“You make fun of things,” said M. Mazure, “and you make me want to swear like a trooper. Religious ideas, when all is said and done, enter into the formation of moral ideas to a degree that one cannot ignore. I am therefore right in saying that there is such a thing as Christian morality, and that I heartily disapprove of it.” “But, my dear sir,” answered the professor gently, “there are as many Christian codes of morality as there are ages during which Christianity has lasted and countries into which she has penetrated. Religions, like chameleons, copy the colours of the soil over which they run. Morality, though it is peculiar to each generation, since it is the one link to bind it together, changes incessantly along with the habits and customs of which she is the most striking representative, like an enlarged reflection on a wall. So true is this fact that it may actually be affirmed that the morality of these Catholics who offend you resembles your own very closely, and yet differs widely from that of a Catholic at the time of the League—to say nothing of those Christians of the apostolic ages who would seem to M. de Terremondre most extraordinary beings, were it possible for him to see them at close quarters. Be impartial and just, if you can, and tell me this: in what essential respect does your morality as a free-thinker differ from the morality of those good people who to-day go to Mass? They profess, as the bedrock of their creed, the doctrine of the atonement, but they are as indignant as you when that doctrine is put before them in a striking manner by their own priests. They profess to believe that suffering is good and pleasing to God. But—do you ever see them sit down on nails? You have proclaimed toleration for every creed: they marry Jewesses and have stopped burning their fathers-in-law. What ideas have you which they do not share with you about sexual questions, about the family, about marriage, except that you allow divorce, though you take good care not to recommend it? They believe it is damnation to look at a woman and lust after her. Yet at dinners and parties are the necks of their women any less bare than the necks of yours? Do they wear dresses that reveal less of their figures? And do they bear in mind the words of Tertullian about widows’ raiment? Are they veiled and do they hide their hair? Do you not settle their fashions? Do you insist that they shall go naked because you don’t believe that Eve covered herself with a branch of a fig-tree under the curse of Javeh? In what way do your ideas about your country differ from theirs? For they exhort you to serve and defend it, just as if their own abiding city were not in the heavens. Or about forced military service, to which they submit, with the solitary reservation of one point in ecclesiastical discipline, which in practice they yield? Or on war, in which they will fight side by side with you, whenever you