South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY APRIL 30, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2530, 30 April 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY APRIL 30, 1881.

If the idol of clay and brass, —the union of church and state, is beginning to break down utterly, it may thank the bad friends of religion all over the world for its sudden overthrow. It may be overzeal, we are not justified in suggesting that it is hypocrisy, but if it is the former, then the enthusiasm must be blind and reckless, that is animating the instruments of religious intolerance. The ordeal through which Mr Bradlaugb, M.P. for Nottingham is passing is sufficient to bring theology into contempt. In acknowledging that he is an atheist, a sceptic, an unbeliever, Mr Bradlaugh has apparently committed a sin for which there is no forgiveness. Out of the House of Commons as well as within its privileged walls he has been persecuted with a relentless fury worthy of the days of Cromwell and the Covenanters. His sin is not of a sectarian nature ; Mr Bradlaugh’s iniquity is utterly unsectarian. Were he a believer in the utility of cobwebs he would be admitted to the political sanctuary, but because he has been so constituted that he cannot receive the “ light,” as administered by the ancients, he must be excluded. If the opponents of Mr Bradlaugh are right in their views—if their faith is not an absurdity,—then their attitude is not so much an injustice to Mr Bradlaugh as a flagrant and high-handed insult to his and then- creator. Their position ig utterly untenable, so much so that it must, if persisted in, bring the ritualistic practices of the state into ridicule. On the one side we have a capricious display of infantile obduracy ; on the other side we have a dignified and compliant attitude. Mr Bradlaugh, on the occasion of his first election, desired to take an affirmation instead of the usual oath, seeing that in bis case the latter would not be binding. The majority deciding against him be then offered to comply with the usual custom and take the oath, but this was opposed on the ground that it would be a farce to adminster it to an individual who had no faith. Mr Bradlaugh was allowed to take his seat, but ho wn not allowed to hold it in peace. His antiaristocratic views soon made him a target for the base slaves of malignant intriguers. Proceedings were instituted against him for sitting illegally, and he was mulcted in £SOO. If he re-occupied his place in the House of Commons after this decision he was liable to a renewal of these harrassments, and he adopted, consequently, the only course open to him—began his political career afresh. Re-elected by the people of Nottingham he again entered the House of Commons and demanded his right to be sworn. The amount of fury and bigotry brought to hear against him may be judged from the fact that although the Premier and Mr Bright—the two shining lights of the House—advocated his claim, a resolution moved by Sir Stafford Northcote refusing him permission to take the oath, was carried by a majority. Such proceedings as these clearly indicate that, despite our boasted enlightenment and freedom from intolerance, a good deal of the bad, black spirit of persecution which flourished in old times, lifts yet to be buried. If the world could be rolled back a few centuries the Bradlaugh burlesque would be quite natural. Or if England were a portion of King Dahomey’s dominions, we could understand this form of persecution. Five hundred years ago Mr Bradlaugh might possibly have been burned for heresy. But, we imagined, of all places the British House of Commons had grown sufficiently intelligent to get rid of its superstitious cob-webs. If the popular chamber were a consecrated [cathedral, Mr Bradlaugh would be I welcomed to the fold without any conscientious test. But it is neither a church nor a cathedral. Sir Stafford Northcote considers it a paradise on earth of which he is the self-consti-tuted keeper.

It is to be feared however that there is something behind the religious element in this oath question. Mr Bradlaugh inherits a worse form of heresy or scepticism than is signified by his disbelief in theological dogma. He is an ultra-liberal and this we imagine, is his great offence in the eyes of such conservatives as Sir Stafford Northcote. His faith in time - worn blood - encrusted state institutions is decidedly weak. He does not believe in state paupers and magnificent hereditary pensions. He is not a believer in land monopoly and entailed estates. He believes not in the worship of dukes, earls and princes. Mr Bradlaugh is not a toady to temporal greatness. He believes in promotion by merit, in the of

and illusory virtues. Mr Bradlaugh is not a State parasite, a Court spaniel, tuft hunter, or time-server, and hence, in the estimation of Sir Stafford Northcote and political sycophants, he is not a Christian. The oath difficulty is a mere pretence for keeping him out of Parliament. Of course it will be overcome, for the world can neither go back nor stand still, and this is an age of progress. But if it is overcome by the sweeping away of the oath altogether, then those who venerate traditional usage and attach a high value to this theological qualification will have not Mr Bradlaugh but his bigoted opponents to thank.