ermitted but sanctioned
its use.

But, to say nothing of the folly of going, for proof of every thing we
wish to prove, to a book which was never given for this purpose, or of
the fact that in thus adducing Scripture to prove our favorite
doctrines, we often go too far, and prove too much; is it true that the
Saviour ate flesh and fish? Or, if this could be proved, is it true that
his example binds us forever to that which other evidence as well as
science show to be of doubtful utility? Paul did not think so, most
certainly. It is good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, he says,
if it cause our brother to offend. Did not Paul understand, at least as
well as we, the precepts and example of our Saviour?

And as to a permission to Noah and his descendants, the Jews, to use
animal food--was it not for the hardness of the human heart, as our
Saviour calls it? From the beginning, was it so? Is not man, in the
first chapter of Genesis, constituted a vegetable-eater? Was his
constitution ever altered? And if so, when and where? Will they who fly
to the Bible for their support, in this particular, please to tell us?

But it is idle to go to the Bible, on this subject. I mean, it is idle
to pretend to do so, when we mean not so much. Men who _incline_ to wine
and other alcoholic drinks, plead the example and authority of the
Bible. Yet you will hardly find a man who drinks wine simply because he
believes the Bible justifies its use. He drinks it for other reasons,
and then makes the foolish excuse that the Bible is on his side. So in
regard to the use of flesh meat. Find a man who really uses flesh or
fish _because_ the Bible requires him to do so, and I will then discuss
the question with him on Bible ground. Till that time, further argument
on this direction is unnecessary.

CONCLUSION.

But I must conclude this long essay. There is one consideration,
however, which I am unwilling to omit, although, in deciding on the
merits of the question before us, it may not have as much
weight--regarded as a part of the moral argument--on every mind, as it
has on my own.

Suppose the great Creator were to make a new world somewhere in the
regions of infinite space, and to fit it out in most respects like our
own. It is to be the place and abode of such minerals, vegetables, and
animals as our own. Instead, however, of peopling it gradually, he fills
it at once with inhabitants; and instead of having the arts and the
science