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 permit it. On the third
day, therefore, he packed his scanty belongings, parted from his dear
sister Elizabeth, with tears and kisses and a little parting gift,
which she treasures to this hour, and thus left his home. From that
day almost until his death his life was one long struggle against the
bitterest animosity which religious bigotry could inspire. In the face
of all this he pursued the path he had marked out for himself without
once swerving, and although the cost was great, in the end he always
triumphed in his undertakings--up to the very last, when the supreme
triumph came as his life was ebbing away in payment for it, and when he
was beyond caring for the good or evil opinion of any man.

It is now the fashion to make Mr Packer into a sort of scapegoat: his
harsh reception of his pupil's questions and subsequent ill-advised
methods of dealing with him are censured, and he is in a manner made
responsible for my father's Atheism. If no other Christian had treated
Mr Bradlaugh harshly; if every other clergyman had dealt with him in
kindly fashion; if he had been met with kindness instead of slanders
and stones, abuse and ill-usage, then these censors of Mr Packer
might have some just grounds on which to reproach him for misusing
his position; as it is, they should ask themselves which among them
has the right to cast the first stone. The notion that it was Mr
Packer's treatment of him that drove my father into Atheism is, I am
sure, absolutely baseless. Those who entertain this belief forget that
Mr Bradlaugh had already begun to compare and criticise the various
narratives in the four Gospels, and that it was on account of this (and
therefore after it) that the Rev. J. G. Packer was so injudicious as to
denounce him as an Atheist, and to suspend him from his Sunday duties.
This harsh and blundering method of dealing with him no doubt hastened
his progress towards Atheism, but it assuredly did not induce it. It
set his mind in a state of opposition to the Church as represented
by Mr Packer, a state which the rev. gentleman seems blindly to have
fostered by every means in his power; and it gave him the opportunity
of the Sunday's leisure to hear what Atheism really was, expounded by
some of the cleverest speakers in the Freethought movement at that
time. But in spite of all this, he was not driven pell-mell into
Atheism; he joined in the religious controversy from the orthodox
standpoint, and was introduced into the little Warner Place Hall as an
eager champion on behalf of Christianity.

Those persons too who entertain this idea of Mr Packer's responsibility
are ignorant of, or overlook, what manner of man Mr Bradlaugh was.
He could not rest with his mind unsettled or undecided; he worked
out and solved for himself every problem which presented itself to
him. He moulded his ideas on no man's: he looked at the problem on
all sides, studied the pros and cons, and decided the solution for
himself. Therefore, having once started on the road to scepticism,
kindlier treatment would no doubt have made him longer in reaching the
standpoint of pure Rationalism, but in any case the end would have been
the same.

CHAPTER III.

YOUTH.

Driven from home because he refused to be a hypocrite, Charles
Bradlaugh stood alone in the world at sixteen; cut off from kindred
and former friends, with little or nothing in the way of money or
clothes, and with the odium of Atheist attached to his name in lieu of
character. To seek a situation seemed useless: what was to be done? To
whom should he turn for help and sympathy if not to those for whose
opinions he was now suffering? To these he went, and they, scarce
richer than himself, welcomed him with open arms. An old Chartist and
Freethinker, a Mr B. B. Jones, gave him hospitality for a week, while
he cast about for means of earning a livelihood. Mr Jones was an old
man of seventy; and in after years, when he had grown too feeble to
do more than earn a most precarious livelihood by selling Freethought
publications, Mr Bradlaugh had several times the happiness of being
able to show his gratitude practically by lecturing and getting up a
fund for his benefit. Having learned something about the coal trade
whilst with Messrs Green, my father determined to try his fortune as
a "coal merchant;" but unhappily he had no capital, and consequently
required to be paid for the coals before he himself could get them to
supply his customers. Under these circumstances it is hardly wonderful
that his business was small. He, however, got together a few customers,
and managed to earn a sufficient commission to keep him in bread and
cheese. He had some cards printed, and in a boyish spirit of bravado
pushed one under his father's door. Mr Headingley, in the "Biography of
Mr Bradlaugh" that he wrote in 1880, gives the story of the "principal
customer" in pretty much the very words in which he heard it, so I
reproduce it here intact:--

 "Bradlaugh's principal customer was the good-natured wife of a
 baker, whose shop was situated at the corner of Goldsmith's Road.
 As she required several tons of coal per week to bake the bread,
 the commission on this transaction amounted to about ten shillings a
 week, and this constituted the principal source of Bradlaugh's income.
 The spirit of persecution, however, was abroad. Some kind friend
 considerately informed the baker's wife that Bradlaugh was in the
 habit of attending meetings of Secularists and Freethinkers, where he
 had been known to express very unorthodox opinions. This was a severe
 blow to the good lady. She had always felt great commiseration for
 Bradlaugh's forlorn condition, and a certain pride in herself for
 helping him in his distress. When, therefore, he called again for
 orders she exclaimed at once, but still with her wonted familiarity--

 "'Charles, I hear you are an Infidel!'

 "At that time Bradlaugh was not quite sure whether he was an Infidel
 or not; but he instinctively foresaw that the question addressed him
 might interfere with the smooth and even course of his business;
 he therefore deftly sought to avoid the difficulty by somewhat
 exaggerating the importance of the latest fluctuation in the coal
 market.

 "The stratagem was of no avail. His kind but painfully orthodox
 customer again returned to the charge, and then Bradlaugh had to fall
 back upon the difficulty of defining the meaning of the word Infidel,
 in which line of argument he evidently failed to produce a favourable
 impression. Again and again he tried to revert to the more congenial
 subject of a reduction in the price of coals, and when, finally, he
 pressed hard for the usual order, the interview was brought to a close
 by the baker's wife. She declared in accents of firm conviction, which
 have never been forgotten, that she could not think of having any more
 coals from an Infidel.

 "'I should be afraid that my bread would smell of brimstone,' she
 added with a shudder."

It always strikes me as a lit

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