Little by little all longing souls

Struggle up nearer the shining goals!

Little by little the good in men
Blossoms to beauty for human ken;
Little by little the angels see
Prophecies better of good to be;

Little by little the God of all

Lifts the world nearer the pleading call.

Cincinnati Humane Appeal.

LOYALTY.

Life may be given in many ways

And loyalty to truth be sealed

As bravely in the closet as the field,
So generous is fate;

But then to stand beside her,

When craven churls deride her,

To front a lie in arms, and not to yield,
This shows, methinks, God's plan

And measure of a stalwart man,

Limbed like the old heroic breeds,

Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth,
Not forced to frame excuses for his birth,
Fed from within with all the strength he needs.

J. R. Lowell.

ANIMALS AND HUMAN SPEECH.

Animals have much more capacity to understand human speech than is generally supposed. The Hindoos invariably talk to their elephants, and it is amazing how

much the latter comprehend. The Arabs govern their camels with a few cries, and my associates in the African desert were always amused whenever I adressed a remark to the big dromedary who was my property for two months; yet at the end of that time the beast evidently knew the meaning of a number of simple sentences. Some years ago, seeing the hippopotamus in Barnum's museum looking very stolid and dejected, I spoke to him in English, but he did not even open his eyes. Then I went to the opposite corner of the cage, and said in Arabic, "I know you; come here to me." He instantly turned his head toward me; I repeated the words, and thereupon he came to the corner where I was standing, pressed his huge, ungainly head against the bars of the cage, and looked in my face with a touch of delight while I stroked his muzzle. I have two or three times found a lion who recognized the same language, and the expression of his eyes, for an instant, seemed positively human. BAYARD TAYLOR.

PITY,

And I, contented with a humble theme,
Have poured my stream of panegyric down
The vale of Nature, where it creeps and winds
Among her lovely works, with a secure
And unambitious course, reflecting clear
If not the virtues, yet the worth, of brutes.
And I am recompensed, and deem the toils
Of poetry not lost, if verse of mine
May stand between an animal and woe,
And teach one tyrant pity for his drudge.

COWPER.

LEARN FROM THE CREATURES.

See him from Nature, rising slow to Art!
To copy Instinct, that was Reason's part;
Thus then to man the voice of Nature spake :-
"Go, from the creatures thy instructions take;
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Here, too, all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aerial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The Ant's republic, and the realm of Bees:
How those in common all their wealth bestow,
And Anarchy without confusion know;
And these forever, though a monarch reign,
Their sep❜rate cells and properties maintain.
Mark what unvaryed laws preserve each state,
Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate.
In fine, thy Reason finer webs shall draw,
Entangle Justice in her net of Law,

And Right, too rigid, harden into Wrong;
Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.
Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway,
Thus let the wiser make the rest obey;
And, for those Arts mere Instinct could afford,
Be crowned as Monarchs, or as God adored."

POPE.

PAIN TO ANIMALS.

Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if exactly in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of selfishness, they do not answer "immoral," let the morality of the principle of utility be forever condemned.

JOHN STUART MILL.

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

It might have been that the sky was green, and the grass serenely blue;

It might have been that grapes on thorns and figs on thistles grew;

It might have been that rainbows gleamed before the showers came;

It might have been that lambs were fierce and bears and tigers tame;

It might have been that cold would melt and summer heat would freeze;

It might have been that ships at sea would sail against the breeze

And there may be worlds unknown, dear, where we would find the change

From all that we have seen or heard, to others just as strange

But it never could be wise, dear, in haste to act or

speak;

It never could be noble to harm the poor and weak;
It never could be kind, dear, to give a needless pain;
It never could be honest, dear, to sin for greed or gain;

And there could not be a world, dear, while God is true

above,

Where right and wrong were governed by any law but KATE LAWRENCE.

love.

VILLAGE SOUNDS.

Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There as I passed with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came softening from below;
The swain responsive to the milkmaid sung:
The sober herd that lowed to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool:
The playful children just let loose from school;
The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind, —
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And filled each pause the nightingale had made.

GOLDSMITH.

BUDDHISM.

The Buddhist duty of universal love enfolds in its embraces not only the brethren and sisters of the new faith, not only our neighbors, but every thing that has life.

T. W. RHYS DAVIDS.

As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let a man cultivate good-will without measure toward all beings. Let him cultivate good-will without measure, unhindered love and friendliness toward the whole world, above, below, around.