Proverbs 12:10 A righteous man regards the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. The word "regard" may either apply to the moral or to the intellectual part of our nature. It is the regard of attention, or the regard of sympathy. If the regard of attention could be fastened strongly and singly on the pain of a suffering creature as its object, no other emotion than the regard of sympathy or compassion would in any instance be awakened by it. With the inertness of our reflective faculties, rather than with the incapacity of our senses the present argument has to do. It is on behalf of animals that we plead; those animals that move on the face of the open perspective before us. The sufferings of the lower animals may, when out of sight, be out of mind. But more than this, these sufferings may be in sight and yet out of mind. This is strikingly exemplified in the sport of the field, in the midst of whose varied and animating bustle, that cruelty which all along is present to the senses, may not for one moment have been present to the thoughts. Such suffering touches not the sensibilities of the heart, just because it is never present to the notice of the mind. We are not even sure if, within the whole compass of humanity, fallen as it is, there be such a thing as delight in suffering for its own sake. Certainly much, and perhaps the whole of this world's cruelty, arises not from the enjoyment that is felt in consequence of others' pain, but from the enjoyment that is felt in spite of it. Without imputing to the vivisectionist aught so monstrous as the positive love of suffering, we may even admit for him a hatred of suffering, but that the love of science had overborne it. This view in no way is designed to palliate the atrociousness of cruelty. Man is a direct agent of a wide and continual distress to the lower animals, and the question is, Can any method be devised for its alleviation? The whole inferior creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain, because of man. It signifies not to the substantive amount of the suffering whether this be prompted by the hardness of his heart or only permitted through the heedlessness of his mind. These sufferings are really felt. The beasts of the field are not so many automata without sensation, and just so constructed as to give forth all the natural signs and expressions of it. These poor animals just look and tremble and give forth the very indications of suffering that we do. Theirs is unmixed and unmitigated pain. 1. Upon this question we should hold no doubtful casuistry. We should not deem it the right tactics for this moral warfare to take up the position of the unlawfulness of field sports or public competitions. To obtain the regards of man's heart in behalf of the lower animals, we should strive to draw the regards of his mind towards them. 2. We should avail ourselves of the close alliance that obtains between the regards of his attention and those of his sympathy. For this purpose we should importunately ply him with the objects of suffering, and thus call up its respondent emotion of sympathy. This demands constant and varied appeals from the pulpit, the press, and elsewhere. (T. Chalmers, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.WEB: A righteous man respects the life of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. |
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