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they shall teach thee," and why the sluggard is sent by the king to the ant to learn wisdom. I think I shall have proved to you that, without doubt, the antennæ of insects have all to do with that wonderful power they possess, which in man we call reason, and that it is by using what they have they become as wise as they are.

An Ant's Method of Defence. The body is erected, the abdomen bent upwards, and formic acid ejected in the direction of the adversary, producing a smarting effect.-(See page 119.)

CHAPTER VII.

INFLUENCE.

"As a little silvery circular ripple, set in motion by the falling pebble, expands from its inch of radiance to the whole compass of the pool, so there is not a child-not an infant Moses-placed, however softly, in his bulrush ark upon the sea of time, whose existence does not stir a ripple, gyrating outward and on, until it shall have moved across and spanned the whole ocean of God's eternity, stirring even the rivers of life and the fountains at which His angels drink."-ELIHU BURRITT.

FTER the various illustrations in our last chapter you may naturally inquire-Then are brutes responsible for the exercise of their mental powers?

That is it which separates them from man. No; in many remarkable instances they know right from wrong; that is the culminating point of their reasoning power; they cannot but act as their instincts direct them. Man has that within him which not only in every case, if he will but listen, will silently but surely tell him whether he is doing that which is right in the eyes of another, but he has, and he only, the power of self-control; the intelligence bestowed upon him as the head of creation is given him that he may be the master of himself, holding the reins

of all his passions and desires, and governing all the members of the wonderful house he lives in.

Brutes die and are done with, notwithstanding the theory that their spirits will live in another world; which theory, however, is much more reasonable than the Darwinian doctrine, teaching that men came from monkeys, wearing off their tails by sitting so much, and that the tall neck of the giraffe is attributable to its stretching it out so much in browsing on the branches of trees; but both speculations are older than the Christian era, and both are opposed to that dear old Book to which alone we owe all our knowledge of truth.

No; man alone is responsible, because he alone has the everlasting spark of divine life implanted within him; man alone has a truly human soul.

All knowledge comes from experience, and experience comes from observation. Now that brutes do observe, and that very closely, is undeniable. Before leaving the story of instinct and intelligence, I would like to refer to some animals of whom it has been reported that they have learned to mimic man in a singular manner; as of a respectable dog, for instance, who would never think of such a wicked thing as stealing, but who joined a thief in the shape of a disreputable cat, on the sly, sharing the meal. which she had stolen, with her.

Was this the result of merely animal observation? I should like to know the natural history of the family where this brute passed his puppyhood.

Dogs, like men and women, have their likes as well as their dislikes. While employed in writing this story much correspondence is taking place in the daily papers about "The Lewes Dog."

Here is a case, the truth of which is attested by several travellers by name on the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, where a fox-terrier for several years spends all his time in travelling up and down the line, settling

himself in the guard's carriage, sometimes going to Portsmouth, sometimes to Horsham, sometimes only to a nearer station; but the most remarkable part of his arrangements was, that he always contrived to get to Brighton in time to go by the last train that left there for Lewes, where he invariably slept, leaving again by the first train in the morning. As the writer of one of the letters wisely remarks, it certainly shows an immense amount of instinct and observation, and the regularity and punctuality of Jack's' daily life is a lesson to many a two-legged traveller." The writer of another letter, confirming the truth of the above, adds that the dog, adopted by the railway company, and now decorated with a collar bearing the inscription, "JACKLondon, B. and S. Coast Railway Company," has his private apartments at Croydon, Three Bridges, Tunbridge Wells, and Eastbourne.

What a remarkable illustration this, both of reason and memory!

Let us contrast it with another amongst the insects. One of the men working on a line of railway, passing a nest of wild bees, thrust a stick into the nest and dislodged the bees. They waited his return, waylaid him, and picking him out from all the men who accompanied him from work, so severely stung him that he died from the effects in a few days.

And while we are thinking of those qualities upon the proper use of which so much of human happiness depends, let us think of the affections. You have seen Landseer's touching picture of "The Chief Mourner." It is the centre of a Scotch shepherd's cabin. The chief article of furniture in the humble apartment is a coffin, over which is thrown a black pall. A true Scotch hound is looking up to the coffin-lid, in which the body of the master he loved so well, and followed so long and so faithfully, is reposing; and, with a sorrowing eye, the poor brute is waiting and watching for his return.

Do you wonder that one day when I stood looking, not at, but into, this picture, I had to brush away two or three tears from my eyes?

That is a true picture of a dog's affection. Yours and mine should be like it, but of a higher and nobler nature; and woe be to us, for we are responsible for their higher and nobler use, if we don't use our affections aright.

"Have the little people sympathy with or love for one another?" I can answer most decidedly, "Undoubtedly.” They love and obey a living queen and respect a dead one. I can tell you of one instance where an ant, drowning in some water into which it had accidently fallen, was rescued by several of its family uniting themselves to each other by their legs, forming a living bridge, when another hurried over their bodies and dragged the half-dead insect to land, when they all began licking it into life again, till it became perfectly restored.

Love for the Master! Ah, what a lesson is taught us by the lower orders of animal life in this respect: Love for the Master. Have you ever been to Edinburgh? In the chief thoroughfare of that Athenian-like metropolis there is a bronze fountain, erected by that noble lady the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. It is "to the memory of Greyfriars Bobby." And who, you will say, was he? A poor man's best friend, who was faithful even unto death, for, after living with his master for many years, when the latter was buried in the interesting old churchyard of Greyfriars, poor "Bobby," who saw the coffin lowered into the grave, would never, and did never, leave it; but for several years watched and waited, like Landseer's dog, by the grave of him he had loved and followed, till there he died. He was daily fed by the admiring neighbours, and the kind-hearted Baroness has taught us a practical lesson whenever we look at the figure of Greyfriars Bobby at her Edinburgh fountain, or when we hear the touching story repeated.

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