IT was said of St. Francis of Assisi, that he had attained, through the
fervor of his love, the secret of that deep amity with God and His
creation which, in the language of inspiration, makes man to be in league
with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field to be at peace
with him. The world has never been without tender souls, with whom the
golden rule has a broader application than its letter might seem to
warrant. The ancient Eastern seers recognized the rights of the brute
creation, and regarded the unnecessary taking of the life of the humblest
and meanest as a sin; and in almost all the old religions of the world
there are legends of saints, in the depth of whose peace with God and
nature all life was sacredly regarded as the priceless gift of heaven,
and who were thus enabled to dwell safely amidst lions and serpents.
It is creditable to human nature and its unperverted instincts that
stories and anecdotes of reciprocal kindness and affection between men
and animals are always listened to with interest and approval. How
pleasant to think of the Arab and his horse, whose friendship has been
celebrated in song and romance. Of Vogelwied, the Minnesinger, and his
bequest to the birds. Of the English Quaker, visited, wherever he went,
by flocks of birds, who with cries of joy alighted on his broad-brimmed
hat and his drab coat-sleeves. Of old Samuel Johnson, when half-blind
and infirm, groping abroad of an evening for oysters for his cat. Of
Walter Scott and John Brown, of Edinburgh, and their dogs. Of our own
Thoreau, instinctively recognized by bird and beast as a friend. Emerson
says of him: "His intimacy with animals suggested what Thomas Fuller
records of Butler, the apologist, that either he had told the bees
things, or the bees had told him. Snakes coiled round his legs; the
fishes swam into his hand; he pulled the woodchuck out of his hole by his
tail, and took foxes under his protection from the hunters."
In the greatest of the ancient Hindu poems--the sacred book of the
Mahabharata--there is a passage of exceptional beauty and tenderness,
which records the reception of King Yudishthira at the gate of Paradise.
A pilgrim to the heavenly city, the king had travelled over vast spaces,
and, one by one, the loved ones, the companions of his journey, had all
fallen and left him alone, save his faithful dog, which still followed.
He was met by Indra, and invited to enter the holy city. But the king
thinks of his friends who have fallen on the way, and declines to go in
without them. The god tells him they are all within waiting for him.
Joyful, he is about to seek them, when he looks upon the poor dog, who,
weary and wasted, crouches at his feet, and asks that he, too, may enter
the gate. Indra refuses, and thereupon the king declares that to abandon
his faithful dumb friend would be as great a sin as to kill a Brahmin.
"Away with that felicity whose price is to abandon the faithful!
Never, come weal or woe, will I leave my faithful dog.
The poor creature, in fear and distress, has trusted in my power to
save him;
Not, therefore, for life itself, will I break my plighted word."
In full sight of heaven he chooses to go to hell with his dog, and
straightway descends, as he supposes, thither. But his virtue and
faithfulness change his destination to heaven, and he finds himself
surrounded by his old friends, and in the presence of the gods, who thus
honor and reward his humanity and unselfish love.