Democratic messenger., 1895-10-26

be surprised II, after all. It. Johns de-
scriptions OF the horses in heaven turned
out mt altogether To be fgurative, but
somewhat literal
Honored of God.
IS the Bible makes fayoritc Of tho
horse, the patriarch, and the prophet, and
the evangelist, and the apostle stroking
his sleek hide and patting his rounded
neck and tcndcrly lifting his cxquisitcly
formed hoof and listening with thrill to
the champ Of his bit, 50 all great natures
in all ages have spoken of him in encomi.
nstic terms. Virgil In his Gcorgics almost
seems To plagiarizc from this description
In the text, so much are the descriptions
nlikc-thc description of Virgil and the
description Of Job. The Duke Of Yelling
ton would not allow any one irrcvercntly
TO touch his old war horse Copenhagen. on
whom he had ridden Is hours without dis
mounting 1T Waterloo. and when old Co
pcnha2en died. his master ordered mill
tary salute fired over his grave. John
Howard showed that he did not exhaust
all his sympathics in plying the human
race, for when sick he writes home, HAS
my old chaisc horse become sick or
spoilcd:" There is hardly any passage of
French literature more pathetic than the
lamcntation over the death Of the war
charger, Marchcgay. Walter Scott has so
much admiration for this divincly honored
creature Of God that in "St Romans
Well he orders the girth slackcncd and
the blanket thrown over the smoking
lanks. Edmund Burke, walking in the
park at Beaconsfield, musing over the
past, throws his arms around the worn
out horse of his dead son Richard, and
wecps upon the horses neck. the horse
seeming to sympathize in the memories.
Rowland Hill. the great English preacher,
was caricaturcd because in his family pray
ers he supplicated for the recovery Of a sick
horse, but when the horse got well, con-
trary to all the prophecies of the farricrs,
the prayer did not seem quite so much of
mn absurdity.
The Abuse of the Horse.
But what shall say of the maltrcat-
mcnt Of this beautiful and wonderful crca-
turc of Gods IL Thomas Chalmers In his
day felt called upon To preach "a sermon
against cruelty To animals. how much
more In this day is there "A need of repre-
hensive discourse. All honor To the MEM
ory of Professor Bcrgh, the chief apostle
for the brute creation, for the mercy he
demanded and achieved for this king Of
beasts. \ inan who owned { 600 horses
and some say ~, OOO wrote In the Bible.
" \ righteous man regarteth the life Of his
beast" sir Henry Lawrence's care of the
horse was beautifully Christian. He saws:
=" i expect we shall lose Conrad, though l
have taken so much care of him that he
may come in cool ALWAYS walk him the
last four or five miles, and as walk my
self the first hour IL j. only in the middle of
the journey We get over the ground" The
Ettrick shepherd In his inatchlcss Am
Drosiai Nights speaks of the matrcat-
mcnt of the horse rs "a practical blasphcmy.
do not believe in the tr:lnsnigration Of
souls, but | cannot very severely dcnounce
the idea, for when see men who cut and
bruise and whack and welt and strike and
maui and outrage and insult the horse.
that beautiful servant of the human race.
who carries our burdens and pulls our
piows and turns our thrashers and our
mills and runs for our dociors-when | see
men thus heating ard abusing and out
raging that creature, IL seems to me that
1t would be only fair that the doctrine Of
translnigrai:nn Of souls should prove true,
and that for their punishment they should
pass over into some poor miserable brute
and bc beaten and whackctl and cruelty
treated and frozen and heated and over
nrlven-inio an everlasting stage horse an
eternal traveller on a towpath, or tied To an
eternal post. In an eternal winter, smitten
with eternal epizooticsl
On, Is II not shame that the brute
creation, which had the first possession Of
our world, should be SO maltrcatcd by the
f-stfss fl..s Ia.
fish created on the fifth day. she horse and
the cattle created on tho morning Of the
sixth day. and the human race not created
until the evening of the sixth dayg Ii
ought To be that II any man ovcr,lriycs n
horse. or feeds him when he Is hot, or reck-
lcssly drives u nail into the quick Of his
hooi, or rowels him To see him prance, or
~ shoes him that his fctlocks drop blood.
or puts collar on raw neck, or unncccs-
sarily clutches his tongue with "a twisted
bit, or cuts oil his hair until he has no de-
feDsc against the cold or numerically alb
hrcviatcs the natural defense against in
scctile annoyancc-that such man as
That himself ought 10 be made 10 pull and
let his horse ride,
Question of Speed.
Du: not only do our humanity and our
Christian principle and the dictates OF God
demand that we kindly treat tho brute
Tcation and especially the horse. but go
farther and sny that whatever can be done
l"r the development of his flcctncss and
bis strength and his majesty ought to he
done. We need to study his anatomy and
his adaptations. ] am glad that large
books have been written to show how he
Fan bc best managed aud how his ailments
ran bc cured and what his usefulness is
and what his capacities are. II would be
shame IL In this age of the world. when
the florist hus turned the thin flower Of
he wood into n gorgeous rose and tho
has changed tho ncrid and