The Project Gutenberg EBook of Animal Ghosts, by Elliott O'Donnell

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Title: Animal Ghosts
Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter

Author: Elliott O'Donnell

Release Date: April 23, 2006 [EBook #18233]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ANIMAL GHOSTS

OR,

ANIMAL HAUNTINGS AND THE HEREAFTER

BY ELLIOTT O'DONNELL

AUTHOR OF

"THE SORCERY CLUB," "WERWOLVES," "BYWAYS OF GHOSTLAND," "SCOTTISH
GHOSTS," "HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON," "HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND
WALES," "DREAMS AND THEIR MEANINGS," "FOR SATAN'S SAKE," "THE UNKNOWN
DEPTHS," "DINEVAH THE BEAUTIFUL," "JENNIE BARLOWE," "GHOSTLY PHENOMENA,"
"MRS. E.M. WARD'S REMINISCENCES," ETC. ETC.

LONDON

WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LTD.
CATHEDRAL HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1913

_First Published November, 1913._

PREFACE

If human beings, with all their vices, have a future life, assuredly
animals, who in character so often equal, nay, excel human beings, have
a future life also.

Those who in the Scriptures find a key to all things, can find nothing
in them to confute this argument. There is no saying of Christ that
justifies one in supposing that man is the only being, whose existence
extends beyond the grave.

Granted, however, merely for the sake of argument, that we have some
ground for the denial of a future existence for animals, consider the
injustice such a denial would involve. Take, for example, the case of
the horse. Harming no one, and without thought of reward, it toils for
man all its life, and when too old to work it is put to death without
even the compensation of a well-earned rest. But if compensation be
God's law,--as I, for one, believe it to be--and also the _raison
d'etre_ of a hereafter, then surely the Creator, whose chief claim to
our respect and veneration lies in the fact that He is just and
merciful, will take good care that the horse--the gentle, patient,
never-complaining horse--is well compensated--compensated in a golden
hereafter.

Consider again, the cas