Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 24 January 1930.
I am praising the hon. Member, not them. [Interruption.] It is a fact in all seriousness that there are to-day millions of our fellow-citizens who are guided in life, comforted in trouble, and cheered in the hour of death by Christianity. These things are true. You are at perfect liberty to question the validity of the facts on which people base their faith. It is open to us all, from Bishop Barnes downward, and it is a legitimate and proper and fair thing to do. It is only right that it should be so, but it is a different matter when you ask me to acquiesce in a state of things under which the laws of England would allow the deepest feelings and convictions of the people to be in public scurrilously abused and reviled.