If children at school can be made to understand how it is just and noble to be humane even to what we term inferior animals, it will do much to give them a higher character and tone through life.  There is nothing meaner than barbarous and cruel treatment of the dumb creatures, who cannot answer us or resent the misery which is so often needlessly inflicted upon them.

JOHN BRIGHT.

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MEMBERSHIP OF THE CHURCH.

Love and charity being the basis of Christianity, it is as much a question for the Church to ask, when a person wishes to be admitted into her bosom, “Are you kind to animals?” as it is to ask, “Do you believe in such or such a doctrine?” Certainly the question would be pertinent to Christian life and consonant with the fundamental and distinguishing principle of the Christian religion; and the mere asking of it at so solemn a juncture could not but do much to assimilate and draw closer the heart and life of the novitiate to Him who sees every sparrow that falls.

E. HATHAWAY.

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FEELING FOR ANIMALS.

The power of feeling for animals, realizing their wants and making their pains our own, is one which is most irregularly shown by human beings.  A Timon may have it, and a Howard be devoid of it.  A rough shepherd’s heart may overflow with it, and that of an exquisite fine gentleman and distinguished man of science may be as utterly without it as the nether millstone.  One thing I think must be clear:  till man has learnt to feel for all his sentient fellow-creatures, whether in human or in brutal form, of his own class and sex and country, or of another, he has not yet ascended the first step towards true civilization nor applied the first lesson from the love of God.

MISS F. P. COBBE.

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HEROIC.

Nay, on the strength of that same element of self-sacrifice, I will not grudge the epithet “heroic” which my revered friend Darwin justly applies to the poor little monkey who once in his life did that which was above his duty; who lived in continual terror of the great baboon, and yet, when the brute had sprung upon his friend the keeper, and was tearing out his throat, conquered his fear by love, and, at the risk of instant death, sprung in turn upon his dreaded enemy, and hit and shrieked until help arrived.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

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EFFECT OF CRUELTY.

The effect of the barbarous treatment of inferior creatures on the minds of those who practise it is still more deplorable than its effects upon the animals themselves.  The man who kicks dumb brutes kicks brutality into his own heart.  He who can see the wistful imploring eyes of half-starved creatures without making earnest efforts to relieve them, is on the road to lose his manhood, if he has not already lost it.  And the boy who delights in torturing frogs or insects, or robbing birds’-nests, or dogging cattle and hogs wantonly and cruelly, can awaken no hope of an honorable after life.