Sir James Stephen holds that the Blasphemy Laws are concerned with
the _matter_ of publications, that "a large part of the most serious
and most important literature of the day is illegal," and that every
book-seller who sells, and everyone who lends to his friend, a copy
of Comte's _Positive Philosophy_, or of Renan's _Vie de Jesus_,
commits a crime punishable with fine and imprisonment. Sir James Stephen
dislikes the law profoundly, but he prefers "stating it in its natural
naked deformity to explaining it away in such a manner as to prolong
its existence and give it an air of plausibility and humanity."
To terminate this mischievous law he has drafted a Bill, which many
Liberal members of Parliament have promised to support, and which
will soon be introduced. Its text is as follows:
"Whereas certain laws now in force and intended for the promotion
of religion are no longer suitable for that purpose and it is
expedient to repeal them,
"Be it enacted as follows:
"1. After the passing of this Act no criminal proceedings
shall be instituted in any Court whatever, against any person
whatever, for Atheism, blasphemy at common law, blasphemous
libel, heresy, or schism, except only criminal proceedings
instituted in Ecclesiastical Courts against clergymen of the
Church of England.
"2. An Act passed in the first year of his late Majesty King
Edward VI.
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