Kingless Folk, and other Addresses on Bible Animals

The Ant

"Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest." – Prov. vi. 6-8.

Of what use is a sluggard? "Everything in the world is of some use," says John Ploughman, "but it would puzzle a doctor of divinity, or a philosopher, or the wisest owl in our steeple, to tell the good of idleness; that seems to me to be an ill wind which blows nobody any good, a sort of mud which breeds no eels, a dirty ditch which would not feed a frog. Sift a sluggard grain by grain, and you'll find him all chaff." A sluggard is really a good-for-nothing, and no better advice could be given to boys than this: "Get out of the sluggard's way, or you may catch his disease and never get rid of it. Grow up like bees, and you will never be drones."

In this passage from the Book of Proverbs, Solomon advises the sluggard to go back to school that he may learn wisdom, for his folly is quite equal to his idleness. He is too lazy to drive in a nail, and as the old jingling rhyme has it, "For want of a nail a shoe came off, for want of a shoe a horse was lost, for want of a horse a man was lost, for want of a man a battle was lost, and for loss of a battle a kingdom was lost." Because of the sluggard's first idleness in refusing to drive in the nail the whole kingdom comes down about his ears. It is not much ease he gets for all his scheming, and therefore he is sent back to school to learn wisdom.

The schoolmaster this time is the Ant, for, as the Bible tells us, "there be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: the ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer" (Prov. xxx. 24).

The wisdom taught by the ant is threefold.

If it be the hand of the diligent that maketh rich, the ants deserve to flourish; for there are few sluggards in their nest. The great mass of the teeming population is called "the workers." There may be a few males and females in each community dressed in four beautiful gauze wings, and no doubt regarding themselves as very superior members of the society – the veritable aristocracy of ant life – but they never touch the work with one of their little fingers. The keeping of the nest, the gathering of the food, the care of the eggs, and the rearing of the young ants, all devolves on the shoulders of the willing workers; and they, though they have no wings at all, and are called "neutrals" and some other ugly names, cheerfully undertake the whole labour, and make the entire community flourish through sheer hard work.

And that is a splendid lesson for all young people. All great men, as well as all true ants, have been hard workers. This is the only royal road to success.

What Sir Joshua Reynolds said to his students is equally true when applied to other professions: "You must be told again and again that labour is the only price of solid fame, and that whatever your force of genius may be, there is no easy method of becoming a good painter. Nothing is denied to well-directed labour; nothing is to be obtained without it." Jesus Himself was a hard worker. Go, learn of the ant, and be wise.

Solomon adds that the ants carry on their labours without "guide, overseer, or ruler," and that is strictly the case. The ants are a feeble people, but they are perfectly self-reliant. The bees, for instance, have a royal personage in their hive. We call her the queen. And thus we may speak of bees as we speak of ourselves, as living under a monarchical government. But the ants have no king or queen. There is no royal personage in their nest. They are rather to be regarded as staunch republicans, who carry on their labours without any "ruler," guided simply by that unerring instinct which imitates the actings of reason. The silly sheep may require a shepherd to take care of them, but the sagacious ants can take care of themselves.

And all boys who are worth their salt must try to learn the same lesson. They must learn to strike out a path for themselves, and not be content to eat the bread of idleness. They must work for the good of the whole community by learning to stand on their own feet. They must despise the ignoble position of those who, having no mind of their own, are led like a flock of sheep by the will of another. They must think and act for themselves if ever they are to rise to a position of influence. In one word, they must be self-reliant. No doubt there is a sense in which we must be dependent on the labours of others. Every honest man is bound to acknowledge the assistance which he has received from his parents, his fellows, and his God. But the two things are not opposed. "These two things, contradictory though they may seem, must go together – manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance" (Wordsworth). The two things stand or fall together. Self-reliance is not selfishness, manly independence is not ignorant braggadocio. The ants toil for the common weal. They rely on one another.

"They prepare their meat in the summer." This fact has been denied by modern entomologists. They have told us that ants are dormant in winter (at least in Europe), and, therefore, stand in no need of food. But, as one reminds us, "we had need to be very sure of our facts when we attempt to correct the Spirit of God" (Gosse). It has been amply ascertained that in the East and other warm countries where hibernation is impossible, ants do store up for winter use. It is even stated that these harvesting ants bite off the radicle at the end of the seed to prevent its germinating, and occasionally bring up their stores to the surface to dry, when the tiny granary has been entered and soaked by the rain.

