The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-01-08
HOME INTERESTS.
THE FOOD CURE.

THE FOOD CURE.
Hunger is the motive power of the
human race; without it there could be
neither life nor progress. To satisfy
the spiritual appetite there is God; for
the intellectual there is knowledge; for
the social there is love; for the physi-
cal there is bread We arc so consti-
tuted that appetite grows on what it
feeds upon. The more we know OF
God the more do we wish to know of
Him; the deeper our insight into the
mysteries of the created world without
or within us, the sharper is our intellect
ual appetite love begets love in cease
less generation, and the craving for
food is i'm the direct ratio of the vigor
and healthfulness of our physical Or
carnations. The satisfaction of APP
petite in its various forms is the sole
object and employment of all living
creatures. Only food can prevent de-
cay, and decay is death at work-death
| alive. The man or woman who has
no religious life is spiritually dead /;
the intellect unrenewed by knowledge
grows dry and parched and withers
away; the affections with nothing to
feed on gnaw the heart and make life
desert the body deprived of nour-
ishment looses its vitality and goes back
to dust again.
Not in this world can any one soul
hope to satisfy fully the longings OF
every appetite. Doubts and fears and
| ignorance, like clouds, come between
the aspiring soul and its God; various
hinderances bar the hungry intellect
from full access to. the sources OF
knowledge; death snatches away the
idols of our hearts and leaves us desc
late and physical hunger, gaunt and
grim, sits seemingly sole sovereign OF
many human lives to the end. But
we have the promise that in the bless
ed time to come "They shall hunger
no more, neither thirst any more"
Disease is only one form of decay,
so named for distinction, and without
meddling with causistry, wherever the
line between disease and sin may run,
decay covers both alike. Hence, food
prevents disease; hence, food prevents
sin. But food must not be mixed with
that which is not food to do its work
it must be pure. Right here let us
make a very practical application of
these statements. Many children are
born with perfectly healthful appetites
and many are born with morbid appe-
titles, which can be traced directly to
parental influences. To "keep them
quiet" recourse is had to schnapps,
soothing-sirups, and various anodynes,
which either create or foster craving
for artificial stimulus, and in mature
life the natural consequences of such
grave mistakes may be seen in the
craving for spices and pungent season.
ings, in the opium habit, the tobacco
habit, the love for alcoholic beverages.
Can any one doubt that if soothing
sirups containing opium we're banished
crease in the consumption of opium
in this country would be seriously and
permanently checked?
Applying the same principles to
social facts, most children under 80
crave love, hunger for it, and if they
do not find it at home, seek it abroad;
il they cannot have the reality, by and
by they try the counterfeit and the
counterfeit, like food rendered noxious
by spices and foreign substances, only
makes bad matter worse. A happy
home, where love dwells and blooms
in gracious deeds, in kindly tones, in
pure and sweet caresses, is the sole cure
for social vandalism.
No thoughtful person can pass along
the streets where the so-called CLOVER
classes live without noting the con-
tinual recurrence Of tobacco shops and
liquor saloons, and how much. more
numerous they are than grocery stores
and butchers stalls. One uninstructed
in the wants of the human stomach
might think that beer and tobacco are
of far more Importance as foods than
meat and potatoes and bread are.
Let any one who habitually sits at
well-fnrnished table try to satisfy his
hunger at the restaurants frequented
by the patrons of these shops and
saloons, and he will understand why
recourse must be had to artificial
stimulus to give the craving stomach
even for a little time the sense of
satisfaction. One cannot but think
that if the temperance lecturers in the
field would preach the gospel of good
food, and put these underfed, imper-
fectly nourished GLOVER classes" in the
way of supplying themselves with
good bread and meat and vegetables
perfectly cooked, intemperance would
UNNECESSARILY diminish. If Holly
Tree Inns could be established side by
side with liquor saloons, and clamors of
normal hunger be normally satisfied
at reasonable rates, can any one doubt
that the inns would flourish and the
saloons decline? Here indeed is work
for the philanthropist; the fields are
white to the harvest, but alas, the la
borers here are few!
To all &c us parents this subject
comes home with power. If we
send our children into the world fnlly
equipped for the battles they must
fight, let us see to it that, from the
cradle, every part of their nature is
nourished with convenient" food;
that they are instructed in those truths
which are able to make them wise unto
that in the abundance of!
books and periodicals, the best of their
kind, they may find ample satisfaction
for their intellectual hungerings; that
IN the constant atmosphere of parental
and love their affections
may be made to bud and bloom, and |
that their bodies may be nourished into
and ERECTION by pure and |
food.
Slang of Artists.