expressly repealed."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.

Could there be a more ridiculous assumption than that a man who braves