The bear loves its young ones more than almost any other animal does, as this little story will
show you. A bear with two cubs or young ones once came over the ice near to a ship where the
sailors had just killed a large animal. The bears were very hungry, and the sailors threw over
some pieces of flesh for them; the old bear would tear them up, giving most of the meat to the
cubs, and keeping but little for herself. Presently some one in the ship cruelly shot both the
young ones-then their mother was full of sorrow. She had been hurt herself by the guns, but she
crawled along to her cubs, put her paw upon them, and tried to have them get up; and when she
found that they did not move, she went a few steps off, and then looked back with a sad,
moaning noise, as though she expected them to get up and follow her. When she saw that all her
efforts were useless, she walked around them several times, turned towards the vessel with a
terrible growl-for she was angry enough to tear in pieces the men who had killed her young-and
then lay down between her cubs and died. Does not his help you to understand this verse in the
17th chapter of 2d Samuel? "For thou knowest thy father and his men, that they are mighty men,
and they are chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps (or cubs) in the field;"-and
this also, Hosea 13:8, "I will meet them as a bear bereaved of her whelps." Such verses as these
show that the writers of the Bible were acquainted with the habits of different animals: we never
find any mistakes in what they say about them. Solomon says in his Proverbs, "As a roaring lion
and a ranging bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people."
You have often read or heard the sad story in the 2d of Kings, how forty -two children were
killed at one time by two bears out of the wood. Do you understand why God allowed this?
Elijah, a holy servant of God, had just been taken up to heaven in a bright chariot with horses of
fire; and these rude and wicked children called out to Elisha, "Go up, thou bald head!"-that is,
"Go up, as Elijah did, to heaven." This mockery would have been very wrong, even if Elisha had
not been a holy prophet, for God has said, "Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and Honour
the face of the old man;" but the children were really dishonoring God in their treatment of his
servant, and it was for this reason that He was so displeased with them.
Do you remember what David said when he was trying to persuade king Saul to let him go and
fight with the great giant Goliath? Saul thought he was too young, and by no means strong
enough; but David said, "Thy servant was keeping his father's sheep, and there came a lion and a
bear, and took a lamb out of t he flock, and thy servant slew both the lion and the bear." He said
also, "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, he
will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine." You see why David was not afraid to meet the
giant. It was not because he felt strong of himself, but he believed that God would be near to
help him; and it was the same feeling that led him to say afterwards, "Though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me." Happy will it be for
you, dear child, if you can say the same words, with peace in your heart, when you lie down to
die.
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