Frederic Rowland Marvin

“ Watch the students at a vivisection. It is the blood and suffering, not the science, that rivets their breathless attention. If hospital service makes young students less tender of suffering, vivisection deadens their humanity, and begets indifference to it." To the testimony of Dr. Bigelow may be added the words of a distinguished American jurist: " The man who in the pursuit of knowledge finds the agony of a dying rabbit of no consequence, will soon discover in old or worthless men, helpless women and little children only material to be sacrificed upon the all-consuming altar of Science." ”

“ If a woman may tend as a nurse, why may she not practice as a physician? If a woman has a calling to medicine, divinity, law, literature, art, mechanics, instruction or trade, what law of God prohibits? But is it wise [Pg 21] to open our colleges and schools of science to women? Why not? Are they not capable of receiving a liberal education? The part woman has played in ancient and modern history, in the arts and sciences, as well as in political life, constitutes not only an answer to the question, but a positive demand for admission to every department of knowledge and industry. ”

“ The literary pilgrim who may chance to visit the spot will follow a narrow muddy path among the grave mounds, till he reaches a gloomy dingy corner, with a group of blue-black head-stones of funereal slate. Everything round the place is decayed and blighted; no green grass is there; all is dull, dark and depressing. The poet's corner is ill-drained; and there is a tiny moat of water round the base of the stone curb, in which is fixed the iron railing that surrounds the grave. Yet here is a remarkable group of memorial tombs. Near to the poet lie all the beloved members of his household. ”

“ Sir William Ferguson, a celebrated surgeon, expressed himself thus: "In surgery I am not aware of any of these experiments on the lower animals having led to the mitigation of pain or to improvement as regards surgical details." The ordinary vivisection is not only an inexcusable cruelty to the animal, but an incalculable injury to the young men who see it. It teaches them to behold without compassion the most aggravated misery and acute anguish. It hardens the heart and blunts the sensibilities. ”

“ Passion dies, novelty disappears, youth fades, and unless love be founded upon an intelligent and mutual esteem, shall it not also crumble? It has been said, "one cannot be at once lover and friend," but you may be sure one [Pg 35] will not long remain the former who is not as well the latter. We need to cultivate friendship. Passion will come and go like the shadows of clouds over the smooth surface of a lake, and no love is abiding without friendship. He was right who exclaimed, "They who are joined by love without friendship, walk on gunpowder with lighted torches in their hands!" ”

“ The beasts of the field, the birds of the air and fishes in the water, have the same right to life that we have. And I think it not absurd to assume that Divine Providence cradled the Christ in a manger, and surrounded him with dumb cattle, to teach us respect for the animal world. Certain it is that whenever the Christ is born again in the manger of the human heart, the fragrant flowers of mercy and kindness spring up on every side, and I would not give much for the religion of a man who has no sacred regard for brute life. ”

“ The love of God makes every other love immortal. What love through Him we give to others is forever. Only as we consecrate our lives to the Divine Love can we hope to become heavenly-minded; and they only consecrate themselves to the Divine Love who, in imitation of our Saviour, give heart and hand to the service of mankind. There is a fable that four young ladies, disputing as to the beauty of their hands, called upon an aged woman who had solicited alms, for a settlement of the dispute. ”

“ William Hotman, who lay not far distant, wounded by three stabs of a bayonet in his body, beheld it, and said to one of his wounded friends, who was still alive, 'We will endeavor to crawl to this line; we will completely wet the powder with our blood; thus will we, with the life that remains in us, save the fort and the magazine, and perhaps a few of our comrades who are only wounded!' He alone had strength to accomplish this noble design. ”

“ Neither man nor woman shall usurp authority, but both, in mutual helpfulness, shall yield willing obedience to the perfect law of God. A consecrated womanhood is a womanhood of surrender, not to social prejudices and superstitions, nor yet to political disability, but to Heaven. It is a surrender without defeat and a victory without conquest. A woman may dance a ballet or sing in an opera, but the moment she enters the pulpit to preach a sermon, steps upon a platform to deliver a lecture, or goes to the polls to vote, society rises in indignation and disgust. ”

“ Tacitus said, "At my funeral let no tokens of sorrow be seen, no pompous mockery of woe. Crown me with chaplets, strew flowers on my grave, and let my friends erect no vain memorial to tell where my remains are lodged."
Ludovious Cortesius, a rich lawyer at Padua, commanded by his last will, that no man should lament; but, as at a wedding, music and minstrels to be a delight to the people, should be provided ”

