p. 10 | HIS “GREATEST CRIME.” by Colonel John Sobieski

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 10, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 28.

HIS “GREATEST CRIME.”

By Colonel John Sobieski

It is a saying among the French that an Englishman will rise on a beautiful morning and say, “This “is a glorious morning. Let us go out and kill “something.” But I never had a fondness for the murder of animals, birds, or even fish.

But some years ago I was stopping with a friend, a doctor in a little town in Illinois, and he proposed that we go out and kill something. So giving me a gun, and taking one for himself, we started for a small grove about two miles from his house, but failed to find anything to kill. The squirrels, which were our objective game, had evidently got an inkling of our coming, and kept out of sight. After an hour or so spent in the forest, we started to return to the house.

Sauntering leisurely along under some tall elms, I heard a bird singing, and looking up I saw a wee bit

of a bird perched upon a lofty limb, singing very sweetly. Without a moment’s thought, and without the slightest idea that I could hit so small a mark (for I had none of the spirit of murder in my heart), I up with my gun and banged away. I saw some feathers fly, and the little songster came dropping down from branch to branch, and fell at my feet. I stooped down and picked it up. It was a tiny little thing, not much larger than my thumb, of a yellowish-green color, as beautiful as it could be. Then like a flash the thought came upon me, what a contemptible deed I had done. Here was one of God’s beautiful creatures that had just as much right to existence as I, and its life, doubtless, was as sweet to it as mine was to me, and at that very moment that it was singing its beautiful songs to make the world more pleasant and glorious, I had brutally shot it to death.

I carefully buried it among the leaves, and then promised myself that I would never again wantonly destroy life.

I regard this the greatest crime I ever committed. —Colonel John Sobieski.