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We have in our midst the very Corypheus of infidelity, a compeer of Holyoake, a man who thinks no more of the Bible than if it were an old ballad–Colenso is a babe to him. This is a mighty man of valor, I assure you–a very Goliath in his way. He used to go starring it in the provinces, itinerating as a tuppenny lecturer on Tom Paine. He has occasionally appeared in our Lecture-Hall. He, too, as well as other conjurers, has thrown dust in our eyes and has made the platform reel beneath the superincumbent weight of his balderdash and blasphemy. The house he lives in is a sort of “Voltaire Villa.” The man and his “squaw” occupy it, united by a bond unblessed by priest or parson. But that has an advantage: it will enable him to turn his squaw out to grass, like his friend Charles Dickens, when he feels tired of her, unawed by either the ghost or the successor of Sir Cresswell Cresswell. Not having any particular scruples of conscience about the Lord’s Day, the gentleman worships the God of Nature in his own way. He thinks “ratting” on a Sunday with a good Scotch terrier is better than the “ranting” of a good Scotch divine– for the Presbyterian element has latterly made its appearance among us. Like the homeopathic doctor described in the sketch, this gentleman combines a variety of professions “rolled into one.” In the provinces he is a star of the first magnitude, known by the name of Moses Scoffer; in the city a myth known to his pals as Swear ‘Em Charley; and in our neighborhood he is a cipher–incog., but perfectly understood. He contrives to eke out a tolerable livelihood: I should say that his provincial blasphemies and his city practise bring him a clear five hundred pounds a year at the least. But is it not the wages of iniquity? He has a few followers here, but only a few. He has recently done a very silly act; for he has, all at once, converted “Voltaire Villa” into a glass house, and the whole neighborhood can now see into the wigwam, where he dwells in true Red Indian fashion with his squaw.

Had this clumsy libel appeared anywhere else than in a paper circulated in the immediate neighborhood of his home, probably Bradlaugh would have paid no attention to it. Other things quite as bad had been said about him; but this time he simply put on his hat and called on the writer, the Reverend Hugh McSorley. Just what happened Bradlaugh never told, and about it McSorley was singularly silent. It is feared, however, that at that time Bradlaugh had not quite gotten rid of all his Christian virtues.

He carried a rattan cane, and his daughters thought that he went to see McSorley with no intent of breaking the Bible injunction to spare the rod. This we know, that the Reverend Mr. McSorley linked his name with that of the Reverend J. G. Packer, and that McSorley’s friends paid Bradlaugh five hundred pounds, which money was promptly turned over by Bradlaugh to the “Masonic Home” and “The Working-Men’s Relief,” two charities that Bradlaugh ever remembered when he realized on libel-suits. In the next issue of McSorley’s paper appeared the following apology:

The editor and proprietor of this newspaper desires to express his extreme pain that the columns of a journal which has never before been made the vehicle for reflection on private character should, partly by inadvertence, and partly by a too-unhesitating reliance on the authority and good faith of others, have contained a mischievous and unfounded libel upon Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.

That Mr. Bradlaugh holds, and fearlessly expounds, theological opinions entirely opposed to those of the editor and the majority of our readers, is undoubtedly true, and Mr. Bradlaugh can not and does not complain that his name is associated with Colenso, Holyoake or Paine; but that he has offensively intruded those opinions in our lecture-hall is not true. That his ordinary language on the platform is balderdash and blasphemy is not true. That he makes a practise of openly desecrating the Sabbath is not true. That he is known by the name of Moses Scoffer, or Swear ‘Em Charley, is not true. Nor is there any foundation for the sneer as to his city practise, or for the insinuations made against his conduct or character as a scholar and a gentleman.