WHAT HAVE WE TO GROWL ABOUT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 151, 22 July 1901, Page 2

WHAT HAVE WE TO GROWL ABOUT.

o>£ may hear psople siy that an organised system of benevolence is peculiarly Christian, unknown where that creed has not penetrated. Some will •ivsn venture t» write such absurdity in coll blo'.d. It is Hot down in gr*ve hiswri' s that Louis IX. of France first ■stsibl *\u>d a hoipitai. The statement is u'ltru-? r>f Europe, an 1 grotesque when appl'ed to She Bist. Too Mo.rs had public hospitals in Spain ceaturie.oefore Louis w*s born. At Oordov they were numbered by scores until »he Christian Spaniards deatroytd tbom. The latest referenoo in Benjamin of Tude a's precious book, from which a date for his travels may be calculated, is 1173. But in the description of Bagdad ho montions how a late Sultan Jiad built " large hospital* for the sick" on an arm of the Euphrates hither'o unoccupied. Connected with these were about sixty storehouses provided with all that the d> :tors could want. B*njtmin saw ci\ wJs of patients there, and every man v. ho claimed as-istanco is fed at the Sult n's expense till curfd. St. Louis'great sgrandfatfcr was not born or thought of at; the time. Credit is due to the good King for founding that Hitle hospital, but compare it with the noble benefaction which the Sultan Kilayun endowed at Ciiio ten y*ar« afrer Louis' death. Sir Williwu M u-r describe sit in hh *' MHnWuke Dynasties " —an immense building ' outside the ci'y, colhgH, hospifc-1, find mausoleum in„one. Spacious r. onus were fi ted up with Nds f>r the s ; ck, r'rh atd noor alike, and sp°cia''y for women. Lt ;tur> ships were foundjd and laboratories with "every wt of midhal app'iance." In th-» mausoleum fifty readers of the Ko-an wee on duly night and day, Ttiete wero libraries well furnished wi h books, and.libr.runs always at the public call, a " children's seminary, an infant school, and an orph«n asylum." I'nis in 1820, A.D. T> an Egyptian of that time our f"refath*rs would have seemed moe b rbarous than, we think, the Chintraan had he ventured * meng them. Bat the charitable foundation i in Satnarcand would boar comparison with any. In fact, whereever the cre-d of Mahomet was established in those day*, before the in flu-, mce of that cursed race, the Ottoman Turk, had blighted it, charitable institutions abounded. Centuries before our era—five, or perhaps six—humanity to brutes was preached as the first duty of mankind. Two prophets m sd<) that the leading tenet of their new dootrine. Everyone knows "the teachingof Buddha; thitof Zoroaster, as we call him, is by no means so familiar. To tell the truth, it is tot a little droll oo t is point, in the form in which it has reaohed us. To enact that the per--80 a who gives an old dog miat which is too hard for ita teeth, should receive tan thousand stripes, that' killing a cock is murder (like filling a man), that a dog should, always be prsent at the degth of a True Believer—these and otner ecceut'icitis of the sort put a welcome fciuoh of fun ioto the dry pages of the 25-<ndnvieta. But there is a grand and bewiful p»ssage, wherein the god who protects cuttle— his name signifies the " Soul os the Ot"—appjals to AhuraMazda himself in the Council of Heiven, praying for a champion to defend his pier beasts on earth. , The gods are all silent. At leogth A uraanswers that he hus commissioned his pr.iphet Zoroistar to do wNj he can. Infinitely touching is the despairing rep'y: " I ask for a champion brave and strong, who could pj. otect my helpless creatures—thy prophet is weak and old, little heeded by ill-doers. But thou knowest best, oh God." That striking scene was sketohed not mora than 26 centuries ! sgo, perh«ps much more. . , . India is full of hospitals and refug< s for sick, lfis'i and worn-out beasts, The one at S,uwt, which also had a free dispensary for human Hein;s was founded by King Asoka, 224 8.0,, and is flourishing to this day. It is supported by a voluntiry tax upon bills of exchange paid by the local bankers. Tua Horn-) of for Horses U latei j still. In the n<igh bout hood of Bhurtpore, Grant-Duff observei a pleasant tr ict of wood'and and savannah| which the native gen'leman with him described as the Maharajah's preserve. "Is His Highnegs a great sportsman ?" he asked. " On, no!" was the answer; "He never kills anything. But when he sees cattle overloaded, or an animd suffering, he buys it and turns it loose here;" And Sir James remembered a saying of Jshftnghin's: "A monarch should care even for the beasts of the fitild and the birds of Heayen. He must an«w*r for them before the throne." Decidedly, Christians have no ground for boasting in th's matter. --(Home piper.)