and broiled it here with some other game, to be carried along for our supper; for, beside the provisions which we carried with us, we depended mainly on the river and forest for our supply.  It is true, it did not seem to be putting this bird to its right use to pluck off its feathers, and extract its entrails, and broil its carcass on the coals; but we heroically persevered, nevertheless, waiting for further information.  The same regard for Nature which excited our sympathy for her creatures nerved our hands to carry through what we had begun.  For we would be honorable to the party we deserted; we would fulfil fate, and so at length, perhaps, detect the secret innocence of these incessant tragedies which Heaven allows.

     “Too quick resolves do resolution wrong,
     What, part so soon to be divorced so long? 
     Things to be done are long to be debated;
     Heaven is not day’d, Repentance is not dated.”

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice.  Where is the skilful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and not rip up his work with the other edge?

Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures.  What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement?  The sparrows seem always chipper, never infirm.  We do not see their bodies lie about.  Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives.  They must perish miserably; not one of them is translated.  True, “not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father’s knowledge,” but they do fall, nevertheless.

The carcasses of some poor squirrels, however, the same that frisked so merrily in the morning, which we had skinned and embowelled for our dinner, we abandoned in disgust, with tardy humanity, as too wretched a resource for any but starving men.  It was to perpetuate the practice of a barbarous era.  If they had been larger, our crime had been less.  Their small red bodies, little bundles of red tissue, mere gobbets of venison, would not have “fattened fire.”  With a sudden impulse we threw them away, and washed our hands, and boiled some rice for our dinner.  “Behold the difference between the one who eateth flesh, and him to whom it belonged!  The first hath a momentary enjoyment, whilst the latter is deprived of existence!” “Who would commit so great a crime against a poor animal, who is fed only by the herbs which grow wild in the woods, and whose belly is burnt up with hunger?” We remembered a picture of mankind in the hunter age, chasing hares down the mountains; O me miserable!  Yet sheep and oxen are but larger squirrels, whose hides are saved and meat is salted, whose souls perchance are not so large in proportion to their bodies.