Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

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 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 humane discovery.

way by which the claims of the inferior animals are practically to be carried. 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 As to field-sports, we for the present, abother objects which have hitherto engross- stain from all prophecy, in regard, either to ed his attention, and the other desires or their growing disuse, or to the conclusive emotions which have hitherto lorded it extinction of them. We are quite sure, in over the compassion of his nature and over- the mean time, that casuistry upon this powered it, this last may at length be re-subject would be altogether powerless; and stored to its legitimate play, and reinstated nothing could be imagined more keenly, or in all its legitimate pre-eminence over the more energetically contemptuous, than the other affections or appetites which belong | impatient, the impetuous disdain whereto him. It affords a hopeful view of our with the enamoured votaries of this gay cause, that so much can be done by the and glorious adventure would listen to any mere obtrusive presentation of the object to demonstration of its unlawfulness. We the notice of society. It is a comfort to shall therefore make no attempt to dogmaknow, that in this benevolent warfare we tise them out of that fond and favourite have to make head, not so much against amusement which they prosecute with all the cruelty of the public, as against the the intensity of a passion. It is not thus heedlessness of the public; that to hold that the fascination will be dissipated. And, forth a right view, is the way to call forth therefore, for the present, we should be ina right sensibility; and, that to assail the clined to subject the lovers of the chase, seat of any emotion, our likeliest process is and the lovers of the prize-fight, to the to make constant and conspicuous exhibi- same treatment, even as there exists betion of the object which is fitted to awaken tween them, we are afraid, the affinity of it. Our text, taken from the profoundest a certain common or kindred character. book of experimental wisdom in the world, There is, we have often thought, a kind keeps clear of every questionable or ca- of professional cast, a family likeness, by suistical dogma; and rests the whole cause which the devotees of game, and of all sorts of the inferior animals on one moral ele- of stirring or hazardous enterprise admit ment, which is, in respect of principle, of being recognized; the hue of a certain and on one practical method, which is, in assimilating quality, although of various respect of efficacy, unquestionable: "A gradations, from the noted champions of righteous man regardeth the life of his the hunt, to the noted champions of the beast." Let a man be but righteous in the ring or of the racing-course; a certain dash general and obvious sense of the word, and of moral outlawry, if I may use the exlet the regard of his attention be but di- pression, among all those children of high rected to the case of the inferior animals, and heated adventure, that bespeaks them and then the regard of his sympathy will a distinct class in society,-a set of wild be awakened to the full extent at which it and wayward humourists, who have broken is either duteous or desirable. Still it may them loose from the dull regularities of life, be asked to what extent will the duty go? and formed themselves into so many trusty and our reply is, that we had rather push and sworn brotherhoods, wholly given over the duty forward than be called upon to de- to frolic, and excitement, and excess, in fine the extreme termination of it. Yet all their varieties. They compose a sepawe do not hesitate to say, that we foresee rate and outstanding public among themnot aught so very extreme as the abolition selves, nearly arrayed in the same pictuof animal food; but we do foresee the in- resque habiliments-bearing most distinctly definite abridgement of all that cruelty upon their countenance the same air of which subserves the gratifications of a base recklessness and hardihood-admiring the and selfish epicurism. We think that a same feats of dexterity or danger-indulgchristian and humanized society will at ing the same tastes, even to their very length lift their prevalent voice, for the literature-members of the same sporting least possible expense of suffering to all the society-readers of the same sporting mavictims of a necessary slaughter-for a gazine, whose strange medley of anecdotes business of utmost horror being also a gives impressive exhibition of that one and business of utmost despatch-for the blow, pervading characteristic for which we are in short, of an instant extermination, that contending; anecdotes of the chase, and

