Note 17 — POSITIVISM.

While these sheets were passing through the press, I read in the Pall Mall Gazette for April 24th, as follows: One of the Communist papers, the Montagne, writes: "Education has made sceptics of us; the Revolution of 1871 is atheistic; our Republic wears a bouquet of immortelles in her bosom. We take our dead to their homes, and our wives to our hearts without a prayer. Priests! throw aside your frocks, turn up your sleeves, lay your hands upon the plough, for a song to the lark in the morning air is better than a mumbling of psalms, and an ode to sparkling wine is preferable to a chanting of hymns. Our dogs that used only to growl when a bishop passed will bite him now, and not a voice will be raised to curse the day which dawns for the sacrifice of the Archbishop of Paris. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the world. The Commune has promised us an eye for an eye, and has given us Monseigneur Darboy as a hostage. The justice of the tribunals shall commence, said Danton, when the wrath of the people is appeased; and he was right. Darboy! tremble in your cell, for your day is past, your end is close at hand."