Twilight And Dawn by Caroline Pridham

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(_Day VI_.) I wish you to stop at the end of verse 25 because there the
account which God has given us of His creation of the world ends. All was
now complete; and all was very good in the eyes of Him who had made and
fashioned it. The rest of the chapter speaks of a distinct part of God's
Creation, when man, who was to be over it all, was made; a part of the
Creation, but head and Crown of all; a being distinct from any other
inhabitant of earth, air, or sea, because created _in the image of God_.

The old writer who speaks so quaintly about the "great pond of the world,"
and the "guests" which it contains, exclaims with wonder when he thinks of
the "tenant" which God, when He had made the great house of the world and
furnished it, brought in to possess it. He says:--

"But, oh God, what a little lord hast Thou made over this great world!...
yet none but he can see what Thou hast done; none but he can admire and
adore Thee in what he seeth.... Other creatures Thou madest by a simple
command, man not without a divine consultation; others at once, man Thou
didst first form, then inspire; others in several shapes, like to none but
themselves, man after Thine own image ... others with qualities fit for
service; man for dominion; other creatures grovel to their earth, and have
all their senses upon it, this is reared up towards heaven."

We talked a good deal about this; for I wished that Eustace and Leslie, and
even little Dick, should understand something of the great difference which
God has put between those creatures--the cleverest and best of them--who
live their little life in the sea or on the earth, and then pass away
altogether, and even a little child who does not know its right hand from
its left, and cannot take care of itself perhaps nearly so well as a bird
or a beast, but who has within it what God has given to no bird or beast, a
spirit which can never die, a spirit which must some time "return unto God
who gave it," because it belongs to Him.

No beast will have to give an account of itself to God; for to these
creatures of a day, He has given their bodies, so wonderful and beautiful,
and the breath by which they live; but not that deathless part, the spirit,
because of which every man is responsible to God, and knows that he is,
even though he may never have read in God's Word that "every one of us
shall give account of himself to God."

Let me tell you how a missionary explained this, not long ago, to a king
far away in the heart of Africa.

He had been talking to him about the stars and the sun; and the king
presently asked where God, who had made the sun, dwelt, and what He did
with people after they were dead.

The missionary says, "I answered that God was not confined to one place as
we are; that when man's body died, the spirit of him who was a child of
God went above, and dwelt for ever in the presence of God, and those whom
God knew not here in this life were cast out into a place of sorrow and
burning."

"But why does God do so?" the king asked. "What reason has He for putting
man from Him?"

The missionary explained that God is righteous, and must punish those who
are guilty in His sight.

"But," said the king, "_we_ did not know the laws of God _here_. How can He
punish _us_ for not keeping them?"

[Illustration: KAFFIRS OF VARIOUS TRIBES.]

The missionary answered that God had put His law in their hearts, so that
they all knew what was right and what was wrong.

"You know," he said, "when a man lies to your face and steals from you,
that he injures you; and call him bad and wicked. So when you tomorrow
do the same thing, God judges you with the same judgement with which you
judged your fellow-creature yesterday."

"Yes," replied the king, "that is true; that I understand."

We shall think more by-and-by about the great difference which God has put
between man, whom He created in His own image, and every other creature,
but I want you never to forget it.

In reading of the beautiful life which God gave to the fishes and the
birds, and to those beasts that He commanded the earth to bring forth,
about which we are going to speak a little today, we must always remember,
while we admire the wonderful gifts and powers which they have from God,
that He has put the widest possible distance between us and them.

We shall see that many of these animals are much stronger than the
strongest man; that to some of them God has given senses keener than ours;
and to others, in an especial degree, that great gift called instinct, by
which the little swallow finds its way over sea and land, the ants "prepare
their meat in the summer," the beaver makes dams across the stream, and the
little prairie dogs build pleasant towns, where they can all live together,
one of them always keeping watch lest any enemy should surprise the
workers.

All these are beautiful proofs of the kindness and faithfulness of God
towards the creatures He has made; and we may admire them, and learn all we
can from them; but never imagine for one moment, that man is only a grander
and more wonderfully made sort of animal, as a lion is superior to a mole,
and a mole to a worm.