anecdotes of the high-breathed or bloody | proceeded from them. An endowment for contest, and anecdotes of the gaming-table, an annual discourse upon a given theme, is, and, lastly, anecdotes of the high-way. we believe, a novelty in Scotland; though We do not just affirm a precise identity be- it is to similar institutions that much of the tween all the specimens or species in this best sacred and theological literature of our very peculiar department of moral history. sister country is owing. We should rejoice But, to borrow a phrase from natural his- if, in this our comparatively meagre and tory, we affirm, that there are transition unbeneficed land, both these themes and processes, by which the one melts, and de- these endowments were multiplied. We moralises, and graduates insensibly into the recommend this as a fit species of charity, other. What we have now to do with, is for the munificence of wealthy individuals. the cruelty of their respective entertain- Whatever their selected argument shall be, ments-a cruelty, however, upon which whether that of cruelty to animals, or some we could not assert, even of the very worst one evidence of our faith, or the defence and and most worthless among them, that they illustration of a doctrine, or any distinct rejoice in pain, but that they are regardless method of Christian philanthropy for the of pain. It is not by the force of a mere moral regeneration of our species, or aught ethical dictum, in itself, perhaps, unques-else of those innumerable topics that lie tionable, that they will be restrained from their pursuits. But when transformed by the operation of unquestionable principle, into righteous and regardful men, they will spontaneously abandon them. Meanwhile, we try to help forward our cause, by forcing upon general regard, those sufferings which are now so unheeded 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.

The institution of a yearly sermon against cruelty to animals, is of itself a likely enough expedient, that might at least be of some auxiliary operation, along with other and more general causes, towards such an awakening. It is not by one, but by many successive appeals, that the cause of justice and mercy to the brute creation will at length be practically carried. On this subject I cannot, within the limits of a single address, pretend to aught like a full or a finished demonstration. This might require not one, but a whole century of sermons; and many therefore are the topics which necessarily I must bequeath to my successors, in this warfare against the listlessness and apathy of the public. And, beside the force and the impression of new topics, if there be any truth in our doctrine, there is a mighty advantage gained upon this subject of all others by the repetition of old topics. It is a subject on which the public do not require so much to be instructed, as to be reminded; to have the regard of their attention directed again and again to the sufferings of poor helpless creatures, that the regard of their sympathy might at length be effectually obtained for them. This then is a cause to which the institution of an anniversary pleading in its favour, is most precisely and peculiarly adapted. And besides, we must confess, in the general, our partiality for a scheme that has originated the Boyle, and the Bampton, and the Warburtonian lectureships of England, with all the valuable authorship which has

situated within the reach and ample domain of that revelation which God has made to our world-we feel assured that such a movement must be responded to with beneficial effect, both by the gifted pastors of our Church, and by the aspiring youths of greatest power or greatest promise among its candidates. Such institutions as these would help to quicken the energies of our establishment; and through means of a sustained and reiterated effort, directed to some one great lesson, whether in theology or morals, they might impress, and that more deeply every year, some specific and most salutary amelioration on the principles or the practices of general society.

Yet ye are loath to quit our subject without one appeal more in behalf of those poor sufferers, who, unable to advocate their own cause, possess, on that very account, a more imperative claim on the exertions of him who now stands as their advocate before you.

And first, it may have been felt that, by the way in which we have attempted to resolve cruelty into its elements, we instead of launching rebuke against it, have only devised a palliation for its gross and shocking enormity. But it is not so. It is true, we count the enormity to lie mainly in 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 highbred 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 impor tant, to state what cruelty really is, and then fasten the imputation of it on the commonplace 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 ten-fold greater boon on the inferior creation, than if all barbarous sports, and all bloody experi

[ocr errors]

