I will not weary or distress you further, gentle reader, with harrowing details of the pain that is endured alike by man and beast. It is all so well known. I shall only ask you to listen to a little story from the leaves of a naturalist's note-book, and to put to yourself a few questions. "A sparrow-hawk suddenly dashed under the branches of a hedgerow oak, and seized a linnet. But the bird of prey had not calculated upon the missel-thrush whose nest was in the oak, and who made it his business to have no suspicious strangers loitering in the neighbourhood. With an angry 'jarr,' and a swoop that would have done credit to the hawk himself, the plucky missel-thrush was upon the marauder almost at the same instant that the linnet was seized; a feather--a hawk's feather--floated in the air, and the astonished bird of prey flung himself sideways, and spread his talons to meet the next assault. This action released the linnet, who sped away into the next parish like a bullet, while the missel-thrush, perched in the oak tree again, noisily threatened to repeat the attack. So the sparrow-hawk departed in the opposite direction to the linnet, and in two minutes all birddom was twittering and squabbling as before on the site of what was so very nearly a sudden tragedy." Is not your sympathy, humane reader, all with the linnet and its gallant rescuer, although the hawk was but carrying out the behests of its Maker! Does it not give us a thrill of pleasure when the lion is baulked of his prey--when the pet lamb is rescued from the butcher? Are we, then, more merciful than God? Was it Jesus or was it the gentle Gautama that marked "How lizard fed on ant, and snake on him, And kite on both; and how the fish-hawk robbed The fish-tiger of that which it had seized; The shrike chasing the bulbul, which did hunt The jewelled butterflies; till everywhere Each slew a slayer, and in turn was slain, Life living upon death. So the fair show, Veiled one vast, savage, grim conspiracy Of mutual murder, from the worm to man, Who himself kills his fellow"? [150] § 3. The Bible Account of Creation Irreconcilable with Science in Each and Every Respect.