Hence date the persecution and the pain,
That man inflicts on all inferior kinds,
Regardless of their plaints. To make him sport,
To gratify the frenzy of his wrath,
Or his base gluttony, are causes good,
And just, in his account, why bird and beast
Should suffer torture--"
Thus the Quakers censured these diversions from the first formation of
their society, and laid down such moral principles with respect to the
treatment of animals, as were subversive of their continuance. These
principles continued to actuate all true Quakers, who were their
successors; and they gave a proof, in their own conduct, that they were
influenced by them, not only in treating the different animals under
their care with tenderness, but in abstaining from all diversions in
which their feelings could be hurt. The diversions however, of the
field, notwithstanding that this principle of the brute-creation had
been long recognized, and that no person of approved character in the
society followed them, began in time to be resorted to occasionally by
the young and thoughtless members, either out of curiosity, or with a
view of trying them, as means of producing pleasure. These deviations,
however from the true spirit of Quakerism became at length known.
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