246 NORTHERN MEMOIRS. 



and my body begins to summon supplies, to 

 gratify and satisfy a craving appetite. 



Am. As these are certain symptoms of health, 

 you put a delay to what you solicit. 



Theoph. If I do, what then ? There's a super- 

 annuated custom kept up among the antients ; 

 that to gratify the appetite violates the creation. 

 This was of old the Brachmans creed, and is to 

 this day the Banians Alcoran, except of late they 

 have changed their opinion : for they assert, that 

 nature would be unnatural to her self in the de* 

 struction of any thing wherein she favourably 

 had breathed a life. 



Am. Was this the primitive practice of our 

 former ancestors ? 



Theoph. I don't say it was ; I discourse the 

 Brachmans that offer this argument. No man 

 has a commission to create life, no man therefore 

 by any law or custom ought to take life away ; 

 which if he do, he makes himself an instrument 

 of unnatural cruelty, and his body a sepulchre 

 to bury dead carcasses in. 



Am. But had they consulted our great ora- 

 cle Moses, and considered the great ends of the 

 great Creator, they would speak I fancy another 

 dialect, and render unto us a different interpre- 

 tation. 



Theoph. Why so ? 



Am. The Jews you may read had a sanction 



