretend that they have invented "the right of private judgment," while all they do in this matter is, to denounce those who exercise this right in a different creed to their own. However, George had his 250 sovereigns for agreeing with the subscribers-a remarkable illustration of their liberality to themselves and no other party; since none can be free who are slaves of creeds," except they are slaves of the Secular creed, and then they are free-from other people's opinions; but not free from the insolence of assuming that they are the people who absorb independence of thought and character. The volume affords 898 shillings and eight pence, in addition to this £250 presentation for taking their side; vol. xv., p. 31, increases this list to 917 shillings and two pence. We are next introduced to a new development of free thought in Holyoake's Book Trade. Our London House, which is, of course, "not a shop, [that is vulgar] but an institution," and is henceforth the heart of the cause. It is tenderly hinted (vol. xv. p. 148), that this "£250 [given for thinking like freethinkers] has been devoted to these (trading) objects;" "and we could ADVANTAGEOUSLY employ a larger sum, for the ground to be occupied at this hour is eventful to us." This is the cry of the horseleech,-" Give! Give!" for "the positive" or pocket "side of free thought" is insatiable. On the "Progress of Secular Organization," or of Holyoake's Book Trade, is an article requesting "a shilling each from our 5,000 readers ; which would, if contributed within a short period, furnish us with £250, a sum of very great service in the midst of removal and alteration expenses, which can never be calculated upon." (Vol. xv., p. 338.) So after the present of £250, he modestly begs a repetition of the same sum and on the same page urges as a reason for this, that being free from the anxieties of "alteration expenses," he could meet Mr. Grant again in Glasgow. The same gentleman having beforehand tried to escape that eligible opportunity, by a letter to the Glas gow friends, against the character and orthodoxy of Mr. Grant; this trick failing with Christians, he employs the argument of this good chance of doing what he had refused, as an impulse to get more money -the acceptable second £250. Though he firmly declares (p. 253) "it is not our intention to suffer anything to be done which could be construed into making a trade of propagandism:" he all the time begging money to set up a shop, only he calls it an "Institution." The whole organization of free thinking turns on the book-trade of a man who repudiates profit, and despises trade as somewhat vulgar: "the development of the news and book agency," heads an article (vol. xv., p. 145) in which the trading advertisement is introduced by the delicate observation, that "bookselling and news agency have hitherto been but a trade [that is all!], we think it might be elevated to a profession." (p. 146.) This gentlemanly disgust at trade, while driving one, is peculiarly elevating; and it is fitting that he who hitherto has made a trade of a profession, should now make a profession of a trade. This aristocratic democrat ought always to wear white gloves. Infidelity never having done anything yet, except grumbling at those who are of practical service, this professional gentleman proposes as a reply to "their taunt, What has Secularism done,'-we can only silence this cry, by perfecting, in an emphatic manner, certain organizations we have been maturing. To this end we ask the aid of those who are in earnest," (p. 165). Here the only answer they can give to the question-What has your system done?-is, to set Holyoake up in a Book Agency! What a grand achievement! And yet, in a printed circular now being disseminated,-made up, like all the Secular Oracle's speeches, letters, and lectures, of patches from the 'Gazette,' cut out with a pair of scissors, and sent round as private and confidential, "for the friends of Secular progress only,"-in this, the flagging energy of Secular progressionists or subscribers is whipped into activity by the taunt, that the sum wanted for the profession "is scarcely equal to the cost of the Dissenting chapels which rise up in our back streets." (p. 2, Begging Circular.) How emphatic the answer is, as to the practical force of Secularism, is further exhibited in the sneers at what others have done, and reproaches of freethinkers for not doing anything of consequence, in the way of sending him funds; since he had received only £1,000 in gifts, and requires above a thousand more, to set up his new professional trade, as an emphatic proof that Secularism has done something. Hence he observes, in the conclusion of his printed circular, most of which is a reprint "The Ranter' [he means Primitive Methodist] puts up his Bethel [Chapel], the Dissenter his Chapel [which may be called Bethel], the Churchman his Temple (?), the Catholic his Cathedral, while these Freethinkers [Secularists] will suffer twenty years to pass away without creating a new institution [setting Holyoake up in a book-shop], or one commensurate representation of their opinions." This is the emphatic answer, to silence our taunt-what has Secularism done? This circular commences with boasting that Freethought has achieved a position that will secure attention for its respectability, as something of genuine force or a reality: when, oh miserable, it turns out, that this grand shop is the representative of a great debt, incurred by the professionalist, which he invites his friends to pay! "It was more than just pride, it was self-defence, that directed us to take up a more efficient position; we now possess a central establishment. * * * * This fact is itself propagandism. It has raised the free-thinking cause." How this balloon was raised is then explained as follows: "The annual expenses of the House amount to £200, besides salaries of attendants: expected to be met by rents for portions of the House, and by the proceeds of the business. The preliminary outlays, more than £1,200, require to be met by other provision. Expense of stock is additional to this £1,200, and may be expected to be met by sale of stock. These preliminary outlays were Lease, fixtures, and law expenses Alteration expenses £560 0 0 350 0 0 150 O 0 140 0 0 |