3d. The ministry are accepted through the merits of Christ, not according to their success, but according to their fidelity. That message which entreated him "to | son; when, in a word, they labour to seek the Lord while he is to be found, perform the arduous duties of faithto call upon him while he is near," ful and painstaking pastors, Oh! now comes to summon him to the great surely they will be unto God a sweet white throne, to answer for his neglect- savour. They have not convinced ing the great salvation, and his remain- all: they have not converted all their ing finally impenitent. It is to him flocks: they may have few souls to "the savour of death unto death." offer up to their Master: they may have none for many years: but Oh! it is not their prerogative to convince and convert: they did what their office could do. Their Master will not lay it to their charge, that they did not that which it was His province to determine and do; and in the hour of the final account, when, in the language of regret, they may be constrained to say, "Who hath believed our report; and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed," his grace will reply, "Well done good and faithful servant"-he mentions not their success; but their faithfulness"enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." When they offer up for their flocks the supplications of a fervent faith, with strong crying and tears; when in their weekly exhibitions, they present the unadulterated gospel of God to their flocks; when they instruct and admonish, and beseech, and persuade men to be reconciled unto God, by every motive drawn from the terrors of the law, and the loving kindness of the gospel; when they are instant in season and out of sea Reviews and Criticisms. ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. "Haud ignari mali miseris succurrere disco." A pious lady of the city of Edinburgh, being often pained at the sight of cruelty unnecessarily, and often wantonly inflicted on animals; and having taken into consideration the fact, that among all the laudable institutions of the present day for meliorating the condition of man, nothing very effective had been done toward easing, or removing the sufferings of the dumb creation, has, in the benevolence of her soul, invested two hundred pounds sterling, ($888,) in such a manner that the principal shall never be touched; and that the interest of it shall be paid from year to year, forever, to some eminent clergyman for preaching an annual sermon against cruelty to animals. Dr. Chalmers was chosen to preach the first annual sermon on this endowment. This took place in March last, in the High Kirk of Edinburgh. The preacher's text was Proverbs xii. 10. "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast." The novelty and importance of the subject; as well as the spiritual fame of Dr. Chalmers, attracted an immense crowd of all ranks. By nine o'clock in the morning, the people began to collect around the doors of the Church; and at half past ten, when the doors were opened, the rush was very great. Even the passages were so crowded, that the judges and the magistrates could with the utmost difficulty get into their seats. its evening skies, or to all that soft attire which overspreads the hills and the valleys, "The discourse," says the Edin- and where animals disport themselves in all lighted up by smiles of sweetest sunshine, burgh Courant, "was distinguished the exuberance of gayety; this surely were for that powerful eloquence, and im- a more befitting scene for the rule of clepressive manner which characterize mency than for the iron rod of a murderous and remorseless tyrant. But the present is the composition and style of Dr. a mysterious world wherein we dwell. It Chalmers; and it was listened to still bears much upon its materialism of the with breathless attention by a most impress of Paradise. But a breath from the crowded audience. He took a lumi-air of pandemonium has gone over its living the dread of man, is now upon every beast "the fear of man, and generations; and so of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air; upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into man's hand are they delivered: every moving thing that liveth is meat for him; yea, even as the green herbs, there have been given to him all things." Such is the extent of his jurisdiction, and with most full and wanton license has he revelled among its privileges. The whole earth labours and is in violence because of his cruelties; and from the amphitheatre of sentient nature there sounds in fancy's ear the bleat of one mage to the power of Nature's constituted wide and universal suffering, a dreadful holord. nous and comprehensive view of his subject; reprobated the cruelty to which various animals are subjected, to pamper the appetite of the epicure and the sensualist: he condemned the sports of the field, and of the turf, as being the means of blunting that sense of feeling which man should possess to animals subject to his power; and he contrasted the cruelty which was exercised by man on the inferior animals, with that beneficence and goodness which mark the character of the Divine Being to the human race." The preacher thus exhibits the fact of the sufferings of the lower animals from man's wantonness and cruelty: "These sufferings are really felt. The beasts of the field are not so many automata without sensation, and just so constructed pressions of it. Nature hath not practised as to give forth all the natural signs and exthis universal deception upon our species. "Man is the direct agent of a wide and These poor animals just look, and tremble, continual distress to the lower animals; and give forth the very indications of sufand the question is, Can any method fering that we do. Theirs is the distinct be devised for its alleviation? On this sub- cry of pain: theirs is the unequivocal phyject, that Scriptural image is strikingly real-siognomy of pain. They put on the same ized, "the whole inferior creation groaning aspect of terror on the demonstrations of a and travailing together in pain," because of