The French Chambers are still occupied with Bills disliked by
the Clerical party. Of three carried this week, two are reasonable, and one is persecuting. Cremation has been per- mitted by a heavy vote, and though opposed by the priesthood, has little to do with real religion. The system is not a good one, as man owes to the earth the reinvigoration which burial affords, but religious services can be held as well over ashes as a corpse ; and the second right now confirmed by law, the right of civil burial, belongs to all men. If religions liberty is to exist, it must belong also to the party which disbelieves; and there is falsehood in a can professing hope in the happy resurrection of a determined Atheist. He does not hope it, except through a charity his creed teaches him not to feel. The third law passed by the Senate, by 173 votes to 107, a large vote in a House of 300, prohibits monks and nuns from teaching in schools, even if elected Municipalities wish to appoint them, and is direct per- secution. It is curious to see how French logic, usually so irresistible, breaks down under anti-religious feeling. The wildest French Red would not deny the right of electors to send up a monk as Deputy, all alleging that "universal suffrage conse- crates its object," nor would they question the right of a father to teach his children ; yet universal suffrage, even if unanimous, is forbidden to elect a monk as teacher. There is only one possible justification for that law, which is that a monk's teaching is necessarily poisonous,—that is, that the State can prohibit a religious teaching which it deems pernicious.
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