SIB WALTER SCOT! AND TTIS DOGS. 



233 



than two hundred years ; has operated only over 

 a certain area of Europe and America ; has been 

 combated with more or less success, till quite the 

 other day, by a powerful school within the same 

 communion ; and can be shown by historical 

 proof to be a mere unhealthy excrescence on 

 Christianity, and no part of its essential and orig. 

 inal constitution. Echoing the partisan watch- 

 word, "I am of Cephas," which St. Paul condemns 

 as narrow and sectarian, it fails to grasp the idea 

 of humanity, and is as obnoxious as the other 

 system to the charge of treating Christianity as a 

 mere agency for saving a few souls rather than as 

 designed for the regeneration of the whole world, 

 and of viewing the next life as dissociated so far 

 from this that the cultivation of divinely-given 

 faculties here can have no value as training for 

 the unknown conditions of future existence : a 

 theorv which will not stand the test of deep spir- 

 itual thought. 



Hence the conclusions to be drawn from a 

 survey of the whole evidence are, that so far as 



Christianity is really in conflict with something 

 called patriotism, that patriotism is not genuine 

 and a virtue, but merely national selfishness and 

 vanity ; and so far as patriotism is in conflict with 

 something called Christianity, that, Christianity is 

 not genuine and divine, but a misleading and sec- 

 tarian gloss ; while true Christianity and true pa- 

 triotism harmonize perfectly, the latter being 

 simply the local expression of the former in its 

 relation to civil life, into which it necessarily in- 

 fuses that intensity of existence, that enforcement 

 of duty as the first requisite of morality, and that 

 quickened interest in the welfare of others, which 

 distinguish Christianity, not merely from the clas- 

 sical paganism which it supplanted, but from all 

 later Pantheistic and Agnostic systems, and most 

 of all from the serene selfishness of modern aes- 

 thetic Hedonism — a cult which may breed pigs 

 for Epicurus's sty, but will never rear citizens to 

 save a nation in time of need ; or guide it Avisely 

 and bravely at any time whatever. — Contempo- 

 rary Review. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT AND HIS DOGS. 



Br W. C. 



OXE of my pleasant recollections is that of 

 seeing Sir Walter Scott out on a stroll 

 with his dogs ; the scene being in the neighbor- 

 hood of Abbotsford, in the summer of 1S24, 

 while as yet the gloom of misfortune had not 

 clouded the mind of the great man. There he 

 was limping gayly along with his pet companions 

 amid the rural scenes which he had toiled to se- 

 cure and loved so dearly. 



Scott's fondness for animals has perhaps never 

 been sufficiently acknowledged. It was with him 

 a kind of second nature, and appears to have 

 been implanted when as a child he was sent on a 

 visit to the house of his grandfather, Robert 

 Scott, at Sandyknowe, in the neighborhood of 

 Dryburgh. Here, amid flocks of sheep and lambs, 

 talked to and fondled by shepherds and ewe-milk- 

 ers, and reveling with collies, he was impressed 

 with a degree of affectionate feeling for animals 

 which lasted through life. At a subsequent visit 

 to Sandyknowe, when his grandfather had passed 

 away, and the farm operations were administered 

 by " Uncle Thomas," he was provided with a 

 Shetland pony to ride upon. The pony was little 



larger than many a Newfoundland dog. It 

 walked freely into the house, and was regularly 

 fed from the boy's hand. He soon learned to 

 ride the little pony well, and often alarmed "Aunt 

 Jenny " by cantering over the rough places in 

 the neighborhood. Such were the beginnings of 

 Scott's intercourse with animals. Growing up, 

 there was something extraordinary in his attach- 

 ment to his dogs, his horses, his ponies, and his 

 cats ; all of which were treated by him, each in 

 its own sphere, as agreeable companions, and 

 which were attached to him in return. There 

 may have been something feudal and poetic in 

 this kindly association with humble adherents, 

 but there was also much of simple good-hearted- 

 ness. Scott added not a little to the happiness 

 of his existence by this genial intercourse with 

 his domestic pets. From Lockhart's " Memoirs 

 of Sir Walter " and other works we have occa- 

 sionally bright glimpses of the great man's fa- 

 miliarity with his four-footed favorites. We can 

 see that Scott did not, as is too often the case, 

 treat them capriciously, as creatures to be made 

 of at one time, and spoken to harshly when not 



