by, never been even shocked by, the mystery
of pain and death? I do not speak now of pain and death among human
beings: but only of that pain and death among the dumb and irrational
creatures, which from one point of view is more pitiful than pain and
death among human beings.

For pain, suffering, and death, we know, may be of use to human beings.
It may make them happier and better in this life, or in the life to come;
if they are the Christians which they ought to be. But of what use can
suffering and death be to dumb animals? How can it make them better in
this life, and happier in the life to come? It seems, in the case of
animals, to be only so much superfluous misery thrown away. Would to God
that people would remember that, when they unnecessarily torment dumb
creatures, and then excuse themselves by saying--Oh, they are not human
beings; they are not Christians; and therefore it does not matter so
much. I should have thought that therefore it mattered all the more: and
that just because dumb animals have, as far as we know, only this mortal
life, therefore we should allow them the fuller enjoyment of their brief
mortality.

And yet, how much suffering, how much violent death, there is among
animals. How much? The world is full of it, and has been full of it for
ages. I dare to say, that of the millions on millions of living
creatures in the earth, the air, the sea, full one-half live by eating
each other. In the sea, indeed, almost every kind of creature feeds on
some other creature: and what an amount of pain, of terror, of violent
death that means, or seems to mean!

We here, in a cultivated country, are slow to take in this thought. We
have not here, as in India, Africa, America, lion and tiger, bear and
wolf, jaguar and puma, perpetually prowling round the farms, and taking
their tithe of our sheep and cattle. We have never heard, as the
Psalmist had, the roar of the lion round the village at night, or seen
all the animals, down to the very dogs, crowding together in terror,
knowing but too well what that roar meant. If we had; and had been like
the Psalmist, thoughtful men: then it would have been a very solemn
question to us--From whom the lion was asking for his nightly meal;
whether from God, or from some devil as cruel as himself?

But even here the same slaughter of animals by animals goes on. The hawk
feeds on the small birds, the small birds on the insects, the insects,
many of th