Just as God has told us there would be, there are now some people who think
they know better than to believe what His Word says about this, and who try
to think that there never was such a "wonderful animal" as man has grown to
be, and are not ashamed to talk of his "ape-like ancestors." But among all
the fossil-animals which the earth has kept so safely, I need hardly tell
you that not one specimen of an animal between a monkey and a man has
ever been found. As has been well said, those who speak in this way "have
to convert a four-handed ape into an erect man, a screaming baboon into
an articulating, speaking being; brutal instinct into reason, will,
conscience; a thing that perishes into that which believes in God, and
whose soul is immortal."

Mr. Frank Buckland, whose interesting books I hope you may one day read,
had a great many strange pets; among them a remarkably clever monkey. He
studied the habits of this monkey very carefully and describes some of
the things which it did by instinct--a sense which no one can understand,
given by God to guide those living creatures upon whom He has not bestowed
reason--and he also tells most amusing stories of the way in which it
imitated what it saw him do; but he found that this monkey never reasoned
about things, as even a very young child will.

It could use its own powerful head and hands to defend itself, if attacked;
but he never saw it make a weapon to use against its enemies. It was very
glad to get near the good fire which its master had made, and would spread
out its hands and warm them in the blaze; but it never made a fire for
itself. And though Mr. Buckland laid plenty of wood close to the fire, and
watched to see what a creature so fond of heat would do, he found that the
monkey sat by the fire and allowed it to go out; for although he shivered
with cold, he did not understand that by putting fresh wood on, the heat
which he had so enjoyed would be kept up.

So it is with animals generally; they do things by instinct or by imitation
rather than through reason; though we often see them look as if "putting
this and that together." And we know no animal able to tell its thoughts by
speaking, though some birds have been trained to repeat words.

In that charming book, written for French children "The First Year of
Scientific Knowledge," _man_ is placed first among animals, as the most
wonderful of them all, but the author is careful to explain that he is
there treating only of man's body; as, were it otherwise, it would be
needful to allow him a particular division all for himself. We see that
in God's Book man is put last, and that he is not counted with the other
living creatures at all.

You may say that men are born, and eat, and sleep, and breathe, and grow
old, and have bones, and a heart, and blood running through their veins;
and so it is with beasts, and birds, and fishes. But God speaks to us of
the spirit of a beast--its natural life--which goes downward, in contrast
with the spirit of man, which goes upward, and returns "unto God who gave
it." It is because of this immortal part, that the life of a man is not to
be compared with, or put beside, that of a beast that perishes.

Put your hand upon your heart for a moment. You can feel something there,
going "beat, beat," and you know that as long as that "beat, beat" goes on
you are alive. If it were to stop you would die, for no man has power to
set it going again. Now, you can also feel the beating of the heart of a
dog, or of a little frightened bird as you hold it in your hand; and you
know that when its heart ceases to move, its little hour of pleasure or
pain is over, for there is nothing in the dead body of a bird, as there is
even in a dry seed, that will make it spring up and grow again--_all_ its
life has gone.

Even as I am writing this for you, a sparrow, picking up crumbs of bread,
comes hopping close to my feet. The crumbs feed his little life, and you
know that he would soon die, starved to death like many a poor birdie in
its cage, if he could get no food. You, too, would die if you had nothing
to eat; that is, your body would, but not what has most right to be
called _you_; that never-dying spirit which has lived in your body as its
house--_it_ would still be alive--alive to God: "for all live unto Him." So
different are you from the beasts that perish that we will turn to the Book
from which alone we can know the truth, and there let us notice, first,
that when man was to be made, it is no longer, "And God said, Let there be:
and there was;" but instead, the wondrous words are written, "And God said,
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.... So God created man in
His own image"; and again we read, "The Lord God formed man of the dust
of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul."

We are now going to study some of the wonderful works of God in the
animal-world, and I hope to be able to tell you some interesting stories of
what creatures who have not language, and cannot reason in the way in which
we can, have been able to do by instinct and intelligence.

It is very pleasant to read the accounts given by other people of what they
have observed, but even better still to learn to use our own eyes. Try this
plan, and you will be surprised at the many curious and beautiful things
about the ways of animals which you can find out for yourself.

