ing him in wantonly catching of BIRDS, tormenting of FLIES, fpinning of BEETLES, &c. you have rendered his once tender heart obdurate to the delicate feelings of pity and compaffion. And you can hardly fuppofe that he will have any concern about your pretended affection towards him, or your mournful complaints that he neither loves you, nor cares for you. No. It is You that have done this cruel work for thyfelf. You have nipped every bud of love. You have quenched every spark of affection. You have made him deaf to the voice of nature, by deafning his ears to the cries of the creatures. And at laft you will find, as others have experienced before, that your foolish indulgence has

taught

taught him to be as infenfible to your own pains and tears, as you have taught him to be infenfible to the pains and misery of tormented BIRDS and INSECTS.

The Child, that can with indifference pull off the leg or wing of a FLY, will in time with the fame indifference and hardheartednefs pull off the leg or wing of a BIRD, or the tail of a CAT.

He

may indeed love his favorite DOG more than he loves his mother; and no great wonder if he does : but he will throw ftones at a neighbor's HORSE, or cut off the teats of a Cow. It availeth not that the Bleffed JESUS made his folemn Entry into Jerufalem meek and lowly, and riding upon an

ASS;

ASS*; for, as oft as the cruel wretch fhall meet with this humble and inoffenfive Brute, he will be fure to give a teftimony of his own infidelity by repeated mockeries and infults. Nor fhall the BIRD of Repentance be lefs the object of his malice than the BEAST of Humility; and that too (as if in despite of the established Religion) in the very season set apart by the Church for the purposes of humiliation and penance. St. Peter denied his Mafter, the Cock awakened him unto repentance : but Repentance is an irkfome tafk; therefore fhall the Cock be tied by the leg to a stake, and thrown at with cudgels till every

bone in his body is broken: or to

Zech. ix. 9. Matt. xxi. 5.

make

make him a compleat Cock of the Game, his ftately creft must be cut off, and his fpurs pared away for weapons of steel, and public notice given, that the very abjects and beafts of the people, who delight in blood, may gather themfelves together and rejoice in his adverfity*. But if there be such a thing as relative holiness, or if there be any two animals more facred than others, I would fay they are this BIRD of Repentance, and the beforementioned BEAST of

Humility: or, if there be any barbarous fport that is a particular scandal or disgrace to Christianity, I would fay it is COCK-THROWING: but Woe be to them through whom the offence cometh t. Yet it is by

Pfa. xxxv. 15. + Matt. xviii. 7.

5

thefe

these unreftrained practices that the heart of youth is hardened; and from the wing of a FLY to the teat of a Cow, we may trace his procedure from one degree of cruelty to another, till at length HUMANITY itself muft bear the weight of his oppreffion and tyranny; and regardless of the cries of nature, or the ties of blood, he verifies the observation of the wife king of Ifrael, that as He that is MERCIFUL doeth good to his own Soul, fo He that is CRUEL troubleth his own FLESH. Prov. xi. 17.

Cruelty, then like other fins has its progrefs and stages; but being the devil's Darling, it stands at the head of the black catalogue of fins. It is the very first fin that

we