Kindness to Animals
Genesis i. 26 v.
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle.”
God never gives dominion to any creature which has not reached His image. His image is love. Other things belong to God; but God is love. No creature that has not love will be allowed to have a permanent empire. The Father of Mercy will not put the reins of government into a hand that has no heart. Dominion is a very solemn thing; it may oppress, crush, destroy. The Father must have a guarantee for its gentleness. What guarantee can there be but His own image — the possession of a nature tender as the Divine? Ye who torture the beast of the field, have you considered the ground of your authority? Have you pondered why it is that God has given you the dominion? It is because He meant you to have His image ere you began to reign. If you have not a tender heart, you have no right to reign; you are a usurper. Is it not written that Christ Himself has authority to exercise judgment because He is the Son of Man — because He has a soul of infinite tenderness? Shall the disciple be above his Lord? If you would reign with Him, you must first suffer with Him — feel the pains of sympathy for the wants below. It is the meek who shall inherit the earth; God’s dominion is for God’s love.
My Father, fill me with love for thiDgs beneath me. Forbid that I should be cruel to the beast of the field. Give me the tenderness that is born of reverence. Teach me to revere the creation that is under me. Was not its life a stream from Thy life? Is not its life a mystery to me even now? Does it not accomplish without reasoning what I cannot do by reasoning? Let me uncover my head before the mystery. Shall I bruise that which is so full of Thee, which surpasses me even while it obeys me? I think I can understand why men of old worshipped the animal. It was the sense of an avenue of knowledge beyond all human avenues — that there are more modes of Thy inspiration than we dream of in our philosophies. Let me take up tenderly that which I do know. There are wants in beast and bird which to me are no mysteries, for they are my own. Give me fellowship with these, oh, my Father. Extend my philanthropy downward. Let me enter into sympathy with their hunger, their thirst, their weariness, their cold, their frequent homelessness. Let me give their wants a place in my prayers. Let me remember them in the struggles of the forest. Let me remember them in the neglect of the city. Let me remember them in the winter’s frost and snow. Let me be to them what Thou hast been to me — a protector, a Providence. I shall be worthy to have Thy dominion when I have reached Thy image.