between you and your true friends, the Liberals, greater than it really is. Especially do you made a terrible blunder,’ continued the orator, ‘when you assume that Christianity and priestcraft are the same, and that in this respect all parsons are alike, whether they be of the Church of Rome, or of the Church of England, or Wesleyans, or Baptists, or Independents. The Master whom I serve, and whose Gospel I preach, was as poor as most of you; was the son of a carpenter; was born in a manger; had not where to lay His head; lived a life of poverty; died a death of shame. In His life and death I see the Charter of your Freedom and my own. In His promises you have solace and support in the bitterest of your sufferings, under the most grievous of your wrongs. You can have no truer friend, no nobler guide. He can make sorrow and suffering such as yours light as no one else can.’ Then the attention of the hearers relaxed. ‘They had not come there to hear a sermon,’ they said. One Freethinker went so far as to shake his fist at the speaker, while another enlightened hearer tried to make a grab at the orator’s coat-tail, in the hope to pull him down. Nevertheless, the speaker continued: ‘To a great extent I, and most Dissenting parsons, at any rate, sympathize with you. We are quite ready to go with you at any rate part of the way; but you frighten us when you talk of physical force. “They that use the sword shall perish by the sword.” What could they do against a disciplined military force? Mightier far is the force of an enlightened public opinion. You can gain nothing by violence. You can’t master the soldiers and the constables, and you will array against yourselves a public opinion which would otherwise be compelled to listen to your claims, and to treat them with the attention they deserve. Many of the leaders in politics admit them; many members of the House of Commons admit them; many of the aristocracy are coming to your side. We have on the throne a young Queen, who has a woman’s heart of tenderness for all that suffer. By rashness, by injudicious action, by unwise invective, you may play into the hands of your enemies, and thus put back the hour of your triumph for another generation at least.’