You remember, when we were talking about fishes and birds, we found that
they both belong to the great group of animals called Vertebrate, from
having a backbone made of many pieces beautifully fitted together.

We are now going to speak of the last class in that great group--the
Mammalia, so called because they feed their young, not as birds do, with
insects or grain, but with milk. They are chiefly "four-footed beasts of
the earth," and are covered with hair or fur. In this class extremes meet;
we find the great elephant and the playful little squirrel, the kingly lion
and the timid mouse which is said to have set him free when snared in the
hunter's net.

To this class also belong the land-monsters of bygone days, whose skeletons
you may see in museums: such as the Mammoth, or hairy elephant, found in
the British Isles, and also over half the globe; the Mastodon, another
elephantine extinct monster, whose remains are found in America; the Woolly
Rhinoceros, with two large horns on his face, dug out of the frozen soil of
Siberia; the Great Irish Deer, whose antlers measured 9 feet from tip to
tip; and Giant Sloths of South America, inhabitating the same region as the
Sloths of to-day.

But we must leave the "unnumbered, unremembered tribes" of buried creatures
which once trod this earth; and speaking only of those now alive, I
must tell you that in the first Division of the great class, Mammalia,
naturalists place the Quadrumana, or four-handed creatures. This name is
given to all monkeys; because their great-toes are like thumbs, so that
they can take hold of the branches in the forests where they spend their
lives, quite as well with their feet as with their hands.

I need not tell you what they are like, for you know something of the
noisy, chattering, mischievous creatures, from watching them at the "Zoo."
But you have never seen the enormous apes which live in Africa and the
forests of Borneo. Of these the Orang-outang--its name means "man of the
woods"--is the largest. He is as tall as a man, and very strong, with long
arms, which almost reach the ground as he stands. From the pictures I have
seen, I certainly should not like to meet this "man of the woods" at home,
seated in the sort of nest which he makes for himself in the trees. But
these great, fierce-looking creatures can be tamed; and I have read of one
who might be seen walking in the garden, arm-in-arm with his keeper; and of
another who would sit at table and imitate everything which he saw people
do. He would pour out his tea, put sugar and milk in it, and then hold his
cup and saucer, and drink the tea, all very cleverly; for no animals are so
good at imitating others as monkeys are. Remember this, if you are fond of
copying what other people do and say, be sure that you copy only what is
worthy of imitation.

[Illustration: TOO CLEVER.]

Here is an amusing traveller's tale about some monkeys which carried their
love of imitating very far; as you will say when you have read

"THE SAILOR AND THE MONKEYS.

"Once, in the hope of honest gain
From Afric's golden store,
A smart young sailor crossed the main,
And landed on the shore.

"And leaving soon the sultry strand
Where his fair vessel lay,
He travelled o'er the neighbouring land
To trade in peaceful way.

"Full many a toy had he to sell,
And caps of scarlet dye;
And such things as he knew full well
Would please the native's eye.

"But as he travelled through the woods
He longed to have a nap,
And opening there his pack of goods,
Took out a scarlet cap,

"And drew it on his head, thereby
To shield him from the sun;
Then soundly slept, nor thought an eye
Had seen what he had done.

"But many a monkey dwelling there,
Though hidden from his eyes,
Having well watched the whole affair,
Now longed to win a prize.

"And while he slept each one did seize
A cap to deck his brows;
Then climbing up the highest trees,
Sat chattering on the boughs.

"The sailor waked, his caps were gone,
And loud and long he grieves,
Till, looking up with heart forlorn,
He spied at once the thieves.

"With cap of red upon each head
Full fifty faces grim,
The sailor sees amid the trees,
With all eyes fixed on him.

"He brandished quick a mighty stick,
But could not reach their bower,
Nor could he stone, for every one
Was far beyond his power.

"'Alas!' he thought, 'I've safely brought
My caps far o'er the seas;
But could not guess it was to dress
Such little rogues as these.'

"Then quickly down he threw his own,
And loud in anger cried,
'Take this one too, you thievish crew,
Since you have all beside.'

"But quick as thought the caps were thrown
From every monkey's crown,
For, like himself, each little elf
Threw his directly down.

