Page:Fruits and Farinacea the Proper Food of Man.djvu/48

42 more, then, would purer minds and more feeling hearts be moved by the agonies and quivering limbs of creatures slaughtered for their appetite? While the state of innocence continued, the dominion of man over the animated creation was regulated by love and kindness; but when he had lost the image in which he was created,—when a perverted appetite and a selfish principle prevailed against the dictates of reason and benevolence,—when blood had stained his hands, and guilt had hardened his heart,—when repeated acts of cruelty to dumb animals had blunted his feelings, and feasting on their flesh and blood had inflamed his passions,—in short, when immorality and violence had deluged the earth, then was he permitted to rule with a rod of iron, where before he had swayed the sceptre of peace; and the language of Deity was—"The fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth!" (Genesis ix. 2.)

[Note 4. An eminent divine, in the course of a sermon lately delivered in a neighboring city, asked the significant but not uncommon question, "Who would want to have his son a butcher?" And why not? If the slaughtering of animals for food is the brutalizing and demoralizing occupation it is so generally represented to be, no one should pursue it. And if the butchery is wrong, I cannot understand how those who patronize the wrong by eating the flesh of the slaughtered animals can absolve themselves from the charge of being accessaries in wrong-doing.

32. But I need not dwell longer on this part of the subject, as, I believe, all whose feelings have not been greatly corrupted by habit will conclude that the taking of life would have been highly revolting to the minds of the first race of mankind; and as our feelings are a part of our better nature, and the impress of divine power and wisdom, we may rest assured that an all-wise Creator would not have rendered a diet necessary to our health and happiness, which must be obtained by doing incessant violence to our sympathies.

33. Some there are who doubt or deny that man was either created in this state of high moral perfection, or that he was wise and intelligent. They believe that his condition has been progressive from rude barbarism to the refinement of civilized life. It would probably, therefore, have had greater weight with such persons if I had considered the race of man to be shadowed forth by his history as an individual from infancy to manhood, commencing with instinctive suggestions and terminating with a high state of intellectuality and moral rectitude. This might have led to a very different arrangement of the subject, but we should have arrived at the same