LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE BLASPHEMY SENTENCE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 SIR,—It is with much diffidence that I express disagreement with some of the statements in your article on the Blasphemy sentence. You say, "It would not be even true to say that it addresses temptations of a dangerous kind to young and inexperienced minds," &c. ; and again, "Violent blasphemy is not likely to tempt any one to read it, not even the young."
You are mistaken, and any argument you deduce from your mistake for a mild treatment of coarse and violent blasphemy breaks down. In my perish, the "Comic History of the Bible" and the "Comic History of the Life of Christ," the crambe .repetita of French infidelity, are exposed for sale in the shop 'windows; scores of passers-by hourly look at the pictures which 'caricature Christ and the incidents of his life. Boys and girls especially delight in these pictures. They do not merely inci- .dentaly glance at them. I have seen boys and girls reading -the Freethinker and "Fruits of Philosophy." Of the filth of "‘ Fruits of Philosophy" I will say nothing. But let me ask you, what is likely to be the effect on the minds of boys and !girls, who, unlike their elders, can have no settled convic- tions, who are influenced entirely by the opinions of others, of seeing coarse and ludicrous caricatures of Christ, such as Christ pulling up Peter out of the water by his big nose; .er God as a fat, ugly man, with spectacles on, sitting on a cloud, .cross-legged, sewing a pair of trousers; or of reading that the Holy Ghost ought to be treated as one who had had an illegiti- mate child (but it was put more coarsely than this), &c. Yon, Sir, as most others, do not know that such outrageous insults ,on the Christian faith are perpetrated in the name of " Free- thought," and therefore you think, as many others do, that it would have been better to have treated all this, as Luther recommends us to treat the Devil, with silent contempt. That is very good treatment of it, if by us and for ourselves ; .but these ignorant men and women, these boys and girls, these .children, are they to have the foul stuff ready to their hand, exciting their curiosity, rousing their ridicule, startling and shocking the simple faith of childhood in a way incompre- hensible to us, who, as we have grown older, have let our faith grow colder, and starting in them difficulties and doubts which to us men and women have long since become as stale and fiat as they are unprofitable. Sir, I repeat it, that had you yourself read the vulgar, coarse, foul insults of the Freethinker, you would never have coupled it with the irreverent banter of refined and thoughtful assailants. I write to you under great disad- iantage, as you have not read the Freethinker, and I cannot foul my pen and distress the feelings of your readers by retailing the worst parts of the "Comic History of Christ." Those that I have given you above are but mild specimens of Mr. Foote's attempt to befoul the public with his claim to represent Free- thought. If you knew the teaching of the disciples of this Freethinker in my parish (one of them preaches close by in the street every Sunday), you would think very differently of their claim to be considered "Freethinkers." Freethinkers I have in numbers among my friends and acquaintances, rich and poor. I would no more put down Free-thought than I would destroy every copy of the Bible. But liberty to think, and to speak, and to write, is one thing, and licence to outrage the religious convictions of others, to preach that there is no God, and that therefore morality is only conventional, and that the Ten Commandments are only convenient regulations made by the rich to keep down the poor, is another. To preach, as one of the disciples of this Free- thought has frequently preached at the corner of a street close by, to hundreds of men and women and boys and girls, that community of goods is the new Gospel to the poor, is one thing ; but to preach, as he has preached, at the same time to the same audience, that community of women is the Paradise of bliss for the poor working-man, is another. As in politics, so in religion. "Liberty without wisdom" has always been, and always will, "simple folly without restraint ;" and the teachings of these Freethinkers listened to and read with. hungry greediness among the " working-class " in the East End, is the licensed folly of men who would upset all that is meant by society.
I have lived nineteen years in Bethnal Green, and in the many efforts I have been permitted to make to improve the social welfare of my neighbours, nothing has so disheartened me as to see week after week this paper, which prostitutes the name of Freethinker by its foul trash, read eagerly by men and women, boys and girls. "Maxima pueris revereutia debetur " seems forgotten, in these days ; and I rejoice, therefore, to find that the law has asserted that while thought and speech are free, reverence must be paid to the consciences and opinions of others, and that the convictions of Christians are not to be treated by the propagandists of Atheism with indecent and scoffing ridicule with impunity. Thus looking at the matter, I can have no fear that Mr. Justice North's application of the law will in anywise interfere with the free expression of honest criticism of the Bible or of the creed of Christendom.—I am,
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