VIVISECTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR." _I SIR,—May I call your attention to the opening passage of the Bishop of Albany's sermon preached in St. Paul's Cathedral on June 13th, at the anniversary of the Society for Promoting the Gospel [? " The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel," or " The Society for Promoting Christian Know- ledge " ], and published by that venerable Society? It will strike some as a new and bold idea to class vivisection in the , category of missionary enterprises. He says :—" The spirit of the world, the spirit of the age, the spirit of this island- Kingdom is eminently and intensely the spirit of missions. The spirit of missions is the spirit of sending and going, calling and hearing the call. And this correlation of forces is the primula mobile of moral, material, and physical life!' After instancing the " great march of civilisation," " the great story of Livingstone and Hannington, of Stanley and Gordon," and " the lives and treasure lavished to dredge the deeper seas," he adds, as another illustration of the same spirit, that " lives and treasure have been lavished to wring the secrets of death and suffering from the brute creation over which God gave man dominion from the first, that so some mercy of help and healing may be brought to bear upon the mystery of human pain." (The italics are mine.) The list concludes with mention of the " marvellous providence " which overrules " greed of gain and most unholy
traffic to pave the way for the beautiful feet of them who preach the gospel of peace." Vivisectionists will no doubt welcome as an ally the eloquent preacher who pleads divine sanctions for their practices ; and the unthinking are in danger of being misled by his authority, to forget that, vivisectionists themselves being witness, no " mercy of help and healing" to man has been won by want of mercy to " the brute creation."—I am, Sir, &c.,
Hockerill, August 25th. WILLIAM J. FRERE.
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