General Treatment of Cats 



eyes and ears, the poor creature having long ago 

 learned the futility of resistance. On my venturing 

 to protest, the mother said : — 



" Oh, she loves her Tommy so, and then he's used 

 to it : he doesn't mind." 



And yet, this woman read her Bible daily, and 

 talked earnestly about " the Christian life." It did 

 not occur to her that in permitting her child to be 

 cruel to one of God's creatures she was in any way 

 trespassing against one of His laws. Nor did she 

 realize that in allowing her child to torment the help- 

 less creatures under her care and authority, she was 

 deliberately educating that child in cruelty and selfish- 

 ness, and developing a stony-hearted indifference to 

 suffering. 



Ah ! there is a principle underlying this point much 

 deeper than appears on the surface. Suppose the 

 hard-hearted landlord, the selfish invalid, the man 

 who delights in torturing others, not to mention him 

 who can look with indifference on the sufferings of 

 others, — suppose the murderer, even, — had been 

 blessed with mothers who had carefully educated 

 their childish consciences into love and pity for all 

 God's creatures, high and low, think you the world 

 would not have been better for it to-day } No mother 

 who cares an atom for the moral and spiritual welfare 

 of her child can afford to neglect this teaching of 

 kindness to the lower animals. 



A child with a kitten is one of the prettiest sights 

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