The young of the church and of the universities who know all about everything, and attach a deal of importance to their funny little opinions, are quite agreed that the lower animal is an "it" as automatic as a slot machine. Put in a penny and the machine utters a box of matches. Put in food and the animal develops energy. So much is perfectly true of animals and men, for our bodies are automatic.
Moreover, the animal has "instincts" which impel "it" to beget a foal or a litter of puppies. Humans, with the same instincts are impelled to beget a bumptious young bacteriologist, or a pair of curates.
In a like way the wolf, the Christian, or the tiger mates with one wife, while the horse and the Moslem both prefer a harem.
Shall we say, then, that the wolf is the more religious, or the horse not quite so respectable?
The horse spiritual
A certain Sergeant Parker, of the Northwest Mounted Police, went on patrol with a saddle horse. They got lost in a blizzard, and in the succeeding calm the man became snowblind. On the seventh day, the horse saw an outfit of freighters passing in the distance. He ran to their sleighs. He whinneyed to the horses, who understood his talk, and he beckoned to the men, who were not so clever. Then the men noticed that his belly was terribly swollen by long pressure of the girth. They followed him. At a distance of one and a half miles they came to a tract of prairie with the snow grubbed up where the horse had been scratching for grass. In the midst was a heap of snow like the mound of a grave, on which lay Sergeant Parker in seeming death. His long delirium, beginning with visions of angels and closing with a dream of meat-pies, had ended in coma just at the verge of death; while the horse stayed on guard until it was possible to get him rescued. So much was told me afterwards by the man.
The other day in France a British soldier was killed, whose horse remained with the body for two days, out in the zone between the opposing armies, exposed to a hurricane of fire beyond example, refusing to be rescued, moved by a love stronger than death.
The horse immortal
The young of the clergy will tell us all about the lower animal who does not subscribe to the tenets of the church, and so must perish everlastingly despite the Father's care. Yet if they read the Prophets and the Revelations they will find chariots of fire, and see in visions the deathless chargers ridden by Archangels. Are all the Hosts of Heaven infantry? We have the full authority of the Holy Bible for an idea that horses may be immortal.