366 Life and Immortality. 



remarkable for their ability to take care of themselves. 

 Theirs is a nature which is based upon self. They are an 

 avaricious species, and little they reck for their neighbors. 

 As the eagle is known to treat the osprey, and the skua-gull 

 its weaker brethren, so the sparrow has been known to act 

 towards its neighbors. But exceptions exist to every rule, 

 and we are pleased to record an honorable one in the case of 

 this most detested species. Close by a maple-tree, which a 

 pair of sparrows had appropriated and made the support for 

 their home, dwelt a sturdy robin with his mate. Their 

 home, a mud-lined domicile, was placed in the crotch of a 

 small tree. Three children appeared in process of time to 

 bless the happy couple. Everything went along smoothly 

 and pleasantly with the robins, the sparrows being too much 

 engrossed with their own affairs to think of giving them any 

 trouble. But a tragedy soon happened which, sad to relate, 

 foreboded evil and consequent death to the nest- full of young 

 robins. Father and mother had, while searching for food for 

 the little ones, been cruelly killed by a conscienceless sports- 

 man. But the fledglings, which seemed doomed to die the 

 death of starvation, were spared by some good genius who 

 put it into the heart of the sparrows to pass that way, and 

 thus was their sad and pitiable condition brought to the light 

 of day. Their heart-rending appeals for food, combined with 

 their orphaned situation, struck a sympathetic chord in the 

 breast of the sparrows, and day after day these birds, whose 

 chief concern naturally seems for self, might be seen acting 

 the part of the good Samaritan towards these unfortunate of 

 God's children. 



But let us now pass to that form of generosity which has 

 been called Magnanimity. Few qualities in human nature 

 are more noble than the capability of foregoing revenge when 

 the offender is powerless to resist. This unwillingness to 

 resent an injury, even though the power to do so is present 

 in the individual, is what is implied by magnanimity. When 

 we find those beings whom we designate brutes rising to a 



