They don't want to punish us because we have assailed religion,
but because we have endangered the peace. Take them at their
word, gentlemen. Punish us if we have endangered the peace,
and not if we have assailed religion; and as you know we have
not endangered the peace, you will of course bring in a verdict
of Not Guilty. Gentlemen, I hope you will by your verdict to-day
champion that great law of liberty which is challenged--the law
of liberty which implies the equal right of everyman, while he
does not trench upon the equal right of every other man, to print
what he pleases for people who choose to buy and read it, so
long as he does not libel men's characters or incite people
to the commission of crime."

Appealing now to a far larger jury in the high court of public opinion,
I ask whether Freethinkers are not one of the most orderly sections
of the community. Why should we resort to violence, or invoke it,
or even countenance it, when our cardinal principle is the sovereignty
of reason, and our hope of progress lies in the free play of mind
on every subject? We are perhaps more profoundly impressed than
others with the idea that all institutions are the outward expression
of inward thoughts and feelings, and that it is impossible to forestall
the advance of public sentiment by the most cunningly-devised machinery.
We are _par excellence_ the party of order, though not of stagnation.
It is a striking and pregnant fact that Freethought meetings are kept
peaceful and orderly without any protection by the police. At
St. James's Hall, London, the only demonstrations, I believe, for
which the services of a certain number of policemen are not charged
for in the bill with the rent, are those convened by Mr. Bradlaugh
and his friends.