Condemn the killing of innocent, defenseless animals, and do away with the fleshpots of Egypt, and praise Deity for endowing you with reason sufficient to realize the wrong of shedding life blood, and then sing hosannas for the nobility of living according to the promptings of higher conscience. * * * * * Do not think of the savory beef and mutton as it hangs in the market place, but turn your mind and heart to the abattoirs and see the horror of slaughter and then acknowledge that if God is not in the slaughter house to hinder the killing of a dumb brute he is surely not in the churches reserving crowns and halos for a sanctimonious element whose palate takes precedence of principle. * * * * * The church folk encourage the killing of quadruped, fish and fowl and then have the audacity to say grace at meal time, thanking God and imploring Him to shower blessings upon them. * * * * * You believe in all that elevates man to the highest standard of excellence and yet in the eating of a slaughtered animal you are an accessory to the crime of murder--a crime that is far more morally wrong and horrible than any so-called venial sin. The man who "believes" and has "faith" solely for his soul's safety through fear rather than through love; the man who affiliates with the church with mercenary motive; the man who testifies with lying tongue to the virtue of his carnivorous unfeeling religion; the man who shifts the blame of his cussedness to the mythical Satan; the man who is weak and bent toward religious emotionalism; the man who sees the mote in every eye but his own; the man who stands on the street corner preaching hell and damnation, "fighting the devil," are the sorts of men who decry that all beings have an equal right to live. * * * * * If perchance a fellow human becomes tired and weary of the vicissitudes of this world and cancels his own captivity (suicide), we frantically throw up our hands realizing the enormity of such a crime. His life is his own and he may do as he pleases; his sin of self-destruction is between himself and his God, and yet we grieve at such a sad exit. The very same man who shudders at the uncanny thought of another's self-murder will uphold the killing of a dumb brute to satiate the "human" palate. The animal does not want to die yet the intelligent man who has a "merciful loving God" makes murder permissible taking his authority from the book he calls "The Sacred Bible." The Proverbs, the Psalms, the Sermon on the Mount, and many other portions of the Good Book are beautiful, and no doubt the writers of the select passages were inspired, but the evil spirit was surely predominant in the man who depicted the Prince of Peace, in all his humility, as a flesh eater. * * * * *