It is at this point that the example of the ant is specially severe on the sluggard. In crass idleness he would sleep even in the time of harvest; but this little creature, the least of insects, avails herself of every suitable opportunity, and gathers a supply of food sufficient for her purposes. "He that gathereth in summer is a wise son, but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame." Let all boys then lay up for the future. Is it knowledge? Let them sow well at school, that they may reap well in business. Is it character? Let them sow well in youth, that they may reap well in manhood. Is it religion? Let them sow well in time, that they may reap well in eternity. In all these connections let them be warned by these solemn words, "The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold, therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing" (Prov. xx. 4).

The Bear

"I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps." – Hos. xiii. 8.

However ferocious a bear may be, she is also capable of a large and generous affection. She is at once a fond mother, a constant friend and, if one may so express it, a magnanimous foe. Her devotion to her young is proverbial. She possesses the strongest maternal instincts, and when to her easily roused ferocity the fury of these instincts is added, it may be imagined what the violence of her attack will be. Any one who threatens the safety of her cubs does so at his peril. The constancy of her friendship is shown by the following curious case, related by Brehm. He tells us of a little boy who crept one night for warmth and shelter into the cage of an extremely savage bear. The latter, instead of devouring the child, took him under its protection, kept him warm with the heat of its body, and allowed him to return every night to its cage. By-and-by the poor boy died from smallpox, and the bear, utterly disconsolate, henceforth refused all food, and soon followed its little protégé to the grave.

But the bear is kind —effusively kind, even to its enemies. In the manner of its attack it does not fell them to the ground with one blow of its paw like the lion, nor seize them with its teeth like the dog. It hugs them. It embraces them with its powerful fore-limbs with a great: show of affection, and continues the squeeze so long that the poor wretched victims are suffocated. Bruin does nothing by halves. The advice of old Polonius is followed to the very letter: —

He does grapple them. He may give great attention to the friendships of life, but he does not forget to embrace his enemies.

With respect to the bear mentioned in the Bible, we may note three points.

This is not the common brown bear of Europe, nor the white polar bear of the Arctic regions; but the yellowish-brown Syrian bear, which may still be found in its native haunts around the wooded fastnesses of Hermon and Lebanon. It is shorter in limb and has smaller claws than its European cousin; but its most striking peculiarity is its change of colour. Like many other animals, the Syrian bear changes its colour as it grows older. "When a cub it is of a darkish brown, which becomes a light brown as it approaches maturity. But when it has attained its full growth it becomes cream-coloured, and each succeeding year seems to lighten its coat, so that a very old bear is nearly as white as its relative of the Arctic regions" (J. G. Wood). Alas! the change which is produced by age is not confined to Ursus Syriacus. The boy, no less than the bear, will yet experience that solemn transformation. The blackest locks will yet whiten with the frosts of age, for lustre, youth, and virility will all alike perish. But this change is only the outward symbol of what ought to be an inward, spiritual fact. If the locks whiten, so ought the conscience, the soul, the heart. As youth passes into manhood and manhood into age, the man within should "aye be gettin' whiter"; until when the locks have grown grey in the service of righteousness, the children may "rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man" (Lev. xix. 32).

The bear, to begin with, is a strict vegetarian. While he can find abundance of vegetables and fruit he is little disposed to go far in varying his means of subsistence. His teeth are formed for the purpose. Unlike those of the lion or tiger, which have a scissor-blade appearance, and are incapable of any but an up-and-down motion, the teeth of the bear are true grinders or molars, and the hinge of the lower jaw is so constructed that it can be worked from side to side, so that the bear can actually chew its food.

It is said to be very fond of strawberries – like some little boys we know – and like the blackbird it can walk daintily along the rows and pick out the ripest. But if there be one thing more than any other that throws the bear into an ecstasy of excitement it is the prospect of a feast of honey. A nest of ants is nothing in comparison. The long nose is thrust into the delicious comb, though it be stung and stung again by the infuriated inhabitants.

It is not till other food fails that the bear becomes carnivorous. But then, driven by hunger, it will even descend into the lower pastures and seize upon the goats and the sheep. This habit is referred to by the youthful David in 1 Samuel xvii. 33. King Saul was trying to dissuade him from matching himself against the gigantic Philistine; but David answered: "Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his hand… Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God." And all the young people know the result. One smooth stone from the brook was placed in David's sling, and yon huge mass of human arrogance was hurled to the ground. They who fight for Jehovah need never fear. A stone cast in His name becomes a thunderbolt.

"Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man rather than a fool in his folly" (Prov. xvii. 12).

The whelps themselves are not ferocious. Indeed, they are remarkably stupid. They are as confident as they are weak, and do not even try to escape when the hunters come upon them. The young water-fowl by the river-side disappear in an instant if you happen to come upon them; but the cubs of the bear, with a stupid simplicity, just allow themselves to be caught and massacred. They remind one of the lamb mentioned by the poet: —

But there is something far worse than this simplicity. There is brazen-faced irreverence and impudence. When Elisha, the man of God, was going up to Bethel, a crowd of young vagabonds came out of the village and mocked the old man, and said: "Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And two she-bears came rushing out of the wood, and tare forty and two of them" (2 Kings ii. 24). These were not little children, but "young lads" (R.V. margin), who had begun to herd at street corners, and to scoff and gibe at those who passed by. And, in our own day, society would be none the worse of a few she-bears to act as a kind of police at all such corners. They might help to rid the streets of a good deal of juvenile profanity. But alas! because this Old Testament punishment does not fall on these young miscreants, the evil, instead of becoming less, is in great danger of being largely increased. And yet, if boys only knew it, a far worse calamity has already fallen. They may not have been attacked by bears, but they themselves have become bears – not growing fairer, nobler, whiter, as they grow in years; but fouler, darker, meaner, with the awful increase of sin – selling themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord. Ah! let every true lad beware as to the company he keeps. "Evil company doth corrupt good manners." "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" and "the way of the ungodly shall perish."

The Dove

"And He said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence." – John ii. 16.

It is reported of St Francis of Assisi, in the Middle Ages, that he would sometimes go out and preach to the beasts and birds. He treated them so kindly, both in the house and field, that they would draw near without any sign of fear, and allow him to stroke and feed them with his hand. In like manner, we may think of Jesus pitying the poor, dumb beasts of burden, when He saw them, as we sometimes see them, unmercifully treated by heartless drivers; or grieving at other times at the frantic efforts of little birds beating against the bars of their cage – those tiny songsters of the field and wood, which had been taken by the snare of the fowler, and bereft of their liberty.

The incident before us is a case in point. Here, at the beginning of His ministry, He made a whip of small cords and drove the traffickers out of His Father's temple. Men, money-tables, oxen, were all swept before His holy indignation. But there, in mid-air, the upraised whip was arrested. Jesus could not strike the meek and gentle doves. There they sat in their wicker baskets, with large eyes that were full of tender pleading, and the raised whip was not allowed to fall. He could only say to their keepers, "Carry these things hence," for to the dumb, lower animals, He was "moved with compassion."

It is a great and fitting lesson for the young. They who are kind to their pets are not far from His Kingdom. "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast."

We ought to be like the dove in three ways.

"Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Matt. x. 16). What the lamb is among animals, the dove is among birds. It is the divine emblem of purity and innocence – the bearer of the olive branch of peace. The whole character of the dove is in keeping with this estimate. Its voice, no less than its disposition, is the embodiment of sweetness. It has "a tender mournful cadence which, heard in solitude and sadness, cannot fail to be heard with sympathy, as if it were the expression of real sorrow" (Gosse). It recalls the language of Isaiah, "We mourn sore like doves"; or those beautiful words of Tennyson —

As symbolical of purity and peace, it became a fit emblem for the Holy Spirit. "Lo, the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him." On the day of Pentecost, however, the form chosen was quite different. "There came a sound as of a rushing mighty wind, … and cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them." Why the difference? Why a gentle dove in the one case and cloven tongues of fire in the other. The difference lay in the character of the men. When it came to men – even to holy men – it encountered prejudice and opposition, which must be burned up, and thus it must needs take the semblance of fire. But when it came to Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, it came to its own, and its own received it with open arms; and to show the fulness and peacefulness of the reception, it must needs be symbolised by a dove. In the holy chrism of that baptismal hour, the dove and the lamb had met together. The sacred bird had found a home, and it folded its wings upon its nest.

But this gentleness of disposition renders the dove a defenceless creature, ill able to take care of itself, and it easily becomes the victim of persecution. Hence Hosea speaks of Israel as "a silly dove without heart," which shall "tremble as a dove out of the land of Assyria." And thus the words "wise as serpents" have to be added. The harmlessness of the dove must be supplemented by the wisdom of the serpent. And both elements are found in the peerless example of Jesus. See how He answered the quibbling questions of the Scribes and Pharisees. They tried to entangle im in His talk; but His wisdom was more than a match for their cunning. The wolf was utterly discomfited by the lamb. And this is the only worthy ideal for His followers: "Be ready always to give an answer concerning the hope that is in you," but, "with meekness and fear," "be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves."

