English Secularism

ation can alien conc

tant

ert S

h the Rev. Brewin Grant, B. A. A report was published by Partridge and Oakley at 2s. 6

us. He had wit, readiness, and an electric velocity of speech, boasting that he could speak

acrid

t milk of kindn

ity. In Glasgow, in 1854, I met Mr. Grant again during several nights' discussion in the City Hall. This debate also was published, as was one of three nights with the Rev. J. H. Rutherfor

1854, one at Stockport. At an adjourned conference Mr. Joseph Barker (whom we had converted) presided.* We had a London Secular Society which met at the Hall of Science, City Road, and held its Council

o. 428, Vol.

Philosophy of the People. It commenced by showing the necessity of independen

ird and flower has an owner, what has the poor man to do with orthodox religion which begins by proclai

is virtually the property of the capitalist, no less in England than is the slave in New Orleans.* Society blockades poverty, leaving it scarce escape. The artisan is engaged in an imminent struggle against wrong and inj

ssed with Dr. Parker in Banbury. In his Six Chapters on Secularism** which was the title of his book, he makes pleasant references to that debate. The Christian Weekly News of that day sa

The English slave

pe

then, neighbour, W

self an energetic

ist

ose our own consciousness, violate our moral sense, lead us out of sympathy with humanity, then we shall abandon them." This was exactly the case of Secularism which he undertook to confute. Dr. Langford held a more

I had said that, "There were three cla

e diss

e indi

ellectually

eing able to attend to it, through constitutional insensibility to its appeals. The intellectually independent avoid it as opposed to freedom, morality and progress." It was to these classes, and not to Christians, tha

ph Parker publishe

elps to Truth Seeke

ontaining "The Se

tance of more than

book, from the Chri

ht it on its

d to John Stuart Mill, to whose friendship and criticism I had often been indebted, and he

nt to the argument and to those supposed to be confuted by it. They resolved to issue twenty-thousand copies at one shilling a volume. The most eminent Evangelical ministers and congregations of the day subscribed to the project. Four persons put down their names for one thousand copies each, and a strong list of subscribers was sent out. Unfortunately I published another article intending to induce readers of the Reasoner to procure copies, as they would find in its candid pages a wealth of quotations of free-thought opinion with which very few were acquainted. The number of em

ional offence as h

the truth, whereas

s life from f