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FIFTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

HUMAN FOOD. THE ENJOYMENT IT AFFORDS.

In considering the provisions of a bountiful Creator relative to food, I must not omit to notice the enjoyment which He has attached to the instinctive appetite. It may be truly said of this, as of other instincts, that it was not necessary for the accomplishment of the specifie end which the Deity had in view in bestowing it, that it should be attended with agreeable sensations. A feeling of want, and a craving directed toward the object capable of supplying that want,—that is to say, the sense of hunger, would have been quite sufficient for all the purposes connected with the repairing of the waste of the body, and the preservation of life, as well as for the fulfilment of various other intentions, already alluded That enjoyment in the use of the appetite should have been superadded, as it was not an essential, was clearly a benevolent provision.

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Before examining the nature of this provision, it seems necessary to remark, that the abuse to which the selfish indulgences of men have subjected it, has excited a prejudice in many minds against the pleasure itself. But the inference is false, as it is drawn from another law of our nature, the existence of which depends upon facts of a moral, and not a physical kind. If gluttony and epicurism have been induced by the pleasures of the table, this is but an instance in which our fallen nature has converted a gift of heaven into a source of evil; and the folly and selfishness of man must not be brought to depreciate the bounties provided for his use. I have already remarked, that it is the ordinance of Providence, throughout all the departments of Nature, that while the moderate and rational use of created things shall administer to the comfort and improvement of man, a pro

fligate abuse of them shall degrade his nature, and shall defeat its own object by counteracting, in various ways, that pleasure which the sordid mind expects to derive from unrestrained indulgence. This is one of those provisions of the Divine administration, begun, but not fully developed on earth, by which, while virtue becomes its own reward, vice becomes its own punishment. We shall not, therefore, find it necessary to take it into account in the present inquiry.

On the nature of the pleasure derived from the taste and flavour of food, I need not dwell, and I shall only remark, that while the taste depends on the organization of the tongue, the flavour is some way connected with the sense of smelling. That both exist in man, our own personal experience testifies, and we cannot doubt that the former, at least, exists also among the lower animals, and forms, indeed, the chief source of their enjoyment.

The adaptation of the external world to the gratification of this sense, is very remarkable. For the mere purpose of subsistence, a single vegetable esculent would have been sufficient, or, if more had for some cause been necessary, it was not necessary to vary their taste. The organ of this sense might have been so formed, that all substances, animal as well as vegetable, should have produced one uniform sensation when masticated for food. That this is not the case, arises from peculiar and obviously intentional contrivances, both in the edible substances, and in the organs of perception.

On running over in the mind the various animals and vegetables which form the food of man, we find that every kind has its own distinctive taste, and that, generally speaking, there is a peculiar pleasure attached to the peculiar taste of each wholesome species. The very variety pleases; and although it be impossible to analyze the enjoyment, that there is enjoyment is nevertheless the object of every person's consciousness. One might expect that those animals which feed on the same substances would afford a similar taste; and the same thing

might be supposed of vegetables growing on the same soil, or, at least, belonging to the same order. But this is very far from being the fact. It is indeed, true, that we may classify tastes; and this is itself a proof of the delicacy of the sense. There is one kind of taste of fish, another of flesh, and another of vegetables; and under each of these classes there are distinct varieties; the shell-fish, for example, are distinguished from the finny tribes ; the fowl from the quadruped; the produce of the cereal plants from roots, and those again from pulse, from alliacious plants, and from spices. Each of these classes again may be subdivided, and under each subdivision we shall find a taste belonging to every individual species. This enumeration points out a very remarkable variety in the objects of taste, and a delicacy not less remarkable in the organ by which the minute distinctions are perceived.

But there is another source of the enjoyment belonging to food, which arises from flavour. This is a principle still more mysterious than that of taste, of which chemistry can give no account, as it escapes all power of analysis. It seems to be almost peculiar to man, or, at all events, the lower animals are very differently affected by it, sometimes showing a total indifference, and at other times, but less frequently, a dislike to the flavour or odour which affords pleasure to human beings.

It is from flavour that fruits derive their chief delicacy and attraction. Their discernible chemical qualities are very simple. These are nothing more, fundamentally, than a mixture of sugar and acid, differently proportioned, and more or less diluted with water and mucilage. "No power but the Highest," says Mr Macculloch, speaking of flavour, "could have created what it passes human imagination to conceive, as well as human knowledge to assign; and no wisdom but His could, through the addition of things imponderable, inseparable, unintelligible, have wrought out such a variety of ends."

"And has not all this superfluity," adds this talented

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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. He watches, indeed, over the eternal welfare of man; but he also feeds the raven, and protects the sparrow. He has told us so: It is not impiety which strives to view him in every thing; it is not piety nor religion that would exclude him from any thing."

* Vol. iii. chap. 46.

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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 honours, but for bread, for necessary food. The prayer is similar to that of Agar, "Feed me with food convenient for me.' In every thing more 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 Agar'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 wisdom is to be found. In the medium between poverty and riches, there is the greatest safety. But this should not deter us from prosecuting with diligence the secular avocations of the profession in which we are engaged, or of the station which we occupy. If it please Providence to crown our labours or our skill with superfluities, it would be both folly and impiety to reject them. But, then, this enlargement of our means of usefulness, as it is accompanied with an increased responsibility, implies, also, greater danger of defect and of abuse. It ought, therefore, to place us more on the alert, causing us to be more vigilant in guarding our hearts against the temptations

* Proverbs, xxx. 8.

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