Preface. 3 
Referring then to the undeveloped powers and capacities of the so- 
called brutes, the Bishop could perceive no reason why they should not 
attain their development in an existence beyond the earth-life. It was 
in pursuance of this same train of thought that Rev. J. G. Wood was 
led to show in a work, entitled ‘‘ Man and Beast Here and Hereafter,” 
that the lower animals do possess those mental and moral characteris- 
tics—the attributes of reason, language, memory, moral responsibility, 
unselfishness and love—which we admit in man as belonging to the 
immortal spirit, rather than to the perishable body. Having previously 
cleared away the difficulties which certain passages in the Old Testa- 
ment seemingly interposed, and proved that the Scriptures do not deny 
futurity of life to lower animals, he very naturally concluded that as 
man expects to retain these qualities in the future life there is every 
reason to suppose that they may share his immortality in the Hereafter 
as in the Now they are partakers of his mortal nature. 
Few minds, unswayed by thoughts materialistic, can study the 
living works of God, whether vegetal or animal, and fail to be con- 
vinced that they, as living exponents of Divine conceptions, are as 
needful in the world of spirit as in the world of matter. While many 
are disposed to believe that man will share the future life with beast, 
bird, insect and such like, yet but few, if any, can be found who believe 
that tree and shrub and flower will be there to continue the life begun 
on earth and reach out to higher and fuller development. In announc- 
ing this belief, the author but expresses a conviction as deep as any 
that could occupy a human mind. The possession of soul and spirit 
can be predicated no less of plants than of man and the lower animals. 
They have all one breath or life and one spirit, and as such are living 
souls, living, breathing frames or bodies of life. From being living, 
breathing frames, and endowed with the same life and spirit as man 
“ 
and the lower animals, they have all one destiny, for ‘‘ all go unto one 
place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again."’ But of the new 
life which Christ came down to earth to proffer to man that he might 
inherit the kingdom of God. While to man it was only offered, and 
had for its purpose the uplifting and improvement of his earth-life by 
the promise of something higher and better to those who are accounted 
worthy, yet there can be no doubt that it was equally intended through 
