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Some years ago I was permitted to make a careful study of members of a small religious community which was established near my farm. Its members were ordinary country people, for the most part of rather low mentality and narrow thought, yet with a curiously shrewd power of intuition. They were fanatics, and among other practices or “self-denials” they refused to eat anything which had to do with animal life. Thus they limited their diet to grain, vegetables and fruit. One man, who called himself “John the Baptist,” found this restriction a rigorous punishment, for he “liked to eat up hearty!” He wrestled in spirit for weeks, and finally told me that he had received an unanswerable argument straight from the Lord. In a moment of depression he had heard a voice from Heaven saying very distinctly:

“John, look at that big black horse!”

“I can see him right now!”

“Look at him! He is big and strong and can pull a plow all alone. Does he eat meat? No, he lives on grain and hay—the grass of the field! Now if that big horse can keep up his strength without meat, you can do the same, John!”