Oh! call my brother back to me, I cannot play alone; The summer comes with flower and bee-- Where is my brother gone?
The butterfly is glancing bright Across the sunbeam's track; I care not now to chase its flight-- Oh! call my brother back.
The flowers run wild--the flowers we sow'd Around our garden-tree; Our vine is drooping with its load-- Oh! call him back to me.
"He would not hear my voice, fair child-- He may not come to thee; The face that once like spring-time smiled, On earth no more thou'lt see
"A rose's brief bright life of joy, Such unto him was given; Go, thou must play alone, my boy-- Thy brother is in heaven!"
And has he left the birds and flowers, And must I call in vain, And through the long, long summer hours, Will he not come again?
And by the brook, and in the glade, Are all our wand'rings o'er? Oh! while my brother with me play'd, Would I had loved him more!--
Man is that link of the chain of universal existence by which spiritual and corporeal beings are united: as the numbers and variety of the latter his inferiors are almost infinite, so probably are those of the former his superiors; and as we see that the lives and happiness of those below us are dependant on our wills, we may reasonably conclude that our lives and happiness are equally dependant on the wills of those above us; accountable, like ourselves, for the use of this power to the supreme Creator and governor of all things. Should this analogy be well founded, how criminal will our account appear when laid before that just and impartial judge! How will man, that sanguinary tyrant, be able to excuse himself from the charge of those innumerable cruelties inflicted on his unoffending subjects committed to his care, formed for his benefit, and placed under his authority by their common Father? whose mercy is over all his works, and who expects that his authority should be exercised, not only with tenderness and mercy, but in conformity to the laws of justice and gratitude.
But to what horrid deviations from these benevolent intentions are we daily witnesses! no small part of mankind derive their chief amusements from the deaths and sufferings of inferior animals; a much greater, consider them only as engines of wood or iron, useful in their several occupations. The carman drives his horse, and the carpenter his nail, by repeated blows; and so long as these produce the desired effect, and they both go, they neither reflect or care whether either of them have any sense of feeling. The butcher knocks down the stately ox, with no more compassion than the blacksmith hammers a horseshoe; and plunges his knife into the throat of the innocent lamb, with as little reluctance as the tailor sticks his needle into the collar of a coat.