 Pember also wrote very briefly about a Christian approach to animal welfare and animal rights, which was becoming a topic of great social concern in Victorian society.What Pember had to say on the subject can be understood on a wide historical canvas.In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries human attitudes about the status of animals began to change as theologians and philosophers discussed whether animals were capable of rational thought, had emotions, had a soul, and questions about brutal treatment were also debated.