related to all life. There is soul, in some sort of development, in everything; and certainly God meant in His grand scheme of redemption to lift the world, not a portion of it, but the entire world, out of its lower ideas into its higher beauties and realities.

FUTURE LIFE.

THA

HAT the Scriptures, contrary to popular tradition, do not deny a future life to 'the lower animals has already been conclusively shown. But do they declare anything in favor of another world for beast as well as for man? This is a question which we shall now endeavor to answer. As to man's immortality, the Old Testament Scriptures teach the doctrine by inference rather than by direct assertion, for the reason, as has been presumed, that the writers of the several books, which were selected at a comparatively late period from among many others and formed into the volume popularly designated the Bible, assumed as a matter of course that man was immortal, and therefore did not concern themselves about a matter which they supposed everybody knew. But as far as the Old Testament goes, inference tells more strongly in favor of the beast's immortality than that of man. Although in either case there does not appear to be any definite assertion of a futurity of existence, yet there is no such denial of the immortality of the beast as has already been shown in the case of the man.

Beasts, as readers of the Old Testament only too well know, were included in the merciful provision of the Sabbath, which, in its essence, was a spiritual and not simply a physical ordinance. And, again, we find many provisions in the ancient Scriptures against maltreating the lower animals, or giving them unnecessary pain, and these provisions stand side by side in the Divine Law with those which apply to man. All are familiar with the prohibition of "seething a kid in its mother's milk," and the non-muzzling

of the ox in treading out the corn lest he should suffer the pangs of hunger in the presence of the food which he may not eat. Even bird's nesting was regulated by Divine Law. "If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young: But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days." Moreover, as many animals must be killed daily, some for sacrifice and others solely for food, the strictest regulations were enjoined that their death should be sharp and quick, and that the whole of their blood should be poured out upon the ground lest they suffer lingering pain.

In keeping with the same consideration felt by Deity towards the kid and ox and bird, as expressed in the Law, we would refer to the few concluding sentences of the Book of Jonah:

"Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night.

"And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"

"Every beast of the forest is mine," saith the Lord, "and the cattle upon a thousand hills." And again, "I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine." Similar passages, in which God announces himself as the protector of the beast as well as of man, could be given, for the Scriptures are full of them. Who does not recall the well-known saying of our Lord respecting the lives of the sparrows: "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without the notice of your Father."

Cowper in his "Task," makes allusion to this branch of our subject in the following lines :

"Man may dismiss compassion from his heart,
But God will never. When He charged the Jew
To assist his foe's down-fallen beast to rise;
And when the bush-exploring boy, that seized
The young, to let the parent-bird go free;
Proved He not plainly that His meaner works,
Are yet His care, and have an interest all—
All in the universal Father's love?"

One passage there is which certainly does point to a future for the beast as well as for man, and which places them both on the very same plane. It is found in Genesis, ninth chapter and fifth verse, and constitutes a part of the law. which was delivered to Noah, and which was subsequently incorporated in the fuller law given through Moses. "And surely your blood of your lives will I require," said God to Noah and his sons, "at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of every man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man." In Exodus, chapter twenty-one and twenty-eighth verse, we read, "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die : then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit."

While there are no passages of Scripture, as has been seen, which deny immortality of life to the lower animals, yet there are certainly some which tend to show it by inference. But the Scriptures were written for human beings, and not for the lower animals, and therefore it could hardly be expected that any information could be gained therefrom on the subject. As we find so few direct references to the future state of man, it is not at all to be expected that we should receive direct instruction upon the after-life of the beast.

But just as man has had within himself for untold ages an intuitive witness to his own immortality, yet there are those,

lovers and friends of the so-called brute, who have an instinctive sense that animals, some of whom surpass in love, unselfishness, generosity, conscience and self-sacrifice many of their human brethren, must share with him in addition to these virtues an immortal spirit in which they take their rise. No more eminent personage than Bishop Butler was a believer in this idea. Substantially he asserts that the Scriptures give no reasons why the lower animals should not possess immortal souls. Similar sentiments have been voiced by equally distinguished writers.

Southey, writing of the death of a favorite spaniel that had been the companion of his boyhood, says:

"Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last

Thy master's parting footsteps to the gate
Which closed forever on him, thou didst lose
Thy best friend, and none was left to plead

For the old age of brute fidelity.

But fare thee well. Mine is no narrowed creed;

And He who gave thee being did not frame

The mystery of Life to be the sport

Of merciless man. There is another world

For all that live and move-a better one!

Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
Infinite Goodness to the little bounds

Of their own charity, may envy thee."

Thus does Lamartine, in "Jocelyn's Episode," beautifully express himself in addressing a faithful and affectionate canine by the name of Fido:

"I cannot, will not, deem thee a deceiving,
Illusive mockery of human feeling,

A body organized, by fond caress
Warmed into seeming tenderness;

A mere automaton, on which our love

Plays, as on puppets, when their wires we move.
No! when that feeling quits thy glazing eye,

'Twill live in some blest world beyond the sky."