had recently purchased a chapel, and was a true lover of free speech, granted the use of his building to the Bedlington Secular Society. Mr Burt, who had gone from curiosity to hear Mr Bradlaugh, at the close of the meeting asked him and some friends home to supper. His people were rather horror-stricken, but, with true courtesy, allowed nothing of it to appear to their guest, and the supper passed off quite smoothly, Mr Bradlaugh making himself very agreeable. It is rather curious that Mr Burt had no idea how _àpropos_ his hospitality was. It was not until after he had given his invitation that he learned that in all Blyth there was no place of refreshment that would open its doors to the Atheist. But unfortunately it was not only to Mr Bradlaugh himself that violence was used or threatened: those who attended his lectures or who were suspected of sympathising with his opinions sometimes ran considerable risk. For instance, he had been lecturing at Portsmouth on Monday, May 10th, on the Irish Church and the Land Question, and his lecture created considerable excitement in the town. Shortly afterwards a "converted clown" was holding forth on Portsea Common, and a man suspected to be in sympathy with Mr Bradlaugh stayed to listen. The converted one frequently addressed the new-comer as an "unhappy infidel animal," and so worked upon his pious listeners that in the end they turned upon the "infidel," who was "hissed, hooted, kicked, cuffed, and knocked about so unmercifully that he sought protection" in flight. The whole brutal mob pursued and overtook him, "his clothes were almost torn from him, and but for the assistance of several passers-by--some of whom also received rough treatment--he would probably have been killed."[102] [Footnote 102: _West Sussex Gazette_, June 24th. And _these_ are the people who affect to believe in Mr Bradlaugh's violence and coarseness! "Even so ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity."] True, everywhere he went my father met with hate and scorn; yet everywhere he went he also met with a trust and love such as falls to the lot of few men to know. The hate and scorn passed over him, scarce leaving a trace, but the love and trust went deep into his heart, making up, as he said, for "many disappointments." At Keighley "two veterans, one eighty and one seventy-three, walked eleven miles to hear me lecture; and at Shipley another greeted me, seventy-six years old, asking for one more grip of the hand before he died."[103] On Mr Bradlaugh's return journey from Yorkshire, at every station between Leeds and Keighley men and women came to bid him good-bye; from a dozen districts round they came, "old faces and young ones, men, women, and smiling girls," and he was moved to the utmost depths of his nature to see how their love for him grew with his every visit. [Footnote 103: C. Bradlaugh, in _National Reformer_, July 1869.]