ments were forthwith put an end to. It is tions to a close, offer to your notice the at the bidding of your collective will to save bright and the beautiful side of it. I would those countless myriads who are brought to bid you think of all that fond and pleasant the regular and the daily slaughter, all the imagery, which is associated even with the difference between a gradual and an instant lower animals, when they become the obdeath. And there is a practice realized in jects of a benevolent care, which at length every-day life, which you can put down ripens into a strong and cherished affection -a practice which strongly reminds us of a for them-as when the worn-out hunter is ruder age that has long gone by;-when permitted to graze, and be still the favourite even beauteous and high-born ladies could of all the domestics through the remainder partake in the dance, and the song, and the of his life; or the old and shaggy housefestive chivalry of barbaric castles, unmind-dog, that has now ceased to be serviceable, ful of all the piteous and the pining agony is nevertheless sure of its regular meals, and of dungeoned prisoners below. We charge a decent funeral; or when an adopted ina like unmindfulness on the present gene-mate of the household is claimed as proration. We know not whether those wretch-perty, or as the object of decided partiality, ed animals whose still sentient frameworks by some one or other of the children; or, are under process of ingenious manufacture finally, when in the warmth and comfort of for the epicurism or the splendour of your the evening fire, one or more of these home coming entertainment, we know not whe- animals take their part in the living groupe ther they are now dying by inches in your that is around it, and their very presence own subterranean keeps, or through the serves to complete the picture of a blissful subdivided industry of our commercial age, and smiling family. Such relationships are now suffering all the horrors of their with the inferior creatures, supply many of protracted agony, in the prison-house of our finest associations of tenderness, and some distant street where this dreadful give, even to the heart of man, some of its trade is carried on. But truly it matters simplest yet sweetest enjoyments. He even nought to our argument, ye heedless sons can find in these some compensation for the and daughters of gaiety! We speak not of dread and the disquietude wherewith his the daily thousands who have to die that bosom is agitated amid the fiery conflicts man may live; but of those thousands who of infuriated men. When he retires from have to die more painfully, just that man the stormy element of debate, and exchanges, may live more luxuriously. We speak to for the vindictive glare, and the hideous disyou of the art and the mystery of the kill-cords of that outcry which he encounters ing trade from which it would appear, among his fellows,-when these are exthat not alone the delicacy of the food, but changed for the honest welcome and the even its appearance, is, among the connois-guileless regards of those creatures who seurs of a refined epicurism, the matter of gambol at his feet, he feels that even in the skilful and scientific computation. There society of the brutes, in whose hearts there is a sequence, it would appear-there is a is neither care nor controversy, he can sursequence between an exquisite death, and round himself with a better atmosphere far, an exquisite or a beautiful preparation of than in that which he breathes among the cookery; and just in the ordinary way that companionships of his own species. Here art avails herself of the other sequences of he can rest himself from the fatigues of that philosophy,--the first term is made sure, moral tempest which has beat upon him so that the second term might, according to violently; and, in the play of kindliness the metaphysic order of causation, follow with these poor irrationals, his spirit can in its train. And hence, we are given to forget for awhile all the injustice and feunderstand, hence the cold-blooded ingenui- rocity of their boasted lords. ties of that previous and preparatory torture which oft is undergone, both that man might be feasted with a finer relish, and that the eyes of man might be feasted and regaled with a finer spectacle. The atrocities of a Majendie have been blazoned before the eye 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. But, secondly, and if possible to secure your kindness for our cause, let me, in the act of drawing these lengthened observa

But this is only saying, that our subject is connected with the pleasures of sentiment. And therefore, in the third and last place, we have to offer it as our concluding observation, that it is also connected with the principles of deepest sacredness. It may be thought by some that we have wasted the whole of this Sabbath morn, on what may be ranked among but the lesser moralities of human conduct. But there is one aspect, in which it may be regarded as more profoundly and more peculiarly religious than any one virtue which reciprocates, or is of mutual operation among the fellows of the same species. It is a virtue which oversteps, as it were, the limits of a species, and which, in this instance, prompts a de

scending movement, on our part, of righ- and scornfully away from the rights of teousness and mercy towards those who have an inferior place to ourselves in the scale of creation. The lesson of this day is not the circulation of benevolence within the limits of one species. It is the transmission of it from one species to another. The first is but the charity of a world. The second is the charity of a universe. Had there been no such charity, no descending current of love and of liberality from species to species, what, I ask, should have become of ourselves? Whence have we learned this attitude of lofty unconcern about the creatures who are beneath us? Not from those ministering spirits who wait upon the heirs of salvation. Not from those angels who circle the throne of heaven, and make all its arches ring with joyful harmony, when but one sinner of this prostrate world turns his footsteps towards them. Not from that mighty and mysterious visitant, who unrobed Him of all his glories, and bowed down his head unto the sacrifice, and still, from the seat of his now exalted mediatorship, pours forth his intercessions and his calls in behalf of the race he died for. Finally, not from the eternal Father of all, in the pavilion of whose residence there is the golden treasury of all those bounties and beatitudes that roll over the face of nature, and from the footstool of whose empyreal throne there reaches a golden chain of providence to the very humblest of his family. He who hath given his angels charge concerning us, means that the tide of beneficence should pass from order to order, through all the ranks of his magnificent creation; and we ask, is it with man that this goodly provision is to terminate-or shall he, with all his sensations of present blessedness, and all his visions of future glory let down upon him from above, shall he turn him selfishly

