The disposition to raise the fallen, to befriend the friendless, is now one of the governing powers of the world. Every year its dominion widens, and even now a strong and growing public opinion is enlisted in its support.
Many men still spend lives that are merely selfish. But such lives are already regarded with general disapproval. The man on whom public opinion, antic.i.p.ating the award of the highest tribunal, bestows its approbation, is the man who labors that he may leave other men better and happier than he found them. With the n.o.blest spirits of our race this disposition to be useful grows into a pa.s.sion. With an increasing number it is becoming at least an agreeable and interesting employment. On the monument to John Howard in St. Paul"s, it is said that the man who devotes himself to the good of mankind treads "an open but unfrequented path to immortality." The remark, so true of Howard"s time, is happily not true of ours.
MACKENZIE"S _Nineteenth Century._
MORAL LESSONS.
And let us take to ourselves the moral lessons which these creatures preach to all who have studied and learned to love what I venture to call the moral in brutes. Look at that faithful servant, the ox! What an emblem in all generations of patient, plodding, meek endurance and serviceable toil!
Of the horse and the dog, what countless anecdotes declare the generous loyalty, the tireless zeal, the inalienable love! No human devotion has ever surpa.s.sed the recorded examples of brutes in that line. The story is told of an Arab horse who, when his master was taken captive and bound hand and foot, sought him out in the dark amidst other victims, seized him by the girdle with his teeth, ran with him all night at the top of his speed, conveyed him to his home, and then, exhausted with the effort, fell down and died. Did ever man evince more devoted affection?
Surely, something of a moral nature is present also in the brute creation.
If nowhere else we may find it in the brute mother"s care for her young.
Through universal nature throbs the divine pulse of the universal Love, and binds all being to the Father-heart of the author and lover of all.
Therefore is sympathy with animated nature, a holy affection, an extended humanity, a projection of the human heart by which we live, beyond the precincts of the human house, into all the wards of the many creatured city of G.o.d, as He with his wisdom and love is co-present to all. Sympathy with nature is a part of the good man"s religion.
REV. DR. HEDGE.
Whenever any trait of justice, or generosity, or far-sighted wisdom, or wide tolerance, or compa.s.sion, or purity, is seen in any man or woman throughout the whole human race, as in the fragments of a broken mirror we see the reflection of the Divine image.
DEAN STANLEY.
DUTY TO ANIMALS NOT LONG RECOGNIZED.
It is not, however, to be reckoned as surprising, that our forefathers did not dream of such a thing as Duty to Animals. They learned very slowly that they owed duties to _men_ of other races than their own. Only in the generation which recognized thoroughly for the first time that the negro was a man and brother, did it dawn that beyond the negro there were other still humbler claimants for benevolence and justice. Within a few years, pa.s.sed both the Emanc.i.p.ation of the West Indian slaves and the first act for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of which Lord Erskine so truly prophesied that it would prove not only an honor to the Parliament of England, but an era in the civilization of the world.
MISS F. P. COBBE.
NATURAL RIGHTS.
But what is needed for the present is due regard for the natural rights of animals, due sense of the fact that they are not created for man"s pleasure and behoof alone, but have, independent of him, their own meaning and place in the universal order; that the G.o.d who gave them being, who out of the manifoldness of his creative thought let them pa.s.s into life, has not cast them off, but is with them, in them, still. A portion of his Spirit, though unconscious and unreflecting, is theirs. What else but the Spirit of G.o.d could guide the crane and the stork across pathless seas to their winter retreats, and back again to their summer haunts? What else could reveal to the petrel the coming storm? What but the Spirit of G.o.d could so geometrize the wondrous architecture of the spider and the bee, or hang the hill-star"s nest in the air, or sling the hammock of the tiger-moth, or curve the ramparts of the beaver"s fort, and build the myriad "homes without hands" in which fish, bird, and insect make their abode? The Spirit of G.o.d is with them as with us,--consciously with us, unconsciously with them. We are not divided, but one in his care and love. They have their mansions in the Father"s house, and we have ours; but the house is one, and the Master and keeper is one for us and them.
REV. DR. HEDGE.
"DUMB."
I can hardly express to you how much I feel there is to be thought of, arising from the word "dumb" applied to animals. Dumb animals! What an immense exhortation that is to pity. It is a remarkable thing that this word dumb should have been so largely applied to animals, for, in reality, there are very few dumb animals. But, doubtless, the word is often used to convey a larger idea than that of dumbness; namely, the want of power in animals to convey by sound to mankind what they feel, or, perhaps, I should rather say, the want of power in men to understand the meaning of the various sounds uttered by animals. But as regards those animals which are mostly dumb, such as the horse, which, except on rare occasions of extreme suffering, makes no sound at all, but only expresses pain by certain movements indicating pain--how tender we ought to be of them, and how observant of these movements, considering their dumbness. The human baby guides and governs us by its cries. In fact, it will nearly rule a household by these cries, and woe would betide it, if it had not this power of making its afflictions known. It is a sad thing to reflect upon, that the animal which has the most to endure from man is the one which has the least powers of protesting by noise against any of his evil treatment.
ARTHUR HELPS.
UPWARD.
His parent hand From the mute sh.e.l.l-fish gasping on the sh.o.r.e, To men, to angels, to celestial minds, Forever leads the generations on To higher scenes of being; while supplied From day to day with His enlivening breath, Inferior orders in succession rise To fill the void below.
AKENSIDE: _Pleasures of Imagination._
CARE FOR THE LOWEST.
I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, A visitor unwelcome, into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, The chamber, or refectory, may die: A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so when, held within their proper bounds, And guiltless of offence, they range the air, Or take their pastime in the s.p.a.cious field: There they are privileged; and he that hunts Or harms them there is guilty of a wrong, Disturbs the economy of nature"s realm, Who, when she formed, designed them an abode.
The sum is this: If man"s convenience, health, Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all--the meanest things that are-- As free to live, and to enjoy that life, As G.o.d was free to form them at the first, Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons To love it too.
COWPER.
TRUST.
Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When G.o.d hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another"s gain.
TENNYSON.
SAY NOT.
Say not, the struggle naught availeth, The labor and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e"en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly!