Those who are already occupied with deeds and feelings of benevolence towards men, we would convince that brutes are not undeserving their regard, and that by teaching kindliness and mercy towards the tongueless world, a harvest will be returned to the garners of human mercy and love.

Many we know; how many more must there be who, if their sympathies were but thus extended; if a small share of that indefatigable zeal and ardour with which they watch over to improve their fellow men, were divided from the main channel, and diverted to fertilize the grateful meadows of kindness to the dumb world, all that can be desired in their circles would perhaps be accomplished. And here occurs a thought which occupies them, and too frequently affords an argument for their indifference. Beasts have not a soul; their pleasures and their pains are limited to the present; and while the souls of men must be preserved from wrath eternal, it is considered a trifle that a horse shall groan an hour; their time and their exertions are too valuable to be spent in such a cause. But supposing that the objects are unconnected, (which we deny, and undertake to prove,

that kindness and attention to the animal world will, more than any single object that can be named, conspire to tune the heart to innocence and virtue, and render it susceptible of, and habitual in, the purity of Christian principle and practice,) does not the argument they apply, demand a wholly opposite direction? If. the "brutes that perish," have no hopes but in the present, if they are seen no more," what reason can be more commanding, to make that present happy? When for their pains they are to receive no recompense; when the future holds out for their sufferings here, no balance of perpetual joy, how can the feeling heart pass coldly by their miseries?

66

They need no trials, no cares, nor sorrows, to correct their passions or abate their pride; they are uncorrupted, stamped with the signet of their original purity; we read from generation to generation the same character which was first marked by their Creator's hand; legibly written there, can be read the traces of primeval innocence. They speak intelligibly of a world before the fall, companions of man in his first state, what other relics of that Paradise have been handed down to

us through the lapse of ages? The same patient obedience, the same dumb eloquence of looks that were cultivated by our first Parents, kindness and attention will still elicit from them; and we can fancy sometimes in their aspect may be perceived, as it were, an hereditary grief, a plaintive solicitation, mourning at a sad recollection of former pleasures, and pleading to be restored to that mild intercourse which doubtless crowned those innocent days, ere sin had raised in man a host of fatal interests which blind us, and cut off the access of the voice of nature, and stop the channels of its intercourse.

Indeed no person, who is in the habit of paying but the ordinary attention to animals, who keeps a cat only to catch mice, a horse for service, or a cow to milk, is aware of the degree in which attention and kindness have the power of calling forth the sympathies of these creatures; nor is there a greater difference between the feelings and intelligence of these two states, than between the latter state and that intelligent communion which it may be supposed existed in our Primitive purity.

But, passing these speculations as chimeras (which some will deem them) of a fond imagination, we again ask, is it a generous reason to neglect these creatures, because their days are numbered, and either for good or evil they will exist no more? Is it so proud a privilege that man, scared from evil by the terror of eternal pains, and lured to virtue by the hopes of everlasting joy, is yet so base and so corrupt, that not these awful engines have the power to keep his actions within bounds? Is this, we say, so proud a privilege, that he must look down with contempt upon those companions in the gift of life, those pilgrims of the world, the "imagination of whose heart is not evil continually;" who do not lie down to dream of sin, and rise up to do it; who, in short, are not occupied for ever in striving to deceive and to delude their fellows, and to profit by their delusion. The truth is, we fear, with those who treat them thus, their attention is so occupied and enthralled with their own passions; they find such ceaseless trouble, if not to gratify at least to restrain them, that their minds are quite precluded from that freedom which, were they innocent, would leave the attention ever wakeful, to notice

C

and enjoy each trace of creative wisdom and benevolence in every shape displayed.

And if it is an evil and blameable effect of bad passions, so to engross and absorb us, that we become blind and inattentive to the lessons, which the inferior creatures might afford, how infinitely more culpable must we be when we do more than neglect them; when we invade their peace, and carry into that harmless kingdom our own passions, with all their cruelty and pain? True, that upon our first parent was bestowed the empire of this kingdom, and in fee to his generation for ever; but is that empire to be a tyranny? should we not seek in the character of these our subjects, for those beauties and subtilties originally imparted to them, and governing them according to these, we shall carry out the scheme and intention of their creation; otherwise, we oppose the plans of a benevolent Creator, and check and render null those capacities we ought to cultivate and unfold. Let us carefully watch and guard the welfare of those humble slaves, who at the voice of the demagogue cannot rise and demand their own. Let here no longer might be