SPEAKER DROPS DEAD AT RATIONALIST DINNER.

Shannon News, 2 June 1925, Page 3

SPEAKER DROPS DEAD AT RATIONALIST DINNER.

AFTER! ATTACK ON CHRISTIANITY AWE-STRICKEN HEARERS. LONDON. May 5. Mr George Whale, a retired solicitor and essayist, while presiding at a Rationalist Press dinner in connection with the Huxley centenary, fell dead after a speech in which he attacked Christianity. He complained that members of the Church numbered less than a seventh or the adult population, yet had the impudence to call theirs the National Church.

“The light of some providential Holy Ghost is said to have guided the Ghurch,” he continued. ■ “Nineteen hundred years have passed, but the light has not come, and when it does it will not have the dazzling effect of the light which fell on the Apostle Paul when he was journeying to Damascus.” He affirmed that he was personally prepared to go. to the stake at any moment before admitting the existence of Lazarus. Mr Whale’s sallies caused much laughter amongst the 217 guests, bait a few moments after he finished there were only hushed whispers and awe-s,tricken faces, Mr Whale collapsed in his chair, and, though artificial respiration was tried, it failed. (George Whale, born at Woolwich in 1849, reared from his solicitor’s practice in 1913. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, on the Council of the Folk Lore Society, and chairman of the Rationalist Press Association. His publications included “Greater London and Its Government,’ and . “Essays in Johnson Club Papers.")