we read of in Scripture after the fall of man; and, though the overt acts may be fuppreffed, yet whilft it lurks in the heart, it lays the foundation of every act of mifchief and injustice. A man that violates nature by any act of wanton cruelty, how trifling foever the object, can have no fear of GOD, no true principle of justice or honor. He can neither do justly, nor love mercy, nor walk humbly with GOD. Even in the fmalleft inftances of it, he discovers a malevolence of heart dangerous to Society. When DOMITIAN was firft advanced to the Imperial Throne of ROME, he amufed himself in killing and tormenting We might elfe wonder

of FLIES.

how it was poffible for a man to

be

be guilty of the barbarities, which he practifed on his own fubjects; but the wonder ceafes, when we are told, that Domitian was cruel to a Fly. The object was changed, but the fubject was the fame.

It does not become any man to dictate to his fuperiors, but I cannot help fometimes fuppofing, that, if all the barbarous customs and practices still fubfifting amongst us, were decreed to be as illegal as they are finful, we should not hear of fo many shocking Murders and acts of Inhumanity, as we now do. There have been Governments (not the lefs wife I prefume for this reafon) that deemed Cruelty to Brutes a crime unworthy of men, and cognizable

by Law. It was one of the Laws of Triptolemus, HURT NO LIVING

CREATURE

*

History tells us

' of a wife and polite nation, that rejected a perfon of the firft quality, who ftood for a judicatory office, only because he had been ' obferved in his youth to take pleasure in Tearing and Murdering of BIRDS; and of another that expelled a Man out of the Senate, for Dashing a BIRD against the Ground, which had taken fhelter in his Bofom. Every one knows how remarkable the Turks are for their humanity in this kind +.' And I have fomewhere read, that the pious

* Archæol. Græc. B. i. Ch. 26.

† Guardian, No. 61.

Mufful

own.

Muffulmans esteem it a duty of religion to purchase captive BIRDS out of the cages of the Chriftians, that they may fet them at liberty. Thefe bowels of mercies in heathen and infidel nations, ought furely to make Chriftians blufh, when we compare their humanity and tendernefs with our But we have fo long accuftomed ourselves to brutal Cruelty, that our very nature feems transformed through vicious habit: the divine image, after which we were created, is effaced: our hearts are grown callous; and our judgment is as perverse as our heart.

BUT, whatever may be the depravity or perverseness of the human heart, we read in the Pro

phecy of ISAIAH, that when the Branch fhall grow out of the root of Feffe; The WOLF fall dwell with the LAMB, and the LEOPARD fhall lie down with the KID; and the CALF, and the young LION, and the FATLING together, and a little Child fhall lead them. And the COW and the BEAR fball feed, and their Young ones fhall lie down together; and the LION shall eat Straw like the OX; and the fucking Child fball play with the ASP; and the weaned Child fhall put his hand on the COCKATRICE or Adder's den: They shall not hurt nor deftroy. (Ifaiah xi. 6-9). Some interpret this prophecy in the literal fenfe; and others have thought it is to be understood in a figu