"He then with ease did gather these,
And in his pack did bind;
Then through the woods conveyed his goods,
And sold them to his mind."

I daresay you could tell me the story of the monkeys who washed their hands
and faces in pitch, and so were caught. But from all the stories which are
told about monkeys, I fancy that we think of them too much as clever, and
noisy, and mischievous, and sometimes very ill-tempered and revengeful; so
I want to tell you something of their good and gentle ways, and especially
of their love for their little ones.

I used to watch a mother, in the monkey-house at the Gardens, nursing
her baby--a tiny grey thing, with its hair parted down the middle, and
the funniest, most knowing little face of its own. She nursed it in the
tenderest way, with such a loving expression on her face the while.

Then I have read of an American monkey driving away the flies which teased
her little one; and of another good mother who was seen washing the faces
of her family in a stream. And they are kind not only to their own; for if
a poor little monkey is left an orphan, it is sure to be taken care of by
some other monkey's father or mother.

A gentleman who was coming home from India tells this story: There were on
board two monkeys, one older than the other, but not its mother. One day
the little one fell overboard. The other at once jumped over the side of
the vessel to a part of the ship where she could stand, and holding on by
one hand, with the other she held out to the poor little drowning monkey
the end of the cord by which she was tied up, but which was then dangling
from her waist. It was a wonderful plan for her to think of, was it not?
But the cord was too short, and the little monkey was saved by a sailor who
threw it a rope, which came near enough for it to catch at and cling to.

I remember being told by a brother of mine who had once shot a young
monkey, that he could not forget the reproachful look which the poor mother
gave him, and he never again would shoot one. He said the little wounded
monkey cried like a child.

If you have ever seen a bat, you will think it strange to class these
winged creatures with monkeys, and it does at first sight seem a mistake
that they should be among the Mammalia at all; one would expect to see
all winged things in the Bird family. But the bat is rightly placed in
this division, and you will understand why it has been classed with the
Quadrumana, when you have carefully examined those soft, fan-like wings
which you can spread out with your fingers. If you could take a bat in your
hand, and look at it from head to foot, you would notice three things very
unlike a bird about it. In the first place, it has no feathers, but is
covered with very soft grey fur; it has no beak, but sharp teeth--so sharp
that I advise you to keep your fingers out of their way; then, look at its
long ears! It certainly cannot be a bird.

Besides being reckoned among the four-handed creatures, a Greek name has
been given to bats, from the curious way in which their fore paws, or
hands, have been lengthened out into wings; it means "hand-winged."

Now, keeping this name in mind, gently unfold the wing: the small bones
which you feel, over which the soft grey web is stretched, are really the
fingers of the animal, very long fingers they are, and the web is the skin
of the back and breast which has been drawn over them, so as to make this
strange hand-wing. If you cannot examine a live bat, perhaps by studying
this picture of one, you may understand better how this soft, dusky wing is
made.

[Illustration: "FLITTER-MOUSE" ON THE WING.]

The bat is what is called a nocturnal animal, because it cannot bear the
strong light of day, and flies about at night in search of its food. We
sometimes hear it said that a person is "as blind as a bat," but that is
because when bats are taken, contrary to their nature, into the sunlight,
they are so dazzled by it, that they fly blunderingly hither and thither,
in their efforts to get away from it. They have very sharp eyes, but they
do not use them by day, but sleep all day long, hitched to a stone in a
wall, or to a branch in the woods by their hind legs--always choosing a
dark place, and folding their wings around them like a curtain.

I remember being very much afraid of bats when I was a child. An old castle
by the sea swarmed with them, and when my brothers took lighted pieces of
wood and went into the dark, deserted ruin to rouse the sleeping bats and
see whether they could not catch one, the way in which the poor dazed
creatures flew at our faces in their blind efforts to escape frightened
me very much, and when one was caught and put into my hand I disliked the
"creepy" feel of the soft wings too much to keep it long. I knew nothing
about bats then, and was silly enough to think that they were "horrid"
and "frightful" creatures--words which we should not use in speaking of
anything that God has made. Now that I have learnt a little about them, I
fancy I should not mind going into that old castle, and having another look
at them; but still I do not think I should care to have one for a pet.

