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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 27

[Concluding comment]

page 7

On the following Sunday I delivered a lecture to one of the largest audiences ever assembled in the Opera House, in reply to these newspaper calumniations. In the course of that lecture I stated it as a fact within my personal knowledge that more than one of the leader writers of the Age held views in close affinity with my own. By comparison of the leading articles of this paper, its lack of principle becomes self-evident, for in the course of a year almost every point of the compass is traversed from Atheism to Puritanism. Ostensibly a working-man's paper, it would appear that its only quality entitling it to that claim is its clap-trap and cheapness. From all appearances what it calls "the masses" in its columns, it calls "them asses" in its council chambers. So far as the writer (whom I have reason to believe is a Spiritualist) of the sub-leader above quoted is concerned, I need not mention further his lack of logical consistency. The fact that he' talks about "the making" of "creation" is sufficient to display either his verbal redundancy or his want of clearness of thought, or as is most likely, both. And the fact that he should make it appear in one paragraph that I admit, what he says I deny in another, shows that his memory was too weak and his logic too flimsy to tide him through a single article. His unfairness, or folly, or both, are displayed by the fact that he presumes to gauge not only my abilities and moral proclivities, but my acquirements, without having heard me deliver half a dozen lectures in his life. Perhaps this is giving him credit for too much. It-is more likely he has heard none. I do not wish to boast, but in self-defence, if it be needful any further, I may be excused for saying that to fill the Opera House Sunday after Sunday for nearly two years; to conduct several debates; to hold numerous week-night meetings; to secure 761 votes in the electorate of Richmond when contested by seven candidates, all men of wealth or political fame except myself; to receive the abuse of most of the clergy and that touchy old lady the Age, requires something more than a few "scraps" from three freethinkers. I mention these facts not egotistically, but to show the absurdity of the writer's criticism. Let me recommend a "scrap" from one of the writer's own authorities. He has quoted Prof. Tyndall against me; now let me confront him with Tyndall's own words:—" Most heartily do I recognise and admire the spiritual radiance, if I may use the term, shed by religion on the minds and lives of many personally known to me. At the same time I cannot but observe how signally, as regards the production of anything beautiful, religion fails in other cases. Its professor and defender is sometimes at bottom a brawler and a clown. These differences depend upon primary distinctions of character, which religion does not remove. It may comfort some to know that there are amongst us many whom the gladiators of the pulpit would call 'Atheists' and 'Mate- page 8 rialists,' whose lives, nevertheless, as tested by any accessible standard of morality would contrast more than favourably with the lives of those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say 'offensive,' I refer simply to the intention of those who use such terms, and not because Atheism or Materialism, when compared with many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religions newspapers, has any particular offensiveness for me. If I wished to find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements, whose words are their bonds, and to whom moral shiftiness of any kind is subjectively unknown; if I wanted a loving father, or faithful husband, an honorable neighbour, and a just citizen—I should seek him and find him among the band of 'Atheists' to which I refer. I have known some of the most pronounced among them, not only in life, but in death—seen them approaching with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a 'hangman's whip,' with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, and as faithful in the discharge of them as if their eternal future depended upon their latest deeds."

I need say no more except to advise the writer of the criticised article to become more familiar with his own authorities.

At the conclusion of my lecture in reply, a vote was taken, and by a show of hands fully 3000 people designated the article as "unfair and cowardly." I now submit the pros and cons for the silent decision of the Melbourne public.

Thomas Walker.

Hawthorn, May 29th, 1883.