Puslapio vaizdai
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"And has not all this superfluity," adds this talented and pious author, "so varied, so constant, so delicate, so difficult to understand, been appointed for us and for our pleasures? Has it not been appointed by Him, the powerful as the beneficent, when it is all the result of organization so minute and abstruse, and of chemical actions so obscure and so wonderful, that all equally eludes our faculties, and confounds our reasonings? Chance it is not, and it is not necessity; for all other animals it is purposeless; it is a source of enjoyment to us: And whence, then, again, in the words of Seneca, are the pleasures which we do enjoy, if God has not given them ; if He did not thus provide for our happiness? Yes! Even in things so minute and so low as this; which we must not shun to think of, from false or affected views of Him, to whom man, altogether, is as the gnat of a day's life, equally under his care and protection, lest it should lack its food and its happiness, and fail in its generations. Between Him, the Infinite, and all beneath, all distances are alike. the eternal welfare of man; and protects the sparrow. impiety which strives to view Him in every thing; it is not piety nor religion that would exclude him from any thing."

He watches, indeed, over but He also feeds the raven, He has told us so: It is not

FIFTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

HUMAN FOOD.-COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FOOD OF SAVAGE

AND CIVILIZED MAN.

THERE is this obviously intentional difference, between the articles produced by Nature for the lower animals, and those produced for man, that the former are scattered over the face of the earth in great abundance, without cultivation, and the latter are only scantily provided, and

* Vol. iii. chap. 46.

require the hand of art, for their propagation. The more we consider this difference, the more sensible we shall become of one great design of the Creator, to which I have already taken frequent occasion to allude, the exercise of the human faculties, by a necessity to labor and to invent. All those plants which now constitute the staff of man's life, are incapable of extensive propagation,—some of them, as would appear, are incapable even of preserving the species, without the intervention of human art. This is particularly the case, in the temperate regions, with all the cereal tribes, and between the tropics, with the banana tree, which, in their respective localities, form the chief article of food. Without these, our race could scarcely subsist; as without our race, they would probably long ere now have perished.

As this arrangement was intended to promote and reward human industry, so there is another provision, not less essential for that purpose; which is, that industry, when exerted, should be crowned with abundant and varied success. To what extent this provision has actually been made, we shall best be able to discover by a comparison between the food within the reach of the savage, and that which loads the table of the man who lives in civilized society. He who subsists entirely on the natural productions of the forest and the waters, finds in the one but a few scanty fruits and roots, which he gathers, or a few wild animals, who fall victims to his snares; and, in the other, such limited varieties of the finny tribes as frequent his native river, or glide along the shores of his native sea. But observe what the toil and ingenuity of civilized man has effected. Not only has he appropriated and rendered abundant all the edible productions of his native soil, and greatly ameliorated them by culture; but, not content with this, he has bridged the ocean, and collected from the most distant lands, whatever was found capable of nourishing his body, or gratifying his appetite.

If we look into the lowly cottage of a British peasant, and examine the fare of the inmates, comparatively ill provided though they be, we shall find that they are almost

entirely indebted, either directly or indirectly, to foreign climates, for the articles on which they subsist. The corn, whether oats, barley, rye, or wheat,-from which their bread is prepared, wherever it originated, was certainly not indigenous; the milk with which they moisten it, is the produce of an animal, which is probably not a native of their island, and has, at all events, been tamed and domesticated, before it would afford them this delicious beverage; their potatoes have found their way to them from the distant regions of the Andes, in the western world; their peas and beans from the scarcely less distant countries of the East, to which prolific soil they probably also owe their turnips, their cabbages, and their onions. These, however, though originally imported, are all now the produce of their own soil; but it is not so with some other productions, which have ceased to be luxuries, and have become comforts, if not necessaries, even to the laboring classes. To bring them tea, half the globe has been encircled; to produce them sugar, the poor Negro has toiled under a tropical sun. If their perverted habits lead them to indulge in tobacco, in any of its forms, the indulgence is wafted to them across the broad Atlantic.

