ADDRESS ON ABSTINENCE.
35
HYMN.
Humanity and Religion Pleading against Flesh-Eating.
[1] "Eaters of flesh!" could you decry
Our food and sacred laws,
Did you behold the lambkin die,
And feel yourselves the cause?
Lo! there it struggles I hear it moan,
As stretch'd beneath the knife:
Its eye would melt a heart of stone!
How meek it begs its life!
Had God, for man, its flesh design'd;
Matur'd by death the brute,
Lifeless, to us had been consigned,
As is the ripen'd fruit.
Hold, daring man! from murder stay:
God is the life in all,
You smite at God! when flesh you slay:—
Can such a crime be small?
- ↑ See Prov. xxiii, 20.