Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet | Page 5

French novels," and that these publications, and a work called
"The Devil's Pulpit," were puffed in its columns, he goes on, "These are
strange times. I thought the devil used to befriend tyrants and
oppressors, but he seems to have profited by Burns' advice to 'tak a
thought and mend.' I thought the struggling freeman's watchword was:
'God sees my wrongs.' 'He hath taken the matter into His own hands.'
'The poor committeth himself unto Him, for He is the helper of the
friendless.' But now the devil seems all at once to have turned
philanthropist and patriot, and to intend himself to fight the good cause,
against which he has been fighting ever since Adam's time. I don't deny,
my friends, it is much cheaper and pleasanter to be reformed by the
devil than by God; for God will only reform society on the condition of
our reforming every man his own self--while the devil is quite ready to
help us to mend the laws and the parliament, earth and heaven, without
ever starting such an impertinent and 'personal' request, as that a man
should mend himself. That liberty of the subject he will always
respect."--"But I say honestly, whomsoever I may offend, the more I
have read of your convention speeches and newspaper articles, the
more I am convinced that too many of you are trying to do God's work
with the devil's tools. What is the use of brilliant language about peace,
and the majesty of order, and universal love, though it may all be
printed in letters a foot long, when it runs in the same train with
ferocity, railing, mad, one-eyed excitement, talking itself into a passion
like a street woman? Do you fancy that after a whole column spent in
stirring men up to fury, a few twaddling copybook headings about 'the
sacred duty of order' will lay the storm again? What spirit is there but
the devil's spirit in bloodthirsty threats of revenge?"--"I denounce the
weapons which you have been deluded into employing to gain you
your rights, and the indecency and profligacy which you are letting be
mixed up with them! Will you strengthen and justify your enemies?
Will you disgust and cripple your friends? Will you go out of your way

to do wrong? When you can be free by fair means will you try foul?
When you might keep the name of Liberty as spotless as the Heaven
from which she comes, will you defile her with blasphemy, beastliness,
and blood? When the cause of the poor is the cause of Almighty God,
will you take it out of His hands to entrust it to the devil? These are
bitter questions, but as you answer them so will you prosper."
In Letter II. he tells them that if they have followed, a different
"Reformer's Guide" from his, it is "mainly the fault of us parsons, who
have never told you that the true 'Reformer's Guide,' the true poor man's
book, the true 'Voice of God against tyrants, idlers, and humbugs, was
the Bible.' The Bible demands for the poor as much, and more, than
they demand for themselves; it expresses the deepest yearnings of the
poor man's heart far more nobly, more searchingly, more daringly,
more eloquently than any modern orator has done. I say, it gives a ray
of hope--say rather a certain dawn of a glorious future, such as no
universal suffrage, free trade, communism, organization of labour, or
any other Morrison's-pill-measure can give--and yet of a future, which
will embrace all that is good in these--a future of conscience, of justice,
of freedom, when idlers and oppressors shall no more dare to plead
parchments and Acts of Parliament for their iniquities. I say the Bible
promises this, not in a few places only, but throughout; it is the thought
which runs through the whole Bible, justice from God to those whom
men oppress, glory from God to those whom men despise. Does that
look like the invention of tyrants, and prelates? You may sneer, but
give me a fair hearing, and if I do not prove my words, then call me the
same hard name which I shall call any man, who having read the Bible,
denies that it is the poor man's comfort and the rich man's warning."
In subsequent numbers (as afterwards in the "Christian Socialist," and
the "Journal of Association") he dwells in detail on the several popular
cries, such as, "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work," illustrating them
from the Bible, urging his readers to take it as the true Radical
Reformer's Guide, if they were longing for the same thing as he was
longing for--to see all humbug, idleness, injustice, swept out of
England. His other contributions to these periodicals