SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT MY DOG. 237 



of life should be without at least a lingering hope in 

 its perpetuation, which should grow into a practical 

 certainty the more he sees and knows of all that is in- 

 cluded in our word Nature. 



Do you mean to tell me that, because it says that 

 we are of more value than sheep and sparrows, Chris- 

 tianity therefore says that I shall never see my dog 

 again, and that all the unspeakable beauty and tender- 

 ness and infinity and mystery of Nature are a mere 

 phantasm and a delusion? Well, I say that the New 

 Testament gives us no such message, but that it comes 

 with a great hope to all lovers of God's beautiful 

 creation. The untold suffering of all earthly organ- 

 isms is not to be without compensation, but there shall 

 be a new heaven and a new earth! I, for one, rejoice 

 that the Indian buries with him his bows and arrows, 

 and lies down to dream of the Happy Hunting 

 Grounds, and 



" Thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 



His faithful dog shall bear him company." 



No, my dog's loss is no new thing under the sun. 

 There has simply come to him and me what is the 

 common experience of all the world — grief. It has 

 occasioned no great surprise, for it is the general lot 

 of man, nor has it caused any revolution in Nature 

 as if at the unlooked-for presence of some terrible and 

 heartless destroyer. Nature remains the same, and 

 when I go to the woods the beautiful green trees are 

 as inspiring as ever, the thrushes sing as exquisitely, 

 and the gray squirrels stir the old hunter in me just as 

 powerfully. But I miss something in my walks now. 

 No more does a little black nose sniff among the leaves 



