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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. - Cowpe.
Vol. 11. BOSTON, JUNE, 1878. No. 1.
Birds of Killingvorth.
[SELECTION No. 2.]
Think of your words and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to iouglis and beams
As in an idiot's brain rcmembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
Will bleat of flocks or hellowing of herds
Make up for the lost music, when your teams
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more
The feathered gleaners follow to your door?
What! would you rather sc the incessant stir
Of insects in the windrows of the hay,
And hear the locust and the grasshopper
Their melancholy liurdy-gllrdies play ?
Is this more pleasant to you than the whir
Of medow-lark, and her sweet roundelay,
Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take
Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake ?
You call them thieves and pillagers; but know,
They are the wingod wardens of your farms,
Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe,
And from your harvests keep a hundred harms;
Even the hhackest of them all, the crow,
Renders good service as your man-at-arms,
Crmsling the heetle in his coat of mail,
And crying havoc on the slug and snail.
How can I teach your children gentleness,
And mercy to the weak, and reverence
For Life, which, in its weakness or excess,
Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence,
Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less
The selfsame light, although averted hence,
When bv your laws, your actions, and your speech,
You contradict the very things I teach ?
-Longfellow.
[Continued from'May paper.]
A Sermon Preached in the West Church, Boston,
March 31, 1878.
By REv. DR. BRTOL.
Text: Romi. viii. 19. What is duty but what
is due, what we owe, and how much we owe, of
the picture or beauty the world is, to the animal
part of its tenants and inhabitants, so that Agassiz
was not going to be cantent with a heaven without
them. The high hills are a refuge for the goats
and the rocks for the conies ; and what a wilder-
ness, indeed, much of the planet would be; what
a dismal blank the air; what an empty, barren
drench the sea, but for the diverse tribes that live
and play in these their several elements, cleaving
the transparent space, sliding through the liquid
depths, mining, burrowing, building in sand and
earth and dust; porpoise, whale, bee, beaver,
duck and sea-gull, eagle and bank-swallow; de-
stroy them all, half the charm of the globe were
gone. Dog-shows, cat-shows, cattle-shows, hen-
shows, men and women shows, any tribe insulated
is less fine than at large; but the beautiful setters
on the common, or in the fields, surely the great
artist drew the forms of.
Then how much beneqt, surely, from the animal
kingdom to us, the chief animals who call our-
selves men; how much of our food, clothing, dec-
orations from these poor relations! I have seen a
green beetle in a lady's ear-ring; would the lady
perchance carelessly crush the common beetle
under her foot ? Plunder of Delhi ? Whtt rob-
beries of sacred cities are ours ? The hat cloak,
shoe, shirt, hairy house-rug, feathered ornament in
some bonnet or cap, has cost, each one, a creature's
life.
How much the horse has done for our human-
ity, - our delight, driving or riding, hauling of
merchandise or timber and stone for our struct-
tires of house and store, canal and road and
station and temple; are the whip and the spur
and overload and lathered sides from fast dtiving
his proper return and requital ? How could man-
kind get along without him ? I was called to a
funeral some years ago, when all the horses were
sick, and no carriage could be got. We learned
how much the horse did for us even in the burial
of our dead. Be kind to your horse who serves
you. A merciful man is merciful to his beast.
A gentleman told me he took a lady to drive
and she complained the horse did not go fiast
enough; she liked to travel quick. Then, said
he, you must go with some one else. I shall use
no whip. Going up hill we involuntarily stoop
to get a purchase on our muscles to ease the ascent.
Uncheck your horse going up hill; he, too, has a
back ! Lastly, our duty to the creatures, as part
of the providential scale of being. We are but up-
per rounds, - superstructure in the vast building,
-- the flower of their root and stem. As the'r phys-
ical organism is on the same plan, so they have
hints in them of all our feelings and faculties.
Blind instinct! 'Tis a vory seeing thing; perhaps
the best part of us! They have calculation, con-
structiveness, engineering, mining.
The Texas ants, horticulture; - the black and
white ones, alas! slavery and war ( a fellow
feelino, even here, should make us wondrous
kind.) They have love, memory, loyalty, re-
pentance, or regret. Dogs watch at the sick-bed
and die of grief, and sometimes show all the
Christian virtues of self-sacrifice, constancy, hu-
mility, patience, with none of the vices. I know
there may be a foolish, insane fondness with some,
for pet creatures,to the neglect of other and higher
ties with man and woman kind. Communion with
angels and worship of God; but far more common
is a cruel handling or supercilious scorn; but if
you are vain, unkind, sly, treacherous, malicious,
even then the animals lay us under obligation in
the philosophy of langurige in furnishing names
for you, - fox, viper, wolf, peacock, sna te. But
the immense scale of being I admire and thank and
adore God for; and I own that even in heaven,
whose seraphic glories I believe in and hope for,
I should not wish to be shut up to angels alone.
It would be very tiresome to have only one kind,
with all their supposed superior splendid para-
phernalia, pinions at their backs and harps in
their hands, the eternity of the labor, crowns
to wear and palms to brandish, or wave, or fling
down. I ask what the form of th it coming eter-
nal life may be? None can now tell. Only
there must be more variety than any sacred
scripture hints. The links of life will not be
fewer or more short, and at no point will either
progress be blocked or the underpinning torn
away.
And thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company,
writes the bard of the savage.
We know not in what shape, if at all, beast or
bird, shall enter paradise. But we know not in
what shape we or ours shall enter it. The mother
knows not how she shall see her nursling whom
death weaned from her bosom. We know not of
father, mother, lover, friend, with what body
they shall come. My faith is, whatever the way,
we shall be satisfied; and if Christ's rule of judg-
ment hold, which makes sympathy the seal of fate,
our prospect will brighten in proportion as we
hve diminished that pain the whole creation yet
groans and travails with, and given increase of
blessedness to every living thing, and by precept
and example taught our children to enter with
follow-feeling into the joy and welfare of the low-
liest creature that breathes, and abstain from
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