3 SEPTEMBER 1881, Page 2

A more ominous symptom of the same kind is the

attack on religion made by M. Paul Bert, in the Winter Circus, on Sunday, at Paris, under the presidency of M. Gambetta, who cheered on M. Paul Bert, and predicted for him a great future. H. Paul Bert reproduced the old materials which he put together for the recent discussion in the French Chamber on Clause 7 of the Education Bill, for the purpose of proving the

bad morality of religious teachers, and their gross supersti- tion. M. Paul Bert denied that religion and morality are closely interwoven. All societies had prohibited theft, so that for such enactments, "Co n'etait pas la. peine de deranger Dien le Pere," and he added other such sneers at the religious sanctions of morality. M. Paul Bert maintained that secular utilitarianism was the true sanction of domestic morality ; but he did not venture to assert that it was by the religions party that the Bill for dissolving marriage by mutual consent, after the woman had passed the age of child-birth, was introduced into the late Assembly. Modern Societies, said M. Paul Bert, were advancing towards morality, and proportionately receding from religion.. We wish he would supply us with any instances. The National Church has not been as zealous as it ought to have been, either in Italy or in France, on behalf of humanity towards the lower animals for instance ; but while almost all English Churches, including that of Cardinal Manning, denounce the horrible cruelties of the foreign physiological laboratory, it is left to. M. Paul Bert, and, the secular moralists of his school, to defend and practise those outrages on human nature and on all sensitive- natures alike.