Page:Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard.djvu/219

 would like, therefore, to refer the matter to specialists in this line to decide—: whether there are not present among our domestic animals, or at any rate the nobler ones, such as the horse, the dog, and the cow, indications of a Christian spirit. It is not improbable. Consider what it means to live in a Christian state, among a Christian people, where everything is Christian and everybody is a Christian and where one, turn where one may, sees nothing but Christians and Christianity, truth and martyrs for the truth—it is not at all unlikely that this exerts an influence on the nobler! domestic animals and thereby again—which is ever of the utmost importance, according to the opinion both of veterinarians and of clergymen—an influence on their progeny. We have all read of Jacob's ruse, how in order to obtain spotted lambs he put party-colored twigs into the watering troughs, so that the ewes saw nothing but mottled things and then brought forth spotted lambs. Hence it is not improbable—although I do not wish to be positive, since I do not belong to the profession, but would rather have this passed on by a committee composed of both clergymen and veterinarians—I say, it is not improbable that the result will finally be that the domestic animals living in a Christian nation will produce a Christian progeny. The thought almost takes away my breath. To be sure, in that case the New Testament will to the greatest possible extent have ceased to be true.

Ah, Thou Savior of the World, when Thou saidst with great concern: "When the Son of man cometh, shall He find Faith on the earth?" —and when Thou didst bow Thy head in death, then didst Thou least of all think that Thy expectations were to be exceeded to such a degree, and that the human race would in such a pretty and touching way render the New Testament no longer true, and Thy significance almost doubtful; for such nice creatures certainly also needed a Savior!