OCR Text |
Show BATTLE FIELDS, OR VULTURES SHAMBLES (The following is part of an address ad-dress given by Pres. Heber J. Grant at the Farrview ward chapel Sunday afternoon, March 17, 1918.) As I was sittin within a hallow roik, and watching my sheep that fed in the valley, I heard two vultures vul-tures crying to each other on the summit of the cliff. Both voices were earnest and deliberate. My curiosity cur-iosity prevailed over my care of the flock. I climbed slowly and silentlv from crag to crag, concealed among the shrubs, till I found a cavity, where I might sit and listen without suffering or giving disturbance. I soon perceived that my labor would be well repaid; for an old vulture vul-ture was sitting on a naked prominence, promin-ence, with her young about her,-whom her,-whom she was instructing in the arts of a vulture's life, and preparing, by her last lecture, for their final dismission dis-mission to the mountains and the skies. "My children," said the old vulture, vul-ture, "you will the less want my instructions, in-structions, because you have had my practice before your eyes. You have seen me snatch from the farm the household fowl; you have seen me seize the leveret in the bush, and the kid in the pasture; you know how to fix your talons, and how to balance your flight when you are laden with prey. But you remember the taste of your more delicious food; I have often regaled you with the flesh of .man." "Tell us," said the young vultures, "where man may be found, and how he may be known. His flesh is surely sure-ly the natural food of a vulture! Why have you never brought a man in your talons to the nest?" "He is too bulky," said the mother. "When we find a man, we can only tear away his flesh, and leave his bones upon the ground." "Since man is so big," said the young ones, "how d.o you kill him? You are afraid of the wolf aud of the bear. By what power are vulture3 superior to man? Is man more defenseless de-fenseless than a sheep?" "We have not the strength of man," returned the mother, "and the -vulture would seldom feed upon his. flesh, had not nature, that devoted him to our nourishment, nour-ishment, infused into him a strange ferocity, which I have never observed in any other being that feeds upon the earth. "Two herds of men," continued she, "will often meet, and shake the earth with noise, and fill the air with fire. When you hear noise, and see fire, with flashes along the ground, hasten to the place with your swiftest swift-est wing, for men are surely destroying destroy-ing one another: you will then find the ground smoking with blood, and covered with carcasses, of which many are mangled, for the convenience conveni-ence of the vulture." "But when men have killed their prey," said a young vulture, "why do they not eat it? When the wolf has killed a sheep, he suffers not the vulture to touch it till he is satisfied sat-isfied himself. Is not man a kin. I of wolf?" "Man," said the mother, "is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour, and this quality makes him the greatest benefactor bene-factor to our species." "If men kill our prey, and lay it in our way," said the young one, "what need shall we have of laboring for ourselves?" "Because man will, sometimes," replied the mother, "remain "re-main for a long time quiet in his den. The old vultures will tell you when you are to watch his motions. When you see men in great numbers moving mov-ing close together, like a flock of storks, you may conclude that they are hunting, and that you will soon revel in human blood." "But still," said the young one, "I would gladly know the reason of this mutual slaughter. I could never kill w-hat I could not eat." "My child," said the mother, "this is a question which I cannot answer, though I am reckoned the most subtle bird of the mountain. "When I was young, I used frequently fre-quently to visit the eyry of an old vulture, who dwelt upon the Carpathian Carpa-thian rocks. He had made many observations; ob-servations; he knew the places that Afforded prey round his habitation, as far in every direction as the strongest wing can fly, between the rising and setting of the summer sun; and he had fed year after year on the vitals of men. "His opinion was, that men had only the appearance of animal life, being really vegetables, with a power of motion; and that as the boughs of an oak are dashed together by the storm, that swine may fatten on the falling acorns, so men are, by some unaccountable power, driven one against another till they lose their motion, that vultures may be fed. "Others think they have observed something of contrivance and policy among these caterers of ours; and those that hover more closely around them, pretend that there is in every herd one that gives directions to Ihe rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with carnage. What is it that entitles him'" to such pre-eminence, we know not. He is seldom the biggest or the swiftest; but such iie his eagerness and diligence in piovidlng and preparing food for us. 'that we think the leader of such human hu-man herds is entitled to our warmest gratitude, and should be styled, The Friend of the Vultures!" |