Theosophy in Cardiff
Theosophical Society, Cardiff Lodge,
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, CF24 – 1DL.
Theosophy and the Great War
A Bishop and Animals
By
Annie Besant
First Published February 15th 1915
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OUR readers will remember the beautiful Russian prayer for the
animals taken into war, showing the sense of human responsibility for the
sufferings inflicted on them by man. But the Bishop of Oxford is more in
sympathy with the contemptuous Pauline comment on the tender Hebrew precept:
"Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn"; St Paul asks:
"Doth God take care for oxen?" One might answer that He certainly
should, since, according to the Christian teaching, He created them. The Bishop
says that it has never "been the custom of the Church to pray for any
other beings than those whom we think of as rational". Then why does his
Prayer Book call on all living things to praise God? "Ye whales, and all
that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for
ever", and so on through a catalogue of animals. May they praise God, and
yet not be prayed for to God? That seems a little one-sided. The Pall Mall
Gazette, after some not quite nice comments, says finally:
"And yet most people, we fancy, will be on the side of the
quadrupeds in this matter. The horses and dogs being used in the war are as brave,
faithful, and devoted as any soldiers, and no Christian need feel ashamed of
asking the Father of All to have them in his keeping. And it smacks of
spiritual 'snobbery' to assume that the providence of the Creator has its
limits drawn immediately beneath our own species."
It is the Bishop's view which has led to the excuse in Italy for cruelty
to animals: "Non e cristiano" - "It is
not a Christian". And this is the root of the cruelties inflicted on
animals throughout Christendom, and of the cruelties now in Eastern countries,
where Christianity has spread, contrasting sharply with the older indigenous
feeling embodied in hospitals for sick and shelters for worn-out animals. - New
India, February 5, 1915.
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Theosophical Society, Cardiff Lodge,
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, CF24 – 1DL.