menaced blow. They exhibit the same dishim. It signifies not to the substantive tortions of agony after the infliction of it. amount of the suffering, whether this be The bruise, or the burn, or the fracture, or prompted by the hardness of his heart, or the deep incision, or the fierce encounter only permitted through the heedlessness of with one of equal or superior strength, just his mind. In either way it holds true; not affects them similarly to ourselves. Their only that the arch-devourer man stands blood circulates as ours: they have pulsapre-eminent over the fiercest children of tions in various parts of the body like ours. the wilderness as an animal of prey; but They sicken, and they grow feeble with that for his lordly and luxurious appetite, as age; and, finally, they die just as we do. well as for his service or merest curiosity They possess the same feelings; and what and amusement, Nature must be ransacked exposes them to like suffering from another throughout all her elements. Rather than quarter, they possess the same instincts forego the veries. gratifications of vanity, with our own species. The lioness, robbed he will wring them from the anguish of of her whelps, causes the wilderness to ring wretched and ill-fated creatures; and whe-aloud with the proclamation of her wrong; ther for the indulgence of his barbaric sensuality, or barbaric splendour, can stalk paramount over the sufferings of that prostrate creation, which has been placed beneath his feet. That beauteous domain, whereof he has been constituted the terrestrial sovereign, gives out so many blissful and benignant aspects; and, whether we look to its peaceful lakes, or its flowery landscapes, or or the bird, whose little household has been stolen, fills and saddens all the grove with melodies of deepest pathos. All this is palpable even to the general and unlearned eye; and when the physiologist lays open the recesses of their system by means of that scalpel, under whose operation they just shrink, and are convulsed as any living subject of our own species; there stands forth to view the same sentient apparatus,, this benevolent warfare we have to make and furnished with the same conductors for head, not so much against the cruelty of the the transmission of feeling to every minu- public, as against the heedlessness of the test pore upon the surface. Theirs is un- public; that to hold forth a right view is the mixed and unmitigated pain-the agonies of way to call forth a right sensibility; and martyrdom, without the alleviation of the that, to assail the seat of any emotion, our hopes and the sentiments, whereof they are likeliest process is to make constant and incapable. When they lay them down to conspicuous exhibititions of the object which die, their only fellowship is with suffering; is fitted to awaken it. Our text, taken from for in the prison-house of their beset and the profoundest book of experimental wisbounded faculties, there can no relief be af- dom in the world, keeps clear of every forded by communion with other interests or questionable or casuistical dogma; and other things. The attention does not light-rests the whole cause of the inferior anien their distress as it does that of man, by mals on one moral element, which is, in recarrying off his spirit from that existing pun- spect of principle; and one practical methgency and pressure which might else be od, which is, in respect of efficacy, unquesoverwhelming. There is but room in their tionable: "A righteous man regardeth the mysterious economy for one inmate; and life of his beast." Let a man be but rightthat is the absorbing sense of their own sin-eous, in the general and obvious sense of the gle and concentrated anguish: and so in word, and let the regard of his attention be that bed of torment whereon the wounded but directed to the case of the inferior anianimal lingers and expires; there is an un-mals, and then the regard of his sympathy explored depth and intensity of suffering will be awakened to the full extent at which which the poor dumb animal itself cannot it is either duteous or desirable. Still it tell, and against which it can offer no re- may be asked, To what extent will the duty monstrance; an untold and unknown go? and our reply is, That we had rather amount of wretchedness, of which no arti- push the duty forward than be called upon culate voice gives utterance. But there is to define the extreme termination of it. Yet an eloquence in its silence; and the very we do not hesitate to say that we foresee shroud which disguises it only serves to ag- not aught so very extreme as the abolition of animal food; but we do foresee the indegravate its horrors." finite abridgment of all that cruelty which subserves the gratifications of a base and selfish epicurism. We think that a Christian and humanized society, will at length lift their prevalent voice for the least possible expense of suffering to all the victims of a necessary slaughter-or a business of utmost horror being also a business of utmost despatch-for the blow, in short, of an instant extermination, that not one moment might elapse between a state of pleasurable existence and a state of profound unconsciousness. Again, we do not foresee, but with the the perfecting of the two sciences of anatomy and physiology, the abolition of animal experiments; but we do foresee a gradual, and, at length, a complete abandonment of the experiments of illustration, which are at present a thousand fold more numerous than the experiments of human discovery.” Having painted in such glowing colours the sufferings and the sorrows of the poor dumb beasts, he goes on to open np his arguments, motives, and persuasions against the inflicting of pain unnecessarily on any animal. And he congratulates himself, rather questionably we fear, in regard of perhaps a majority of men, that "in this benevolent warfare he has to make head not so much against the cruelty of the public, as against the heedlessness of the public." "To obtain the regards of man's heart in behalf of the lower animals, we should strive to draw the regards of his mind towards them. We should avail ourselves of the close alliance that obtains between the regards of his attention and those of his sympathy. For this purpose we should importunately ply him with the objects of suffering, and thus call up its respondent emotion of sympathy, that among the other objects which have hitherto engrossed his attention, and the other desires or emotions which have hitherto lorded it over the compassion of his nature, and overpowered it; this last may at length be restored to its le gitimate play, and reinstated in all its legitimate pre-eminence over the other affections or appetites which belong to him. It affords a hopeful view of our cause, that so much can be done by the mere obtrusive presentation of the object to the notice of society. It is a comfort to know that in VOL. I.