One of the bygones which had popularity in my day was silence, where explicitness was needed. Nothing is more grateful to the young understanding than clear, definite outlines. _The Spectator_ (July 23, 1891) said that "Dean Stanley could not at any time have exactly defined what his own theology really was." George Dawson, who charmed so many audiences and was under no official restraint, never attempted it. Emerson, who criticised everybody who had an opinion, never disclosed his. Carlyle, who filled the air with adjurations to sincerity of conviction, carefully concealed his own. They who take credit for advising the public what to believe should avow their own belief. Otway, crossing the street to Dryden's house, wrote upon his door: "Here lives Dryden, a poet and a wit." Seeing these words as he came out, Dryden wrote under them: "Written by Otway opposite," which might mean: "This is but a partial and friendly estimate written by my neighbour who lives over the way, opposite to me"; or, it might mean that "It is written by Otway--the very 'opposite' of 'a poet and a wit.'" Janus sentences are the very grace of satire, because they offer a mitigating or a complimentary construction; but in questions of conscience, ethics, or politics, uncertainty is an evil--an evil worth remembering where it can be avoided. "Socialists" were liable to indictment who officiated in a place not licensed as a place of worship. Such a license could be obtained on making a declaration on oath that their discourses were founded on belief in the cardinal tenets of the Church. Two social speakers were summoned to swear this. One was the father of the late Robert Buchanan. He and his colleague did so swear to avoid penalties, though they swore the contrary of the truth. I joined with other colleagues in protesting against this humiliation and ignominy. And in another way imprisonment came to all of us. Silence or the oath was the alternative from which there was no escape. The question then arose, "Was the existence of Deity so certainly known to men that inability to affirm it justified exclusion from citizenship?" Thus it was of the first moment to inquire whether it was so or not, and what was regarded as an atheistical investigation became a political necessity in self-defence. Was there such conclusive knowledge of the Unknowable as to warrant the law in making the possession of it a condition of justice and civil equality? Thus the refutation of Theism became a form of self-defence, and without foreseeing it, or intending it, or wishing it, I was, without any act of my own, engaged in it. This narrative concerns those who deplore the rise and popularity of independent thinkers, alien to received doctrine. Few persons are aware how or why agnostic advocacy was welcomed and extended. Surely this is worth remembering. The tenet bore statute fruit, for the Affirmation Act came out of it.