of the common debt, and
whether he returns to his original nothing or not, whether he
is destroyed or merely changes his form, whether he hears our
words or not, we thank him in the name of the past and of the
future.'"

Another distinguished Professor published, in 1866, _Lectures on the
Physiology of the Nervous System_, in which we find the following
passage:

"We admit,' he says, '_without any restriction_, that
intellectual phenomena in animals are of the same order as in
man....' 'As for _free-will_, we comprehend a certain kind of
free-will in the more intelligent animals; and, on the other
hand, we may add, that perhaps man is not so free as he would
fain persuade himself he is.' And '_as to feeling the
distinction between good and evil_, it is a grave question,
_which we must first study in man himself!_'"

Let it not be supposed that these principles are merely announced as
abstractions; conclusions are drawn from them which must fill every
thinking mind with horror. Eighty students of the Normal School, the
great training institution of teachers for the North of France,
applauded such conclusions in a public letter. Several of the infidel
Professors of the Faculty of Medicine received ovations from crowded
class-rooms; millions of immoral and irreligious books were scattered
throughout the country. Thus Freemasonry, under the pretext of combating
ignorance, wages a deceitful and implacable war against religion. "We
too," says the organ of Freemasons,[E] "we too expect our Messiah, the
true Messiah, of the mind and reason--universal education!"

"It is scarcely necessary for us to remind you, dearly beloved
brethren, that the seeds of irreligion and anarchy thus sown
broadcast over the fair face of France, have already produced a
too abundant harvest of evils, perhaps the most disastrous
recorded on the page of history. All Europe has been horrified
by the atrocities perpetrated within the last few months in the
name of liberty in that city, which was looked on as the centre
of the civilization of the world. National monuments have been
destroyed, peaceable citizens robbed and murdered, the
venerable Archbishop, many of the clergy, and leading members
of the civil and military authorities, massacred in cold blood.
In other cities of France, too, we have seen anarchy and
irreligion