I have no doubt that if Charles Bradlaugh were here tonight he would make Lord Shaftesbury a handsome present of the Truck Acts. To suggest that the names of Shaftesbury and Bradlaugh stand together in our historic imagination would greatly astonish their surviving contemporaries, for Shaftesbury was sustained all through his life by a burning conviction that the official religion of this country was all right, and Bradlaugh was sustained all through his life by an equally burning conviction that the religion of this country was all wrong. And I am here tonight very largely because I also passionately share that conviction. Now we are not here tonight to discuss the merits of this or that belief or disbelief. We are here to celebrate the memory of a political genius.
Political genius consists in a sense of values, of knowing the relative importance of things.
Since his death, things have marched his way. A week or so ago a couple of very eloquent sermons were broadcast from London. One of them was by that great man in his way, the Dean of St. Paul's, and the other by that eminent churchman, the Bishop of Chichester. They were both preaching, and preaching with their utmost seriousness, because they were addressing many millions of people. The subject with which they were dealing was the life of Christ, the example of Christ, the possibility of living the Christian life.