Like other people, he had his faults, but he was always ready to
spend and he spent for what he considered the good of others, while
every act of injustice called forth his unsparing rebuke, and every
oppressed person or cause was sure to meet with his support at
whatever cost to himself. His zeal for what he regarded as the
"gospel" of atheism grew and strengthened year by year. He was the
untiring advocate of what he considered the truth. Neither illness
nor small results, nor loss, could quench his ardor, while
opposition invariably stimulated him to fresh efforts. After long
years of toil, he had at length attained an influential position in
the country, and though crippled by debts incurred in the struggle
for freedom of speech, and living in absolute penury, he was one of
the most powerful men of the day.

The old bookseller had very truly observed that there was more good
in him than people thought, he was in fact a noble character
twisted the wrong way by clumsy and mistaken handling.

Brian Osmond was by no means bigoted; he had moreover, known those
who were intimate with Raeburn, and consequently had heard enough
of the truth about him to disbelieve the gross libels which were
constantly being circulated by the unscrupulous among his
opponents. Still, as on that November afternoon he watched Raeburn
and his daughter down Southampton Row, he was conscious that for
the first time he fully regarded the atheist as a fellow-man. The
fact was that Raeburn had for long years been the champion of a
hated cause; he had braved the full flood of opposition; and like
an isolated rock had been the mark for so much of the rage and fury
of the elements that people who knew him only by name had really
learned to regard him more as a target than as a man. It was he