'Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.'
It is appropriate in this place to point out that some very pointed things are said in the Bible against the killing and eating of animals. It has been said that it is possible by judiciously selecting quotations to find the Bible support almost anything. However this may be, the following excerpta are of interest:—
'And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.'—Gen. i., 29.
'But flesh with life thereof, which is the blood thereof, ye shall not eat.'—Gen. ix., 4.
'It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings, that ye shall eat neither fat nor blood.'—Lev. iii., 17.
'Ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl, or beast.'—Lev. vii., 26.
'Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.'—Lev. xvii., 14.
'The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.'—Isaiah lxv.
'He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man.'—Isaiah lxvi., 3.
'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.'—Matt. ix., 7.