The Spider
Indeed, The Band of Mercy Advocate honored other creatures’ lives their pages, such as (No. 23, Vol. 2), words by John Saffery, music by T. Crampton):
Oh, go, thou little spider, travel bravely on thy way;
The world is surely large enough for you and me today.
Thy impulse of a moment would deprive thee of thy life,
And monster hands too swiftly crush thy frame with beauty rife (v. 1)
It also comments on how “wondrous are thy life and ways, and wondrously devised. Go, spin gossamer, to float upon the air” (v. 2). This text and the tune, in moving eighth notes up and down the scale like a spider moving amongst its web, both honor the unrecognized “beauty” and “ways” of the spider and its right simply to live and spin, the song flips the Chain of Being on end with humans now the unchristian “monster” who kill and maim.