Kindness to Animals

"And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day." Genesis 1:31

About two hundred years ago there was an English poet who wrote a little poem that we all ought to know:

'' He prayeth well who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast;

He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small,

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all."

       God made the animals and the birds, and He loves them because He has made them and He wants us to love them, too. We ought to love them for what they do for us. They serve us in more ways than I have time to tell you about. Think of the cow and the horse. The cow gives us milk and butter and cheese and meat, and leather for our shoes, and many other useful and necessary things, even in modern times. The horse, in the past, did much of our hard work for us. We cannot pay them in money, but we can repay them in kindness. If you see a man who is not kind to his faithful horse, you may be sure he is a man whom you could not trust very far.
       Long ago, in India the elephants did a great many things that horses do for people, and they did some things that horses couldn't do. The Indian mothers would sometimes leave their babies in charge of an elephant, and that big fellow took almost as good of care of them as if the human children were his own. One of the missionaries was telling of seeing a big elephant set to brush the flies off a sleeping child, with a little branch of a tree that he held in his trunk. All the time the big flies and insects were biting and stinging the elephant, but he for- got all about them taking care of that baby.
       Then we ought to love the animals because they love us. When I was in Holland I went to the city where the great Prince of Orange, William the Silent, was buried. There is a fine marble statue there of the prince, and at his feet there is a little dog with his head between his paws, carved out of marble. Later on we went to The Hague, the capital of Holland. There is another statue of the prince, and the dog is there too. I asked someone about the dog and he told me that hundreds of years ago when the prince lived there was a little dog that loved him very much. He went everywhere the prince went, and when William was murdered the little dog refused to eat and starved himself to death with grief. So whenever the people of Holland build a monument to their great hero they remember the little dog, too.
       If the animals do not love us it is because we are not kind to them. They always love us if we love them.
       And the birds, too, how tame they become if we are good to them! Jesus once said that not a sparrow ever falls to the ground without the Father. That is, God knows and cares for every one of the birds. When we see boys and men killing the little birds just for the pleasure of seeing them fall out of the trees, it would be a good thing, wouldn't it, if they could know that God sees every one of those birds fall, and knows who made it fall, too?
       The Jews have a lovely little legend. They say that when Moses was keeping the sheep of Jethro, his father-in-law, a lamb ran away and was lost. He ran after it, and at last he caught up with it. It was panting and footsore, and weary, and torn, and unable to go a step further. Moses said to the lamb, ''Did you think that I wanted to hurt you that you ran away from me? No, it was love that made me come after you, and in love I am going to lay you on my shoulder and take you back home."
       When God saw how kind Moses was to the little lamb He said, ''There is the very man I need to lead My people." So God made Moses the leader of Israel.
       If you wish to please God and form a gentle character be kind to the birds and the animals. S. N. Hutchison

The Hymn, "All things bright and beautiful",
based upon the poem above and 

here is a coloring page too!