"I may be wrong," he wrote,[50] "but I shall never be convinced of my error by a mob of true believers yelling at my heels like mad dogs, under the leadership of a pious rector's trusty subordinate, or hammering at the door of my lecture room under the direction of an infuriated Church parson. I object that in the nineteenth century it is hardly to be tolerated that a bigot priest shall use his influence with the proprietor of the hotel where I am staying, in order to 'get that devil kicked out into the street' after half-past ten at night. I do not admit the right of a rich Church dignitary's secretary to avoid the payment of his threepence at the door by jumping through a window, especially when I or my friends have to pay for the broken glass and sash frame. True, all these things and worse happened at Wigan." [Footnote 50: _National Reformer_, October 20, 1860.] There had been no Freethought lectures in Wigan for upwards of twenty years; the clergy had had it all their own way there undisturbed. They determined to oppose the wicked Iconoclast in every way, and began by engaging the largest hall available and advertising the same subjects as those announced for the Freethought platform. Had they contented themselves with this form of opposition, all would have been well, but their zeal outran discretion, carrying with it their manners and all appearance of decency and decorum. My father, continuing his account of this affair, said-- "Being unknown in Wigan, except by hearsay, I expected therefore but a moderate audience. I was in this respect agreeably disappointed. The hall was inconveniently crowded, and many remained outside in the square, unable to obtain admittance. No friend was known to me who could or would officiate as chairman, and I therefore appealed to the meeting to elect their own president. No response being made to this, I intimated my intention of proceeding without one. This the Christians did not seem to relish, and therefore elected a gentleman named [the Rev. T.] Dalton to the chair, who was very tolerable, except that he had eccentric views of a chairman's duty, and slightly shortened my time, while he also took a few minutes every now and then for himself to refute my objections to the Bible." With the exception of the excitable and somewhat unmannerly behaviour of some of the clergymen present, this meeting passed off without any serious disturbance, and was not unfairly reported by the _Wigan Observer_, which described "Mr Iconoclast" as "a well-made and healthy looking man, apparently not more than thirty years of age. He possesses great fluency of speech, and is evidently well posted up in the subject of his addresses. Of assurance he has no lack; and we scarcely think it would be possible to put a question to him to which he had not an answer ready--good, bad, or indifferent."