Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

66

No, father," said she, "I did not give him that." "What did you do with it?" he asked.

66 'I ate it," said Lydia.

"What! did you not give your brother any?" asked her father. "Yes, I did, father," said she; I gave him mine."

[ocr errors]

"Why did you not give him the one I told you to give?" asked her father rather sternly.

66

Because, father," said Lydia, "I thought he would like mine better."

66 But you ought not to disobey your father," said he.

66 I did not mean to be disobedient, father," said she; and her bosom began to heave and her lips to quiver.

"But you were, my daughter," said he.

"I thought you would not be displeased with me, father," said Lydia, "if I gave my brother the larger peach ;" and the tears began to roll down her cheeks.

"But I wanted you to have the larger," said her father; "you are older and bigger than he is."

girl.

66

'I want you to give the best things to my brother!" said the noble

Why?" asked her father, scarcely able to contain himself.

66 Because," answered this generous sister, "I love him so dearly— I always feel happier when he gets the best things."

You are right, my precious daughter," said her father, as he fondly and proudly folded her in his arms-" you are right, and you may be certain your father can never be displeased with you for wishing to give up the best of everything to your brother. He is a dear little boy, and I am glad you love him so. Do you think he loves you as well as you love him?"

66

"Yes, father," said the girl, "I think he does; for when I offered him the larger peach, he would not take it, and wanted me to keep it; and it was a good while before I could get him to take it."' When Mr Wright had concluded this story, he asked his young friends if they knew Lydia and Oliver. They answered they did. 'Did you ever see them quarrel?' 'No.' 6 Why do they not quarrel?' Charles and James hung down their heads; but Jane said: They don't quarrel because they give the best things to each other.' Jane spoke the truth. There would be no quarrelling of this kind if we were as happy to see our neighbour well served as ourselves. And were this the general spirit, no one would need to have any fear of being partially dealt with, for then he might be confident that his interests were as safe with others as with himself. It is the spirit diffused by such means that is important. When any member of a family says a kind thing to the rest, or acts with a greater regard to their interests than his own, he throws them all upon the exercise of their best feelings. He produces, as it were, an atmosphere of kind and just feeling, which disposes all to promote each other's comfort.

On the contrary, a single ungracious word, one jealous look, will make all uneasy. The genial feelings wither and shrink up, and the selfish ones begin to rush forth. How blessed is he who can bring moral sunshine into a house by his good words and deeds; or who, when the inferior feelings have spoken or acted in others, can keep away the gathering darkness by trying to overcome evil with good!

LOVE IS POWER-WITH THE LOWER ANIMALS.

In past time, man's unkindness to man has not been more conspicuous than his unkindness to the lower animals. In most parts of the earth these have constantly been sufferers from his rude impulses and recklessness; and the consequence is, that most animals have acquired, from the effect of habit transmitted through generations, a fear and hatred of man; which we ought to be humiliated in contemplating, and which is, in itself, a negative, if not positive evil, since there is a great pleasure to be derived from the kindly companionship of animals; and of all this we are deprived, except when we take pains with some special creature. It is by many thought probable that, from the dragooning system which we pursue towards animals, we have never yet realised one-half of the benefits which the domestic races are calculated to confer upon us. Take the horse alone for an example, and hear what a contemporary writer has said about him. In Europe, the sagacious powers of this noble animal are most imperfectly developed. In fact, notwithstanding his outward beauty and his pampered form, he exists here in a state of utter degradation; for he is generally under the power and in the company of beings of the very lowest grade-ignorant, brutal, capricious, and cruel-coachmen, cabmen, grooms, carmen, horse-jockeys, post-boys, butchers, and black-legs; many of them without sense, temper, or feeling-fellows, in the scale of creation, infinitely below the generous creatures they torment. Some are well fed, it is true, and duly exercised-and happy their fate: the rest are abused with a cruelty that has become proverbial. Now, what knowledge can a horse acquire under such treatment?-how is he to display, to exercise, to increase the powers bestowed on him by nature?-from whom is he to learn? Being gregarious by nature, he is here secluded from his own species; he is separated, except for a short time, from his master, who attends only to his animal propensities: when not employed about a heavy, cumbersome machine -"dragging his dull companion to and fro"-he is shut up in the walls of a stable. But this beautiful creature, we repeat, is existing all this time in a degraded state; or, as the newspapers call it, in a false position. Who does not know how soon the horse will meet every advance of kindness and attention you make to him-how *Review of Jesse's Gleanings of Natural History; Gentleman's Magazine, November 1835.

grateful he will be-how studious of your will-how anxious to understand you-how happy to please and satisfy you! We have possessed two horses at different times, which, with only the treatment that they would experience from a master fond of the animals under his protection, would follow us with the attention of dogs; sometimes stopping to graze on the banks of the road till we had advanced many hundred yards, and then, of their own accord, and apparently with delight, canter forward and rejoin us. In fact, they were gentle, intelligent, and pleasing companions; and this was produced rather by total abstinence from harsh treatment, than from any positive solicitation or great attention on our parts.' The writer proceeds to remark the great gentleness, sagacity, and serviceableness which mark the horse in the East, particularly in Arabia, and which qualities seem to depend entirely on the better treatment which the horse there receives. The Arab makes his horse a domestic companion. He sleeps in the same tent with the family. Children repose upon his neck, and hug and kiss him without the least danger. He steps amongst their sleeping forms by night, without ever injuring them. When his master mounts him, he manifests the greatest pleasure; and if he by any chance falls off, he instantly stands still till he is again mounted. He has even been known to pick up his wounded master and carry him in his teeth to a place of safety. Unquestionably these beautiful traits of character have been developed in the animal by a proper course of treatment. The same law holds good here as amongst men. Treat these in a rational, humane, and confiding manner, and you bring forth their best natural qualities; but, on the contrary, visit them with oppression and cruelty, and you either harden and stupefy them, or rouse them to the manifestation of wrathful feelings, which may prove extremely uncomfortable to yourself. It is probable, then, that, from the way in which we use most animals, we never have experienced nearly so much advantage from their subserviency as we might have done.

