"1. After the passing of this Act no criminal proceedings shall be instituted in any Court whatever, against any person whatever, for Atheism, blasphemy at common law, blasphemous libel, heresy, or schism, except only criminal proceedings instituted in Ecclesiastical Courts against clergymen of the Church of England. "2. An Act passed in the first year of his late Majesty King Edward VI., c. 1, intituled 'An Act against such as shall unreverently speak against the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, commonly called the sacrament of the altar, and for the receiving thereof in both kinds,' and an Act passed in the 9th and 10th year of his late Majesty King William III., c. 35, intituled an Act for the more effectual suppressing of blasphemy and profaneness are hereby repealed. "3. Provided that nothing herein contained shall be deemed to affect the provisions of an Act passed in the nineteenth year of his late Majesty King George II., c. 21, intituled 'An Act more effectually to prevent profane cursing and swearing,' or any other provision of any other Act of Parliament not hereby expressly repealed." Until this Bill is carried no heterodox writer is safe. Sir James Stephen's view of the law may be shared by other judges, and if a bigot sat on the bench he might pass a heavy sentence on a distinguished "blasphemer." Let it not be said that their _manner_ is so different from mine that no jury would convict; for when I read extracts from Clifford, Swinburne, Maudsley, Matthew Arnold, James Thomson, Lord Amberley, Huxley, and other heretics whose works are circulated by Mudie, Lord Coleridge remarked "I confess, as I heard them, I had, and have a difficulty in distinguishing them from the alleged libels. They do appear to me to be open to the same charge, on the same grounds, as Mr. Foote's writings." Personally I understand the Blasphemy Laws well enough. They are the last relics of religious persecution. What Lord Coleridge read from Starkie as the law of blasphemous libel, I regard with Sir James Stephen as "flabby verbiage." Lord Coleridge is himself a master of style, and I suppose his admiration of Starkie's personal character has blinded his judgment. Starkie simply raises a cloud of words to hide the real nature of the Blasphemy Laws. He shows how Freethinkers may be punished without avowing the principle of persecution. Instead of frankly saying that Christianity must not be attacked, he imputes to aggressive heretics "a malicious and mischievous intention," and "apathy and indifference to the interests of society;" and he justifies their being punished, not for their actions, but for their motives: a principle which, if it were introduced into our jurisprudence, would produce a chaos.