-23. The prejudices of sportsmen are unquestionably the strongest and the most difficult to be overcome in a moral warfare of this kind The preacher felt this; and he manages this portion of his argument with ingenuity. He is quite sure that he cannot by argument reach their minds: for they will listen to no demonstration of the unlawfulness of their cruel sports: that that class of men in the chase, or on the turf, are yet more thoughtless, than deliberately cruel: that his argument and his cause can be helped forward more effectually, by forcing upon general re themselves into so many trusty and sworn brotherhoods. wholly given over to frolic, and excitement, and excess, in all their varieties. They compose a separate and outstanding public among themselves, nearly arrayed in the same picturesque habiliments, bearing most distinctly upon their counte gard, those sufferings which are now so unheeded, and so unthought of; and the force ofan awakened and moralized society will ultimately correct the evil in regard to even this class of men. This is a shrewd thought; and it is even in this manner that other infamous evils, that, for instance, the absurdnance the same air of recklessness and harand Gothic practice of duelling, can be put down ultimately. All direct appeals to sportsmen, gamblers, and duellists, will be vain: all demonstrations and persuasions will be unavailing: all denunciations from the book of God will be contemned, as long as mankind, not yet sufficiently moralized, do look on with indifference, or with an ap.proving eye; and, as long as the public indignation does not make itself felt in every part of the community, severe and uniform against the notorious violators of the laws of God, and of man. An enlightened Christian and moral principle strongly pervading society, can alone banish such execrable evils from civilized society. The moral public alone can frown from decent society, those who insult the dignity of man, and the glory of the Supreme Ruler. As to the field sports, we, for the present, abstain from all prophecy, in regard either to their growing disuse, or to the conclusive extinction of them. We are quite sure, in the mean time, that casuistry upon this subject would be altogether powerless; and nothing could be imagined more keenly or more energetically contemptuous than the impatient, the impetuous disdain wherewith the enamoured votaries of this gay adventure would listen to any demonstration of its unlawfulness. We shall, therefore, make no attempt to dogmatise them out of that fond and favourite amusement which they prosecute with all the intensity of a passion. It is not thus that the fascination will be dissipated; and, therefore, for the present, we should be inclined to subject the lovers of the chase, and the lovers of the prize-fight, to the same treatment, even as there exists between them, we are afraid, the affinity of a certain common or kindred character. There is, we have often thought, a kind of professional cast, a family likeness, by which the devotees of game, and of all sorts of stirring or hazardous enterprise, admit of being recognised; the hue of a certain assimilating quality, although of various gradations, from the noted champions of the hunt, to the noted champions of the ring, or of the racing-course; a certain dash of moral outlawry, if I may use the expression, among all those children of high and heated adventure, that bespeaks them a distinct class in society, a set of wild and wayward humourists, who have broken them loose from the dull regularities of life, and formed ity or danger-indulging the same tastes, dihood-admiring the same feats of dextereven to their very literature-members of the same sporting society-readers of the same sporting magazine, whose strange medley of anecdotes gives impressive exhiistic for which we are contending; anecbition of that one and pervading characterdotes of the chase, and anecdotes of the high-breathed, or bloody contest, and anecdotes of the gaming-table, and lastly, anecfirm a precise identity between all the spedotes of the highway. We do not just afcimens of species in this very peculiar department of moral history; but, to borrow a phrase from natural history, we affirm that there are transition processes, by which the one melts, and demoralizes, and graduates now to do with, is the cruelty of their reWhat we have insensibly into the other. spective entertainments-a cruelty, however, upon which we could not assert, even of the very worst and most worthless among they are regardless of pain. It is not by the them, that they rejoice in pain, but that force of a mere ethical dictum, in itself, perstrained from their pursuits; but, when haps, unquestionable, that they will be retransformed by the operation of unquestionable principle, into righteous and regardful men, they will spontaneously abandon them. Meanwhile, we try to help forward those sufferings which are now so unheeded our cause, by forcing upon general regard, and unthought of; and we look forward to its final triumph, as one of those results that will historically ensue in the train of an awakened and a moralized society." Here he To neither of these classes of men, nor to those of the lowest orders in society, does the preacher confine his selection of cases of cruelty. He renders more