When we turn to the tables of the rich, we find all the varieties of food, already mentioned, and many more. Of their numerous vegetables, few are indigenous to Britain. The Jerusalem artichoke is a native of Brazil, the spinach of Asia, the endive of Japan, the scorzonera of Spain; pepper is a production of tropical climates; beet and celery of the European continent. They first imported cauliflower and the garden-cress from the island of Cyprus; asparagus was early cultivated in Greece; and the artichoke and lettuce seem to owe their origin to a similar locality on the shores of the Mediterranean. Rice and millet are the produce of tropical grasses; arrowroot is extracted from the root, and sago from the pith, of plants which flourish only under the rays of a burning sun.

The

animal food used by them is also indebted for some of its varieties to foreign importation. The cow, which furnishes their beef, and the hog, which supplies them with pork and ham, may be native animals; but it is not so

with the sheep, which provides them with mutton, and adds, by its delicacy and flavor, so much to the luxuries of the table. This has been transported from the teeming East, and has proved, from the earliest times, one of the most important gifts of the Creator to the human race, whether we consider its uses while alive, or after it has fallen under the butcher's knife.

The luxuries of the dessert, are equally varied, by the productions of foreign lands. The apple, the pear, the quince, and the medlar, are all acquisitions from the Eastern continent; and the same may be said of the pomegranate, the fig, and the grape. To an Eastern region, also, the English are indebted for their cucumbers and melons; while the peach, the nectarine, the almond, and the apricot, are importations from the same primeval garden. The olive is a native of Asia and Africa, and perhaps also of the southeastern parts of Europe; and the orange, though now cultivated in almost all warm climates, seems to have originally sprung from the tropical regions of the East. Of preserves, the tamarind and the guava are the produce of either India. Of exhilarating infusions, coffee, as well as tea, is raised under the influence of a warmer climate; and when we add to all these luxuries, the fermented juice of the grape, we enumerate the chief of a long list of productions and preparations, remarkable at once for their variety and for their agreeable qualities, which have been procured by the industry and enterprise of civilization.

Many of these productions have been naturalized in Britain, and also in the United States, and have thus increased the range of our vegetable stores, while they have added, most materially, to the powers of our soil and climate in maintaining human life. But where this could not be effected, commerce has accomplished whatever else was necessary for extending the varieties of human enjoyment; and from all climates, and all regions, the exuberance and diversified produce of Nature, are poured into our happy land.

Such is the effect of that salutary discipline, under which the necessity of procuring food from the vegetable

stores of the earth, and its animal produce, has placed the mind of man. There is no end to the race of improvement, under the urgency of natural and artificial wants, and the variety of Nature's enticements. In looking back on the progress we have made, we cannot but wonder at our present advanced position; and while this encourages us to look forward with hope to the future, it reminds us, at the same time, of the Unseen Hand which has led us hitherto, and confirms all the conclusions which, in the course of our investigations, we have formed relative to the profound and benevolent system of Providence, in the conduct of human affairs.

SIXTH WEEK-SUNDAY.

"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD.”

THERE is something peculiar in the petition which I have chosen as the motto of this paper. We are not invited to pray for riches or honors, but for bread,-for necessary food. The prayer is similar to that of Agur, "Feed me with food convenient for me. ""* In every thing beyond this, there is a snare; and he who knows enough of his own weakness, to have a salutary distrust of himself, will be moderate in his desire to obtain an abundance of the good things that perish in the using. His wish and aim will be, to be raised above the temptations of want; but it will not be without diffidence and caution that he seeks for more. Nothing can show a truer or wiser estimate of earthly possessions than the rest of Agur's petition. "Give me neither poverty nor riches; . . . lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." It is, however, in the spirit, not in the letter of the prayer, that this

*Proverbs xxx. 8.

IV.

14

X.

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