MISS F. P. COBBE.

* * * * *

NATURAL RIGHTS.


But what is needed for the present is due regard for the natural rights of
animals, due sense of the fact that they are not created for man's pleasure
and behoof alone, but have, independent of him, their own meaning and place
in the universal order; that the God who gave them being, who out of the
manifoldness of his creative thought let them pass into life, has not cast
them off, but is with them, in them, still. A portion of his Spirit, though
unconscious and unreflecting, is theirs. What else but the Spirit of God
could guide the crane and the stork across pathless seas to their winter
retreats, and back again to their summer haunts? What else could reveal to
the petrel the coming storm? What but the Spirit of God could so geometrize
the wondrous architecture of the spider and the bee, or hang the
hill-star's nest in the air, or sling the hammock of the tiger-moth, or
curve the ramparts of the beaver's fort, and build the myriad "homes
without hands" in which fish, bird, and insect make their abode? The Spirit
of God is with them as with us,--consciously with us, unconsciously with
them. We are not divided, but one in his care and love. They have their
mansions in the Father's house, and we have ours; but the house is one, and
the Master and keeper is one for us and them.

REV. DR. HEDGE.

* * * * *