Thus a Christian opponent at Leicester assailed me as a teacher of free love, fathering on me views which were maintained in a book that I had not read, but which, before I had ever seen the _National Reformer_, had been reviewed in its columns--as it was reviewed in other London papers--and had been commended for its clear statement of the Malthusian position, but not for its contention as to free love, a theory to which Mr.Bradlaugh was very strongly opposed.
Nor were the attacks confined to the ascription to me of theories which I did not hold, but agents of the Christian Evidence Society, in their street preaching, made the foulest accusations against me of personal immorality.

Remonstrances addressed to the Rev.Mr.Engstroem, the secretary of the society, brought voluble protestations of disavowal and disapproval; but as the peccant agents were continued in their employment, the apologies were of small value.

No accusation was too coarse, no slander too baseless, for circulation by these men; and for a long time these indignities caused me bitter suffering, outraging my pride, and soiling my good name.

The time was to come when I should throw that good name to the winds for the sake of the miserable, but in those early days I had done nothing to merit, even ostensibly, such attacks.

Even by educated writers, who should have known better, the most wanton accusations of violence and would-be destructiveness were brought against Atheists; thus Miss Frances Power Cobbe wrote in the _Contemporary Review_ that loss of faith in God would bring about the secularisation _or destruction_ of all cathedrals, churches, and chapels.