Twilight And Dawn by Caroline Pridham

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Since the bite of the cobra is so deadly, it is well that travellers are
not likely to meet it; for in the day-time it sleeps in the depths of
the forest, gliding silently out at night in search of food. The bold
naturalist, of whose alligator-ride you have heard, says that he never saw
any snake pursue a retreating prey; so that when a man, threading the mazes
of a forest, sees a serpent gliding towards him, he has but to turn into a
side path, and be safe. But if a snake is trodden upon, or otherwise roused
to anger, it will dart forward upon its enemy, in self-defence; also, if
one of the enormous snakes comes upon a man, it may seize him before he
has time to run away. Waterton, however, did not know what fear was; and
instead of being paralysed with terror at the sight of serpents, once
[Footnote: _Life of Charles Waterton_, p. 55.] caught a large one, the
"Bush master," and holding it by the throat so as to make it impossible
for it to bite, walked home with its folds coiled round him. He showed his
courage at another time quite as much by rescuing a little bird out of the
very mouth of a snake in a tree, as by the famous alligator exploit.

[Illustration: RATTLESNAKE.]

The Rattlesnake of South America takes its name from its warning rattle, a
sound made by some loose bones at the end of its tail, which knock together
when it moves, and so give fair warning of such a dangerous foe being in
the neighbourhood. Its bite has been known to cause death in two minutes,
and when it does not kill immediately, it produces a dreadful burning
feeling all over the body. Horses and dogs show very great terror if they
see these snakes; but the country folk are not so much afraid of them as
you would expect, for they know that it is the habit of the Rattlesnake to
glide away at the sound of footsteps, and as long as the warning sound is
heard, they feel safe. If the rattle is silent, it means danger, for the
snake is about to spring.

A Frenchman tells us that he once disturbed a mother rattlesnake, and saw
it coil itself up, open its mouth wide, and allow the five little ones
which were lying beside it to glide in, and hide themselves there. He was
very much interested, and waited behind a tree to see what would happen
next. In about a quarter of an hour he saw the little snakes come out
again; but when he once more showed himself, they hid as before, and the
mother quickly glided out of sight.

The Puff-adder of Africa, when roused, will breathe in air and puff
itself out to an extraordinary extent. Being, like all these cold-blooded
creatures, very fond of warmth, it often comes at night to fires made
by herdsmen or travellers; and so it happened that a traveller in South
Africa, sleeping soundly one night beside the fire, wrapped in his cloak,
was awakened by a weight on his chest, and found to his horror that a
puff-adder had coiled itself up inside his shirt. His first thought was to
seize the unwelcome visitor and throw it from him, but remembering that it
probably would only injure him if disturbed, he had the presence of mind to
let it remain in the warm nest it had found for itself, until, roused by a
light, it slowly uncoiled itself and crept away.

Of the serpents which are dreaded--not for their bite, for they have no
poison-fangs--but for their great strength and daring, and for the way
in which they coil round their victims, crushing them to death in their
terrible embrace--the most dangerous are the Python of the Old World, and
the Boa-constrictor of the New.

In one respect all serpents are boa-constrictors, for a very small one
has been seen in the act of thus crushing a bird; but the great boa which
inhabits tropical America is a giant, which has been known to swallow even
a buffalo whole, after it has crushed it to mummy, and broken all its
bones. Boas can swim and climb; they will catch fish as they come near the
surface of the water, and drag them ashore; or hang by their tails from
some forest tree, and thus lie in wait to seize any animal which may be
passing. They are now very shy of men, and not much feared by them; but
these great snakes used to be worshipped as gods by the people of Mexico,
and some of their serpent-idols have been found in ancient temples--showing
how much they were once dreaded; for it is the habit of men to worship what
they greatly fear.

