224 RELIGIOUS FEELING 



equally appropriately designated or assigned to the religion 

 of love. Shakespeare tells us that 



Love is not love 



Which alters when it alteration finds, 

 Or bends with the remover to remove ; 



but it is human love, which looks for return, which changes 

 with changes in its object, which is too commonly re- 

 sentful and unforgiving, which is in reality too frequently 

 a mere self-love. The love of the dog for man is, occa- 

 sionally at least, something higher, more sublime and 

 divine a love that does not change as and because its idol 

 changes, a love that can and does forgive all things, that 

 submits unmurmuringly to all offences, a love that ' loves 

 on, forgetting and denying self that it may still serve ' the 

 beloved a kind of love, in short, not usually ascribed to or 

 possessed by man. No doubt such a love may be described 

 as irrational, unreasoning, non-discriminating, in so far as 

 it is bestowed quite as much, on the undeserving as on the 

 deserving, on objects sometimes utterly unworthy of it ; and 

 from man's point of view it is so regarded. The dog would 

 appear occasionally to cling all the more closely to the being 

 who spurns it, to lavish the wealth of its affection on the 

 master who bestows upon it nothing but cruelty. 



The love of the dog to its master has frequently been 

 described as transcending the love of man either for his fellow- 

 man or towards God. It is quite the case that the love of 

 certain dogs towards certain masters, in its depth and purity, 

 its sincerity and disinterestedness, is infinitely superior to 

 the love of countless thousands of men either towards their 

 fellow-men or their Maker. Shortly before he died Sir 

 Edwin Landseer, embracing his favourite terrier Tiney, 

 exclaimed, ^ Nobody can love me half as much as thou 

 dost ; ' and many an author such as Byron and Scott, many 

 a man and woman who has experienced the difference be- 

 tween human and canine affection, has cordially echoed Sir 

 Edwin's sentiment or opinion. Cowper makes the poet 

 say 



The noblest minds their virtue prove 

 Hy pity, sympathy, and love: 

 These, these are feelings truly fine, 

 And prove their owner half divine. 



