The daughter of an army officer, whose life had been spent in the far
west, told the following anecdote: "Indians, when they accept
Christianity, very often hold its truths with peculiar simplicity.
"There was near our fort an old chief called Tassorah. One day, when I
was an impulsive girl, I was in a rage at my pony, and dismounting, beat
him severely. The old man stood by, silent for a moment.
"'What words have I heard from Jesus?' he said, sternly. 'If you love
not your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you have
not seen?'
"'This horse is not my brother!' I said scornfully.
"The old man laid his hand on the brute's head and turned it toward me.
The eyes were full of terror.
"'Is not God his creator? Must He not care for him?' he said. 'Not a
sparrow falls to the ground without His notice.'
"I never forgot the lesson. It flashed on me then for the first time
that the dog that ran beside me, the birds, the very worms were His, and
I, too, was one of His great family."
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Kindness to animals is no unworthy exercise of benevolence. We hold that
the life of brutes perishes with their breath, and that they are never
to be clothed again with consciousness. The inevitable shortness then of
their existence should plead for them touchingly. The insects on the
surface of the water, poor ephemeral things, who would needlessly
abridge their dancing pleasure of to-day? Such feelings we should have
towards the whole animate creation.
--_Sir Arthur Helps._
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