“I canna but believe,” says the Ettrick shepherd, in his broad Doric, “that dowgs hae souls.”
My friend, the Rev. J.G. Wood, in his book called “Man and Beast,” has proved beyond dispute that there is nothing in Scripture against the theory that the lower animals will have a hereafter.
And note how the goodly poet Tupper writes about his dear dog Sandy:
“Shall noble fidelity, courage and love,
Obedience and conscience—all rot in the ground?
No room be found for them beneath or above,
Nor anywhere in all the universe round?
Can Fatherhood cease? or the Judge be unjust?
Or changefulness mark any counsel of God?
Shall a butterfly’s beauty be lost in the dust?
Or the skill of a spider be crushed as a clod?
“I cannot believe it: Creation still lives;
The Maker of all things made nothing in vain:
The Spirit His gracious ubiquity gives,
Though seeming to die, ever lives on again.
We ‘rise with our bodies,’ and reason may hope
That truth, highest truth, may sink humbly to this,
That ‘Lo, the poor Indian’ was wiser than Pope
When he longed for his dog to be with him in bliss!”
Book One—Chapter Seven.
Leaving Home.
From what I have already told the reader about Harry Milvaine, it will readily be gathered that he was a lad of decided character and of some considerable determination. A boy, too, who was apt to take action at the first touch of the spur of a thought or an idea.
What I have now to relate will, I think, prove this still further.