de as being, perhaps, true for others, but not for them. Had _Mr.
Bradlaugh's Life_ been just half the size it would have had, at least,
twice as many readers.

The pity is all the greater because Mrs. Bonner has really performed a
difficult task after a noble fashion and in a truly pious spirit. Her
father's life was a melancholy one, and it became her duty as his
biographer to break a silence on painful subjects about which he had
preferred to say nothing. His reticence was a manly reticence; though
a highly sensitive mortal, he preferred to put up with calumny rather
than lay bare family sorrows and shame. His daughter, though compelled
to break this silence, has done so in a manner full of dignity and
feeling. The ruffians who in times past slandered the moral character
of Bradlaugh will not probably read his life, nor, if they did, would
they repent of their baseness. The willingness to believe everything
evil of an adversary is incurable, springing as it does from a habit
of mind. It was well said by Mr. Mill: 'I have learned from experience
that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in
the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are the
result.' Now that Mr. Bradlaugh is dead, no purpose is served by
repeating false accusations as to his treatment of his wife, or of his
pious brother, or as to his disregard of family ties; but the next
atheist who crops up must not expect any more generous treatment than
Bradlaugh received from that particularly odious class of persons of
whom it has been wittily said that so great is their zeal for
religion, they have never time to say their prayers.

Mr. Bradlaugh will, I suppose, be hereafter described in the
dictionaries of biography as 'Freethinker and Politician.' Of the
politician there is here no need to speak. He was a Radical of the
old-fashioned type. When he first stood for Northampton in 1868, his
election address was made up of tempting dishes, which afterwards
composed Mr. Chamberlain's famous but unauthorized programme of 1885,
with minority representation thrown in. Unpopular thinkers who have
been pelted with stones by Christians, slightly the worse for liquor,
are apt to think well of minorities. Mr. Bradlaugh's Radicalism had
an individualistic flavour. He thought well of thrift, thereby
incurring censure. Mr. Bradlaugh's politics are familiar enough. What
about his freethinking? English freethinkers may be divided into