THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL ON FREETHOUGHT.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1561, 19 February 1879, Page 4

THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL ON FREETHOUGHT.

The Dunedin " Herald " supplies the following report of the Attorney-General's speeches at the meeting in that city on Sunday night, when Mr Bright, known as " the Freethought lecturer," took his farewell, and Mr Stout presided : The Attorney-General said—Ladies and gentlemen : It is not necessary for me on this occasion to introduce Mr Bright to a Dunedin audience. I take the chair, however, as I had the honor to take the chair at the first Freethought lecture that Mr Bright delivered in Dunedin, and I believe this will be the last at any rate that he will deliver for some time to come. I have after the lecture to perform another function, which I will do after you have listened to the lecture. I will now only say this—that I consider it the duty of everyone to desire to see the free expression of opinion in our midst, and to let our friends and neighbors know the views we believe in, and on that account I take the chair. I will not take up your time at present however, further than simply to introduce Mr Bright to you. He will deliver a lecture to you this evening on " Evolution." [Applause.] Mr Bright then delivered a lengthy lecture on •'Evolution." He said the great body of scientific men regarded evolution as an established fact, the illustration of which would be the great scientific work of the future. The Attorney-General said—Ladies and Gentlemen—When presiding at the farewell tea meeting to Mr Bright, I then said that some of his friends intended to make a presentation to him. I appear here to-night to perform that duty at their request; and Mr tfri s ht, I have to say to you that even now some of the subscription lists have not been returned, but the amount up to the present that hus been collected is the sum of £9l 12s. [Applause.] In making this presentation, I may, moreover Btate that wo ought to recognise the difficult position in which a freethought lecturer is

placed. Anyone who will venture to address the people on religious or on philosophical subjects, untrammelled by creed.-?, must always expect to meot with some amount of persecution. This is tho experience in all times and in all countries of the world. History tells us that when Christianity began the early Christians wore subjected to a very terrible persecution. They were accused of teaching doctrines that tended to immorality, and tended to Bubvert tho whole social and political system of the world, and nations then who were not Christians believed thoy were doing God service by having them put to death. And I have no doubt that if we could get any of them in Dunedin to tell us their reasons for persecuting tho early Christians, they would tell us that the early Christians shocked their senae of propriety, and they, therefore, had a right to persecute them. However, every now view that has been taken up in scientific circles has always been opposed. From Galileo to the thought involved in your last able and eloquent lecture to-night from Galileo's time to Darwin's time, those in opposition tell us they are doing God's service by sneering and persecuting any scientific man who promulgates any new thoory or any new thought of God's work. The Freethought lectures have been veeeived very well in Dunedin. I think wo ought to strive to show to thoße who would defend persecution that they are in the dark, and that the view that should be taken of them is that of pity. The hon. gentleman referred to the desirability of carefully loading a blind man instead of blaming him for not walking straight. He concluded by presenting to Mr Bright the purse of money and a poem written by one who had been in the habit of attending the Froethought lectures.