If we confine our thought to the
dwellers on our street or in our town, it may not seem utterly hopeless
to try to remedy their distress; to improve the situation of the
laborers in one's own shop or factory lies within the limits of
practicability. But the Christian doctrine of the universal brotherhood
of man is becoming a working principle at last; and millions of dollars
and thousands of our ablest young men and women are crossing the
oceans to uplift and civilize the more backward nations, in deference
to the admonition that we are our brothers' keepers. At home this
recognition of the basic human relationship of living together on this
little sphere, that is plunging with us all through the great deeps of
space, should help to obliterate class lines and snobbishness and
bring about a real democracy of fellowship.
(5) Finally, we have a duty to those dumb brothers of ours, the animal
species that share with us the earth. For they, too, feel pain and
pleasure, and are much at our mercy. We must learn "Never to blend
our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."
All needless hurting of sentient creatures is cruelty, whether of the
boy who tortures frogs and flies, or of the grown man who takes his
pleasure in hunting to death a frightened deer. Beasts of prey must,
indeed, be ruthlessly put to death, just as we execute murderers; among
them are to be counted flies, mosquitoes, rats, and the other pests
so deadly to the human race and to other animals.
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