HAV

AVING spent much time in ethical and religious studies-having made a full and curious harmony of the Gospels for my own use-I am reluctantly obliged to say, that I cannot explain why the Apostle Paul should have written, so dogmatically, to the Corinthians—

"BEWARE OF DOGS!"

Nor do I remember ever to have seen in Neander, or Fichte, or Strauss, or Barnes, any allusion to it whatever, nor have I ever heard a sermon preached from the text "Beware of Dogs." It is certainly inexplicable so far; and I, therefore, presuming upon my venerable years, do respectfully commend this text to my beloved pastor, as well as to all other reverends, having full and implicit faith that the illumination of their minds will flood even this dark saying with light. Do not let me, in my old age, be misunderstood. I do not present them as a sort of patent ecclesiastical Bude lights, made up of a concave and plated surface, small bits of lime, and a stream of oxygen gas-far, very far, are they from that concave illuminator; but, having eaten and digested words from their youth up, and their minds having grown light and lovely, they are the ones to whom we look in every difficulty-they can resolve our

doubts.

It is surely an evidence of goodness now, if not of civilization, that men are fond of animals, considerate of them, companionable with them. We love to see children and dogs playing together -we wish the cat's sleep on the rug to be undisturbed-we love to see wellfed, gentle cattle-we love to know of Arab horses, who are as brothers (not slaves) to their riders-of the elephant, who stands all day and fans away the flies from the baby, forgetting his own stings. On all hands we see a thousand evidences, that animal life is from God, full of uses and full of beauty; that some of it, having answered its ends, has vanished; that some of it must become the helper, the friend, the companion, or defender of man. Indeed, we see how man is the crowning creature in the animal world, and that all the rest is truly in relation with, and a part of, him.

So much for philosophy - rather prosy, as philosophy is apt to be-and now for dogs.

I am told that good men have lived who hated them; but I am glad to say I never knew one, and shall, therefore, deny the statement. On the contrary, good dogs always like good men, and good men like good dogs. I mean by a good man a genial man-one who loves -one who has instincts and sympathies; and any man who has lost these in metaphysics, or science, or money-getting, is on the high road to perdition. He should stop at once, buy a well-bred dog, be friends with him, and learn the lesson he teaches. Whoever appreciates a dog's character, will better understand himself and other men; and, when he walks abroad in the evening sky, and enjoys the tender lights and delicious shadows, he will be accompanied by a friend, whose healthy animal nature will help to quicken and restore his own.

Why say that dogs have no souls? What is instinct? What is it, but the very first element of soul-the essence which underlies all the rest-thought and reason?

Why, because reason in them is imperfect, say they have none? James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, had a dog which always went about with him, and, of course, was always attacked by strange dogs, and was in a continual The Shepherd said to his wife one evening

row.

town, there is not much question, whether he knew anything more or not.

Marryatt, among various interesting stories, tells one of some elephants, which more clearly brings out the fact of reason in animals than anything I now remember. It was in India, that some English officers and soldiers were trying, through all one morning, to load heavy timbers into trucks, without success; they and the elephants, their beasts of burden, were tired out at noon, when the elephants were turned loose to browse. When the men came back from dinner, they found the elephants at work loading the timbers, having, themselves, laid slides over the wheels, upon which, pushing with their heads, they slid up, what before they could not lift. Now, they may have done this before, under the direction of others; but, even if memory told the way, there was some exercise of reason, too.

There is also no fact better established than that the educated habits of pointers, setters, Newfoundlands, and shepherds' dogs, are transmitted to their offspring the children of well-trained parents being born nearly "broke," or trained, for hunting. Youatt, in his treatise on the dog, gives instances of the surprising education of which dogs are capable-in reading letters, playing cards, dominoes, etc.-and Liebnitz testified, before the French Academy, of a dog in Saxony, which he had heard pronounce many words. This seems incredible, and rests entirely upon the word of a philosopher. Some St. Bernard dogs (used by the monks to discover travelers in the snow) were sent to England as presents to the queen, and were put with the other animals in the Tower, where they had pups. A pair of these pups were given to a Scotch nobleman, who took them home. But, when the snow came, they at once showed the educated habit transmitted from their parents, and tracked people in the snow, as they had not done before it came.

Nor does the word "instinct," without "reason," explain the doings of bees, and ants, and beavers, or dogs and elephants.

