National Republican., 1883-05-16
THE LAW OF BLASPHEMY.
Lord Chief Justice COleridge'S Curious De-
CisiOn.
Blssphemy Not Blasphemous-Christi
no Longer Part OF the English Law.

regards as its brain will ring for many day.
Already a sad blow had been delivered by the
repeated triumphs of Mr.. Bradlaugh-a blow
which had gone far TO atone for the
successful prosecution of Mcssrs. Foote
and Ramsay of the Freethinker. Upon the
second trial all the honors have rested with
the defendants and no less eminent an au-
thority than the lord chief justice has rem
dered n decision oven moro momcntous
than that whereby late lord chancellor dis
missed he'll with costs and deprived the MEM
bers OF tho church of England of their COM
Portable hopes Of eternal damnation. The
chic honors of the last Frccthinker trial have
been borne of by Mr.. Footc lie and Ram
say had already been convicted and were un-
dergoing sentence which to tho mass Of mon
seemed severe, when Sir Henry Tyler, "A mem
bcr of parliament, best known on your side Of
the Atlantic through his connection with the
Grand Trunk and other American railways,
swooped down upon thom and Alr. Bradlaugh
with another indictment. The member for
Northampton broke through the net, and the
other defendants proved quito competent to
defend themselves. Mr.. Footc, in particular,
delivered n speech which, for closoncss of
argument and vivdness Of presentation, has
not often been oqualed. C0enso, he said,
brought the Mosaic story into disbelief but
remained bishop, and Matthew Arnold re-
nobody believed. Woolston languishcd long
in prison for saying that the gospel miracles
were allcgorical. Mr. Arnold said they were
fairy tales" Yct the law of basphomy had
not been altered in any way; and If Wooston
was guilty of blasphemy so was Mr.. Matthew
Arnold. The judge who first used the phrase
ms to christianity being part of tho law was
Sir Matthew Hale, who sentenced women 10 be
burnt for witchCrlit, an Oficnso which we
now know never could exist, Notwithstanding
the verse in Exodus, Thou shalt not suffer
n witch to live" The time would come when
it would bc thought just as absurd to punish
person for blasphcmy as for witchcratt. If
Jews, with their views Of Christ, could be ad.
mitted into the house of commons and help
TO make laws for country absurdly called
Christian" was il not ridiculous to punish
Dfrccthinkers for honest criticisms or Christian
opinion or belief? What an ahsurdity IL was to
address arguments in support ofa prosecution
for blasphomy to jury who need not them
selves be Christians and who might, by law,
be all Jews or Deists or freethinkers. Dar-
win spent his whole life in undermining the
very foundations of religious belief and was
buried in Westminster Abbey. Prof Huxley
had spoken of the mistaken zeal of bibliol-
atry," and declared orthodoxy TO be the bour-
bon Of the world of science. The language
of Huxley was substantially the same as
his own Mr.. Foote's) the only difference
was that HuXley's was the language
of a ten-and-sixpenny book, while his own
was the language of n penny paper. DIR.
Maudslay had written of the prophets Hosea
Isaiah. and jeremiah as "all three mad" yet
he had not been prosecuted. Herbert Spencer
had used language in substance equivalent to
his own. John Stewart Mill had said that his
father "lookcd on religion as the greatest
enemy of morality, by setting up belief in
place of morality and by setting up Being
as Divine whose character was hateful"
Where was the difference between that and
the language of one of the articles now pros
ecuted--whch spoke of the character of the
God ofthe Bible as that of u Bengal tiger or
a Bashi-Bazouk? The difference here again,
was only that between a nine-shilling book
and a penny paper. Grote had written a
tract called Tho Analysis of Super
natural Belief" representing it as one
of the greatest foes of the human
race. Matthew Arnold had written rdiculing
the Christian doctrine of Justification"
and ridiculing Christian missionaries. lie
had even suggested speculation whether
Jesus Christ at his ascension had his clothes
on and, il So what became of themr This
was Matthew Arnold, who was in no fear of
prosecution; it was the poorer and humber
freethinSers who were to be made the scape.
goats of refined and highly cultivated agnos-
ties. John Morley, in his Life of Voltairo,"
said that religion which had caused
the shedding of more blood than any other
had no right to complain of the epigrams of
Voltairc Lord Amberley had written that
the deeds asCribed TO God by the scriptures
would have destroyed tho character of a
heather god, and that in tho character OF
Jehovah there was no trace of a sense of
shame. Such language in the Freethinker
would be subject to prosecution, but no one
had interfered with Lord Amberley. The
mere belief in n Supreme Being was not
the fit subject of ridicule, but the Hebrew
idea of God--the idea as Huxley said, of
la rhnr aud iunnrant -
not God who was ridiculed in the cartoons Of
the FrCethinker; il was tho god of the He
brews, as they wero thousands of years ago,
when they were barbarous and ignorant
people. The Duke of Somerset had pub
lished language to the effect that he could
believe in God, but not in Jesus, Shelley had
written of Christ that he was the "Gali-
lean Serpent" yet no one would think
Shelley for blasphemy. SO swinburne
had drawn distinction which freethinkers
would draw between the human and the su-
pernatural. In the FrGethbker il would be
blasphemy, but il was in u 12 shilling book,
and so it was not so. Then there We're some
lines by n recent poet-much praised by
critics-ending almighty Devil damn mo
toow That would be blasphemy in the Free,
thinker, but in shilling book il was
harmless George Eliot had aimed many a
blow at the popular idols of the day, aud
had translated Strauss. II was idle TO say
that the ridicue of the ErCethiIker was
coarse, If the weapon were legal, the mere
style or manner could not render it illegal.
1t would be arbitrary TO make men amenable
TO criminal prosecution merely ON matters of
taste. As to the complaint of nuisance, it
was absurd, for no one was compelled to read
or purchase the FTeethinker, the very name
and title of which betrayed its real character,
so that no one could purchase II unwarily,
and surely those who wished TO read IL might
he allowed TO do 80. BigOtry, however,
claimed to prevent others from reading what
II did not approve.
Mr.. Foote'S speech was such powerful
one that Lord Coleridge advised the Jurors to
sleep ON it., and in his summing up next day
ridge, may say, is something like your own
eS-Justice David Davis, and does not hesitate,
when there is no precedent for action which
he regards as important, to declare that it is
time there was precedent and to make one.
injunction TO restrain landlord from dis
training, and in the case l am describing he
sailed right in the teeth Of recent decisions
by Mr.. Justice North and Mr.. Justice Stephen,
TO say nothing Of the long array Of Eng
lish jurists The writings of FOote and
Ramsay, he said, were undoubtedly bias
phemous libels, according 10 the old law
and tho dicta Of tho judges, because
they aspersed the truth of Christianity,
but those expressions would no longer
be taken as q true statement Of the law. ut
is no longer true" he said in the sense in
which il was so when these dicta were ut
tered, that Christianity is part of the law of