Editorial October 31, 1903 Issue

"Blessed are the Merciful"

The harmony of these beautiful autumn days is marred by one discordant note to which Christian sentiment has ever been sadly indifferent. It would seem that no one could enter nature's grand cathedral, the forest, and tread the cloistered paths of the passing year, without being so uplifted as to have that more kindly and sympathetic feeling toward every creature, which would stay the impulse to do them harm; and yet in these grand aisles of a temple not made with hands, is being enacted to-day an unspeakable tragedy, involving the cruel suffering and death of unnumbered beautiful and inoffensive animals.

We may concede that the demand for food and clothing, the exigency of passing human conditions, may involve the present necessity of taking animal life, but this fact surely offers no palliation or excuse for a wanton destruction of harmless creatures for the mere pleasure of killing them.

That animal life should have acquired the utmost fear of man, and that our hillsides should have become silent where they were once songful, is a sad and suggestive commentary, and if we will but listen we cannot fail to hear the appeal of common humanity and Christian kindness, that we live and let live, that we respect the right of every creature to life and freedom and happiness, at least so far as never to subject them to unnecessary pain or sacrifice.

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