1843.] and the Abyssinian Church. 695 



over the defiled person of that sinning individual, who shall have dared 

 to touch the meat of the hare, or the swine, or the aquatic fowl. 



" The children of Israel did not eat of the sinew which shrank, which 

 is upon the hollow of the thigh." This nerve is in the Amharic 

 language termed " Shoolada," and it is prohibited and held unlawful in 

 Shoa, more especially to the members of the royal blood considered as 

 highly unclean ; it ranks with the carrion carcase, and the universal 

 belief prevails, that the touch of the unholy morsel would infallibly be 

 followed by the loss of the offending teeth, as a direct proof of the just 

 indignation of Heaven. 



The Abyssinian cannot be brought to admit, that every creature of 

 the universe being alike the work of the Almighty, must necessarily be 

 clean, and that those which are not noxious to health can therefore be 

 used for man's food, if accepted with thanksgiving towards the Crea- 

 tor. The liberal spirit of Christianity is indeed wonderfully clouded 

 in darkness, and the stranger who professes its tenets, but withholds 

 his subscription to the creed of narrow and fanatic ideas, is regarded as 

 worse than the surrounding heathen, and condemned to eternal perdi- 

 tion. 



The Jewish sabbath is moreover strictly observed throughout the 

 kingdom. The ox and the ass are at rest; agricultural pursuits are 

 suspended ; household avocations must be laid aside ; and the spirit of 

 idleness reigns throughout the day. 



Abolished by the orders of the great Council of Laodicea, the oriental 

 churches were, after the observance of centuries, freed from this burden, 

 and men gladly availed themselves of the ecclesiastical license to work 

 on the Saturday. Here, however, the ancient usage agreed too well 

 with the laziness of the people, systematically trained to indolence and 

 sloth ; and when a few years ago, one daring spirit presumed, in advance 

 of the age, to burst the fetters of superstition, His Majesty the king of 

 Shoa, stimulated by the advice of besotted monks, delegated his wardens 

 throughout the land, and issued a proclamation, that whosoever disturb- 

 ed the original dreary stillness of the Jewish sabbath, should forfeit his 

 property to the imperial treasury, and his person to the State dungeon. 



Ludoff, the celebrated Strabo of Ethiopia, most accurately remarks, 

 that there is no nation upon earth which fasts so strictly as the Abyssi- 

 nians, and that they would rather commit a great crime than touch food 