The dove is one of the swiftest of birds. The carrier pigeon "has been known to accomplish a flight of three hundred miles in little more than two hours." Its wings are its strength. Upheld by them she can fly for many hours, and the birds of prey cannot overtake her. Homer himself mentions the dove as the emblem of swiftness and timidity. It is to this that the Psalmist refers in Psalm lv. 6, when he beheld the rock pigeon scudding across the sky in the direction of her mountain home: "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest… I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest." Truly a wise resolve when in the presence of strong temptation! "O man of God, flee these things." "Flee also youthful lusts." If you cannot fight like the eagle, fly like the dove, and, like the carrier pigeon, let your flight be homeward. May the homing instinct be as strong in you as in her. For it is only there, in the mountain home of God's grace, that your soul can find shelter. Speed, then, your flight "as the doves to their windows." "Man's spiritual existence is like the flight of a bird in the air: he is sustained only by effort, and when he ceases to exert himself he falls" (Froude's "Bunyan"). Let your spiritual advancement, then, be like the flight of a bird. Imitate the dove in its swiftness.

The dove is pre-eminently the sacredbird. "The dove among the Semites had a quite peculiar sanctity." "Sacred doves that may not be harmed are found even at Mecca." "We never read of it in the Old Testament as an article of diet, though it is now one of the commonest table-birds all over the East" (Smith's "Religion of the Semites," new edition, pp. 219-294). As already noted, it was to the birds what the lamb was to the animals – it derived its chief interest from its use in sacrifice.

We find it in the purifying of the Nazarite (Num. vi. 10), in the cleansing of the leper (Lev. xiv. 22); and, as the children will remember, when Jesus was presented in the temple, His mother offered as a sacrifice "a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons" (Luke ii. 24). In the Virgin Mother's case the offering was the sacrifice of the poor. For it is distinctly said in Leviticus xii. 8, "If her means suffice not for a lamb, then she shall take two turtle doves or two young pigeons: the one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering: and she shall be clean." Jesus, the Great Sacrifice, was born in the homes of the poor. Not the vicious poor, whose poverty is the measure of their thriftlessness; but the industrious poor, whose piety is the measure of their honesty. "Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich."

In stooping thus far He was manifesting the gentleness of the dove, and we are summoned to copy His example. "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." He stooped to death, even the death of the cross, and we are called upon to stoop to something similar – to the great deep of self-surrender and self-sacrifice – the crucifixion and the death of sin. This is the essence of all Christian sacrifice. We must be crucified with Christ, and rise and live through Him. We must be washed in His blood. We must be made great by His gentleness. We must be like the dove and the lamb in sacrifice.

In character, in swiftness, and in sacrifice, imitate the dove.

The Coney

"There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise: … the conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks." – Prov. xxx. 24-26.

"Little, but exceeding wise," that surely is a splendid diploma for "feeble folk." If all the children in our homes would but try to gain that "good degree," it would be a merit certificate of the highest order, and well worthy of the best gilt frame to be had in the market. Mr Moody, the evangelist, used to say, when speaking of college honours, that he had no wish to be styled a B.D., a D.D., or an LL.D. He would be content if he got W.D. – "Well done, good and faithful servant." And the diploma granted to little folks in the school of the coney is somewhat similar. They are "capped" on the day of graduation as an L.B.E.W. – "Little, but exceeding wise."

Why, in their school, the distinction between big and little is simply ignored. The little creature is no bigger than a rabbit, and yet, strange to say, its nearest affinity is with the huge rhinoceros. According to modern classification, it is placed between the elephant and the horse. The shape of its teeth, and the form of its feet and skull, make it a first cousin to the hippopotamus. There is little difference between them, except in dimensions, and, as every schoolboy knows, there is not much in a difference like that. If the huge leviathan has nothing more to boast of than mere bulk, the little coney can afford to sit on its rocky ledge and look down on its unwieldy proportions with the utmost indifference. "Wisdom is better than strength." It was the wisdom of the poor wise man that delivered the city, and not the strength of the city walls. And it is not the bones of the rhinoceros, but the wisdom of the coney, that will bring us true success in life. "Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding."