14 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 



the human swarms which in the obscurity of time 

 have successively advanced from various points, spread- 

 ing as they have proceeded, sometimes mingling with 

 other nations, sometimes driving the older occupants of 

 the land before them ; could we develop the history of 

 man, the relationship of race to race, and point out 

 their original seats and starting places, then might we 

 be able to throw a clearer light on the history of our 

 domestic animals ; but I will now maintain unhesi- 

 tatingly, that it was not man nor his domestication, 

 nor any inherent tendency in the creatures themselves, 

 that gave feathered crests to the Poland fowl, dwarfed 

 the Bantam, expanded the Dorking, enlarged the Malay 

 and Cochin-China fowl, inspired courage to the game- 

 cock, nor made the hen, next to woman, the most 

 exemplary of mothers ; unless we believe it was man 

 who arranged the strata in the ribs of the earth, and 

 prescribed to the sea its everchanging boundaries. 

 Man is powerful to have dominion ; God alone is potent 

 to create — His Providence to overrule. Not by man, 

 nor chance, nor by generative force of an idol called 

 Nature, have the things which we see, and the diver- 

 sities in our living fellow creatures, been brought about. 

 No ; most thankfully, no ! Then would matters have 

 been far less harmoniously, far less benignantly 

 arranged. It is our greatest consolation to feel assured 

 that all the physical changes which this earth has 

 undergone, and every renovation of its inhabitants, 

 has been from the beginning foreordained by that All- 

 wise and All-powerful Being, in whose presence the 

 best and greatest of us would be crushed into nothing- 

 - ness, did we not, to our comfort, believe that He is not 

 the Creator mecely, but the Father and Protector of 

 every animated creature. " These wait all upon Thee, 

 that Thou mayest give them meat in due season. "When 

 Thou givest it them, they gather it, and when Thou 

 openest thy hand, they are filled with good. "When 

 Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled. When Thou 



