Page:Civil and Religious Liberty (Annie Besant).pdf/22

 the "apostate" loses all civil rights. The law, as laid down, is as follows: "Enacted by statute 9 and 10, William III., cap 32, that if any person educated in, or having made profession of, the Christian religion, shall by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, assert or maintain there are more Gods than one, or shall deny the Christian religion to be true [this Act adds to these offences, that of "denying any one of the persons in the Trinity to be God," but it was repealed quoad hoc, by 53 George III., c. 60] or the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be of divine authority, he shall upon the first offence be rendered incapable to hold any ecclesiastical, civil, or military office, or employment, and for the second, be rendered incapable of bringing any action, or to be guardian, executor, legatee, or grantee, and shall suffer three years' imprisonment without bail. To give room, however, for repentance, if within four months after the first conviction, the delinquent will, in open court, publicly renounce his error, he is discharged for that once from all disabilities." Some will say that this law is never put in force; true, public opinion would not allow of its general enforcement, but it is turned against those who are poor and weak, while it lets the strong go free. Besides, it hangs over every sceptic's head like the sword of Damocles, and it serves as a threat and menace in the hand of every cruel and bigoted Churchman, who wants to extract any concession from an unbeliever. No law that can be enforced is obsolete; it may lie dormant for a time, but it is a sabre, which can at any moment be drawn from the sheath; the "obsolete" law about the Sabbath closed the Brighton Aquarium, and Rosherville Gardens, and is found to be quite easy of enforcement; though people would have laughed, a short time since, at the idea of anyone grumbling at its presence on the Statute Book. Poor, harmless, half-witted, Thomas Pooley, in 1857, found the Blasphemy Laws by no means "a dead letter" in the mouth of Lord Justice Coleridge. And there are plenty of other cases of injustice which have taken, and do take place under these laws, which might be quoted were it worth while to fill up space with them, and but little is needed to fan the smouldering fire of bigotry into a flame, and to put the laws generally in force once more. Already threats are heard, murmurs of the old wicked spirit of persecution, and it behoves us to see to it that these swords be broken, so that bigots may be unable to wield them again among us.