human
I do not say, 'We part friends,' because this is not parting. The movement is still as much to me as ever, as much as it has been during my life. For more than forty years I have been a speaker among you. Now I lay down the wand of office, and the right to give command, but I hope always to remain with you a trusted counsellor. And to you, I hope unstained--to you, I hope untarnished, I give back the trust you gave.
gpt
I give it to you, George William Foote; and I trust that when it becomes your painful duty to resign, as I do now, the progress that has been made in the cause while you have held it will be such as to compensate for the pain.
human
The battle of Freethought in this country is not over. There are signs, not far off, of possible strife, and there will be needed wise heads, cool heads, and firm hearts. There is a tendency to renew the anti-Jewish cry; and you may easily, in connection with the lower phases of the Salvation Army, get excitement and tension that need a greater self-command than is always shown among us, if personal conflict is to be avoided. The forthcoming report on sweating may bring about an attempt to raise the anti-Jewish cry; and it is impossible to have strife between religions without the possibility of the various religions turning on the one party that is outside all. One element of danger in Europe is the approach of the Roman Catholic Church towards meddling in political life.... Beware when that great Church, whose power none can deny, the capacity of whose leading men is marked, tries to use the democracy as its weapon. There is danger to freedom of thought, to freedom of speech, to freedom of action. The great struggle in this country will not be between Freethought and the Church of England, nor between Freethought and Dissent, but--as I have long taught, and now repeat--between Freethought and Rome.