“ To those who have long lamented the prevailing tendency in Christian churches to deny to women the honors and responsibilities of sacred offices and duties, such a sermon as "Consecrated Womanhood," written by an American clergyman is like a breadth of fresh air in Neapolitan church-buildings that have never known the beauty of sunlight, and the atmospheres of which have grown heavy through the centuries with the oppressive weight of suffocating incense. ”

“ Many horses are rendered permanently vicious and unnaturally timid by the cruelty which too often attends the process of " breaking." Treat a horse kindly and it will be gentle and obedient unless badly frightened. There is no reason why as warm a friendship should not exist between horse and owner as between dog and master. There is much in the study of the animal world to revive romance, kindle enthusiasm and cultivate the noble virtues of kindness and humanity. ”

“ Without any expectation of a future life, uttering no prayer, betraying no fear, he approached the dark valley with the strength and peace of a well-ordered will resigned to Heaven, beyond a doubt treasuring in his heart the assurance of having served his fellow-men in the highest spirit he knew, and with the purest light he had. ”

“ The effect of the barbarous treatment of inferior creatures on the minds of those who practice it is more deplorable than its effects upon the animals themselves. The man who kicks dumb brutes kicks brutality into his own heart. He who can see the wistful, imploring eyes of half-starved creatures without making earnest effort to relieve them, and feel no twinge of conscience, is on the road to lose his manhood, if he has not already lost it. ”

“ Learn the lesson of consecrated womanhood. In olden times, when the children of Israel prepared the Tabernacle in the wilderness, "all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. And all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats' hair." The wise-hearted women of to-day are the daughters of modern Israel who from the love of God serve faithfully the great family of mankind. ”

“ What feelings of revenge and sorrow must have stirred their hearts as they raised their mother's soulless frame tenderly in their arms, and carried it along through woods and valleys, over highways and fields to the homestead, where, on the following night, the three pronounced the only burial service over the remains, as they lowered the body into a newly-made grave in their own consecrated grounds, which down through the generations has been reverently guarded. ”

“ Not fine manners in the ball-room, but a genuine and gracious dignity seasoned with womanly kindness, creates the true lady. Few think of the Bible as a book of social and domestic [Pg 16] etiquette, and yet such it is. Let a man follow its precepts, and he shall become not only a good man, but a gentleman; and whatever woman will conform to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount shall find her life steadily developing into all that makes a beautiful character and fine address.
And there is the other Deborah, a prophetess and judge in Israel—the woman divinely illuminated. ”

“ There is nothing in the Bible, when rightly understood, to discountenance the belief cherished by our own Agassiz, and taught by Leibnitz and the poet Coleridge the belief that both man and beast enter upon a future life when the joys and sorrows of this are ended. And there is much in the unequal allotments of the life that now is, to render the immortality of the animal world highly probable. ”

“ Is this all that I feared? 187 It came with a lass, and it will go with a lass, 152 It grows dark, boys. You may go, 1 It is folly; they had better leave it alone, 273 It is a great consolation for a dying poet, 38 It is a great consolation to me, in my last hour, 106 It is a great mercy to me, 298 It is a great satisfaction to me to know, 199 330 It is all one, Phillips and Clarke will come for my sake, 221 It is all the same in the end, 214 It is beautiful, 45 It is delightful to see those whom I love still able to swallow, 73 It is done! ”

“ Dugald Stewart goes so far as to call him an Atheist: "In no part of Spinoza's works has he avowed himself an Atheist; but it will not be disputed by those who comprehend the drift of his reasonings, that, in point of practical tendency, Atheism and Spinozism are one and the same." During his life he awakened in the minds of some of the ablest men of letters and religion a bitter hatred it is now difficult to understand. It is but fifty years ago that Karel Luinman, at that time minister of the Reformed church at Middleburg, said: "Spit on that grave—there lies Spinoza." ”

“ Miriam, Huldah, Deborah and Anna were not of Lord Lytton's opinion. They joined in one temperament silk and steel, and added to the sweetness of womanhood the strength of manhood. Keen and flexible as the Damascus blade, they were not wanting in the gentleness and modesty which are a woman's crown [Pg 15] of honor. I open Exodus and read a song from Miriam, the prophetess, that is older than the most ancient pagan lyric, and that will continue when English literature is forgotten. And there is Deborah, the nurse of Rebecca; how tenderly the Bible records her humble but faithful service. ”

