" This law
therefore of blood, whatever other objects it might have in view,
enjoined that, while men were engaged in the distresing task of taking
away the life of an animal, they should respect its feelings, by
abstaining from torture, or all unnecessary pain.
[Footnote 10: It seems almost impossible, that men could be so depraved,
as to take flesh to eat from a poor animal, while alive, and yet from
the law enjoined to proselytes of the gate it is probable, that it was
the case. Bruce, whose travels into Abyssynia are gaining in credit,
asserts that such customs obtained there. And the Harleian Miscellany,
vol. 6. P. 126, in which is a modern account of Scotland, written in
1670, states the same practice as having existed in our own island.]
[11]On Noah, and in him on all mankind
The Charter was conferr'd, by which we hold
The flesh of animals in fee, and claim
O'er all we feed on pow'r of life and death.
But read the instrument, and mark it well.
The oppression of a tyrannous control
Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield
Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin,
Feed on the slain; but spare the living brute.
[Footnote 11: Cowper.]
From this charter, and from the great condition annexed to it, the
Quakers are of opinion that rights and duties have sprung up; rights on
behalf of animals, and duties on the part of men; and that a breach of
these duties, however often, or however thoughtlessly it may take place,
is a breach of a moral law.
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