I find that dogs are social, and that, in Cairo and Constantinople, they organize themselves with certain laws; but they are peculiarly social with man, and this is their charming charm. Their affection is constant, quick, profound, not altoVOL. IX.-19

gether destroyed by cruelty-it is ready in joy and in sorrow-it is ready by day and by night; a dog will suffer and die to defend his friend; and will die of grief and a broken heart when his friend dies. It is a singular fact that, in these fast days, we can't find time to love people very much. Now, my friend Paul loves me, because he used to when he was younger, and we both had time to do it fairly and generously, rather than to gratify and satisfy any craving of his nature now; and my dear old wife, she loves me, but it is at intervals-it rather fills up the interstices of her many cares, and plans, and works-and so compacts life surely.

But my dog, now, my Snap, I can rely upon him; he has plenty of time to love me, and he does it-and I love him. Snap is not one of your "Gen'l'man's dogs"-not at all. So far as I can judge, he is of no breed, and I doubt if he had ever a father; and, certainly, he was abandoned by his mother early in life; for one stormy night the shivering little baby-dog lay down at my door, and yelped as though his heart would break; so I let him in, and he sat between my legs and enjoyed the fire, and lolled out his tongue, and warmed it, and then went to sleep. And he has been my dog, and done just so, night after night, ever since. He is not a handsome dog, and he is not intelligent, and he is, so far as I know, entirely useless-not good for a thing -but he loves me and I love him, and he growls for me, and I growl for him, and wherever I go he goes, and I am never desolate or forsaken. Now, that is a great thing for an old man, who has had losses, to say. Is it not, "gentle reader?" as the literary men call you.

I often wonder what Snap thinks of me-whether he looks upon me as another ill-favored, useless cur like himself-as in fact I am, for now I don't do anything but enjoy my life, and the good blessings of God, and that's all Snap does; so I think that he and I, and Dorothy and Paul must somehow get to heaven together; because, you know, gentle reader, that heaven is within us, even at our doors, if we would only seek for it there.

Notwithstanding all this, Dorothy sometimes says to me, very quietly to be sure: "Mr. Wallys, when are you going to sell Snap ?" and, I only say,

Good heavens, my dear, sell Snap ?"

Unpleased Llewellyn homeward hied—
When, 'neath the portal seat,
His truant Gêlert he espied,
Bounding his lord to greet.

But when he gained the castle-door,
Aghast the chieftain stood;

The hound was smeared with gouts of gore,
His lips and fangs ran blood.

Llewellyn gazed with wild surprise-
Unused such looks to meet;
His favorite checked his joyful guise,
And crouched and licked his feet.

Onward in haste Llewellyn pass'd,
And on went Gelert too;
And still, where'er his eyes he cast,
Fresh blood-gouts shocked his view.

O'erturned his infant's bed he found,
The blood-stained covert rent;
And all around. the walls and ground
With recent blood besprent.

He called his child-no voice replied!
He searched with terror wild;
Blood-blood! he found on every side,
But nowhere found his child.

"Hell-hound! by thee my child's devour'd!"
The frantic father cried;
And, to the hilt, his vengeful sword
He plunged in Gelert's side.

His suppliant, as to earth he fell,
No pity could impart;
But still, his Gêlert's dying yell
Passed heavy o'er his heart.

Aroused by Gêlert's dying yell,

Some slumberer wakened nigh; What words the parent's joy can tell, To hear his infant's cry!

Concealed beneath a mangled heap,
His burried search had missed-
All glowing from his rosy sleep,
His cherub boy he kissed.

Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread-
But the same couch beneath,
Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead-
Tremendous still in death.

Ah, what was then Llewellyn's pain!
For now the truth was clear:
The gallant hound the wolf had slain,
To save Llewellyn's heir.

Vain, vain was all Llewellyn's woe:
"Best of thy kind, adieu!
The frantic deed which laid thee low,
This heart shall ever rue."

And now a gallant tomb they raise,
With costly sculpture decked;
And marbles, storied with his praise,
Poor Gêlert's bones protect.

Here, never could the spearmen pass,

Or forester, unmoved;
Here, oft the tear-besprinkled grass
Llewellyn's sorrow proved.

And here he hung his horn and spear-
And oft, as evening fell,

In fancy's piercing sounds would hear Poor Gelert's dying yell.

A strange habit they have, those dogs, of running about the world nosing and seeking for their king. Naturalists spirits" are at a loss about it, but the " say, that Jupiter one day placed a very fine nutmeg in the one he liked best; and, since that day, a natural anxiety to discover this, has possessed the whole canine race. Whether this explanation will suffice it is not for me to say; but, it is strange, if true.

Dogs hold a curious position. They are the most loved and the most despised of all animals; yet, why are they despised? Like some men, they seem to think they "must live," and so they will steal; but it is, I am sure, only to satisfy hunger-not from innate and total depravity. But the term "dog" has come to be one of reproach (and yet not altogether so), while "the son of a dog's mother" is exceedingly disgraceful.

"Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" asked the prophet, very reproachfully. Now, what did he mean?-for dogs never do anythingat least, they never did, till the coalpickers harnessed them into carts, where they pull honestly and generously-and I do not think they had used them in that in India. way

It is also very common, out of the pulpit, to say of some one, whose conduct we don't approve of, "he is going to the bow-wows," or "the bowwows are certain to get him"-meaning, thereby, that he is going to the dogs or to hell, which is very bad. Now, why did the Jews so hate dogs, that they spared no pains to blast their characters? Why was it? Other nations, not more brutal than they, have made them an article of luxury, and "stewed dog," in the Spice islands of the Indian seas, ranks, at their feasts, with "cold boiled missionary" and potted parrots. Why not? So this generous, affectionate, sagacious creature has come to express contempt. But the term is applied in other and better ways.

JOLLY-DOG, is he who has a good time, laughs, takes the world easy,

never tries to reform it or himself, and lives as long as he can.

SAD-DOG, is he who loves pleasant things, but wrong ones, and doesn't care if they are wrong, if they seem to him pleasant. Sad-dogs often come to bad ends.

FUNNY-DOG, is he who sees the world and the things of the world with a sparkling eye; he has wit as well as humor. It was a funny-dog who, when the doctor told him to take "wine and bark," drank his bottle, with a gentle little bow-wow-wow" between the glasses, and "thought he felt better."

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EXPENSIVE-DOG, is he who indulges freely in shirt-bosoms, breast-pins, and patent-leather--who looks forward to Fifth-avenue houses and Louis Quatorze mirrors. He wants these things very much, and thinks he must have them. He, too, often comes to a very bad end.

LUCKY-DOG, is he who is born well, and is about to be married well-eh? And this brings to mind Lafayette, the most French of Frenchmen. When he stopped, on his royal progress, in 1824, at our town, we all went to shake hands with him, of course; and first he would say

How do you do? Married man, sir ?"-(delicately).

"Yes, sir"-(modestly).

"Ah, happy man, happy man !”(with unction). Then to the next he would say, delicately

How do you do? Married man, sir?"

"No, sir"-(with a little blush). "Ah, lucky dog (with unction), lucky dog, lucky dog!"

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But it is not necessary to continue the list, because the thirty thousand readers of PUTNAM know these dogs themselves, in all variety; though I hope no dirty dogs" are among them. Now, it has struck me that there might have been some of these "sad" or expensive" fellows among the Corinthians, and thus the apostle had reason to say, "beware of dogs."

And, is it not singular how we use our friend and companion as an illustration, and in what ways we do it? We say, " Tired as a dog," "Lazy as a dog," "Quick as a dog," "Hungry

dog,"

Faithful as a dog," "Mean as a dog," "Honest as a dog."

So, as the crow is completest of birds-the type of all birds-may not the dog claim the central place of all the groups, as the most animal of all animals?

I cannot close my short sermon, without saying that Bacon, and Newton, and Hallam, and Bentham, and I, all agree in the belief of the immortal nature of animals, and especially of dogs; we, therefore, hold meanness, and cruelty, and neglect to them, as a sin against God, not to be repented of.

Those who have come thus far with me, will read the following as Mrs. Jamieson has so charmingly told it :

"Jesus," says the Persian story," arrived one evening at the gates of a certain city; and he sent his disciples forward to prepare supper, while he himself, intent on doing good, walked through the streets into the market-place.

"And he saw, at the corner of the market, some people gathered together, looking at an object on the ground; and he drew near to see what it might be. It was a dead dog with a halter round his neck, by which he appeared to have been dragged through the dirt; and a viler, a more abject, a more unclean thing, never met the eye of man.

And those who stood by looked on with abhorrence.

"Faugh,' said one, stopping his nose, 'it pollutes the air.' 'How long, said another, shall this foul beast offend our sight?' 'Look at his torn hide!' said a third; one could not even cut a shoe out of it.' 'And his ears', said a fourth, all draggled and bleeding! No doubt,' said a fifth, 'he hath been hanged for thieving!

"And Jesus heard them, and, looking down on the dead creature, he said:

"Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth!'

"Then the people turned towards him with amazement, and said, among themselvesWho is this? This must be Jesus of Nazareth; for only he could find something to pity and approve, even in a dead dog;' and, being ashamed, they bowed their heads before him, and went each his way."

MORAL CONCLUSION.

Those who have a good dog, should seek a good master for him.

Those who have, should give to those who have not.

Therefore, any person, having read and digested this paper, and having a very nice terrier-English, Scotch, or Skye will send it to PUTNAM, for his very sincere friend and humble servant.