THE

AUTHOR'S DEDICATION,

To Her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandrina Victoria.

The distinguished honor which your Royal Highness has so graciously been pleased to confer on the sacred cause of humanity, in condescending to patronize my endeavours to promote its extension, by inciting a universal compliance with the merciful injunctions of the all-wise Creator, to exterminate the unutterable cruelties inflicted on the animal tribes-to stamp a benign influence on the moral character of the rising generation to correct their destructive dispositions— reform their vicious passions, and to graft in their hearts a love of those attributes of Jehovah, which the "brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person," so affectionately exhorted us to imitate, demands an expression of gratitude infinitely beyond what I am able to present.

Cruelty, in whatever form it may be exhibited, is abhorrent in the sight of that great and merciful Being

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whose infinite goodness exceeds all finite expression. Directly opposed to his divine will, it insults the honor of his majesty-perverts the design of his providence— destroys the order of his government-disturbs the harmony of nature, and robs creation of its happiness. Nor does its direful effects terminate with the animal race. Enthroned in the human heart, it reduces it to the lowest state of degradation, and prompts to crimes that outrage every tender feeling of the Christian mind. Hence the delicate female, devoid of humanity, dissevers the most endearing ties of nature, and deprives her tender offspring of life. Hence the bad passions of man are nourished into monstrous luxuriance; his heart becomes hardened, and his arm nerved to execute, without shrinking, the most sanguinary deeds of cruelty; and desperate in its service, he plunges his knife into the bosom of her whom he ought to defend ! deprives a parent of existence !-gluts himself with the blood of his fellow creatures!—becomes a self-murderer-and rushing (uncalled for) into the presence of his Maker, braves the terrors of an angry and sinavenging God! and sinks into the awful abyss of everlasting perdition! It therefore becomes an object of national importance to eradicate this infernal principle from the bosoms of youth, and counteract its baneful influence on the infant mind; and in effecting this, the condescending goodness of your Royal Highness rises to the glory of God, and the praise of his name. Nor will the infinity of blessing which cannot fail to flow

from it be fully developed, till the "voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God" proclaims the awful period, when the archives of heaven shall be unfolded, and an irrevocable sentence, separating to an endless duration the merciful from the cruel, be passed upon the countless myriads of an assembled world.

That this pre-eminent and illustrious example of your Royal Highness may effectually excite a national love and practice of humanity, and that God will abundantly bestow upon you his choicest blessing-that your Royal Highness, so dear to the hearts of the British nation, may be the exalted means in the hands of God, in establishing the kingdom of our merciful Redeemer, and finally see his face," and "sit with him in his throne," is the earnest prayer of

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Your Royal Highness'

Most obliged,

Obedient, humble Servant,

ABRAHAM SMITH.

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PREFACE.

The sacred Penman has informed us, Psalm lxxiv. 20, "The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty." But it is an awful and most lamentable fact, that even in Britain, which for so many ages has been distinguished as a land of religious light, cruelty to the brute creation exists in a greater degree, perhaps, than in any other part of the habitable globe. Whence ariseth this strong propensity in the human mind (originally created in the image of God, who delighteth in mercy) to take pleasure in acts of cruelty? to inflict pain upon brute animals? wantonly to torture and destroy the works of God? Whence is it, that man has so horribly departed from the purity and perfection of his first creation, so that his highest gratification consists in the greatest amount of suffering and misery he can possibly inflict upon a poor, harmless, innocent, unoffending, and speechless brute animal? Let us endeavour to trace it to its source, discover its origin, its author, and the place of its birth. GoD, having created man perfectly holy and perfectly happy, he placed him in the garden of Eden, and surrounded him with the animal creation in the same state of perfect enjoyment. In this superlative state of happiness, free from every painful sensation, (for there was no pain while there was no sin) and likewise exempt from death, both man and beast would without doubt

have eternally remained, had not the Spirit of
Evil infected the purity of angels, and moved
them to rebel against GoD. Whence this evil
sprang, or how it could be received and
cherished in the mind of an archangel, is a
mystery infinitely too deep for human intellect
to fathom. It is one of the secrets which belong
to God, and therefore it does not become us to
enquire; but the certainty of the fact, and the
result of the awful conflict, we learn from the
Book of GOD, Rev. xii. 7.
"There was war in
heaven; Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon, and the dragon fought and his
angels, and prevailed not; neither was there
place found any more in heaven. And the
great dragon was cast out, that old serpent
called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth
the whole world, he was cast out into the earth,
and his angels were cast out with him.”

Down from the verge of heav'n, Eternal wrath
Burn'd after them, to the bottomless pit;

-hell at last

Yawning receiv'd them whole, and on them clos'd.
Hell, their fit habitation, fraught with fire
Unquenchable.-MILTON.

The introduction of sin, into the paradise of GOD, which tainted even angelic natures, and the apostacy of the sons of heaven, were events big with important consequences to the future comfort and happiness of the new creation. Satan

"Trusted to have equall'd the Most High,"

but the omnipotent, the eternal Jehovah, his almighty conqueror, expelled him and his angels from the realms of everlasting happiness and glory, and banished them to the dark