'Mercy Mild' by M. Dudley Ward

'Years ago I once saw a farm girl surreptitiously brush a tear from her eyes as she put a finishing touch to her careful grooming and said "Goodbye, old thing" to her charge - a beautiful young white heifer who nuzzled her face and gazed at her wonderingly. That girl's emotion was a tiny spark of heaven in prevailing hell. The whisper of Love momentarily asserting itself over the raucous yell of Money. Why should Peace and Goodwill to men be offset by this colossal carnage - this spate of savagery against poor creatures - descendants of those who offered their humble hospitality to a desperate Family when the door of every human inn was slammed against them?' From an essay published in The Vegetarian News (Winter 1952 edition)

Quotation (1854)

'Vegetarians argue that what was best at the beginning is best now; by distinguishing between appointment and permission harmonize God with His attributes, and with His several approvals of abstinence from flesh and his warnings to avoid it; the evidently greater reconcilement of mercy and peace with such practice than now exists, and the further assurance of prophecy that a time will come when "they shall not hurt or destroy".' From an anonymous letter published in The Vegetarian Messenger (January 1854)

'Humane Education' By The Rev. A.M. Mitchell, M.A. (1906)

Excerpts from a booklet which was written during parliamentary amendments to the Education Act of 1902. The author sought to expand public debate beyond general religious and financial considerations in his capacity as a local education official and member of the Order of the Golden Age.

Quotation: The Rev. Dr. William Hamilton Drummond (1838)

"While we "eat the fat and drink the sweet," we never, for an instant reflect on the animal sufferings which precede the banquet;—the barbed hook, the lacerating shot, the shrieks, the groans, and the dying agony. Such reflections would embitter the taste; therefore they are excluded as enemies of our peace; and cruelties continue to be perpetrated not because we approve of them, but because we allow ourselves to become even unconscious of their existence."

From The rights of animals and man's obligation to treat them with humanity by William H. Drummond, D.D., M.R.I.A. (John Mardon publishers, 1838, p.122)At least 3 editions of the work have been re-published in recent years and the original text has been made available by Google books.

'Catholics and Natural Living'

From The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review (October 1946 edition). The cited author, Rev. Aloysius Roche, wrote a major treatise on animal welfare: These Animals of Ours (Burnes, Oates & Washbourne Ltd., 1939) See: Quotation

'The First Step' by Count Leo Tolstoy (Chapter IX)

From The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review (August 1950) Pages 6-8 here See also 'Leo Tolstoy: Food Reformer'

First five pages

'Sanctuary'

A press report which was reproduced in The Vegetarian News (March 1936) where the editor remarked, "... it seems, two things may rightly be inferred: the first that, even in ecclesiastical circles, the time when 'they shall not hurt nor destroy' has not yet fully (but only locally) come to pass; the second that a slaughter-house is a place which, in its very nature, is quite incapable of being consecrated."

'Christian Ethics and the Animal Kingdom' by the Duchess of Hamilton

Here's a theological treatise from 1935 which I stumbled upon only recently and some striking excerpts from the author's moral case.

'Vegetarianism's Pilgrim Fathers' by Charles W. Forward

From The Vegetarian News (February 1940)

'Food Reform in the Early Church' by Rev. G. Nevin Drinkwater, B.Sc.

From a factual portion of a thesis which was eventually published as a twenty page booklet: Food in the Early Church - A Study of Christian Vegetarianism in the light of modern Biblical Research (St. Alban's Press). Above extract taken from The Vegetarian News (Winter 1947 edition)

'Animal Suffering' by Rev. Francis Wood

"... we vegetarians must never forget that our special protest is not merely against cruelty to animals. We are very much more than a department of the R.S.P.C.A. We are out, I take it, to protest especially and vehemently against that wholesale and wanton destruction of the wonderful and beautiful creature life of the world of which mankind - especially in this Western part of the globe - are constantly and customarily guilty. We believe in the sanctity not alone of human but of all life. We assert that all life has but one great and sacred source. And we hold it a most immoral and impius thing that man - himself an essentially dependent and finite creature, receiving his own life by absolute will of a Higher Power - should rob his humbler fellows of their God given existence in order to satisfy his own selfish appetites and impulses." From a letter published in The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review (August 1929) See Profile

Quotation: C.P. Newcombe (1904)

"Religion is that perfect abnegation of self which seeks its complete realisation in the mitigation of the sorrows of others. The Apostle tells us to be 'first pure, then peacable.' So we give our thoughts to the problems which tend to purity, and to us there is no peace till they are solved. We hate the cruelties of flesh-eating. We charge upon them the degradations which on all hands are so evident, and which are a shadow on the character of our best men, whether called by the name of Christian or by any other." From an essay entitled 'Are Vegetarians Christians?' which was published in The Vegetarian (September 1904)

James Simpson: excerpt from a speech of 1854

"Why did Moses permit them to put away their wives? Christ says, Moses permitted this for the hardness of their hearts, showing that these things were permitted when the Jewish nation was not perceptible of a higher level of truth and morals. What we found in the Bible was, therefore, to be carefully looked at in connection with other circumstances, or we might follow fallen examples instead of high principles. It was in this way that slavery was justified by the slaveholder, and so the capital punishment man drew his sanction; but if they went further they would find other principles taught, such as the command to do good to those who hate us and ill treat us. The great thing, then, was not to look at the facts and history of Scripture apart from the principles of Scripture, and they would thus find that there were many things recorded that they were not obliged to act out, but that they had to follow the great and high principles of truth and goodness." From a talk on vegetarian values and experience of the diet given on October 6th, 1854 at the New Jerusalem School, Accrington by the first President of the Vegetarian Society. Text taken from The Vegetarian Messenger (November 1854)

'Vegetarianism at the Christian Endeavour Convention' (C.P. Newcombe, 1900)

A prominent Victorian food reformer describes dealing with a notable challenge to their outlook during a 4-day evangelical youth gathering held at the Alexandra Palace, London. From The Vegetarian dated August 4, 1900

The Rev. William John Monk, M.A. (1820 - 1896)

Text taken from a feature in The Food Reform Magazine (April-June, 1885 edition). The Dodington vicar was also active within the Church of England Temperance Society and the East Kent branch of the R.S.P.C.A.; as well as a Vice-President of both the Anti-Narcotic League and the Vegetarian Society. With thanks to the www.henrysalt.co.uk project for procuring the portrait from Fifty Years of Food Reform by Charles W. Forward (Ideal Publishing Union, 1898)

Sermon on vegetarianism (1897)

Taken from the tract Bible Testimony as to the Use of Animal Food by the Rev. James Clark which was published by the Vegetarian Society in 1901.

Originally preached at the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Ramsgate, on Sunday, May 30th, 1897, to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the VS.

See also: 'Bible difficulties' and Quotation

'Edicts of the Eastern Orthodox Church' (1970)

From an article by Leo Doro of St. Sergius Russian Theological Academy. 'Eastern Orthodox Tradition Examined' was published in The British Vegetarian (November/December 1970).

'The Slaughtering system in the light of Religion' by Rev. Francis Wood

From the final chapter of A Reply to Dean Inge's Defence of Flesh-eating (C.W. Daniel, 1934) reprinted in The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review (September 1934)

See also: Rev Francis Wood (1854-1934) and 'The Dean again' by Henry Salt

'A Question of Choice' by Geoffrey L. Rudd (1909-1995)

From the Editorial for the Winter 1955 edition of World Forum

See also: 'The Bible and Vegetarianism'