“ Alas for Science, if instead of ameliorating the condition of man and beast, it is to be her mission to brutalize the former and bring untold agony to the latter.
The man who will intentionally maltreat a horse is deserving of severe punishment. I knew of a wretch who, because his horse balked, deliberately cut out its tongue and cast it on the roadside. Twenty years in state prison should have been the consequence of that brutal act of wanton cruelty. I wish we could share the Arab's attachment to his horse. ”

“ His remains were brought to Boston, and committed to the grave amidst the regrets of all classes and parties; and, as the procession moved from the church, the bell of the Catholic Cathedral tolled his knell,—a fact never perhaps paralleled in the history of Romanism. And so departed one of the great men of the Republic,—one who, amidst its servility to mammon and slavery, ceased not to recall it to the sense of its honor and duty,—a man whose memory his countrymen will not willingly let die. ”

“ The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and beneficence should be extended to animals of every species ; and these still flow from the breast of a well-natured man, as streams that issue from the living fountain. A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service. ”

“ Men who advocate the subjection of women plant themselves upon the Bible and say to us, "You radicals want to turn things [Pg 19] upside down. You have no respect for the settled order of society. You would destroy the divine harmony Heaven has established. You set aside the teaching of the great Apostle who said, 'I suffer not a woman to usurp authority.'" But the Bible is always on the side of progress. Jesus and his immediate followers were innovators, agitators and leaders of public thought and morals. ”

“ Some men call it conscience, but I prefer to call it the voice of God in the soul of man. If you listen and obey it, then it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you right; but if you turn a deaf ear or disobey, then it will leave you all in the dark and without a guide. ”

“ William staggered and fell into the arms of an equerry. All crowded round. "I am wounded," said William in a feeble voice.... "God have mercy on me and on my poor people!" He was all covered with blood. His sister, Catherine of Schwartzburg, asked, "Dost thou commend thy soul to Jesus Christ?" ”

“ That society is most happy which conforms most strictly to the order of nature as indicated in the family relation, where brother and sister mutually elevate and sustain each other.... A school for young men becomes a community in itself, with its own standard of morality and its laws of honor; but in a college for both sexes the student will find a public sentiment not so lenient as that of a community of associates needing the same indulgence. ”

“ I bless Thee that Thou hast counted me worthy of this day, and of this hour, to receive my portion in the number of the martyrs, in the cup of Christ. I praise Thee for all these things; I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, by the eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, Thy well-beloved Son, through whom, and with whom, in the Holy Spirit, be glory to Thee, both now and forever. Amen."
Pope (Alexander) , 1688-1744. "I am dying, sir, of a hundred good symptoms," said to a friend who called to inquire concerning his health. Some give his last words thus: "Friendship itself is but a part of virtue." ”

“ The life of an animal is sacred like our own, and may not be wantonly destroyed. Of course, there are circumstances that justify the sacrifice; thus we may take the life of a beast in self-defense, as when one slays a venomous reptile, a rabid dog, or a ferocious tiger. Life may be taken for the purpose of food, and, in fact, for any decidedly useful end. ”

“ Who shall measure the power and authority of woman in the worlds of art, literature and social life? And yet, great as is her influence in these, it is even greater in spiritual matters. Woman turns through a natural instinct to the field of religious usefulness, and Renan is not mistaken when he tells us that she has a special tendency to "long after the infinite." ”

“ Nevertheless, they may soften in our minds the dark outlines of the landscape, and cast a ray of light into the great unseen. Happy is the soul that in an age of doubt and uncertainty can trust, even though it be with trembling faith, One greater than the greatest, and Who has named Himself the Resurrection and the Life! ”

“ Could the horses, cattle, dogs, creatures of the barn-yard and frogs and insects find a voice, I fear we should discover incipient Neros not far from home. I read not long ago, in a daily paper, of a youth who dipped a cat in kerosene and then set the creature on fire. There you have a young Nero training himself for a life of crime and cruelty.
Hogarth, who was a shrewd observer of human nature, in his "Four Stages of Cruelty," makes a boy begin his criminal career by tormenting animals. The youth advances from stage to stage until at length he commits murder, and ends life upon the gallows. ”

