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him to treat them with more humanity. It is accounted as illiberal in a man to inherit a partiality for his country as to wish that it alone, of all other nations, may enjoy the charming sweets of liberty. We ought, it is said, to confess ourselves citizens of the whole world. It is also as illiberal not to treat the brute creation with the same tenderness that we treat mankind. We were all made by the same Almighty power, we breathe the same air, and we tread upon the same earth. We are all of us fellow-citizens of the same universe. For my part, it is the constant custom of my life to spare even the meanest insect. If, by chance, my foot deprives any one of them of existence, that existence is not destroyed without a sigh. The world, as my uncle Toby says, is surely wide enough to hold both me and the fly which buzzes around my head. I shall also think myself happy if this, my book, be the means of rescuing the most insignificant animal from torture. The saving it a single groan will more than comfort me for all the trouble I have received in compiling it; nay, even for the sneers of mankind. The slightest observation on the conduct of mankind to brutes, will shew that the former are devoid of sensation, except in respect to what relates to themselves. I have even witnessed the dying groans of an expiring victim imitated, in mockery!-Crawford's Dissertation.

On the place which man holds in the scale of animated beings, all naturalists are agreed. There are those, who deem it a sort of degradation, to the human species, to class mankind with monkeys, apes, and baboons; and to shew the analogy of his structure with that of the orang-outang. But misplaced pride and an ignorant misapprehension cannot alter the nature of things. Our very language acknowled

ges the analogy. Monkey can only mean mannikin, or little man. It does not follow, however, that man approaches more nearly to the nature of the monkey, than he does to that of the otter, except in the single circumstance of the choice of food. Man is distinguished from the whole tribe of animals by a rational soul. It is only when he divests himself of his reason, and debases himself by brutal habits, that he renounces his just rank among created beings, and sinks himself below the level of the beasts.-Addit. Rep. on Regimen, p. 226

ARGUMENTS FROM SCRIPTURE AND

HISTORY.

AND God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.-Gen. i, 29.

The banana plant is perhaps, the most useful in the world, as it's fruit makes excellent food without cooking, having a most agreeable flavour, and possessing very nutrimental qualities. It produces a cluster of sixty, or four score delicious figs, which come to maturity all at once; and it pushes out shoots of every degree of magnitude, which bear in succession, and at all times throughout the year. It is the king of fruits, not excepting the cocoa. When stripped of it's skin, it has been compared to a large sausage; it's substance and colour to fresh butter in winter; it's taste to a mixture of apple and pear, which melts in the mouth like marmalade. Thousands of families live between the tropics, on this pleasant, wholesome, and nourishing fruit alone.-St. Pierre's Stud. ii, 168, 286.

In India, wheat, rice, barley, and other grain prop>

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er for making bread, grow in plenty, and are very good; the wheat especially, is more white and full than the English. The country equally abounds with the choicest fruits; such as pomegranates, citrons, dates, grapes, almonds, cocoa-nuts, and that most excellent plum called the mirabolan; plantains, which grow in clusters like long slender cucumbers; the mango, in shape and colour, like an apricot, but much larger; and the anana, which resembles our pine apple, and has a most exquisite pleasing taste. In the northern parts, they have variety of pears and apples, lemons and oranges. They have excellent musk melons, and water melons, some as large as pompions, which they resemble in shape.-Mod. Un. Hist. vi. 208.

In China, a single acre of land, sown with rice, produces sufficient for the consumption of five per sons for a year, allowing two pounds and a half a day to each. An acre planted with cotton, produduces sufficient for clothing upwards of two hundred persons. Breton's China, ix, 29.

There is not a single genus of plants, but what, in it's variety of species, presents food to man, in some part or other of the globe.-St. Pierre's Stud. ii, 466.

It is sufficiently evident, that in whatever part of the habitable globe man can exist, there, vegetable nutriment may either be found or be raised; that in no situation fit for the habitation of man, is the earth devoid of prolific power, sufficient to satisfy his wants, and even to gratify his palate.-Dr. Lambe's addit. Reports, p. 224.

Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow ev. ery tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.-Gen. ii, 9.

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The plantain alone, says St. Pierre, might have proved sufficient to supply the wants of man in a prima. tive state, for it produces the most healthful food, and it's fruit is evidently intended for human consumption. One of it's clusters forms no inconsider. able load for a man, while it's spreading top presents a magnificent shade and it's long green leaves may be adapted as temporary clothing. It is under this delightful shade, and by means of fruits perpetually renewed, that the Hindoo Bramin leads a life of tranquillity, and, deriving a supply for all his wants from one of those trees, situated upon the margin of a brook, is said frequently to attain the age of one hundred years, They are found throughout the whole torrid zone, in Africa, in Asia, in America, north and south, in the islands belonging to each continent, and even in the most distant islands of the south sea. The flavour of the plantain is such, as to supply the want of butter, sugar, and spices. It supplies what may be called the delicacies of pastry.-Harmon. of Nat. vi, 9, &c.

In thesweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.-Gen. iii, 19.

The peculiar property of the corn plant is that of being produced in some shape or other in every part of the world, from the rice of the Ganges to the barley of Finland. It is, however, very remarkable, that it grows no where spontaneously like other plants, so that providence appears to have devolved altogether on our species, the charge of maintaining and extending it's cultivation. Bread is of all vegetable nourishment the most substantial and durable.

Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.-Isa. vii, 15. We learn from Mr. Park, that the centre of Afri

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ca produces a tree, resembling the American oak, with nuts like spanish olives, which produces from the kernels of these nuts, by boiling, tree-butter, whiter and finer, and of a richer flavour than that of cow's milk; it will keep, without salt, the whole year.

And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat was locusts and wild honey.-Matt. iii, 4.

From this we learn what the diet of John the baptist, the favoured of heaven, and forerunner of Christ, consisted of; i. e. honey and the fruit of the locust

tree.

Certain it is, that God, ordaining herbs and fruit for the food of man, speaks not a word concerning flesh for two thousand years. And when after, by the Mosaic constitution, there were distinctions and prohibitions, about the legal uncleanness of animals, plants, of what kind so ever, were left free and indifferent, for every one to chuse what he liked best.

Infants sought the mother's nipple as soon as born; and when grown and able to feed themselves, ran nat. urally to fruit, and still will chuse to eat it rather than flesh; and certainly might so persist to do, did not custom prevail even against the very dictates of nature. Nor question 1, but that what the heathen poets recount of the happiness of the golden age, sprang from some tradition they had received of the Paradisian fare, and their innocent and healthful lives in that delightful garden.-Evelyn's Acetaria, p. 146..

"It is less to be wondered at, that christians should addict themselves to animal food, as they "eat blood, and things strangled," in direct opposition to their own religion, and the express prohibition of God. After the flood, when he declares to Noah and his sons, Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat

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