Feeling the greatness of the career, the solemnity of the duty, I pledged my word then to the cause I loved that no effort on my part should be wanted to render myself worthy of the privilege of service that I took; that I would read and study, and would train every faculty that I had; that I would polish my language, discipline my thought, widen my knowledge; and this, at least, I may say, that if I have written and spoken much, I have studied and thought more, and that I have not given to my mistress Truth that "which hath cost me nothing." This same year (1875) that saw me launched on the world as a public advocate of Freethought, saw also the founding of the Theosophical Society to which my Freethought was to lead me.

I have often since thought with pleasure that at the very time I began lecturing in England, H.P.Blavatsky was at work in the United States, preparing the foundation on which in November, 1875, the Theosophical Society was to be raised.

And with deeper pleasure yet have I found her writing of what she called the noble work against superstition done by Charles Bradlaugh and myself, rendering the propaganda of Theosophy far more practicable and safer than it would otherwise have been.

The fight soon began, and with some queer little skirmishes.

I was a member of the "Liberal Social Union," and one night a discussion arose as to the admissibility of Atheists to the Society.