"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, ye shall not eat."

Such was the Creator's law, when he had determined that the character and condition of his rational creatures should go on till the end of time improving in the arts of life, in dominion over the earth, and in their knowledge of Him and His laws.

Here we may remark, that the tribe or nation which violates the express command of God, to separate the flesh from the blood, and not to use the latter, but eats raw meat, never improves in character or condition. In truth, the command includes the rudiments of domestic cookery, the preparation of food by the aid of fire: till this is the constant habit of communities, they are not civilized.

Another important truth should be noted. Since the appointment of flesh-meats as a part of human food, no instance is recorded of its having been prohibited by divine authority. In the Bible, intoxicating drinks were forbidden to certain individuals; and drunkenness is among the sins of men: but from the time that righteous Abraham dressed a calf to entertain his angel-visitors, till the coming of John," whose meat was locusts and wild honey," no servant of God has been confined to a vegetable diet. The great prophet who was fed by the express command of the Lord, had "bread and flesh" twice each day.

In strict accordance with this divine law, which makes a portion of animal food necessary to develop and sustain the human constitution in its most perfect state of physical, intellectual, and moral beauty, strength, and perfectness, we know that the races of mankind are now to be seen. In every country where a "mixed diet " is habitually used, as in the temperate climates, there the greatest improvements are found, and the best energies of character developed. It is that portion of the human family who have the means of obtaining this food at least once a day who now hold dominion over the world. A hundred thousand of the beef-fed British govern and control a hundred millions of the rice-eating nations of Asia.

In our own country, the beneficial effects of a generous diet, in developing and sustaining the energies of the people, are clearly evident. The severe and great labors of every kind which were required to subdue and obtain dominion over this wide wilderness world would not have been done by a half-fed, vegetable-eating people. A larger quantity and better quality of food were necessary here than would have supplied men in the old countries, where less action of body and of mind is permitted.

Still there is great danger of excess in all indulgences of the appetites, even when a present benefit may be obtained. This danger should never be forgotten. The tendency in our country has been to excess in animal food.

The advocates of "a vegetable-diet system" had good

cause to object that too much meat was used; that it was given to infants before they had teeth, and eaten too freely by the sedentary and the idlers. To increase the danger, it is often eaten in a half-cooked state, and swallowed without sufficient chewing. All these things are wrong, and should be reformed.

But, as the spirit of inquiry is abroad, searching out abuses of all kinds, let us hope that the abuses of the good things God has so bounteously dealt out to us as a people may be reformed.

When women are well instructed in physiology, and in the natural laws which govern the health of humanity, and also are taught to understand chemistry and botany in their application to domestic science and family uses, then we may expect that desideratum of Dr. Johnson, "A Cookery-book on Philosophical Principles."

This philosophy would teach us that "bread is the staff of life," and that flesh-meats are indispensable to the perfecting of human life in its best energies, because God has specially appointed these for human food.

We may, then, state, as an established truth in physiology, that man is omnivorous, or constituted to eat the four kinds of food-vegetables, fruits, flesh, and fish which, separately, nourish other living creatures. The human teeth are formed to masticate, and the stomach to digest, this variety of substances. Man can eat and digest these in a raw state: but it is necessary to the

health and improvement of human beings that food should be prepared by cooking; that is, by the aid of fire and water. Such is the evidence of nature to the suitableness of a mixed diet for mankind.

Some determined advocates of the "vegetable system maintain that the teeth and stomach of the monkey correspond, in structure, very closely with those of man; yet it lives on fruits and vegetables. Therefore, if man followed nature, he, too, would live on fruits and vegetables.

But, although the anatomical likeness between man and the monkey is striking, it is not identical and complete. The difference seems to be precisely that which makes a difference of diet indispensable to nourish and develop, in the most perfect manner, the dissimilar animal natures. Would not those people who live as' the monkeys do be most likely to resemble monkeys?

It may be well to consider these matters, when grave philosophers are putting forth learned theories to prove that all human beings are but developments from the oyster, the ape, and the gorilla.

Such foolish theories may become popular in the Old World of nations; but "we, the people of the United States of North America" (as our national title runs), will hold fast to our royalty of race. This dates from Eden, and claims full sovereignty over the earth (which human labor and skill have subdued), by and through the divine charter of Bible truth; and also we thus hold "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

TAL

IV. LANGUAGE

ALKING is so very easy, that we are hardly conscious what a wonderful gift language is to the human race. How did we come by it? is the question now being seriously discussed by the new "Science of Language."

I shall give the opinion of one of England's most eminent scholars,* and a large contributor to sacred and secular literature, as the reply that seems to me fully sustained by reason, and corroborated by Scripture.

"The true answer to the inquiry how language arose is this, that God gave man language, just as he gave him reason (for what is man's word but his reason coming forth to behold itself?); that he gave him language, because he could not be man, that is, a social being, without it.

"Yet this must not be taken to affirm that man started at first with a full-formed vocabulary of words; as it were, with his first dictionary and first grammar ready-made to his hands. He did not thus begin the world with names, but with the power of naming; for man is not a mere speaking machine. God did not teach him words, as one of us teaches a parrot, from without; but gave

* Richard Chenevix Trench, R.A., now the Archbishop of Dublin.