those creatures whom God hath placed in dependence under him? We know that the cause of poor and unfriended animals has many an obstacle to contend with in the difficulties or the delicacies of legislation. But we shall ever deny that it is a theme beneath the dignity of legislation; or that the nobles and the senators of our land stoop to a cause which is degrading, when, in the imitation of heaven's high clemency, they look benignly downward on these humble and helpless sufferers. Ere we can admit this, we must forget the whole economy of our blessed gospel. We must forget the legislations and the cares of the upper sanctuary in behalf of our fallen species. We must forget that the redemption of our world is suspended on an act of jurisprudence which angels desired to look into, and for effectuating which, the earth we tread upon was honoured by the footsteps, not of angel or of archangel, but of God manifest in the flesh. The distance upward between us and that mysterious Being, who let himself down from heaven's high concave upon our lowly platform, surpasses by infinity the distance downward between us and every thing that breathes. And He bowed himself thus far for the purpose of an example, as well as for the purpose of an expiation; that every Christian might extend his compassionate regards over the whole of sentient and suffering nature. The high court of Parliament is not degraded by its attentions and its cares in behalf of inferior creatures, else the Sanc tuary of Heaven has been degraded by its counsels in behalf of the world we occupy, and in the execution of which the Lord of heaven himself relinquished the highest seat of glory in the universe, and went forth to sojourn for a time on this outcast and accursed territory.

SERMONS

PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH,

GLASGOW.

PREFACE.

THE following Sermons are of too miscellaneous a character to be arranged according to the succession of their topics, and they are, therefore, presented to the reader as so many compositions that are almost wholly independent of each other. Two of the Sermons treat of Predestination, and the Sin against the Holy Ghost. There are topics of a highly speculative character, in the system of Christian Doctrine, which it is exceedingly difficult to manage, without interesting the curiosity rather than the conscience of the reader. And yet, it is from their fitness of application to the conscience, that they derive their chief right to appear in a volume of Sermons; and I should not have ventured any publication upon either of these doctrines, did I not think them capable of being so treated as to subserve the great interests of practical godliness.

The Sermons all relate to topics that I hold to be strictly congregational, with the exception of the thirteenth and fourteenth in the volume, which belong rather to Christian Economies, than to Christian Theology-to the "outer things of the house of God," rather than to the things of the sanctuary, or the intimacies of the spiritual life. I, perhaps, ought therefore to apologize for the appearance of these two in a volume of Congregational Sermons, and yet I have been led by experience to feel the religious importance of their subject, and I think that much injury has been sustained by the souls of our people, from the neglect of obvious principles both in the business of education, and in the business of public charity. I have, however, more comfort in discussing this argument from the press, than from the pulpit, which ought to be kept apart for loftier themes, and which seems to suffer a sort of desecration when employed as the vehicle for any thing else than the overtures of pardon to the sinner, and the hopes and duties of the believer.

SERMON I.

The Constancy of God in His Works an Argument for the Faithfulness of God in

His Word.

"For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to thy ordinances: for all are thy servants."--Psalm exix. 89, 90, 91.

IN these verses there is affirmed to be an afterwards. And then, as if to perfect the analogy between the word of God and the assimilation between them, it is said of both works of God. It is said of his word, that it in the 91st verse, "They continue this day is settled in heaven, and that it sustains its according to thine ordinances, for all are faithfulness from one generation to another. thy servants;" thereby identifying the sureIt is said of his works, and more especially ness of that word which proceeded from his of those that are immediately around us, lips, with the unfailing constancy of that even of the earth which we inhabit, that as | Nature which was formed and is upholden it was established at the first so it abideth by his hands.

« AnteriorContinuar »