Yes.  God will indeed rejoice in us, if we obey the godly inspirations of His Spirit.  But again, we shall rejoice in God; if we be but led by His Spirit into all truth, and thence into all righteousness.  Then we shall be in harmony with God, and with the whole universe of God.  We shall have our share in that perpetual worship which is celebrated throughout the universe by all creatures, rational and irrational, who are obeying the laws of their being; the laws of the Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of life.  We shall take our part in that perpetual Hymn which calls on all the works of the Lord, from angels and powers, sun and stars, winds and seasons, seas and floods, trees and flowers, beasts and cattle, to the children of men, and the servants of the Lord, and the spirits and souls of the righteous, and the holy and humble men of heart—­“O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever.”

SERMON XVIII.  DEATH.

PSALM CIV. 20, 21.

   Thou makest darkness, and it is night:  wherein all the beasts of the
   forest do creep forth.  The lions roar after their prey, and seek
   their meat from God.

Let me say a few words on this text.  It is one which has been a comfort to me again and again.  It is one which, if rightly understood, ought to give comfort to pitiful and tender-hearted persons.

Have you never been touched by, never been even shocked by, the mystery of pain and death?  I do not speak now of pain and death among human beings:  but only of that pain and death among the dumb and irrational creatures, which from one point of view is more pitiful than pain and death among human beings.

For pain, suffering, and death, we know, may be of use to human beings.  It may make them happier and better in this life, or in the life to come; if they are the Christians which they ought to be.  But of what use can suffering and death be to dumb animals?  How can it make them better in this life, and happier in the life to come?  It seems, in the case of animals, to be only so much superfluous misery thrown away.  Would to God that people would remember that, when they unnecessarily torment dumb creatures, and then excuse themselves by saying—­Oh, they are not human beings; they are not Christians; and therefore it does not matter so much.  I should have thought that therefore it mattered all the more:  and that just because dumb animals have, as far as we know, only this mortal life, therefore we should allow them the fuller enjoyment of their brief mortality.

And yet, how much suffering, how much violent death, there is among animals.  How much?  The world is full of it, and has been full of it for ages.  I dare to say, that of the millions on millions of living creatures in the earth, the air, the sea, full one-half live by eating each other.  In the sea, indeed, almost every kind of creature feeds on some other creature:  and what an amount of pain, of terror, of violent death that means, or seems to mean!