O Friend of all the friendless ’neath the sun,
      Whose hand hath wiped away a thousand tears,
    Whose fervent lips and clear strong brain have done
      God’s holy service, lo! these eighty years,—­

    How meet it seems thy grand and vigorous age
      Should find beyond man’s race fresh pangs to spare,
    And for the wronged and tortured brutes engage
      In yet fresh labors and ungrudging care!

    Oh, tarry long amongst us!  Live, we pray,
      Hasten not yet to hear thy Lord’s “Well done!”
    Let this world still seem better while it may
      Contain one soul like thine amid its throng.

    Whilst thou art here our inmost hearts confess,
      Truth spake the kingly seer of old who said,—­
    “Found in the way of God and righteousness,
      A crown of glory is the hoary head.”

MISS F. P. COBBE.

* * * * *

SUFFERING.

    Pain, terror, mortal agonies which scare
    Thy heart in man, to brutes thou wilt not spare. 
      Are these less sad and real?  Pain in man
    Bears the high mission of the flail and fear;
      In brutes ’tis purely piteous.

HENRY TAYLOR.

* * * * *

TO LYDIA MARIA CHILD.

    Who knows thy love most royal power,
      With largess free and brave,
    Which crowns the helper of the poor,
      The suffering and the slave.

    Yet springs as freely and as warm,
      To greet the near and small,
    The prosy neighbor at the farm,
      The squirrel on the wall.

ELIZA SCUDDER.

* * * * *

VIVISECTION.

It is the simple idea of dealing with a living, conscious, sensitive, and intelligent creature as if it were dead and senseless matter, against which the whole spirit of true humanity revolts.  It is the notion of such absolute despotism as shall justify, not merely taking life, but converting the entire existence of the animal into a misfortune which we denounce as a misconception of the relations between the higher and lower creatures.  A hundred years ago had physiologists frankly avowed that they recognized no claims on the part of the brutes which should stop them from torturing them, they would have been only on a level with their contemporaries.  But to-day they are behind the age.

As I have said ere now, the battle of Mercy, like that of Freedom,

                       “Once begun,
    Though often lost, is always won.”

MISS F. P. COBBE.

* * * * *

NOBILITY.

From yon blue heavens above us bent
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent. 
Howe’er it be, it seems to me
’Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.