Page:Horæ Sinicæ, Translations from the Popular Literature of the Chinese (horsinictran00morrrich, Morrison, 1812).djvu/77

plans, but take and sell the ox, that plows your field. When you see that I am old and weak, you sell me to the butcher to be killed. The butcher conducts me home and soon strikes me in the forehead with the head of an iron hatchet, after which, I am left to die in the utmost distress. My skin is peeled off, and my bones scraped:—but when was I their enemy? When men in life are greatly distressed, I apprehend that it is in consequence of having before neglected virtue. My belly is ripped open, and my bowels taken out; my bones also are taken; the sharp knife scrapes my bones, and cuts my throat. These who sell me, do not grow rich; those who eat me, do not grow fat; those who kill me, are most decidedly bad men. They take my skin to cover the drum by which the country is alarmed, and the gods are grieved. If they continue to kill me, in time there will not be oxen to till the ground, and your children and grand-children must use the spade. I am fully persuaded after mature consideration, that the wicked persons who kill oxen, will, in the next