We shall think more by-and-by about the great difference which God has put between man, whom He created in His own image, and every other creature, but I want you never to forget it.
In reading of the beautiful life which God gave to the fishes and the birds, and to those beasts that He commanded the earth to bring forth, about which we are going to speak a little today, we must always remember, while we admire the wonderful gifts and powers which they have from God, that He has put the widest possible distance between us and them.
We shall see that many of these animals are much stronger than the strongest man; that to some of them God has given senses keener than ours; and to others, in an especial degree, that great gift called instinct, by which the little swallow finds its way over sea and land, the ants "prepare their meat in the summer," the beaver makes dams across the stream, and the little prairie dogs build pleasant towns, where they can all live together, one of them always keeping watch lest any enemy should surprise the workers.
All these are beautiful proofs of the kindness and faithfulness of God towards the creatures He has made; and we may admire them, and learn all we can from them; but never imagine for one moment, that man is only a grander and more wonderfully made sort of animal, as a lion is superior to a mole, and a mole to a worm.
Just as God has told us there would be, there are now some people who think they know better than to believe what His Word says about this, and who try to think that there never was such a "wonderful animal" as man has grown to be, and are not ashamed to talk of his "ape-like ancestors." But among all the fossil-animals which the earth has kept so safely, I need hardly tell you that not one specimen of an animal between a monkey and a man has ever been found. As has been well said, those who speak in this way "have to convert a four-handed ape into an erect man, a screaming baboon into an articulating, speaking being; brutal instinct into reason, will, conscience; a thing that perishes into that which believes in God, and whose soul is immortal."
Mr. Frank Buckland, whose interesting books I hope you may one day read, had a great many strange pets; among them a remarkably clever monkey. He studied the habits of this monkey very carefully and describes some of the things which it did by instinct—a sense which no one can understand, given by God to guide those living creatures upon whom He has not bestowed reason—and he also tells most amusing stories of the way in which it imitated what it saw him do; but he found that this monkey never reasoned about things, as even a very young child will.
It could use its own powerful head and hands to defend itself, if attacked; but he never saw it make a weapon to use against its enemies. It was very glad to get near the good fire which its master had made, and would spread out its hands and warm them in the blaze; but it never made a fire for itself. And though Mr. Buckland laid plenty of wood close to the fire, and watched to see what a creature so fond of heat would do, he found that the monkey sat by the fire and allowed it to go out; for although he shivered with cold, he did not understand that by putting fresh wood on, the heat which he had so enjoyed would be kept up.
So it is with animals generally; they do things by instinct or by imitation rather than through reason; though we often see them look as if "putting this and that together." And we know no animal able to tell its thoughts by speaking, though some birds have been trained to repeat words.
In that charming book, written for French children "The First Year of Scientific Knowledge," man is placed first among animals, as the most wonderful of them all, but the author is careful to explain that he is there treating only of man's body; as, were it otherwise, it would be needful to allow him a particular division all for himself. We see that in God's Book man is put last, and that he is not counted with the other living creatures at all.
You may say that men are born, and eat, and sleep, and breathe, and grow old, and have bones, and a heart, and blood running through their veins; and so it is with beasts, and birds, and fishes. But God speaks to us of the spirit of a beast—its natural life—which goes downward, in contrast with the spirit of man, which goes upward, and returns "unto God who gave it." It is because of this immortal part, that the life of a man is not to be compared with, or put beside, that of a beast that perishes.