What a strangely assorted pair Northampton's two members were in those days! Bradlaugh, a giant in stature as in intellect, Boanergian in his oratory, tremendous in the strength of it, sweeping away opposition by the force of its torrent--Labouchere, {163} with his slight figure, his quiet, sardonic manner, wielding a rapier which was sometimes even more deadly than the battle-axe and broadsword of his colleague. His aristocratic connections and his wealth accentuated the clear and strong outline of his Radicalism. His disregard of convention, his simplicity, his courage, his irrepressible gaiety and wit, the audacity of his envenomed personal assaults, the passionless quality of it all, the cynic's pose--all this, combined with his encyclopædic knowledge and the sureness of his aim in controversy, made him the idol of Northampton Radicals. How they laughed at his solemn assumption of moderation and orthodoxy! But how sure they were of his earnestness and conviction! And how proud of his easy triumphs in the battles of the wits, of his courage and resource in the conflicts of Parliament and the political fame which he, working loyally with Bradlaugh, helped to win for Northampton![6] It is impossible before leaving the subject of Mr. Bradlaugh's struggle for liberty of conscience, not to recall the very similar episode of Wilkes' fight with the House of Commons a little more than a hundred years earlier. Mr. Labouchere, speaking in the House on the occasion of Bradlaugh's presenting himself to take the oath, after his re-election in 1884, pointed out that behind his colleague stood the people of England. He continued: "I do not say this from any feeling of regard or affection for Mr. Bradlaugh. as an individual; assume if you like that Mr. Bradlaugh is, the vilest of men [Mr. Warton, Hear, hear!], as was stated by Mr. Wilkes, 'in attacking the rights of the vilest of men you have attacked the rights of the most noble of mankind.'"[7] Bradlaugh established the principle that legislative rights are wholly independent of religious belief, and that what Drummond Wolff called "the distinct negation of anything like perpetual morality or conscience and the existence of God," does not affect a man's capacity for the exercise of his political rights. {164} This means that the modern state is non-theistic, and that our civilisation, of which the state is the political expression, is based on those positive social needs of man to which theological problems, however interesting in themselves, are irrelevant. Thus, in Bradlaugh's victory, to the winning of which Mr. Labouchere so powerfully contributed, one of the most important principles of 1789 was definitely ratified by the representatives of the people, the Lords, spiritual and temporal, and the sovereign of this country.