"ORDINATION OF PROVIDENCE. 251 



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with those it fears, to preserve its offspring from an 

 enemy more merciless and predaceous still. The 

 love of offspring, one of the strongest impressions 

 given to created beings, and inseparable from their 

 nature, is ordained by the Almighty as the means 

 of preservation under helplessness and want. De- 

 pendant, totally dependant, as is the creature for 

 every thing that can contribute to existence and 

 support, upon the great Creator of all things, so 

 are new-born feebleness and blindness dependant 

 upon the parent that produced them ; and to the 

 latter is given intensity of love, to overbalance the 

 privations and sufferings required from it. This 

 love, that changes the nature of the timid and 

 gentle to boldness and fury, exposes the parent 

 to injury and death, from which its wiles and cau- 

 tions do not always secure it ; and in man the 

 avarice of possession will at times subdue his mer- 

 ciful and better feelings. Beautifully imbued with 

 celestial justice and humanity as all the ordinations 

 which the Israelites received in the wilderness were, 

 there is nothing more impressive, nothing more 

 accordant with the divinity of our nature, than the 

 particular injunctions which were given in respect 

 to showing mercy to the maternal creature cherish- 

 ing its young, when, by reason of its parental 

 regard, it might be placed in danger. The eggs, 

 the offspring, were allowed to be taken; but " thou 

 shalt in anywise let the dam go ;" " thou shalt not, 

 in one day, kill both an ewe and her young." The 

 ardent affection, the tenderness, with which I have 



