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 obloquy, social ostracism, and imprisonment for his principles, is indifferent to the interest of society?
Let Christianity strike Freethinkers if it will, but why add insult to injury?
Why brand us as cowards when you martyr us?
Why charge us with hypocrisy when we dare your hate?
Persecution, like superstition, dies hard, but it dies.