enthusiast),—­and Ridgeway of Piccadilly has published in pamphlet form my “Fifty Protestant Ballads and Directorium,” which originally appeared in the Daily News, and The Rock:  I have certainly written as many more, and among these one which I will here reproduce as now very scarce, and lately of some national importance:  seeing that it was sent by my friend Admiral Bedford Pim to every member of the two Houses of Legislature on the Bradlaugh occasion, and was stated to have turned the tide of battle in that celebrated case.

    "So Help Me, God!"

    “‘So help me, God!’ my heart at every turn
      Of life’s wide wilderness implores Thee still
      To give all good, to rescue from all ill,
    And grant me grace Thy presence to discern.

    “‘So help me, God!’ I would not move a yard
      Without my hand in Thine to be my guide,
      Thy love to bless, Thy bounty to provide,
    Thy fostering wing spread over me to guard.

    “‘So help me, God!’ the motto of my life,
      In every varied phase of chance and change,
      So that nought happens here of sad or strange
    But ‘peace’ is written on each frown of strife.

    “For Thou dost help the man that honoureth Thee! 
      Ay, and Thy Christian-Israel of this land
      That hitherto hath recognised Thy hand,
    How blest above the nations still are we!

    “Yet now our Senate schemes to spurn aside
      (On false pretence of liberal brotherhood)
      The Heavenly Father of our earthly good,
    Because one atheist hath his God denied!

    “What, shall this wrong be done?  Must all of us
      Groan under coming judgment for the sin
      Of welcoming avowed blasphemers in
    To vote with rulers who misgovern thus?

    “So help us, God! it shall not:  England’s might
      Stands in religion practised and profest;
      For so alone by blessing is she blest,
    Christian and Protestant in life and light.”

To gratify an eminent friend who wished not to exclude Jews and Mahometans from an open profession of godliness as they viewed the question, I altered, in subsequent reprints, the last line, “Christian and Protestant in life and light,” to “Loving and fearing God in faith and light:”  though personally my sturdy Orangeism inclined to the original.  I will in this place give a remarkable extract in a letter to me from Gladstone, to whom my faithfulness had appealed, exhorting him, as I often have done, to be on the right side:  we know how he quoted Lucretius on the wrong:  against which I wrote a strong protest in the Times.  I like not to show private letters,—­but this is manifestly a public one.  He says:  ...  “I thank you for your note, and I can assure you that I believe the promoters of the Affirmation Bill to be already on the side you wish me to take, and its opponents to be engaged in doing (unwittingly) serious injury to religious belief.”  It is strange to see how much intellectual subtlety combined with interested partisanship can be self-deceived, even in a man who believes himself and is thought by others thoroughly conscientious.