. I would
recall to the sentimentalist who goes on repeating his stock phrases
and, perhaps, like Mr. Winkle, pretending an enthusiasm which he does
not feel, the wholesome advice of Dr. Johnson, "Sir, free your mind of
cant." Canon Farrar tells of a gentleman who was seated in the
smoking-room of an English hotel when a dog entered. He became violently
agitated, so that a waiter had to bend over and whisper to him, "It's a
real dog." The poor fellow was subject to a form of delirium tremens
which caused him to see imaginary dogs. I fear the disease is epidemic
and is on the increase. I would kindly recall the public mind to the
real dog. At least, I would suggest that the other side be heard; for
those who have had most to say on the subject seem to me to exhibit a
one-sided habit of mind, analogous to the manner of running observable
in their favorites.

It is difficult to trace the origin of this new theology, the apotheosis
of the Dog. It is certainly altogether un-Biblical. The whole tenor of
Scripture is decidedly uncomplimentary to the species. It is even
proclaimed as a new commandment, "Beware of dogs." They are everywhere
presented as the symbol of all that is unclean, noisy, greedy, and
dangerous. The nearest to a compliment I can find is the saying that "a
living dog is better than a dead lion." The only good deed recorded of
them is that of licking the wounds of poor Lazarus. When Hazael would
express in the strongest terms his incapability of the most shocking
conduct, he asks, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"
Job seems to have felt that he could say nothing more scathing of
certain persons who derided him than that "their fathers I would have
disdained to set with the dogs of my flock." Instead of a dog heaven, we
are told that one of the bright distinctions and blessed securities of
the New Jerusalem will be that "without are dogs."

Nor would it seem to be a religion of nature. I find little, if any,
more respect shown to the species in mythology,--the nearest to an
apotheosis being the assignment of the janitorship of hell to a dog with
three heads. Egyptian mythology found it convenient to have a dog-headed
man--Anubis--as the attendant of Isis and Osiris. The _cynocephali_
whom the Egyptians venerated were more properly baboons: so that their
dog heaven, one might say, was only such on its face.

Language is the amber which preserves the thought of man. We need not
dig far int