LOVE IS POWER-BETWEEN NATION AND NATION.

Under this head we propose to say a few words on war.

War may be defined as a people's expedient for accomplishing a purpose by violence. It is expressly so; and all the ingenuity in the world would fail to make it out as anything else. What a strange idea! A man who would seek to assert a right, or even to defend himself from wrong, by violence-that is, by taking arms, and wounding or killing those opposed to him—would be regarded as an intolerable barbarian. The laws of his country would hold him as guilty of a capital offence, and he would suffer the severest penalty they were empowered to inflict. But when a collection of men, forming what is called a nation, have a right to be asserted, or

a wrong to be redressed, or perhaps only an opinion to be advanced, it is thought quite fair and reasonable that they should use these violent and murderous means. What is forbidden to individuals in every state above the most savage, and hardly tolerated even there, is freely granted to civilised nations, which, accordingly, are every now and then seen falling into bloody fights about matters which, with private men, would be settled by a friendly arbitration, or at most a decision in a law-court. There is nearly perfect machinery for keeping individuals at peace; but scarcely any arrangement whatever for maintaining the same relations amongst states, though states are in no respect different, but in their being composed of a plurality of individuals.

Our being accustomed to see force resorted to by nations, and the enginery of it kept up as a great department of public service, blinds us very much to the real character of war. A father might be seen amongst us taking the greatest pains to repress in his sons the disposition to fight out any dispute that might arise respecting their rights, telling them that they ought to bring the case to him, and he would settle it for them, and make them friends again; and next hour it would not be surprising to hear this man asking one of these sons if he would like to go into the army; that is to say, become a part of the mechanism by which nations seek a bloody adjustment of exactly similar quarrels. He would with one breath say it was contrary to the laws of God and man for brothers to fight, and the next he would be heard gravely counselling his children to fight, with firmness and bravery, the precisely similar quarrels of a state.

A rural clergyman might in like manner be heard deploring the unholy contentions which occasionally take place amongst his flock. Suppose he had amongst them a number of working-people, who had fallen out about wages, and proscribed and maltreated each other, the minister would doubtless express the greatest grief at what was going on, and deem himself called upon by every tie of duty to seek to restore peace; but if, next day, a pair of new colours were to be bestowed upon a regiment, the same man would have no scruple to invoke a blessing upon them-to consecrate them, as it is called; at least such ceremonies frequently take place, and no condemnation of the practice has ever been uttered in this country. Yet these colours are identified with operations of precisely the same nature as a village fight or the contentions regarding wages. They only differ in their taking place on a comparatively great scale, and involving infinitely more misery in their results.

Bewildered by this wonderful contrariety, some readers will be disposed to say: 'There surely is some difference; the mass of mankind cannot be so far wrong.' This, we fear, is fallacious reasoning. What prevents national war from being seen in the same light as private war, is the difficulty of getting a similar point of view from which to see it. We look coolly down upon a pair, or other small

number of combatants, and deplore their rage and its consequences. As to national war, we are perhaps involved in it as parties, and therefore cannot look upon it from without. Or even though it be taking place between nations apart from us, we still are far from being able to take a wide and contemplative survey of it. To see it in exactly the same light, we should almost require to see it as inhabitants of a different and more happy planet.

If we be right in thus regarding war, it follows that everything connected with it is liable to exactly the same reprobation as private outrages of whatever kind. To wreak out a quarrel with another nation by sending armaments against it, is precisely the same thing as to go to a neighbour who had injured or otherwise offended us, and break down his fences, fire his house, and slay himself and his servants. Two rude men may fight with, and bite and scratch each other at a fair, quite as justifiably. There may be less ready access in the one case than in the other to a tribunal which would settle · the dispute without violence; but this does not alter the character of the action. Supposing that private persons had no law-courts to which to refer their quarrels, would they not be grievously wrong in bringing them to the law of the strongest? Say, then, that there is nothing analogous to a law-court for national disputes, surely nations are fearfully wrong to put these to the arbitrament of the sword, which will decide without the least regard to right. But, in reality, even nations are not without some resource for peaceably adjusting their differences. An arbitration may always be obtained from some third party, if there be a sincere wish for it on both sides. And any want in this respect might easily be remedied if nations were to come, as they ought to do, into greater union with each other, and act more in a harmonious concert. There might then be a public opinion amongst, as there is at present within, nations, to which any refractory member of the set would be obliged to submit.

Some of the evils of war are so manifest, as to need only to be mentioned. Such is the destruction of life which it occasions, always followed, of course, by misery to many survivors. Such is the devastation it often introduces into a country which is its seat. The injury it does by misapplying the national energies and funds, is less apt to be understood. Yet this is one of its greatest evils. War destroys—it never creates or produces. All it does is in the way of subtraction-nothing in the way of addition. The men who become soldiers are laid idle from useful employment; the money spent in their pay, accoutrements, and all the appurtenances of war, is laid out on what makes no return, and is gone for ever as truly as if it had been thrown into the sea. The persons, indeed, who furnish the articles required for war, have lived upon the profits of their work; but their work has been unserviceable, whereas it might have been otherwise. Their talents and labour have all been

« ForrigeFortsæt »