nd guilty of procuration for seduction, Mr. Hastings was found guilty
of embezzlement, and Mr. De Cobain was pronounced guilty of evading
justice, while charged with unnatural offences. Mr. Jabez Spencer
Balfour might also have been expelled, if he had not accepted the
Chiltern Hundreds. Now all these _real_ delinquents were Christians, and
even ostentatious Christians. Compare them with Charles Bradlaugh,
the Atheist, and say which side has the greatest cause for shame and
humiliation.

Are Atheists conspicuous in the Divorce Court? Is it not Christian
reputations that are smirched in that Inquisition? Do Atheists, or any
species of unbelievers, appear frequently before the public as promoters
of bubble companies, and systematic robbers of orphans and widows? Is it
not generally found, in the case of great business collapses, that
the responsible persons are Christians? Is it not a fact that their
profession of Christianity is usually in proportion to the depth of
their rascality?

Not long since the Bishop of Chester, backed up by Mr. Waugh, of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, publicly declared
that the worst ill-users of little ones were artisan Secularists. He
was challenged to give evidence of the assertion, but he preferred to
maintain what is called "a dignified silence." Mr. Waugh was challenged
to produce proofs from the Society's archives, and he also declined. It
is enough to affirm infamy against Freethinkers; proof is unnecessary;
or, rather, it is unobtainable. Singularly, there have been several
striking cases of brutal treatment of children since Mr. Waugh and
Bishop Jayne committed themselves to this indefensible assertion, and in
no instance was the culprit a Secularist, though some of them, including
Mrs. Montagu, were devout Christians.

There are other methods of inquiry into the wickedness of Atheists,
but we have indicated enough to set the _Commonwealth_ at work, and we
invite it to begin forthwith. And while it is getting ready we beg to
observe that theologians have always described "free-dem" as "license,"
whereas it is nothing of the kind. Freedom is the golden mean between
license and slavery. The breaking of arbitrary fetters, forged by
ignorance and intolerance, does not mean a fall into loose living.
The heretic in religion, while resenting outside control, by his very
perception of the vast and far-reaching consequences of human action, is
often chained to "the m