Others will tell us that St Paul has said so, where he says that "by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." But I must very
humbly, but very firmly, demur to that. St Paul shews that when he
speaks of the world he means the world of men; for he goes on to say,
"And so death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned." By
mentioning men, he excludes the animals; he excludes all who have not
sinned: according to a sound rule of logic which lawyers know well. What
St Paul meant, I believe, is most probably this: that Adam, by sinning,
lost his heavenly birthright; and put on the carnal and fleshly likeness
of the animals, instead of the likeness of God in which he was created;
and therefore, sowing to the flesh, of the flesh reaped corruption; and
became subject to death even as the dumb beasts are.

Be that as it may, we know--as certainly as we can know anything from the
use of our own eyes and common sense--that long ages before Adam, long
ages before men existed on this earth, the animals destroyed and ate each
other, even as they are doing now. We know that ages ago, in old worlds,
long before this present world in which we live, the seas swarmed with
sharks and other monsters, who not only died as animals do now, but who
did devour--for there is actual proof of it--other living creatures; and
that the same process went on on the land likewise. The rocks and soils,
for miles beneath our feet, are one vast graveyard, full of the skeletons
of creatures, almost all unlike any living now, who, long before the days
of Adam, and still more before the days of Noah, lived and died,
generation after generation; and sought their meat--from whom--if not
from God?

Yes, that last is the answer--the only answer which can give a thoughtful
and tender-hearted soul comfort, at the sight of so much pain and death
on earth--In every unknown question, to take refuge in God. And that is
the answer which the inspired Psalmist gives, in the 104th Psalm--"The
lions roaring after their prey do seek their meat from God." And if they
seek it from God, all must be right: we know not how; but He who made
them knows.

Consider, with respect and admiration, the manful, cheerful view of pain
and death, and indeed of the whole creation, which the Psalmist has,
because he has faith. There is in him no sentimentalism, no complaining
of God, no impious, or at least weak and peevish, cry of "Why hast Thou
made things thu