The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-13
Kind Treatment to Dumb Ani-
 maIS the Theme
OR. CRAWFORD'S EFFORT
Large Congregation Hears Learned Discourse at St. Johns Church, Ensley-Jonah's Story Basis
 for Practical Lesson.

Ensley, July 2.-(Special)-Rev. Alex evening to the members and friends of the Ensley Humane society. The sermon was eloquent and much to the point. Dr. Crawford used illustrations showing a fa- Iniliarity with hIs subject. At the conclu- sion of the service the officers of the so- ciety thanked pr. Crawford for his splen- did effort. He said in part:
 The book of Jonah Is one of the most interesting, suggestive and instructive books in the whole Bible. It Is one of the text books of tolerance It teaches the universal love of God. It does not hesi- tate to compare the prophet of Israel to his disadvantage with the pagan crew of a Mediterranean sailing vessel. It records the quick answer that God gave to the prayers of pagan Ninevah. One of the lessons of it is that all promises of pun ishment are conditioned upon the peni- tence of the criminal. The most absolute menace of certain destruction is taken back and changed into benediction when eAiC oAAAAiCl iS SOlIJ TUT HIS SlliS4 ut DOOh of Jonah teaches us how to read some hard sentences in the New Testament about the damnation of the wicked. It Is book of justice and of mercy, a 1 revelation of the universal Fatherhood of God. The least important part of the book IS the fish story, over which the higher critic, with his "modernisms, 1" seems to toll To fasten upon that, to emphasize that, to bring that into the foreground, and to put all the great re- | ligious lessons of this wonderful book into the dim and neglected background, Is as if congregation should seize upon some singular illustration or momentary error of utterance, and think about 1t, and talk about it, and forget all the help | full words that had been said besides. That, indeed, is human nature. But we need to be on our guard against the mis- takes of human nature. Take mental pencil and mark out these three verses, and then read this wonderful, wise, up- | lifting book.
 If we are to give attention to any anil mals In the book of Jonah, we will do well to leave the fish and take the cattle. Let us stand upon the solid ground. Let us turn our backs upon the mysterious fish, which we see but uncertainty be- meath the shifting waves, and which, 1t is possible, belongs rather to the world of poetry than to the world of real fish ing smacks, and let us consider the cattle that we know, the everyday cows and ! horses of old Ninevah, which Jonah cared so little about and which the critics and commentators and indifferent readers have cared no more about, but which were of interest and value in the sight of God. For we read that Jonah was disappoint- cd when his fierce sermon failed to come true. He stood out in the suburbs of the city on that fatal fortieth day and watched the sky. He prayed for thun. der and lightning, for red-hot shafts of destruction, for fiery hall and birthstone, for Sodom and Gomorrah over again. And when the sun went to shining and the day came to an end, and the town still stood, and no torment from the hand of God touched 1t, Jonah was sore grieved. He felt himself abused. God had dealt unkndly with him. God had sent him to
 
 then God had not punished. Better that all Ninevah should perish, Jonah thought, than that his sermons should be thus dis credited. Then God spoke to Jonah. God told Jonah that He loved those children of His Ninevah; yes, the most ignorant and the meanest of them; yes, even the very cows and horses of Ninevah. Should I not have pity on Ninevah, that great city. wherein are more than six score thousand souls that cannot discern between right hand and their left hand; and also their many cattle?"
 The lesson I want to emphasize is that God cares for cattle God looks down upon this city, and He thinks not only about the good people and the important people, as we count importance, and the rich and the influential people, and the poor people crowded together In narrow and unclean dwellings, living in destitu- tion, physical and intellectual and moral, scarcely knowing the difference between right and wrong. but God thinks also of all the horses in the city, knows what sort of food they have, and what kind of stables they live in, and the work that is put upon them, and all the treatment that Is given them God has regard for all the cattle, for the horses and the cows, for the cats and dogs, for the birds, for all the living creatures He has made. God is present not only in the house of prayer, but also in the stock yards. Jonah was willing-yes, and desirous- that the inhabitants of Ninevah, the men and women and the little children, should all die horribly. He stood by with a certain pleased anticipation, waiting to see the agony begin. There Is unmistalS- able element of cruelty in human na- ture. The story of the life of man has fearful chapters in 1t, chapters written in red-records of war of massacres of murders, or martyrdoms. Jonah has stood exulting a hundred thousand times and watched the vindicaton of his doctrine in the torments of his brethren. The whole world over, in savagery and in civilization. in all lands, in the times that are told in the ancient histories, and in the day that Is recorded in this morn ing's paper that old inhuman attitude of the prophet by the city is to be seen of Assyria and Egypt! Think of the hor TOTS of the old religions, with their muti- lations ard their human sacrifices. Think of the slave life of Greece and Roms, where the fair ladies of society thrust the long pins that held their tresses Into the flesh of offending servants! Think of the vast multitudes of pleasure-seekers who crowded the amphitheatres of tho empire, as gayly as people go now of the evening to the play, that they might watch the murder of their fellow human itv and study the agonies of violent