I also might meet with an impartial judge, I also might find a jury reflecting an enlightened public opinion, and I also was resolved to defend myself.
Alas! I did not know that I was to meet with the most bigoted judge on the bench, and to plead to a jury exactly calculated to effect his vindictive purpose.
On Thursday, December 7, 1882, we published our second Christmas Number of the Freethinker.

I will deal with its contents presently, when I have narrated how it led to our second prosecution.

Let it here suffice to say that it was undoubtedly a very "warm" publication, and well calculated to arouse the slumbering Blasphemy Laws.

Some Freethinkers even were astonished at its audacity.

A few belonging to an old-fashioned school, and a few more who were assiduously courting "respectability," resented our action; although, as the vast majority of our party were of an opposite opinion, they refrained from expressing their reprobation too loudly.