Mr Bradlaugh's next lecture he again rose and tried to explain away his former conduct and misstatement; he further said that he had consulted with persons well read, in Eusebius, but none had met with the passage quoted by Mr Bradlaugh, and to satisfy the audience he had procured the volume of Eusebius and brought it with him. "I rather too hastily abbreviated his triumph," said Mr Bradlaugh, "by turning to the book he brought ... and by reading from his own volume the paragraph which he had so decidedly said was not there." The young Christian teacher did not seem to mind in the least being a second time exposed, for, quite unabashed, he rose again to speak on another subject. [Footnote 72: C. Bradlaugh in _National Reformer_.] There is one more story which I must tell before quite leaving the subject of these early provincial lecturing experiences, and I must tell it not merely because it presents what my father called "a rather novel feature," but because with a little addendum specially composed for the purpose it has been made to do duty as a sort of bulwark of the Christian faith. On the second Sunday of December, in the year 1863, Mr Bradlaugh was giving three lectures in the Philosophical Hall, Huddersfield, and the subject for the evening was "Le Roi Voltaire." A "very voluble lady," said to be an enthusiast of the Weaver school, got up after the lecture to offer some opposition--if what she said could be dignified by that name! This lady told the audience what we may suppose to have been intended as an awe-inspiring story, but which must, in reality, have been provocative of much mirth. Her son, she said, had once purchased half a pound of butter, and brought it home wrapped up in a leaf of some work by Voltaire. "The leaf was thrown upon the fire ere fully read, but the effect was so remarkable," said my father, in recounting this incident at the time, "that the son dreamed he saw Voltaire, who appeared with a ball of fire for a head and another ball of fire for a heart. Voltaire, while thus blazing, informed the lady's son that he, the French infidel, was burning in hell, where all Voltairians were sure to join him and share his fate." This story, albeit rather trifling, is harmless enough, and even amusing as it stands, but the unauthorised revised version concludes by saying that Mr Bradlaugh was quite discomfited by the old lady's tale, and went away unable to answer her. I have seen this used against my father even since his death. Such are the devices resorted to by the foolish to convince people of the truths of Christianity. CHAPTER XX. A FREEMASON.