PROVIDENCE AND THE RABBITS.
The extermination of the rabbit pest is a problem which has taxed the ingenuity, not of the people of the colonies only, but of the world at large. M. Pasteur himsolf was put to shame when he undertook to get rid of the obnoxious little rodents by the introduction of the bacilli of a fatal disease. Whether or not the animals refused credence to the germ theory altogether, or whether the environment was unfavourable to the development of the bacillus is not very clear, but certain it is that we have the rabbits with us yet. We need not won • der that people of a pious turn of thought despair of any human remedy, and would fain seek one of a supernatural character. Dr. Mooi'house, when he was with us, was solicited to direct a prayer to be offered in the Anglican churches that the Almighty might cause all the rabbits to be stricken with sterility. It is a curious circumstance that when a miracle is asked for, it is usually proposed that it should be accomplished by some roundabout means, as if there were some latent thought in the mind of the proposer that, after all, it wouldn't do. to ignore natural lasvs altogether. Why should not the rabbits, if we are to be providentially delivered of them, be cut off in the first generation instead of the second ? The Brisbane resident who ha 3 just suggested to an inspector under the Vaccination Act that " a day might be appointed on which a united prayer, written by sotne of your able Christian ministers, be offered up in the churches to supplicate Divine intention," has the modesty not to dictate the means which Providence is to adopt to secure the desired end. He throws out a hint, however, that it would be as well to bring them all together in one place to receive their coup de grace. This is with a view to the slaughtered animals being potted for the advantage -of the starving Russian Jews 1 We do not know whether the potting in 281b tinsi is to be miraculously performed as as the killing; but it ought to have struck the proposer that the piece where the; rabbits were to be congregated should have been the Russian plairig and not any par] of Australia. The miracle would only b' the more striking by ,-thtp simpliflcatior, and the trouble of canning and the cost tt freight would be saved. The idea of P» ■ yidenee in the minds of some supplicants seems to be that of nn omnipotent Lod Shaftesbury, who had the best intentions towards his creatures, but who might rpt understand what they wanted unless be was specially direeteu. This was clearly the case with the Scotch minister, w;io, when praying for rain, stipulated foi a gentlo shower, and not a ranting ant a roaring downpour. All the follies <bm nected with appeals to Heaven on uireasonable grounds have arisen out of an obstinate adherence to the old thoiry, that every eveut, instead of being the outcome of natural law, was the result d an arbitrary exercise of authority by the Divinity. The survivors from a fhipwreek, when they flatter themselvesthat they owe their escape to the special favour of Providence, forget that they finply that Ho either could or would not save their unhappy fellow passengers wh« were drowned. Another theory of Providence which is not extinct in the mieds jf some sections of the rural population in England is exhibited in the anewerof t farmer to a person recommending resigrjtion to Providence, as told by Mr Jreries : — That's right enough, that is ! Ti ]re ain't no use a gaineayin' on it; but rpmehow that there old Providence hev' h,/3n agen cne all along, he hev , ! Whoi, jaat year he mos' spailt my tators, and the year nfore that he kinder did for :>iy turnips, and now he's been and got poU o' my missus ! But, he added, wit)< a burst of heroic faith and devout assurance, I reckon as there's one above as '11 put a stopper on ha if 'a goo tocf *ur !—Age.
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Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3115, 2 July 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)
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694PROVIDENCE AND THE RABBITS. Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3115, 2 July 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)
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