He expressed himself as follows in a discourse on Blasphemous Libel immediately after our imprisonment, since published in "Lessons for the Day":-- "The prosecutor described the libels as 'indecent,' an ambiguous word which might convey to the public an impression that there was something obscene about the pictures or language, which is not the fact.

The coarsest picture is a sidewise view of a giant's form, in laborer's garb, the upper and lower part veiled by a cloud.

Only when one knows that the figure is meant for Jahveh could any shock be felt.

The worst sense of the word 'indecent' was accentuated by the prosecutor's saying that the libels were too bad for him to describe.
In this way they were withheld from the public intelligence while exaggerated to its imagination.

The fact under this is that some bigots wished to punish some Atheists, but could only single them out beside eminent men equally guilty, and forestall public sympathy by pretending they had committed a libel partly obscene.