Perhaps you think no one would; but I have read of a tame bat which knew
its master, and loved to be stroked and petted as much as a dog would.
Indeed it behaved very much like a dog, for it would climb up its master's
coat and rub its head against him--more like a cat, you will say, in
this--and lick his hands. When its master sat down, the bat used to hitch
itself up to the back of his chair, and it would take flies and insects
from his hand. But I have no doubt he was always a dull pet in the daytime;
for it really is his time for sleep, and we cannot change the nature of
animals, and ought not to try to do so.

Talking about sleeping, I must not forget to tell you that a bat is like a
dormouse in one respect: it does not fly away to a warm, country when the
cold is coming, and the insects are getting scarce, but goes off to sleep
in a barn, or belfry, or cave, and sleeps on all through the winter,
needing neither food nor drink. There are many different kinds of bats
about which you can read in Natural History books; one kind eats fruit, not
insects. The bat is about the size of a mouse, and feeds its young, as the
mouse does, with milk. When we were speaking of the animals mentioned in
the Bible no one thought of the bat; but it is referred to among the birds
or winged things, which might not be eaten by the Israelites; also in
Isaiah ii. we read that in that day when the Lord alone shall be exalted,
"a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold ... to the
moles and to the bats"--for they especially haunt waste and desolate
places.

Now we must leave the Four-handed family, and come to the largest class
among the Mammalia--the Quadrupeds. As all four-footed animals, no matter
how unlike each other they may be in other respects, belong to this family,
you may imagine what a very large one it must be. Naturalists have divided
the Quadrupeds into different classes, and at the head of them they place
the Carnivora, or flesh-eaters, so called because they are beasts of prey,
catching birds and smaller animals alive, and eating them.

The animals of the Cat kind--lions, tigers, panthers, jaguars--are the most
beautiful as well as the most dangerous of this class. They have long and
sharp teeth, and very long claws--five on the forefeet and four on the
hinder-feet--and these claws are kept sharp by being guarded within a soft
sheath when not wanted; so that all these cat-like creatures tread very
softly.

You have often noticed how pussy can stretch out her claws when she wishes
to climb or to scratch, but you know they are most often hidden within this
velvet sheath. If you have ever watched your cat creeping cautiously nearer
and nearer to her prey, and then suddenly springing upon the poor little
mouse or bird, you will know exactly how such great and terrible cats as
lions and tigers spring upon their prey, whether it be a cow or a sheep, a
man or a child.

Of all of them, none is so fierce as the

"Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,"

which is found now in only one quarter of the world--in Asia, especially
India--and is so bold that he will fight with a lion.

[Illustration: TIGER AND CROCODILE--"THE TUG-OF-WAR."]

No beast has such a beautiful skin; but you may not know that this
wonderful coat is made for use as well as for beauty. A writer who has
observed very carefully says, "However lovely nature frames or fashions a
plant or a bird or an animal, it is never for ornament, but for some actual
purpose or use." It is a good thing to bear this in mind, and to try to
find out the uses of the beautiful things which you see. The stripes of
the tiger are so very like the long grass--taller than a tall man--of the
jungle, is its home, that the hunters, mounted on their trained elephants,
cannot see him, unless he betrays his hiding-place by some movement.
Tiger-hunting is a very dangerous sport, and many tigers are killed, not in
the chase, but by being taken in pitfalls by the natives.

I am sure you know a great deal about the king of beasts, and I need
not describe him, since you have probably both seen him and heard his
terrible voice. Still, we can have little idea, from seeing lions in this
country--very likely born in captivity--how majestic the king is in his
forest home in Africa. Those who have heard his roar echoing through the
forest, say that it rolls along like distant thunder, and that when he is
angry his eyes flash with a gleam almost like lightning. His strength is
so enormous that one blow of that soft paw, which looks so harmless, will
break the back of a horse, or knock down the strongest man; and he will
carry off a young cow as a cat carries off a mouse. Young lions are very
pretty, and as playful as kittens. I have seen a happy family all in one
cage--a great African lion called Hannibal, with a very royal look; a
lioness and her four cubs, playing with a retriever pup! The cribs looked
very much like big puppies, and had such innocent, gentle little faces,
that you would have liked to pat and pet them.

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