who has lived on the flesh of men and women
whom he has killed, is to reduce ourselves to the level of the tiger, and
is unworthy of people who seek to be guided by the highest principles in
all, both their thoughts and actions.

"The unseen power who has revealed himself to me alone among you, has
told me to tell you that you ought by this time to have outgrown the
barbarous habits of your ancestors. If, as you believe, you know better
than they, you should do better. He commands you, therefore, to refrain
from killing any living being for the sake of eating it. The only animal
food that you may eat, is the flesh of any birds, beasts, or fishes that
you may come upon as having died a natural death, or any that may have
been born prematurely, or so deformed that it is a mercy to put them out
of their pain; you may also eat all such animals as have committed
suicide. As regards vegetables you may eat all those that will let you
eat them with impunity."

So wisely and so well did the old prophet argue, and so terrible were the
threats he hurled at those who should disobey him, that in the end he
carried the more highly educated part of the people with him, and
presently the poorer classes followed suit, or professed to do so. Having
seen the triumph of his principles, he was gathered to his fathers, and
no doubt entered at once into full communion with that unseen power whose
favour he had already so pre-eminently enjoyed.

He had not, however, been dead very long, before some of his more ardent
disciples took it upon them to better the instruction of their master.
The old prophet had allowed the use of eggs and milk, but his disciples
decided that to eat a fresh egg was to destroy a potential chicken, and
that this came to much the same as murdering a live one. Stale eggs, if
it was quite certain that they were too far gone to be able to be
hatched, were grudgingly permitted, but all eggs offered for sale had to
be submitted to an inspector, who, on being satisfied that they were
addled, would label them "Laid not less than three months" from the date,
whatever it might happen to be. These eggs, I need hardly say, were only
used in puddings, and as a medicine in certain cases where an emetic was
urgently required. Milk was forbidden inasmuch as it could not be
obtained without robbing some calf of its natural sustenance, and thus
endangering its life.

It will be easily believed that at first there were many w