I consequently read a large amount of the current literature of the time, as well as Louis Blanc's monumental work and the histories of Michelet, Lamartine, and others.

Fortunately for me, Mr.
Bradlaugh had a splendid collection of books on the subject, and ere we left England he brought me two cabs-full of volumes, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, democratic, and I studied all these diligently, and lived in them, till the French Revolution became to me as a drama in which I had myself taken part, and the actors were to me as personal friends and foes.

In this, again, as in so much of my public work, I have to thank Mr.Bradlaugh for the influence which led me to read fully all sides of a question, and to read most carefully those from which I differed most, ere I considered myself competent to write or to speak thereon.

From 1875 onwards I held office as one of the vice-presidents of the National Secular Society--a society founded on a broad basis of liberty, with the inspiring motto, "We Search for Truth." Mr.Bradlaugh was president, and I held office under him till he resigned his post in February, 1890, nine months after I had joined the Theosophical Society.

The N.S.S., under his judicious and far-sighted leadership, became a real force in the country, theologically and politically, embracing large numbers of men and women who were Freethinkers as well as Radicals, and forming a nucleus of earnest workers, able to gather round them still larger numbers of others, and thus to powerfully affect public opinion.