RELIGIOUS READING

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 164, 20 July 1935, Page 6

RELIGIOUS READING

FOB THE SABBATH TORTURE CHAMBERS. Dear People, While it is not true humanity (says Professor Hobday, Principal of, the Unuiversity of London) to allow rabbits and rats to destroy food needed for men and to spread disease in any way, on the other hand to inflict prolonged pain is not fair, even to rats. The late Dr. Mark Hovell, the world’s leading authority on rat-destruction, demonstrated that ordinary rat poison causes about three days of ext.-erne agony before fulfilling its mission. The central doctrine of Christianity /says Dr. Matthews)—the supremacy of love and sympathy —contains within it the spring of all duties beta to man and animal alike. The teachings of Jesus breathe delight in all aspects of nature. The parables could only have come from one who felt an inner unity with the life of the natural world. It is surely a thing worth pondering that the most unforgetable picture of the unwavering love of God is that of the lost sheep and the seeking Shepherd. At the very moment that one is comfortably considering the question if animal welfare (says Captain Hume), not fewer than one million fur-bearing animals are struggling for their lives in all parts of the world. Their screams of agony and fear are at this very moment ascending to the heavens. Their limbs are being crushed by steel jaws. In their efforts to escape something of the devilish torture, they make attempts to lie down, to move in some way in any way, if only it will bring relief; and immediately they do so, the edges of their broken bones are displaced against one another, augmenting their sufferings. Day turns into night, bringing no cessation of their undeserved martyrdom. Night again turns into day, bringing with it no respiie, unless it be that of kindly Death. At this actual moment of time, thousands of tortured live things are gnawing at their own limbs or attempting to wring them off, leaving the ligaments behind. Some are being torn alive by beasts of prey; they are frantically and hopelessly putting up their pitiful fight, handicapped by the trap within whose jaws they are inexorably clenched, weakened by hunger, thirst and suffering. This lesser calvary, this long-drawn-out crucifixion, is at this very moment being enacted in leafy wood and shady dell, that trappers and agriculturists may be spared the time and trouble of setting the more humane deadfall and snare. These little creatures have been in their chambers of horrors an hour, a day, a week. To you and to me, when racked by pain, a kindly hand brings a cooling draught; but no hand carries the cup of mercy to the lips of these writhing creatures. So far as “these little ones” are concerned, it is as if His words had never been uttered: “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it unto Me.”