The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-31
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

AND THINGS l
 The great war is bringing about a re-
 vival in prayer. and nowhere is 1t more
 marked than it is in what is generally
 looked upon as infdel France.
 The good book tells us to fast and
 pray" I fear that many moderns will turn to praying before they will to fast
 ing. Fasting seems to have quietly
 been dropped from the Christian pro-
 gramme I have heard many sermons
 on prayer, but I do not remember to
 have heard one on fasting.
 Every now and then in some great na- honal calamity or danger we are told that the hour calls for fasting and prayer" but it is a mere pieus form and goes without observance. At last comes
 along Hoover and puts in kind of a
 fast on the installment plan by in- augurating meatless and wheatless days. q am not overlooking the fact that certain churches observe Lent, and that good Catholics cut out meat on Fri days.)
 Eating is necessary, but overeating is a danger. The glutton and the wine bibber are classed together in the Bible, but In these latter days its the latter who bears the whip of public scorn,
 and it Is from his thirsty lips that we
 are taking away every form of alcoholic beverage. I am a thorough going pro- Il.t l. r., Ipractice; and, while believing In en- forcing the laws and creating senti- nent against strong drink, it yet ap- pears to me that if war times call for Ilet-up in the use of the grains which go into beer and whisky, there should be a way to get at the gluttonous and see | to it that they should not be permit ted to gormandize while others were be- ing rationed and living on frugal fare in order that our soldier boys might be the better fed.
 think it nothing but right that if we
 ask the drinking man to give up his beer and whisky for the common good, and restrict him by legislation, that we should at least do our best to create a sentiment against the high flyers who continue to live off of the fat of the land with impunity, and are not put un- der social ban as those who cling to their liquors. I think it is a time when a man should cut out his drinks, but I think it also the nour when man are needed to properly ration the army. am strong for Hoover and ready to Hooverize.
 It sometimes takes man centuries to come into his own and get the honor that was due him in his generation, but
 which was withheld because he was ahead of his times think there should be revival of study concerning Lulgi Cornaro, the Italian who, born in the fifteenth century, yet lived far into the sixteenth, and is credited with having 1 added at least three score years to his life by having learned how to properly diet himself We hear much of tne strides being made in the twentieth cen turn in dietics, but hundreds Of years ago there was born into the world one of the greatest food scientists that ever lived In spite of those who try to dls- credit his system he lives in history as
 having lived 1o3 years.
 | WIPE
 Cornaro learned 800 years ago that the flesh and blood machine which we call the body is created entirely from food and drink which we put into the ston- ach. Let's be fair and while charging that alcoholic stimulants burn out the lining of our human refrigerator, that overeating clogs it and by overworNng lit causes it to be put badly out or re- pair.
 II The amount of food that he ate during 24 hours would not make square meal for the average American. He consid- cred 12 ounces of solid food sufficient for I a day's nourishment Now I am on dan gerous ground again, and may not make out case to satisfy either the prohls \ or the antis, but here goes. In his writ lings he speaks of using IA ounces of wine daily, hear the advocates of light \ wines begin to clap their hands in glee, but wait minute. In his life story we read that always previous to the new crop of grape wine be became very weak,
 
 that his digestion was greatly impaired, but that as soon as the new crop ap- peared he rallied and became his normal self again. This makes me believe that lit was not fermented, but unfermented wine that he depended upon for suste- nance. Here is where William Jennings Bryan gets boost Unfermented grape juice contains almost much nourish- ment as milk It is my contention that Cornaro was a grape juice drinker half thousand years before Welch ad- I vertised and made it famous.
 Now if scored on the wine bibber
 fin the above paragraph, here is where I am going to try and land good and
 hard on the glutton. Cornaro's life story indicates to an extraordinary degree the
 value of yearly fast Keep this we'll
 in mind, oh you gluttons. that while all
 during the year his diet was extremely light, for a considerable period previous
 to the coming in of the new vintage, his abstinence from food was so extreme as
 to border on a fast. The value of fasting