I do not remember ever to have heard the kind and just treatment of animals enforced upon Christian principles or made the subject of a sermon.
Once, when I was at Vienna, there was a dread of hydrophobia, and orders were given to massacre all the dogs which were found unclaimed or uncollared in the city or suburbs. Men were employed for this purpose, and they generally carried a short heavy stick, which they flung at the poor proscribed animal with such certain aim as either to kill or maim it mortally at one blow. It happened one day that, close to the edge of the river, near the Ferdinand’s-Brücke, one of these men flung his stick at a wretched dog, but with such bad aim that it fell into the river. The poor animal, following his instinct or his teaching, immediately plunged in, redeemed the stick, and laid it down at the feet of its owner, who, snatching it up, dashed out the creature’s brains.
I wonder what the Athenians would have done to such a man? they who banished the judge of the Areopagus because he flung away the bird which had sought shelter in his bosom?
I return to Dr. Arnold. He laments the neglect of our cathedrals and the absurd confusion in so many men’s minds “between what is really Popery, and what is but wisdom and beauty adopted by the Roman Catholics and neglected by us.”
He says, “Then, only, can opportunities of evil be taken from us, when we lose also all opportunity of doing or becoming good.” An obvious, even common place thought, well and tersely expressed. The inextricable co-relation and apparent antagonism of good and evil were never more strongly put.
The defeat of Varus by the Germans, and the defeat of the moors by Charles Martel, he ranked as the two most important battles in the history of the world. I see why. The first, because it decided whether the north of Europe was to be completely Latinised; the second, because it decided whether all Europe was to be completely Mahomedanised.
“How can he who labours hard for his daily bread—hardly and with doubtful success—be made wise and good, and therefore how can he be made happy? This question undoubtedly the Church was meant to solve; for Christ’s kingdom was to undo the evil of Adam’s sin; but the Church has not solved it nor attempted to do so, and no one else has gone about it rightly. How shall the poor man find time to be educated?”