The Profits of Religion | Page 9

chose you, etc. He blesses the Incarnate Word, etc.
He blesses the Divine Spirit, etc. He blesses, exalts and thanks the most
august Trinity, etc. O Virgin, holy and merciful . . . be pleased to accept
this little homage of your servant, and obtain for him also from your
divine Son pardon for his sins, Amen.
And then, looking more closely, we discover the purpose of this
"beautiful prayer", and of the neat little paper which prints it. "Salve
Regina" is raising funds for the "National Shrine of the Immaculate
Conception", a home for more priests, and Catholic ladies who desire
to collect for it may receive little books which they are requested to
return within three months. Pius X writes a letter of warm endorsement,
and sets an example by giving four hundred dollars "out of his
poverty"--or, to be more precise, out of the poverty of the pitiful
peasantry of Italy. There is included in the paper a form of bequest for
"devoted clients of Our Blessed Mother", and at the top of the editorial
page the most alluring of all baits for the loving hearts of the flock--that
the names of deceased relatives and friends may be written in the
collection books, and will be transferred to the records of the Shrine,
and these persons "will share in all its spiritual benefits". In the days of
Job it was with threats of boils and poverty that the Priestly Lie
maintained itself; but in the case of this blackest of all Terrors,
transplanted to our free Republic from the heart of the Dark Ages, the
wretched victims see before their eyes the glare of flames, and hear the
shrieks of their loved ones writhing in torment through uncounted ages
and eternities.
Fresh Meat
In the days when I was experimenting with vegetarianism, I sought

earnestly for evidence of a non-meat-eating race; but candor compelled
me to admit that man was like the monkey and the pig and the bear--he
was vegetarian when he could not help it. The advocates of the reform
insist that meat as a diet causes muddy brains and dulled nerves; but
you would certainly never suspect this from a study of history. What
you find in history is that all men crave meat, all struggle for it, and the
strongest and cleverest get it. Everywhere you find the subject classes
living in the midst of animals which they tend, but whose flesh they
rarely taste. Even in modern America, sweet land of liberty, our
millions of tenant farmers raise chickens and geese and turkeys, and
hardly venture to consume as much as an egg, but save everything for
the summer-boarder or the buyer from the city. It would not be too
much to say of the cultural records of early man that they all have to do,
directly or indirectly, with the reserving of fresh meat to the masters. In
J. T. Trowbridge's cheerful tale of the adventures of Captain Seaborn,
we are told by the cannibal priest how idol-worship has ameliorated the
morals of the tribe--
For though some warriors of renown Continue anthropophagous, 'Tis
rare that human flesh goes down The low-caste man's aesophagus!
I suspect that we should have to go back to the days of the cave-man to
find the first lover of the flesh-pots who put a taboo upon meat, and
promised supernatural favors to all who would exercise self-control,
and instead of consuming their meat themselves, would bring it and lay
it upon the sacred griddle, or altar, where the god might come in the
night-time and partake of it. Certainly, at any rate, there are few
religions of record in which such devices do not appear. The early laws
of the Hebrews are more concerned with delicatessen for the priests
than with any other subject whatever. Here, for example, is the way to
make a Nazarite:
He shall offer his offering up to the Lord, one he lamb of the first year
without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year
without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for
peace offerings, and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour
mingled with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread anointed with oil,
and their meat offerings.
And the law goes on to instruct the priests to take certain choice, parts
and "wave them for a wave offering before the Lord: this is holy for the

priest." What was done with the other portions we are not told; but
earlier in this same "Book of Numbers" we find the general law that
Every offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which
they bring unto the priest, shall be his. And every man's hallowed
things shall be