"
"Do you suppose that it will always be summer there?" said Miss Laura,
turning around, and looking at him.
"I don't know. I imagine it will be, but I don't think anybody knows
much about it. We've got to wait."
Miss Laura's eyes fell on me. "Harry," she said, "do you think that dumb
animals will go to heaven?"
"I shall have to say again, I don't know," he replied. "Some people hold
that they do. In a Michigan paper, the other day, I came across one
writer's opinion on the subject. He says that among the best people of
all ages have been some who believed in the future life of animals.
Homer and the later Greeks, some of the Romans and early Christians held
this view--the last believing that God sent angels in the shape of birds
to comfort sufferers for the faith. St. Francis called the birds and
beasts his brothers. Dr. Johnson believed in a future life for animals,
as also did Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Jeremy Taylor, Agassiz,
Lamartine, and many Christian scholars. It seems as if they ought to
have some compensation for their terrible sufferings in this world. Then
to go to heaven, animals would only have to take up the thread of their
lives here.
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