The Python, a snake very like the boa, is an object of horror to the people
of South Africa; yet they are unwilling to destroy it, because they believe
it has an awful power, and say that no one has ever been known to injure a
python, without being severely punished in some mysterious way. I have read
an account of an adventure which a Dutchman had with one of these serpents,
which I must tell you, because of the part played in it by his little dog.
You shall have the story in his own words:--"I had in my cabin a large and
strong cage, enclosing a python of considerable size, but which appeared to
be dull and inanimate. We were lying off the coast of Borneo, where I was
detained for some days. When I came again on board, I had not taken many
steps before my little dog seized me by the trousers and endeavoured to
hold me fast. I shook him off and proceeded, when the dog seized me again,
and I again roughly forced him from me. At this juncture my attention was
directed to several hatchet-marks on the deck, and I instantly inquired the
meaning. The answer was, 'The snake, sir! the snake is loose!' And so it
proved. The reptile had cast his slough, and assumed with renewed beauty
all its natural energy. It had forced itself out of the cage, and after
doing some damage below, found its way to the deck, spreading consternation
among the men; by whom, as it appeared, it had been slightly wounded,
hatchets having been used for its destruction. Hence the marks on the deck,
and hence the fear of the dog, and its anxiety to detain me from advancing
into danger.

"With some precaution I proceeded to the spot where the snake was said to
have ensconsed himself, and soon observed him lying in coils. The instant
he saw me, he raised up full half of his length, and glancing around as
if uncertain whether to attack or fly, commenced a succession of violent
undulatory movements, the head alternately towering aloft and touching the
deck. At last, spying an opportunity, he dashed along with inconceivable
rapidity to the other end of the vessel, whither he was pursued; again he
displayed the undulations as described, and again darted to another part
of the deck. All felt excited, not without a misgiving that some accident
might take place. In this manner the chase was continued," the story goes
on to say, until the snake received its death-blow from a cutlass. He
measured seventeen feet. "I repented of my roughness to the dog," thus his
master concludes, "and he was henceforward a great favourite with the men,
who appreciated his fidelity and intelligence."

We read in the Epistle of James that "every kind of beasts, and of birds,
and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of
mankind"; and I have read of some snakes kept as pets by an English family,
which were not only perfectly tame, but seemed to be exceedingly fond of
those to whom they belonged.

An artist named Severn who visited this family says he found himself in
company with a large boa-constrictor, a python, and several smaller snakes.
He felt a good deal alarmed when the master of the house was called out of
the room, and he was left with the boa--a great serpent as large round as a
small tree--coiled on an arm-chair beside him. Presently two little girls
came in with their mother; they at once went to the boa, calling the huge
snake pet names, and allowing it to twine itself around them. He says, "The
children over and over again took its head in their hands and kissed its
mouth, pushing aside its forked tongue in doing so. The animal seemed much
pleased, but kept turning its head continually towards me with a curious
gaze, until I allowed it to nestle its head for a moment up my sleeve.
Nothing could be prettier than to see this splendid serpent coiled all
round Mrs. Mann while she moved about the room, and when she stood to
pour out our coffee. It was long before I could make up my mind to end
the visit, and I returned soon after with a friend to see my snake-taming
acquaintance again. The snakes seemed very obedient, and remained in their
cupboard when told to do so." [Footnote: Romanes' _Animal Intelligence_,
pp. 260, 261.]

Although I tell you this strange story, I do not think I should like to
make a pet of any serpent, however tame it might be; because it was this
creature, "more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had
made"--which that enemy of God and of the souls of men, who is spoken of
in the last book of the Bible as "that old serpent, called the Devil, and
Satan, which deceiveth the whole world," used as an instrument, when he
came to tempt Eve in the garden of Eden.

The word Eden means "pleasure"; and when we were talking of that delightful
place--that garden which God planted, and where He put the man whom He had
formed--the little ones were asked to tell all they knew about it.

Leslie's answer was, "It was God's garden"; and Eustace and Dick told of
the two trees which were there, "the tree of life also, in the midst of the
garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

It was of this tree that Sharley and Chris spoke, when they answered the
question--

"There was something in the Garden of Eden to remind Adam and Eve that they
were God's creatures, subject to Him. What was it?"

