John Bright possessed a sterling honesty, a perennial good-cheer, and always and forever a tender, sympathetic heart. These things seemed to spring naturally, easily and gently from his nature; they were the habits of his life. And having acquired good habits his judgment was almost uniformly correct; his actions manly; his temper considerate; his opinion right. Private business was to John Bright a public trust. He, of all men, knew that the only way to help one's self is to help others. During our Civil War, John Bright sided with the North, and fired his broadsides of scorn at the many in the House of Commons who hoped and prayed that the United States would no longer be united. In Eighteen Hundred Sixty-eight, under Gladstone as Premier, Bright was chosen President of the Board of Trade, being the first Quaker to hold a Cabinet office. John Bright was a rich man, and his life proves what riches can do when rightly used. That his example of absolute honesty and adherence to principle sets him apart as a character luminous and unique is and indictment of the times in which we live. John Bright's energy, eloquence, purity of conduct, sincerity of purpose, his freedom from petty quarrels, his unselfishness, his lofty ideals, his noble discontent and prophetic outlook, have tinted the entire zeitgeist, and are discovering for us that Utopia is here now, if we will but have it so. BRADLAUGH The Right Honorable Baronet has said there has been no word of recantation. The Right Honorable Baronet speaks truth. There has been no recantation, neither will there be. You have no right to ask me for any recantation. You have no right to ask me for anything. If I am legally disqualified, lay the case before the courts. When you ask me to make a statement, you are guilty of impertinence to me, of treason to the traditions of this House, and of impeachment of the liberties of the people. I beg you now, do not plunge me into a struggle I would shun. The law gives me no remedy if the House decides against me. Do not mock at the constituencies. If you place yourself above the law, you leave me no course save lawless agitation, instead of reasonable pleading. It is easy to begin such a strife, but none knows how it would end. You think I am an obnoxious man, and that I have no one on my side. If that be so, then the more reason that this House, grand in the strength of its centuries of liberty, should have now that generosity in dealing with one who tomorrow may be forced into a struggle for public opinion against it. --_Bradlaugh to the House of Commons_ [Illustration: Bradlaugh] Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll and Charles Bradlaugh form a trinity of names inseparably linked. The memory of Paine was for many years covered beneath the garbage of prevarication. In order to find the man, we had to excavate for him. Happily, with the help of the Reverend Moncure D. Conway, we found him.