Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1888-01-07

surrounded by the dumb beasts whose
moan and plant and believing have
for ages been
A PRAYER TO GOD
for the arresting of their tortures and
the Fighting Of their wrongs? 1t did
not merely ''bappeD so" that the un-
intelligent creatures of God should have
been that night IN close neighborhood.
Not a kennel in all the centuries, not a
birds nest, not a worn out horse on
tow-path, not a herd freezing in the
poorly built COW pen, not a freight car
in summer time bringing the beeves to
market without water through a thous-
and miles OF agony, not a surgeons
room witnessing the struggles Of fox
or rabbit or pigeon or dog in the hor-
rors IF vivisection but has an interest
in me fact tina. Christ was born in a
stable surrounded by brutes. He re-
members that night, and the prayer
He heard in their pitiful moan He will
answer III the punishment OF those who
maltreat the dumb brutes. They surely
have as much right IN this world as we
have.
In the first chapter of Genesis you
may see that they were placed on the
! earth before mar was, the fish and fowl
created the fifth day and the
Qusdruped the morning of the sixth
day, and man not until the afternoon OF
that day. The whale, the eagle, the
lion, and all the lesser creatures OF their
kind were predecessors Of the human
family. They have the world by right
of possession. They have also paid
rent for the places they occupied. What
an army Of defense all over the land
are the faithful watch dogs. And who
can tell what the world owes to the horse,
the camel, and OK for transportation
And robin and lark have 10y the can
ta.as with which they have filled orch
ard and forest, more than paid for the
few grains they have picked W fortheir
sustenance. When you abuse any crea-
ture of God you strike its creator, and
you insult the
CHRIST
who, though he might have been well
coined into life by princes. and taken
his first infantile slumber amid Tyrian
plush and canopied couchcr, and rip
ping waters from royal aQueducts drip
ping into basins of ivory and pearl,
chose to be born on the level with "A
cows horn or q camel's hoof, or a dogs
%nostril, that he might be the alienation
of brutal suffering as well as the re-
deemer Of man.
Standing then as | imagine now i do,
in that Bethlehem night with an infant
Christ on the one side and the speech
less creatures of God on the other, |
cry, Look out how you strike the rowel
into that horse side. Take of that
curbed bit from that bleeding mouth.
Remove that saddle from that raw back.
Shoot not for fun tina. bird that is too
small for food. Forget not to put
water into the cage Of that canary.
Throw out some crumbs to those birds
caught too far north in the winters in
clemency. Arrest that MN who is
making that one horse draw a load
heavy enough for three. Rush in upon
that scene where boys are torturiDg a
cat, or tran.fixing bu .tertly and grass
hopper. Drive not off that old robin.
for her nest is a mothers cradle and
under her wing there may be three or
four prlma donnas of the sky in train
ing. And in your families and in your
schools teach the coming generation
MORE Eric
than the present generation has ever
shown and in this marvellous Bible
picture of the Nativity, while you point
out to them the angel, show them also
the camel, and while they hear the
celestial chant let them also hear the
cows moan. No more did Christ show
interest in the botanical world when he
said, "Consider the lilies" than he
showed sympathy for the or~nithologlcal
when he said, behold the fowls of the
air." and the qu%adrupedal world when
he allowed himself to be called in one
place a liou aud in another place a
lamb. Meanwhile, may the Christ of
Bethlehem cattle pen have mercy on
the suffering stock yards that are pre-
pairing diseased and fevered meat for
our American households.
Behold also in this Bible scene how
on that Christmas night God honoIed
childhood. Christ might have made
his first visit to our world in a cloud,
as he will descend on his next visit in
a cloud, in which a chariot of illumined
vapor he might Rave rolled down the
sky escorted by mounted cavalry with
lightning of drawn sword. Elijah had
"A carriage of fire to take him up, why
not Jesus a carriage of fire to fetch
him DOWN. Or, over the arched
bridge of a rainbow the Lord might
have descended. Or christ might have
had his mortality built up on earth GU
of the dust OF a garden, as was Adam,
IN FULL MANHOOD
at the start without the Introductory
feebleness of infancy. No, no! Child
hood was to be hornored by that ad-
vent. He must have a child's light
limbs. and a child's dimpled hand, and
a child's beaming eye, and a child's
flaxen hair, and ~babyhood was to be
honored for all time TO come, and a
cradle was TO mean more than n grave.
Mighty God! May the re-
Election of that one child
face be seer in al infantile faces.
Epn,,ob bava oil tbooa fatbars anl