DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS 29 
emigrant trains across the boundless prairies, through the 
bottomless ‘‘sloughs”’ and over the Great Divide. ' Westward 
the course of empire takes its way” would never have had its 
full meaning for us, except for the thousands of cattle that 
dropped by the wayside and left their bones bleaching on the 
prairies beside those of the buffalo relative, as tribute to the 
march of civilization westward. 
The development of South Africa is yet almost unwritten 
history.2, Here no animal but the ox can endure the endless 
toil of the treeless plain, and he has been the constant attendant 
of the Boer from the Great Trek till the present, as he is 
likely to be for a considerable time to come. 
Nothing is more common than for people that have become 
prosperous to forget, even perhaps to despise, the very means 
by which their prosperity came about, — to overlook the means 
in the enjoyment of results. These animals literally give their 
lives to our service, with no returns but feed and care, a fact 
which raises the question of our natural obligation in exacting — 
this service. We are practicing upon them the “law of the 
wild” even yet. Doubtless the end justifies the means, and 
without a doubt it is right to use our animals to our own ad- 
vantage, but every law, both human and divine, forbids that 
we abuse them. 
In a large measure life in any form is a sacred thing. A 
man’s horse or cow belongs to him only in the restricted sense 
that he is entitled to the service, and if necessary the life, only 
when he provides generously for the needs of the animal and 
surrounds it by as much comfort as possible. At best our ani- 
mals are bits of God’s creation which we are entitled to appro- 
priate and use only under terms which we can justify before 
Him who is the judge of all. 
1 Even the first material for the Union Pacific was hauled by oxen, so that 
the ox gave his labor as the buffalo gave his flesh, and both gave their lives to 
this first connection between the East and the West. 
2 See James Bryce’s “Impressions of South Africa,” an excellent book 
dealing with primitive conditions. 
