,--our best selves,--and to allow either law or ruler to
interfere with them, is self-destruction. We are no longer ourselves
when we allow ourselves to be controlled by the will or power of
another. Animals have equal rights with man. The poet was right when he
said,

"Take not away the life thou canst not give,
For all things have an equal right to live."

How _can_ man have a right to take away the life of an animal? The lower
animals occupied the world before man, and man, a later comer, could not
abrogate the prior rights of his predecessors. The use of animal food is
unnatural. It is unhealthy. In feeding on other living creatures man
degrades, corrupts, and then destroys himself. And vegetables, grains,
and fruits should be taken in their natural state. The art of cooking is
an unnatural innovation. The first of our race did not cook. Man is the
only cooking animal, and he is the only sickly one. He is the only one
that loses his teeth, or suffers from indigestion. Teetotalism is
binding on all. Alcohol is an unnatural product. Man is the only being
unnatural enough to drink it. Grapes are good, and so is grain; but
wine, and beer, and spirits, are a trinity of devils, which destroy the
bodies and torment the souls of unnatural men. "There is no God," said
one. "Gods and devils are alike fantastic creatures of the erring mind
of man." "But there _must_ be a God," said another. "All nature cries
aloud there is a God. Our own hearts' instincts--our highest
intuitions,--assure us there is. As well deny the universe, and the
primal intuitions of humanity, as the being of God. A God and a future
life are necessities of human nature. And there is, _without_ us, a
supply for every want _within_ us. As soon will you find a race of
beings with appetites for food, for whom no food is provided, as a race
with longings for God and desires for immortality, while no God and
immortality exist to meet those longings, to satisfy those desires."
"But if there be a God to answer to our longings, and a blessed
immortality to satisfy our desires, why not a devil to answer to our
fears, and a hell to answer to our guilty terrors? And would a God leave
us without a revelation of his will." "The instincts of our nature are
the revelation of God's will. To obey our instincts is to obey the law
of God." "Then is the law of God as various as men's natural tendencies?
Does the murderer, whose tendency is to kill, obey the law of