ed parallel case
of partialities among men--the this-world's choice of a Jacob, the
this-world's rejection of an Esau--the answer is obvious: there are two
scales to the balance, there is yet another world. Far be it from us to
think that all things are not then to be cleared up; that the innocent
little ones of Kedar and the exterminated Canaanites will not then be
heard one by one, and no longer be mingled up indiscriminately in an
overwhelming national judgment; that the pleas of evil education and
example, of hereditary taint and common usage, will be then thrown aside
as vain excuse; and that eventual justice will not with facility explain
every riddle in the moral government of God. But in the case of soulless
extinguished animals, there is, there can be no compensation, no
explanation; whether in pain or pleasure, they have lived and they have
died forgotten by their Maker, and left to the casual kindness or
cruelty of, towards them at least, irresponsible masters. How different
the view opened to us by the possibility of soul being apportioned in
various measure among the lower animals: there is a clue given "to
justify the ways of God to"--brutes: we need not then consider, with a
certain French abbe, that they are fallen angels, doing penance for
their sins; we need not, with old Pythagoras and latter Brahmins,
account them stationed lodges, homes of transmigration for the spirits
of men in process of being purged from their offences: we need not
regard them as Avatars of Vishnu, or incarnations of Apis, visible
deities craving the idolatries of India and Egypt. The truth commends
itself by mere simplicity: nakedness betrays its Eve-like innocence of
guile or error: those living creatures whom we call brutes and beasts,
have, in their degree, the breath of God within them, as well as His
handiwork upon them. And, candid theologian, tell me why--in that
Millenium so long looked-for, when, after a fiery purgation, this earth
shall have its sabbath, and when those who for a time were "caught up
into the air," descending again with their Lord and his ten thousand
saints, shall bodily dwell with others risen in the flesh for that happy
season on this renovated globe--tell me why there should not be some
tithe of the animal creation made to rise again to minister in pleasure,
as they once ministered in pain? And for the rest, the other nine, what
hinders them from tenanting a thousand happy fields in other of the
lar