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.