MY DEAR BOYS AND GIRLS: I want to show you to-day how in some respect we are like the animals, and how in other respects we are very unlike them. To illustrate what I desire to say I have brought this small turtle shell. From the way that some boys treat flies and bugs, and birds, cats and dogs and all kinds of animals you would suppose that many boys and some girls think that animals have no feeling. Boys who have never suffered any bodily pain themselves, oftentimes act as though they thought that animals could not suffer pain, but in this they are greatly mistaken. Animals can and do suffer pain, the same as people suffer pain, and in order to defend them against their enemies God has provided these creatures of His hand with some means of protecting themselves. The birds can fly away. Some animals, like foxes, have holes in the ground where they can hide. Others, like the squirrel, hide in the hollow trees. Bees can sting. Some cattle have horns for defence, and some others, which are not as capable of defending themselves against the stronger animals, God has marvellously provided with two stomachs. The cow goes out in the field and crops off the grass rapidly and can then go to a place of shelter and lie down, and there, protected from the attack of wild beasts, chew what she has gathered. This is known in the country as chewing the cud. The same is true with sheep; they also bite off the grass and swallow it quickly. It passes into a first stomach and then they can lie down in some quiet place and chew the cud; or in other words chew that which they have hastily bitten off in the fields. [Illustration: The Turtle.] Now the turtle cannot escape from his enemies because he cannot run very rapidly, and so God has covered him with a coat of mail and given him a helmet, a hard, bony covering for the head and this large bony covering for his body, which we can very properly call his house. When danger approaches, the turtle quickly draws his head and his feet into this large shell, and is quite safe from the attack of his enemies. Whatever animal might desire to eat the turtle is prevented on account of this hard outer shell. On this lower part you will notice how the turtle can draw the front portion up more closely, and thus the more securely shut himself within his house. So you see how God has provided all the animals with a means of protection and defense, first, to protect their lives, and secondly, to save them from pain and suffering.