Kingless Folk, and other Addresses on Bible Animals. Adams John
Polonius is followed to the very letter: —
"The friends thou hast and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel."
He does grapple them. He may give great attention to the friendships of life, but he does not forget to embrace his enemies.
With respect to the bear mentioned in the Bible, we may note three points.
This is not the common brown bear of Europe, nor the white polar bear of the Arctic regions; but the yellowish-brown Syrian bear, which may still be found in its native haunts around the wooded fastnesses of Hermon and Lebanon. It is shorter in limb and has smaller claws than its European cousin; but its most striking peculiarity is its change of colour. Like many other animals, the Syrian bear changes its colour as it grows older. "When a cub it is of a darkish brown, which becomes a light brown as it approaches maturity. But when it has attained its full growth it becomes cream-coloured, and each succeeding year seems to lighten its coat, so that a very old bear is nearly as white as its relative of the Arctic regions" (J. G. Wood). Alas! the change which is produced by age is not confined to Ursus Syriacus. The boy, no less than the bear, will yet experience that solemn transformation. The blackest locks will yet whiten with the frosts of age, for lustre, youth, and virility will all alike perish. But this change is only the outward symbol of what ought to be an inward, spiritual fact. If the locks whiten, so ought the conscience, the soul, the heart. As youth passes into manhood and manhood into age, the man within should "aye be gettin' whiter"; until when the locks have grown grey in the service of righteousness, the children may "rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man" (Lev. xix. 32).
"Yes, childhood, mark the hoary head and rise —
Stand on thy feet and give the honour due;
That crown of glory points you to the skies,
Like snow-capped mountains in the azure blue."
The bear, to begin with, is a strict vegetarian. While he can find abundance of vegetables and fruit he is little disposed to go far in varying his means of subsistence. His teeth are formed for the purpose. Unlike those of the lion or tiger, which have a scissor-blade appearance, and are incapable of any but an up-and-down motion, the teeth of the bear are true grinders or molars, and the hinge of the lower jaw is so constructed that it can be worked from side to side, so that the bear can actually chew its food.
It is said to be very fond of strawberries – like some little boys we know – and like the blackbird it can walk daintily along the rows and pick out the ripest. But if there be one thing more than any other that throws the bear into an ecstasy of excitement it is the prospect of a feast of honey. A nest of ants is nothing in comparison. The long nose is thrust into the delicious comb, though it be stung and stung again by the infuriated inhabitants.
It is not till other food fails that the bear becomes carnivorous. But then, driven by hunger, it will even descend into the lower pastures and seize upon the goats and the sheep. This habit is referred to by the youthful David in 1 Samuel xvii. 33. King Saul was trying to dissuade him from matching himself against the gigantic Philistine; but David answered: "Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his hand… Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God." And all the young people know the result. One smooth stone from the brook was placed in David's sling, and yon huge mass of human arrogance was hurled to the ground. They who fight for Jehovah need never fear. A stone cast in His name becomes a thunderbolt.
"Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly" (Prov. xvii. 12).
The whelps themselves are not ferocious. Indeed, they are remarkably stupid. They are as confident as they are weak, and do not even try to escape when the hunters come upon them. The young water-fowl by the river-side disappear in an instant if you happen to come upon them; but the cubs of the bear, with a stupid simplicity, just allow themselves to be caught and massacred. They remind one of the lamb mentioned by the poet: —
"Pleased to the last they crop the flowery food,
And lick the hand just raised to shed their blood."
But there is something far worse than this simplicity. There is brazen-faced irreverence and impudence. When Elisha, the man of God, was going up to Bethel, a crowd of young vagabonds came out of the village and mocked the old man, and said: "Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And two she-bears came rushing out of the wood, and tare forty and two of them" (2 Kings ii. 24). These were not little children, but "young lads" (R.V. margin), who had begun to herd at street corners, and to scoff and gibe at those who passed by. And, in our own day, society would be none the worse of a few she-bears to act as a kind of police at all such corners. They might help to rid the streets of a good deal of juvenile profanity. But alas! because this Old Testament punishment does not fall on these young miscreants, the evil, instead of becoming less, is in great danger of being largely increased. And yet, if boys only knew it, a far worse calamity has already fallen. They may not have been attacked by bears, but they themselves have become bears – not growing fairer, nobler, whiter, as they grow in years; but fouler, darker, meaner, with the awful increase of sin – selling themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord. Ah! let every true lad beware as to the company he keeps. "Evil company doth corrupt good manners." "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" and "the way of the ungodly shall perish."
The Dove
"And He said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence." – John ii. 16.
It is reported of St Francis of Assisi, in the Middle Ages, that he would sometimes go out and preach to the beasts and birds. He treated them so kindly, both in the house and field, that they would draw near without any sign of fear, and allow him to stroke and feed them with his hand. In like manner, we may think of Jesus pitying the poor, dumb beasts of burden, when He saw them, as we sometimes see them, unmercifully treated by heartless drivers; or grieving at other times at the frantic efforts of little birds beating against the bars of their cage – those tiny songsters of the field and wood, which had been taken by the snare of the fowler, and bereft of their liberty.
The incident before us is a case in point. Here, at the beginning of His ministry, He made a whip of small cords and drove the traffickers out of His Father's temple. Men, money-tables, oxen, were all swept before His holy indignation. But there, in mid-air, the upraised whip was arrested. Jesus could not strike the meek and gentle doves. There they sat in their wicker baskets, with large eyes that were full of tender pleading, and the raised whip was not allowed to fall. He could only say to their keepers, "Carry these things hence," for to the dumb, lower animals, He was "moved with compassion."
It is a great and fitting lesson for the young. They who are kind to their pets are not far from His Kingdom. "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast."
We ought to be like the dove in three ways.
"Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Matt. x. 16). What the lamb is among animals, the dove is among birds. It is the divine emblem of purity and innocence – the bearer of the olive branch of peace. The whole character of the dove is in keeping with this estimate. Its voice, no less than its disposition, is the embodiment of sweetness. It has "a tender mournful cadence which, heard in solitude and sadness, cannot fail to be heard with sympathy, as if it were the expression of real sorrow" (Gosse). It recalls the language of Isaiah, "We mourn sore like doves"; or those beautiful words of Tennyson —
"Every sound is sweet;
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees."
As symbolical of purity and peace, it became a fit emblem for the Holy Spirit. "Lo, the heavens were opened,