"It was the tree of knowledge of good and evil," they said; for "the Lord
God commanded the man, saying. Of every tree of the garden thou mayest
freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt
not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die."

Another question which the little boys had to answer was this--

"What was the first sin?"

"When Eve and Adam plucked the fruit." This was the answer given by all.

I want you to think about it. Adam and Eve owed everything to God, for He
had created them in His own image; and had blessed them, and given them
"dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," and had put them in
the beautiful garden which He had planted. How dreadful that they should
disobey the only command God gave them, and thus sin against Him! But had
not Eve sinned against God, even before she put out her hand and "took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did eat?"

Chrissie said that when the serpent asked Eve that question about what God
had said, she ought not to have taken any notice; and Sharley thought that
the first beginning of the sin was listening to the serpent at all, and
that the devil now puts it into our hearts to ask, "Is there any harm in
doing it?" when he wants to make us listen to him, and forget what God has
said. And then we all agreed that the way to answer Satan is in Scripture
words.

I think Sharley was right in saying that the first beginning of the sin in
the Garden of Eden was when Eve _listened_ to the serpent--lent her ear to
one who dared to ask such a question as "Hath God said?" The next step in
the road which led away from God, Eve took when she _answered_ that daring
question; the next, when she _believed_ the lie of the serpent, instead of
the word of God.

The devil is a liar, and when he spoke to Eve he tried to make her think
that God was not so good to His creatures as He might be, for He would not
allow them to have the very best thing in the garden--that forbidden fruit.
The great enemy of God envied His creatures their happy place where they
received everything from Him, and were dependent upon Him for everything;
and God allowed the man and woman whom He had made, to be proved; and, when
weighed in the balance, they were found WANTING. And so we read in God's
book how "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

As Eve gave her confidence to the serpent, she lost confidence in God, and
went on to believe that when _God_ had said, "In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die," and the _serpent_ said, "Ye shall not
surely die," it was the serpent that spoke the truth. How dreadful it was
for God's creatures to look to the devil for happiness, to give up God who
created them, and take Satan for their master!

Instead of happiness they found only shame and misery. The serpent had said
that their eyes should be opened, and they should be as gods, knowing good
and evil. We read, "And the eyes of them both were opened;" but God in His
word tells us of those whose eyes "the God of this world hath blinded."
They had no power to choose what was good; and tried to hide away from God.

And so the first man was driven out of God's garden, and there has never
been any way back to it at all! No way back to God either, for Adam or
for his children, except through Christ, "the Second Man, the Lord from
Heaven."

It was of this wonderful way, of Him who is "the Way," that God spoke when
He told the serpent that the Seed of the woman should bruise his head.

The Lord Jesus Christ was "the Seed," the One who loved us and gave Himself
for us: the One whom "God so loved the world" as to give, "that whosoever
believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life;" the One who
"once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to
God."

We have been learning something of how dreadful the bites of serpents are,
how full of deadly poison: and we have been reading how, by listening to
the old serpent, the poison of sin--having our own will, and thinking hard
thoughts of God--came into the hearts of God's creatures, bringing sorrow,
and shame, and death with it. How beautiful that the righteous One in whom
was no sin, and who come to take away our sins, should tell us that "As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man
be lifted up." The serpent of brass was not kept in Moses's tent; it was
lifted high, for all to see it. God, who knew His people's sin, and had
sent those fiery serpents to bite them, had Himself told Moses to make that
serpent of brass, and those who were bitten had only to look at it and
live. If they looked at their own hurt, or at each other, or at Moses--all
was of no avail; but "it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man,
when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived."

God--who knew that every one of us born into this world is born away from
Him, and with the dreadful poison of sin, like the serpent's bite, in
us--gave His only begotten Son to be lifted up, that "whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And He tells us
to look at Him and live, just as the poor sinful people, dying of the
serpent's bite, looked at the serpent of brass, and their deadly wound was
healed. God has told us to look straight to His Son, dying for sin, dying
in our stead; but it is not our looking that saves us, it is the blessed
Saviour whose name is called Jesus, "for He shall save His people from
their sins."

I must not forget to tell you that many of the extinct animals whose
skeletons are to be seen in museums belonged to the class of Reptiles.

We read that "God created great whales"--or sea monsters--and remains have
been found of enormous lizard-like creatures. One has been called the
Fish-lizard; it seems to have had a crocodile's head, with a body like that
of a small whale.

Another had a long swan-like neck, the body and tail of a quadruped, and
paddles like a turtle.

Another, called the Winged-lizard, had bat-like wings and dreadful jaws
armed with numerous teeth. All these "Saurians" are believed to have
frequented the sea or rivers; but another called the Great-lizard, was a
land-animal, as was the Forest-lizard, and a monster kind of Toad with very
curiously formed teeth. But no description will give you an idea of the
size of these creatures, though I may tell you that a party of gentlemen
dined inside the body of one great extinct lizard at the Crystal Palace,
where models, not very accurately made, of the most remarkable ancient
animals are to be seen. I think my first thought when I see the actual
remains of these old-world monsters, with their terrible jaws, is that of
thankfulness that they have passed away from sea and land. But we know that
God who created them "saw that it was good," and in the Book of Job we may
read His description of mighty and terrible creatures which show forth His
power.

We were speaking of a monster toad whose fossil remains have been found;
and I must tell you that before we had done with the "Creeping Things," I
was asked a difficult question. "To what class do the frogs and toads and
newts belong? Are they Vertebrate animals? Do they belong to the land or
the water?"

I said they certainly do belong to the great Backboned family, and are
placed in a class by themselves, as they are neither Mammalia, Birds,
Fishes, nor Reptiles, properly speaking, and are called Amphibia, because
they live, as it were, a double life.

[Illustration: BROWN FROGS.]

They have gills, which enable them to breathe in water, to begin with,
and lungs which enable them to breathe in air, later on. They are mostly
without scales, and do not need to drink, because they imbibe moisture from
the air through their soft damp skin. When you see a frog hopping across
your path, you see a creature which has known many a change in its life,
for frogs are among those very interesting animals which undergo what are
called _metamorphoses_. We have met with this word before, and may remember
that it is used to express the change from one form to another which is
wrought in some living creatures in the course of their growth. I daresay
you imagine as I once did, that all young animals are like their parents,
only on a smaller scale; for you see that a young horse, or elephant, or
whale, a pup or a kitten, is at its birth in all respects just what it
will be when full-grown, only smaller. So it is with the reptiles and the
birds--the young ones, when hatched, are like the parents. But in the case
of frogs and newts, and also most insects, the young ones do not merely
increase in size as they grow, but pass from one stage of growth to
another, each different from the former, until like the butterfly when
it emerges from the chrysalis, they reach what is called their perfect
state--and these metamorphoses or changes are very curious and interesting
indeed.

When Master Froggie was a young tadpole, some pond or ditch was his home,
for he was an aquatic animal; but now that he is full-grown he has passed
into another way of living: he breathes, or rather swallows _air_, and
must, as he swims about with his beautifully webbed feet, come to the
surface of the water now and then, or he would die. I am sure you know the
frog well enough, and you may even have heard the harsh croak from which
it has its name, as you have passed some damp meadow or weedy pond, on a
summer evening. But I wonder whether you know frogs' eggs when you see
them?

My brothers and I did not, long ago, when we used to fish with sticks in a
pond by the cross-roads for what we called "bunches of grapes!" The grapes
were little balls of jelly with a tiny black spot in each, and we never
guessed that they were really eggs, and that the little black spot in the
slimy covering would one day actually turn into a live, leaping, croaking
frog. If we had had the patience to watch, we should have seen that little
black dot grow and grow, until it seemed to have become a creature almost
all tail, with the head and body still only a tiny ball. By-and-by we
should have seen legs and feet begin to appear, and as the legs grew
longer, the tail become shorter, until it quite disappeared. Meanwhile,
other changes which we could not see would have taken place; instead of the
gills, which made the tadpole a water-breather, Master Froggie would have
acquired lungs, like any land animal; the aquatic would have changed into
an aerial, the herbivorous into a carnivorous creature, so that we may well
say it has lived two lives.

