Spite of reason, religion, and Jesus, the victory is in this account, given to James--to Jesus' kinsman, James. The motion is carried: the course proposed, is a sort of middle course--a sort of compromise. At the hands of Gentile proselytes, in deference to the Mosaic law, abstinence from four things is required: namely, meats offered to idols, blood, things strangled: these, and the irregularities of the sexual appetite,--whatsoever they were, that were meant by the word, rendered into English by the word _fornication_. If any such decision were really come to,--by nothing but necessity--necessity produced by the circumstances of place and time--will it be found excusable. Abstinence from food killed in the way of sacrifice to heathen gods, on the occasion of public sacrifices: yes; for, for such food, little relish could remain, on the part of persons devoted to the religion of Jesus: from fornication, yes; for, for a sacrifice in this shape, even among the Gentiles, some preparation had been made by stoicism. But, as to blood and things strangled,[34] that is to say, animals so slaughtered as to have more blood left in their carcasses than the Mosaic law would allow to be left in them--animals slaughtered otherwise than in the Jewish manner,--thus forbidding teachings of the religion of Jesus, to eat a meal furnished by Gentile hands,--this, as above observed, was depriving them of their most favourable opportunities, for carrying their pious and beneficent purposes into effect, by adding to the number of believers. Altogether remarkable is the consideration, upon the face of it, by which, if the historian is to be believed, this decision was produced. "For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in synagogues every sabbath day," Acts 15:21. May be so: but what if he has? what is that to the purpose? Good, if the question were about the Jews: but, it is _not_ about the Jews: the Gentiles, and they only, are the subjects of it. And the Gentiles--what know or care _they_ about Moses? what is it that is to send _them_ into the synagogues, to hear anything that is "read in synagogues"? By this imaginary abstinence from blood,--for, after all, by no exertion of Mosaic ingenuity could the flesh ever be completely divested of the blood that had circulated in it,--of this perfectly useless prohibition, what would be the effect?--Not only to oppose obstacles, to the exertions of Christian teachers, in their endeavors to make converts among the Gentiles,--but, on the part of the Gentiles themselves to oppose to them a needless difficulty, in the way of their conversion, by rendering it impossible for them, consistently with the observance of this prohibition, to associate with their unconverted friends and families at convivial hours. Thus much as to what concerns the Gentiles.[35]