“ The young man will not be guilty of an act tainted with meanness or baseness lest the maiden he loves blot his image from the [Pg 36] pure heaven of her heart; let the young husband and wife cherish the same fear and honor, and they shall grow nearer and dearer as the years silver their brows. The happiness of marriage depends upon the very highest and most delicate of reserves, the most noble and careful speech, the best and most honorable perception; upon a kindness greater than that of a mother to her child.
The supreme glory of consecrated womanhood lies in the consecration itself. ”

“ How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.
Isaiah (spelled in the New Testament Esaias which means "salvation of Jehovah." He is the greatest of the Hebrew Prophets, and his poetical genius is ranked with that of Homer) , b. c. 765-660. "Go ye to the country of Tyre and Sidon, for the Lord hath mixed the cup for me alone." ”

“ Certain it is that whatever teaches us to be kind and considerate in our treatment of animals makes us better men and women. The horse is a brave, sensitive and intelligent creature, and it is not at all wonderful that men have loved him from the time of Melizyus to the present, but it is astonishing that any one could ever be guilty of the cruelty and brutality some have shown to innocent and defenceless animals. ”

“ He continued to grow weaker all that day: about four o'clock the next morning, he asked for some refreshment, which having received, and made his final confession, Sir William Kingston entered his room, and enquired how he felt himself: "I tarry," said the dying man, "but the pleasure of God, to render up my poor soul into His hands. I have now been eight days together troubled with a continual flux and fever, a species of disease which, if it do not remit its violence within that period, never fails to terminate in death." ”

“ When even his most degraded slaves urged him to have sufficient manliness to save himself from the fearful infamies which otherwise awaited him, he ordered his grave to be dug, and fragments of marble to be collected for its adornment, and water and wood for his funeral pyre, perpetually whining: "What an artist to perish!" ”

“ Full of religion was he, full of the Holy Ghost; and therefore it is that he meets us standing alone in his age, raised above the profane multitude, master of his art, but without disciples and the citizen's rights." Probably the truth of the matter is that Spinoza was a man of pure, brave and simple life; of gentle disposition; and of rare philosophical abilities and attainments; but whose system, though possessed of much that is true and good, is yet essentially opposed to God's revelation of himself in the sacred Scriptures, and in the person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. ”

“ Great men may by their courage and virtue fortify us against the terrors of death, if by their vices, and fears begotten of vices, they do not distress us ten-fold more than we were distressed before; they may point the way from a present twilight to the infinite day-dawn beyond ”

“ Gough's public addresses, carved upon his monument in Hope Cemetery, Worcester, shows the strength of his conviction and illustrates the directness and force of his style:
"I can desire nothing better for this great country than that a barrier high as heaven be raised between the unpolluted lips of the children and the intoxicating cup; that everywhere men and women should raise strong and determined hands against whatever will defile the body, pollute the mind, or harden the heart against God and His truth." ”

“ His last look was on the picture of Christ which had hung for many years near his bed, and of which he often said, "That is the picture of one who came into the world to teach men to love one another." The resolute repression of all signs of suffering, every indication of the long conflict, passed at once. He lay smiling in a quiet103 slumber, and the smile lingered when the coffin lid shut him in. His grave is in the heart of the city he loved, and even the careless passerby pauses a moment to read the simple legend. ”

“ In another person, in whom a gradual disease had so nearly exhausted the physical powers that the darkness of death had already produced blindness, the sense of God's love was so overpowering, that every expression for many hours referred to it in rapturous words, such as, "This is life—this is heaven—God is love—I need not faith—I have the promise." ”

“ At last comes to me the grand consolation, 223 333 O, that beautiful boy! 93 O, that glorious sun! 231 O the depths of the riches of the goodness and knowledge of God! 170 O, to die for liberty is a pleasure and not a pain, 42 O, what triumphant truth, 88 O wretched virtue! thou art a bare name! 47 Observe how they are swelled, 13 Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell and damnation, 209 Oh death, why art thou so long in coming? 75 Oh, don't let the awkward squad fire over me! ”

“ There is a dim tradition that, much more than a century ago, the tomb under which the two sister-queens—Mary, the Roman Catholic, and Elizabeth, the Protestant, regno consortes et urna—lie side by side had fallen into disrepair, and that a bold Westminster boy crept into the hollow vault, and, through an aperture in the coffin, laid his hand on the heart of the mighty Tudor queen.—Farrar. ”