To the Boys by J. H. W.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 14, 1868

To the Boys.

By J. H. W.

I WAS very much impressed with the account of the little boy's being shot. What distress is brought upon the family by the foolish practice of boys' taking guns into the fields where they work. I have seen them do it. What for? To shoot the birds.

But for what do the boys want to shoot the birds? They are pretty, and they are innocent. You say they eat our cherries. Well, the cherries were very wormy this season, and if the birds did not eat them, I fear we would soon have no cherries at all. They are your friends in this case. But some of them pick holes in our trees. Well, there are worms in the trees, and, if left alone, will kill the trees. You cannot find them—you could not hire a man to get them out; but the bird knows just where to find them. Who taught him to find the worms in the trees? God, who made them, gave them this knowledge, and for exercising this knowledge that God gave him, and for your benefit, too, you shoot the poor bird.

In Testimony No. 15, page 49, are these words: “Those who profess to be fitting for translation should not become butchers.” Why not? “It has a tendency to lower, to debase the man, to make him more animal in his propensities.” If it is wrong for men who are looking for the Lord, to butcher—if it debases them to kill animals, though they may think it is of use to do so—is it not wrong for boys who keep the Sabbath to kill birds? Will it not harden their hearts, and make them base and low, and more animal in their propensities? I should feel very sorry, indeed, to have my boy shoot a bird. They may take all my cherries before I will kill them.

Just think of a boy's shooting at a little bird so sweetly singing in the tree. What joy fills its little breast as it sings its Creator's praise. Now the gun is discharged, and away flies the bird. No; it cannot fly far. See how it flutters and falls in the bushes or high grass. The boy looks for it, but cannot find it. So there it must lay all day and all night, with a leg or a wing broken, suffering terribly, with no kind friend to bind up its wound, or bring it food. At last it dies from its wound, or of starvation. Oh, how sad! Do you not think the family that lost the little boy would have felt still worse if their dear “little Willie” had been shot in the breast by some bad man, or had a leg broken, and he left in the woods to suffer and die alone? But the bird may have young ones in its nest. Think how they cry for food, and for the dear, comforting shelter of the parent bird, all the long, dark, chilly night. At last they starve to death. Poor little things! Did any body see them or hear their cry? Yes; God saw and heard it all. The kind Saviour says, “Not one of them is forgotten before God.”

May God forgive the cruelty of the boys who uselessly kill his little innocent creatures. J. H. W.