The beautiful little newts' life-history is much the same, only that
their transformation is not quite so complete, for they never lose their
lizard-like tails, but remain little crocodiles to the end of the chapter.

"_Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father
who is in heaven is merciful._"

"Turn, turn thy hasty foot aside,
Nor crush that helpless worm;
The frame thy wayward looks deride
None but our God could form.

"The common Lord of all that move,
From whom thy being flow'd,
A portion of His boundless love
On that poor worm bestow'd.

"The light, the air, the dew He made
To all His creatures free,
And spreads o'er earth the grassy blade
For them as well as thee.

"Let them enjoy their little day,
Their lowly bliss receive;
Oh! do not lightly take away
The life thou can'st not give."

GISBORNE.

THE SIXTH DAY.

THE ANIMAL WORLD.

"_Every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a thousand
hills._"--PSALM l. 10.

"_... God ... who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh
us wiser than the fowls of heaven._"--JOB xxxv. 11.

"_Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the
beast that goeth downward to the earth?_"--ECCLESIASTES iii. 21.

Now that we have come to the last of those wonderful working-days of which
God has told us, I want you--just as we all did when we had reached the
SIXTH DAY in our readings--to read over again all the verses in the first
chapter of Genesis down to verse 26, and to notice carefully the _words_
which God has used in speaking to us about what He created and made. And I
want you especially to think of those two words of which we were speaking a
little while ago--God _created_, and God _made_.

Before God speaks to us of the FIRST DAY, with its evening and its morning,
He tells us that "in the beginning" He "created the heaven and the earth."

(_Day I_.) Then--we do not know how long after--God spoke, and commanded
the light to shine out of the darkness; so that where the dark had been
the light now was. "And God saw the light, that it was good," and divided
it from the darkness. The light God called Day. Then after the night had
passed, the light returned, and there was morning. "And the evening and the
morning were the First Day."

(_Day II_.) Again God spoke, and that great globe of air which surrounds
the earth was formed--the blue sky above us, and the clouds, the
treasure-house for the rain. "And God called the firmament," or expansion,
"Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the Second Day." Upon this
day we do not read of anything new being made; and it is not said, "And God
saw that it was good," as after the work of the other days.

[Illustration: "THE JOY OF HARVEST."]

(_Day III_.) Again God spoke, and the dry land appeared'; so that upon this
Day there were already in existence earth and sea, air and water, day and
night. And God Himself saw that all was good in the world which He had
made. Then He adorned the earth with verdure and beauty, and brought out of
it grass, corn, fruit-trees; each "after its kind," "And God saw that it
was good. And the evening and the morning were the Third Day."

(_Day IV_.) Again God spoke, and the two great lights, sun and moon, were
set to give light--day and night--upon the earth, and to order the seasons.
"And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the
Fourth Day."

(_Day V_.) Again God spoke; living creatures swarmed in the waters, and
"winged fowl" flew "in the open firmament of heaven." It is now, in
connection with air and sea being filled with living beings, to which God
gave not only the same power to grow and multiply with which He had endowed
the trees and the herbage, but in addition to it, power to move from one
place to another at will, power to enjoy, and to go in quest of that which
seems to them desirable, that we have again the word, "God created," and
also a new word, never before used about day or night, earth or sea, sun or
moon, tree or flower--"God blessed."

You remember how we noticed, when we were reading about the work of God
on the Fifth Day, that as soon as He had made, not stones or plants, but
fishes and birds, He blessed them. God made these living creatures happy,
each in the place suited to the kind of life He had given it. And again of
this Day's work we read, "And God saw that it was good.... And the evening
and the morning were the Fifth Day."

Now let us read verses 24 and 25 very carefully. These verses tell us of
part of God's work on the Sixth Day; and we notice that this Day begins,
like the former ones, with those three words which we have read so many
times in this chapter--"And God said."

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