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Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust":
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall

wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the

brave.

- FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

VII. DESTRUCTION OF INSECTS

I. A wanton destruction of insects, simply because they are insects, without question as to their habits, without inquiry as to their mischievousness, for no other reason than that, wherever we see an insect, we are accustomed to destroy it, is wrong. We have no right to seek their destruction if they are harmless. Our only thought of an insect is that it is something to be broomed or trodden on. There is a vague idea that naturalists sometimes pin them to the wall, for some reason that they probably know; but that there is any right, or rule, or law that binds us toward God's minor creatures, scarcely enters into our conception.

2. A spider in our dwelling is out of place, and the broom is a scepter that rightly sweeps him away; but in the pasture, where he belongs, and you do not

where he is of no inconvenience, and does no

mischief - where his webs are but tables spread for his own food - where he follows his own instincts in catching insects for his livelihood - why should you destroy him there, in his brief hour of happiness? And yet, wherever you see a spider, "Hit him!" is the law.

3. Upturn a stone in the field. You shall find a city unawares. Dwelling together in peace are a score of different insects. Worms draw in their nimble heads from the dazzling light. Swift shoot shining, black bugs back to their covert. Ants swarm with feverish agility and bear away their eggs. Now sit quietly down and watch the enginery and economy that are laid open to your view. Trace the canals or highways through which their traffic has been carried. See what strange conditions of life are going on before you. Feel sympathy for something that is not a reflection of yourself. Learn to be interested without egotism.

4. But no, the first impulse of rational man, educated to despise insects and God's minor works, is to seek another stone, and, with kindled eye, pound these thoroughfares of harmless insect life until all is utterly destroyed. And if we leave them and go our way, we have a sort of lingering sense that we have fallen somewhat short of our duty. The most universal and the most unreasoning destroyer is

man, who symbolizes death better than any other thing.

5. I, too, learned this murderous pleasure in my boyhood. Through long years I tried to train myself out of it; and at last I have unlearned it. I love, in summer, to seek the solitary hillside-that is less solitary than even the crowded city — and, waiting till my intrusion has ceased to alarm, watch the wonderful ways of life which a kind God has poured abroad with such profusion. And I am not ashamed to confess that the leaves of that great book of revelation which God opens every morning, and spreads in the valleys, on the hills, and in the forests, are rich with marvelous lessons that I could read nowhere else. And often things have taught me what words have failed to teach. Yea, the words of revelation have themselves been interpreted to my understanding by the things that I have seen in the solitudes of populous nature.

6. I love to feel my relation to every part of animated nature. I try to go back to that simplicity of Paradise in which man walked, to be sure at the head of the animal kingdom, but not bloody, desperate, cruel, crushing whatever was not useful to him. I love to feel that my relationship to God gives me a right to look sympathetically upon all that God nourishes. In his bitterness, Job declared, “I have

said to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister.'" We may not say this; but I surely say to all living things in God's creation, "I am your elder brother, and the almoner of God's bounty to you. Being His son, I too have a right to look with beneficence upon your little lives, even as the greater Father does."

7. A wanton disregard of life and happiness toward the insect kingdom tends to produce carelessness of the happiness of animal life everywhere. I do not mean to say that a man who would needlessly crush a fly would therefore slay a man; but I do mean to say that that moral constitution out of which springs kindness is hindered by that which wantonly destroys happiness anywhere. And I hold that a man who wantonly would destroy insect life, or would destroy the comfort of the animal that serves him, is prepared to be inhuman toward the lower forms of animal life.

8. The fact is, that all those invasions of life and happiness which are educating men to an indulgence of their passions, to a disregard of God's work, to a low and base view of creation, to a love of destructiveness, and to a disposition that carries with it cruelty and suffering, and that is hindered from breaking out only by fear and selfishness, lead to a disregard of labor and the laborer. The nature

which they beget will catch man in his sharp necessities, and mercilessly coerce him to the benefit of the strong and the spoiling of the weak. And it is the interest of the poor man, and the oppressed man, that there should be a Christianity that shall teach men to regard the whole animal kingdom below themselves as God's kingdom and as having rights minor and lower rights, but rights-before God and before man.

- HENRY WARD BEECHER.

VIII. A BUILDER'S LESSON

I. "How shall I a habit break?"
As you did that habit make.
As you gathered, you must lose;
As you yielded, now refuse.

Thread by thread the strands we twist
Till they bind us, neck and wrist;
Thread by thread the patient hand
Must untwine, ere free we stand.
As we builded, stone by stone,
We must toil, unhelped, alone,
Till the wall is overthrown.

2. But remember, as we try,
Lighter every test goes by;

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