h, R. O. Smith,
J., Grout and G. Standring had given ungrudgingly of their time; Mr.
C. Herbert, acting as treasurer, had kept the accounts with painstaking
precision; and Mrs. Besant had proved how a woman could take the lead of
men. Nor must I forget Mr. Robert Forder, the Secretary of the National
Secular Society, who acted as shopman at our publishing office, and
sustained the business by his assiduity. I had also to thank Dr. Aveling
for his interim editorship of the _Freethinker_, and the admirable
manner in which he had conducted _Progress_.

The first number of the _Freethinker_ under my fresh editorship appeared
on the following Thursday. In concluding my introductory address I said:

"I promise the readers of the _Freethinker_ that they shall,
so far as my powers avail, find no diminution in the vigor and
vivacity of its attacks on the shams and superstitions of our age.
Not only the writer's pen, but the artist's pencil, shall be busy
in this good work; and the absurdities of faith shall, if possible,
be slain with laughter. Priests and fools are, as Goldsmith said,
the two classes who dread ridicule, and we are pledged to an
implacable war with both."

The artist's pencil! Yes, I had resolved to repeat what I was punished
for. I left written instructions against the publication of Comic Bible
Sketches in the _Freethinker_ during my imprisonment; but although I
would not impose the risk on others, I was determined to face it myself.
A fortnight after my release the Sketches were resumed, and they have
been continued ever since. My reasons for this decision were expressed
at a public banquet in the Hall of Science on March 12. I then said:

"Mr. Bradlaugh has said that the Freethought party--which no
one will dispute his right to speak for--looks to me, among
others, after my imprisonment, to maintain with dignity whatever
position I have won. I hope I shall not disappoint the expectation.
But I should like it to be clearly understood that I consider
the most dignified attitude for a man who has just left gaol
after suffering a cruel and unjust sentence, for no crime except
that of thinking and speaking freely, is to stand again for the
same right he exercised before, to pursue the very policy for
which he was attacked, precisely because he _was_ attacked,
and to flinch no hair's breadth from the line he pursued