justice to his subject, in taking a wider range in his views: he brings his charge of cruelty to animals against even the cultivated, and against the high bred in society; and even against the tender hearted sex. descends to a variety of the minutest instances of cruelty. He notices not only the unnecessarily slow and lingering death of the patient and suffering ox and the lamb; but the barbarity of the cooking art, which has devised the plan of roasting the two legged victim alive; that by "an exquisite death," there may be given an "exquisite and beautiful preparation of cookery." undergone, both that man might be feasted with a finer relish, and that the eye of man might be feasted and regaled with a fmer spectacle. The atrocities of a Majendie have been blazoned before the eyes of a British public; but this is worse in the fearful extent and magnitude of the evil, truly worse than a thousand Majendies. His is a cruel luxury, but it is the luxury of intellect. Yours is both a cruel and a sensual luxury; and you have positively nought to plead for it but the most worthless and ignoble appetites of our nature. Now, in palliation of all this cruelty, the, man may live more luxuriously. We speak high born, and well-bred in society, "have to you of the art and the mystery of the kilpositively nought to plead, but the most ling trade, from which it would appear that not alone the delicacy of the food, but even worthless and ignoble appetites of our naits appearance, is, among the connoisseurs ture." This is his first appeal to gain fa- of a refined epicurism, the matter of of skil vour for his cause. His second argument to ful and scientific computation. There is a bespeak the public kindness, is taken from sequence, it would appear-there is a sethe social and sentimental joys growing out quence between an exquisite death, and an exquisite or a beautiful preparation of cookof acts of kindness to the dumb beast. And ery; and just in the ordinary way that art his third and last is, that it not only affords avails herself of the other sequences of phisentimental pleasure, but is also connected losophy, the first term is made sure, that the with the principles of deepest sacredness; physic order of causation, follow in its train; second term might, according to the metabut it will gratify our readers to have this at and, hence, we are given to understandfull length. hence the cold-blooded ingenuity of that pre"We count the enormity to lie mainly invious and preparatory torture which oft is the heedlessness of pain; but then we charge this foully and flagrantly enormous thing, not on the mere desperadoes and barbarians of our land, but on the men and the women of general, and even of cultivated and high-bred society. Instead of stating cruelty to be what it is not, and then confining the imputation of it to the outcast few: we hold it better, and practically far more important, to state what cruelty really is, and then fasten the imputation of it on the common-place and the companionable many. Those outcasts to whom you would restrict the condemnation, are not at present within the reach of our voice-but you are; and it lies with you to confer a tenfold greater boon on the inferior creation, than if all barbarous sports and all bloody experiments were forthwith put an end to. It is at the bidding of your collective will to save those countless myriads who are brought to the regular and the daily slaughter, all the difference between a gradual and an instant death: and there is a practice realized in every-day life, which you can put down; a practice which strongly reminds us of a ruder age that has long gone by; when even beauteous and high-born ladies could partake in the dance, and the song, and the festive chivalry of barbaric castles, unmindful of all the piteous and the pining agony of dungeoned prisoners below. We charge a like unmindfulness on the present generation. We know not whether those wretched animals, whose stillnally, when in the warmth and comfort of sentient frameworks are under process of ingenious manufacture for the epicurism or the splendour of your coming entertainment; we know not whether they are now dying by inches in your own subterranean keeps; or, through the subdivided industry of our commercial age, are now suffering all the horrors of their protracted agony in the prison-house of some distant street where this dreadful trade is carried on. But truly it matters not to our argument, ye heedless sons and daughters of gayety! We speak not of the daily thousands who have to die that man may live; but of those thousands who have to die more painfully, just that "But, secondly, and if possible to secure your kindness for our cause, let me, in the act of drawing these lengthened observations to a close, offer to your notice the bright and the beautiful side of it. I would bid you think of all that fond and pleasing imagery, which is associated even with the lower animals when they become the objects of a benevolent care; which at length ripens into a strong and cherished affection for them, as when the worn-out hunter is permitted to graze, and be still the favourite of all the domestics, through the remainder of his life; or the old and shaggy housedog that has now ceased to be serviceable, is, nevertheless, sure of his regular meals and a decent funeral; or, when an adopted. inmate of the household is claimed as property, or as the object of decided partiality by some one or other of the children; or, fi the evening fire, one or more of these home animals take their part in the living group that is around it, and their very presence serves to complete the picture of a blissful and smiling family. Such relationships with the inferior creatures supply many of our finest associations of tenderness, and give even to the heart of man some of its simplest, yet sweetest enjoyments. He even can find in these, some compensation for the dread and the disquietude, wherewith his bosom is agitated amid the fiery conflicts of infuriated men. When he retires from the stormy clement of debate, and exchanges, for the vindictive glare, and the |