A Bishop comes now in the nave of the Cathedral, to answer modern Infidelity. Why does modern Infidelity exist? Why has Infidelity grown? It has grown because the Church has grown fat and the people lean. It has grown because Convocation quibbles over rites and formularies, instead of devising schemes for the redemption of mankind from ignorance; because the Church said nothing while back streets were built for the poor, and grand abbeys and cathedrals for the priest. The rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer, while the Church pretends to regard as a blessing the poverty she carefully avoids. The Church pretends to have the authority to speak in the name of God, and the Bishop, on that last evening, prayed for my conversion. You see the effect of that prayer in these lectures. Clergymen threw down the gauntlet, and it has been taken up. We have been attacked, and we will compel the Church to afford us a hearing. You have now no right to say that we are too insignificant, after you have yourselves challenged us to the fray. You must not pretend that modern Infidelity is too blasphemous; you have undertaken to confute it by competent persons. I appeal to Christians of every sect for one thing only; I don’t ask you to give me your faith, but to remember that amid the hundreds of religions with innumerable antagonistic Churches and Chapels, that amid the multiplicity of error, you may be wrong. We do not pretend to be perfect thinkers, nor thinkers free from error; we claim only to be earnest thinkers, desiring to be set right where wrong. I deny the right of any Church to pretend to be the only true Church. I take the right to utter my thoughts. The Church of England is a rotten Church, a falling Church, a Church divided against itself, a Church with Colensos and Voyseys, as against Puseys and Mackonochies, a Church which by the admission of her own divines is illogical, which cannot defend her Thirty-nine Articles, nor her Athanasian Creed. I have finished these lectures, and I ask those who intend to follow me to remember that Freethought has done something since the days of Spinoza, Carapanella, and Bruno. It is only since Freethinkers began to fight against the Church that there has been any real popular progress made by you Liberals. The Church has not helped you at all. It has by its bench of bishops hindered your reforms as long as it could, and maintained tithes and exactions and bad laws till humanity rebelled against the obstruction. Whether right or wrong, we have at least done something to make the world better worth living in. (Applause.) * * * * * * * * * * Printed by Austin & Co., 17 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London E.C. WORKS PUBLISHED BY AUSTIN & CO. 17, _Johnson’s Court_, _Fleet Street_.