proceed from the omnipotent fountain of order, truth, and love? And can we imagine that this violent, this unnatural state shall last for ever? Is the state of the whole creation so deplorably miserable, as to admit of no remedy, no hope of deliverance? Shall the eternal purposes of infinite Wisdom, Love, and Power, be entirely defeated by the malice of evil spirits, and the infirmities of frail creatures? Is not this saying in effect, that the Almighty Creator, the Father of mercies, and the God of all compassions, whose mercies are over all His works, is either unwilling, or unable, to effect the eternal purposes of His infinite love?"

Scott, in his Commentary on the Bible, says, "Every thing seems perverted from its intended use. The inanimate creatures are pressed into the service of man's rebellion. The luminaries of heaven are forced to give him light, by which to work wickedness: the fruits of the earth are sacrificed to his luxury, intemperance, and ostentation: its bowels are ransacked for metals, from which arms are forged, for public and private murder, and revenge: or to gratify his avarice, and excite him to fraud, oppression, and war. The animal tribes are subject to pain

and death, through man's sin,* and their sufferings are exceedingly increased by his cruelty: who instead of their kind master, is become their inhuman butcher and tyrant. Yet this is in hope: God intends to rescue the creation from this confused state: and to deliver it from thus being held in bondage to man's depravity: that it may partake of, and minister to the glorious liberty of his children. So that, we are assured, the whole creation groans, expecting, and impatiently longing for, a glorious event of all these distractions. This it hath ever done since the fall, and will do, in a measure, until the end of the world: and the miseries of the human species, through their own, and each other's wickedness, as well as the state of the inferior creatures, declare the world to be in such a situation, as is not intended always to continue."

Archbishop Tillotson, writes,† "This we are sure of, that they (animals) suffer chiefly from us, and upon our account: we, who are their natural lords, having depraved ourselves first, are become cruel and tyrannical to them. Nay,

* As observed on Mr. Wesley's views, this is doubtful. ↑ Vol. 11. p. 605.

the Scripture tells us, that they suffer for our sakes, and the whole creation groaneth, and is in bondage for the sin of man." "All creatures," he says, "have reason," on account of the goodness of God in giving them being, "with the four and twenty elders in the Revelations, to cast their crowns before the throne of God, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure (that is, of mere goodness) they are, and were created."

The Rev. Mr. Greswell, in his most able work on the Parables,* observes, "All nature is represented, in its various parts, sympathizing together in the sense of moral and physical evil to which it is subject in the present state: awakened to a sense of its condition, yet doomed to groan under the bondage of its own corruption, with nothing to relieve its sufferings, but the hope of a future emancipation into the enjoyment of liberty worthy of the creature of God, and of a purification to come, for the recovery of its original likeness."

The immortal Bishop Wilson (of Sodor and

* Vol. II p. 588.

Man) in his concise and valuable notes on the text of the Holy Bible, interprets this text of St. Paul as having direct application to the whole creation; and he defines the "whole creation" to signify "each creature ”—“ creature."

every

It will be for you, my dear Patroclus, since you are so fond of reading annotations of commentators on the sacred text, to adduce other authorities equal in judgment and ability to those I have now brought before you; and I shall be right glad to be informed of the result of your researches. I have just hit upon a passage in Southey's "Madoc," which, as being antagonistic to cruelty towards animals as well. as men, I cannot refrain from immediately sending you, lest in the multiplicity of engagements, it should escape me:

"Not for your lots on earth,

Menial or mighty, slave, or highly born,
For cunning in the chase, or strength in war,
Shall ye be judged hereafter; as ye keep
The law of love as ye shall tame your wrath,
Forego revenge, forgive your enemies,

Do good to them that wrong ye, ye will find
Your bliss or bale. This law came down from Heaven!"

Yes truly-it bears a heavenly stamp, it

is coin with other superscription than that of Cæsar. Of animals as of human beings, let us further exclaim in other words of the benign Southey:

"Let them see,

That as more pure and gentle is your faith,
Yourselves are gentler purer!"

I feel assured this will be your guiding motto through life ;—and to me also may this gentle grace be given, and then I shall ever be,

Your congenial friend and brother,

Penscellwood.

ACHILLES.

LETTER IX.

My dear Patroclus,

I now come to that most extraordinary opinion hazarded gravely by Father Bougeant, a learned Jesuit, by which he attempts to account for the present extraordinary physical and moral condition of the animal race. It was a becoming censure of a very great man