Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/72

Rh creatures with respect, because our heavenly Father has thought them worthy of his care; but youth is the season when we love them for their own sakes; and because we then discover that they can be made, by kindness, to love us. In youth alone can we feel to unite them with ourselves in that bond of sympathy, which will never afterwards allow us to treat their sufferings with indifference, or to regard their happiness as beyond the sphere of our duty to promote.

Here, then, the law of love is made to operate through innumerable channels of sweet and natural feeling, extending over a wide field of creation, and reaping its reward of satisfaction wherever a poor animal is rescued from oppression, hunger, or pain.

The study of natural history is, perhaps, the most congenial pursuit to which the mind of youth can be introduced; and it never can begin with this too soon. The history and nature of plants is the next most pleasing study, though far inferior to the first, for this important reason—our acquaintance with animals involves a moral feeling; and not one feeling only, but a vast chain of sympathies and affections, which, if not touched in early life, are seldom afterwards called forth with any degree of earnestness or warmth; and for a woman to be insensible or indifferent to the happiness of the brute creation, is an idea too repulsive to be dwelt upon for a moment.

There is, however, a sickly sensibility indulged in by some young ladies, which I should be the last to recommend. Many, for instance, will nurse and fondle animals, without ever taking the trouble to feed them. Others shrink away with loathing at the sight of pain, which, if they would but exert themselves to remove, might easily be remedied. I remember a young girl with whom I was well acquainted, having watched a cat torment a mouse until