[This may be used in connection with the story of Cain,—“Am I my brother’s keeper?”]
“I’m not hurting my horse,” said a rough, hard-faced man, when the agent for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals spoke to him. “Why, I’m not even touching that horse, and I haven’t gone near him for an hour.”
“That’s just what’s the matter,” said the agent. “You’ve let him stand out there this bitter weather without a blanket. See! the horse is shivering with the cold. It isn’t what you have done, but what you haven’t done.” And the man was taken before a judge and fined.
“Why, I haven’t done anything to Rover,” said Johnny one hot day last summer, as his mother began to reproach him. “I went off with the boys, and I haven’t seen Rover all day.”
“But, Johnny, that’s just the trouble. You knew there would be no one left at home, and yet you gave Rover no food or water before you started. When I got home, an hour ago, I found the poor dog almost mad with hunger and thirst. It’s often just as bad, Johnny, to do nothing, as to do something very bad.”
“Why, how do I harm Helen?” cried Lucy in astonishment, as her Sunday-school teacher began to talk earnestly with her. “I never quarreled Helen in my life, or said a cross or mean word to her.”
“Ah, Lucy, my girl,” answered the teacher, “that’s partly the trouble. You know that Helen is doing wrong and acting very badly, and yet you never say a word to warn her, or try to make her better. It shouldn’t be a cross word or unkind word, but you hurt Helen worse by keeping still than if you told her right out what a dangerous thing she is doing.”
I want you to see, children,—and from these stories you do see, don’t you?—that we can be like Cain, and really do great harm, just by keeping still, and not helping when we might help.