236 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD 



learned more from you and your glossy coat of hair 

 than from many men, more of what life is and should 

 be; and, if there is to be any heaven for righteousness 

 of disposition, or any reward hereafter for faith and 

 forgiveness and loyalty to a master, then I certainly 

 hope to see you again somewhere, surely, in dog- 

 Heaven, wherever that may be ! 



I believe in the immortality of animals, not only 

 because they deserve immortality and live the same life 

 that we do, and because there is nothing whatever in 

 the Bible against it, but its whole spirit, in all that it 

 has to say of animals, is decidedly for it, but also be- 

 cause, if these beautiful forms of life that have been 

 our friends and neighbors on earth live not again, 

 existence itself is an anomaly. Their loss, if they perish 

 forever at death, is an irreparable, a perpetual loss, 

 and their love and friendship are all the more terrible 

 in their pathetic cruelty of fate and chance. Why 

 should the loss of such friends be forever? Is it in 

 vain that beauty has been created in such forms? Can 

 it be that the eyes of a dog who loves us now shall look 

 no more into ours, but be turned forever into dust? 

 If so, then is grief absolutely inexplicable, and life 

 utterly blank and hopeless for all living creatures. For 

 the lower animals are supported by the same life- 

 principle that we have, and share the same earth that 

 we enjoy, and, so far as they go, their mental processes 

 seem to be precisely like ours. Unless it be so that all 

 the creation shall finally be resolved into annihilation 

 and no living creature live after death, I can never give 

 up my hope in the immortality of our dumb animal 

 friends. But that is a word of despair, and no lover 



