sionary of free-thought in his mid-career, the unwearied vindicator of the Christian faith in his old age, belonged at one time or another to all the chief religious types of Chartism. There was, too, a serious movement for the formation of so-called Chartist churches, though these never comprehended all the religious fervour of the Chartist fold.[1]
The differences of general ideal and social status, the contrasts in method, faith, and conduct explain to some extent the constant feuds which made it hard for the Chartist organisation to follow up a single line of action. The utter inexperience of the Chartist leaders in the give-and-take of practical affairs, their abhorrence of compromise, the doctrinaire insistence on each man's particular shibboleth still further account for their impotence in action. We must not complain overmuch of these deficiencies; they, too, flowed inevitably from the conditions of the time. The working-men leaders had had no opportunity of learning how to transact business one with another. The law denied them any participation in politics, central or local. The still-enduring Six Acts threw all sorts of practical difficulties in the way of the most harmless associations. No political society could lawfully have branches or correspond with kindred organisations or impose on its members a pledge to any categorical policy. Even the right of association in the interest of their own trades had been a boon of yesterday for the British workman, and, when given, it was hampered by many restrictions and limitations. There was never more danger of the plausible tongue prevailing over the shrewd head. Men with little education and untrained in affairs moved in an atmosphere of suspicion, the more so as they were exacerbated by real suffering and inevitably prone to class jealousy and intolerance. The leaders of higher social position taught them little that conduced to moderation, business method, or practical wisdom. The men who most easily won their confidence were the windbags, the self-seekers, the intriguers. Yet there was a better type of Chartist leader, and the touch of complacent self-satisfaction, the doctrinaire impracticability, and the limited outlook of a Lovett or a Cooper must not blind us to their steady honesty of purpose, to their power of learning through experience to govern themselves and others, to their burning hatred of injustice and to their passion for the righting of
- ↑ For Chartism in its relations to organised religion see H. U. Faulkner's "Chartism and the Churches" in Columbia University Studies in History, etc. lxxiii. No.3 (1912).
