The exuberance of our system is not exhausted; her beasts, her birds, her fishes, her plants, her growing trees and her copious grasses, her pastures, her valleys, her lofty mountains, and her rolling streams, are all spread out to the hungry world. Nature is an image of God, and she echoes, though she does not originate, the words: "In my Father's house is bread enough and to spare." "Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water; thou preparedst them corn when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof."

The way in which food operates upon intellect and character is no mystery. Though an infidel may say that man is a physical being; though Helvetius may teach that the mental difference between a man and a horse is, that one has a hand and the other a hoof; though Voltaire may pretend

"Bonne ou mauvaise santé
Fait notre philosophie ;" 1

Ex

the cause is very different. POVERTY IS A TEMPTATION. treme poverty is a great temptation. Now this temptation is diminished as we multiply his comforts and increase the supply. Avarice, it seems to me, will one day be ashamed of her carking care and her wrinkled brow, and generosity will look on her flowing streams and growing heaps, and double her efforts to remove the wants of the poor, and promote the praises of God.

Let us, then, propose this problem to all who are willing to join in its speedy solution. How shall we increase the circle of our supplies to the amplitude of nature? It was the idea of the old poets, that many unpublished virtues were found in plants. and flowers, which might heal our diseases and mitigate our pains.

O much is the powerful grace, that lies

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give.2

1 See Notes on Pascal, Vol. II. p. 176. Paris edition. 1812. Renaurd.
2 Shakspeare.

But surely we may, with better reason, suppose that there are magazines of FOOD yet to be discovered; and, that the manna, which is hereafter to be provided, will not be rained down from heaven, but will spring up from the earth.

That God is not indifferent to the influence of food on our character, is evident from the interdictions in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus. We need not look very deep for the causes of some of those discriminations. As there are some actions so mean, so gross, and so indecent, that a good man must avoid them, though prohibited by no positive law, so there are some beasts and reptiles, so revolting, that cultivated people cannot select them for food. The word OBSCENE, applied by the poets to birds and animals, perhaps well conveys the indefinite, the illogical, but perhaps, after all, very clear idea. You feel that you cannot feast on such things and preserve your self-respect. The thing is unclean, and your are filthy, if you dare to touch it. You want delicacy (yes, moral delicacy, too) if your gorge does not rise at it. When we read in Pomponius Mela: "Troglodytae, nullarum opum domini, strident magis quam loquuntur, specus subeunt, alunturque serpentibus," we feel that these things admirably go together. We need no ghost to come and tell us that these people would be miserable judges of Grecian architecture, and would have as little relish for the finest descriptions of Homer, as they would for any better food than the snakes which they gobble down to prolong their own reptile existence.

It is remarkable to see how many things God could afford to throw away, in the densely peopled land of ancient Canaan. We are not sure that one collateral design was not to confute the starving theory of Malthus. It certainly does confute it; for that theory is as clearly false, as the word of God is clearly true.

Something is wrong in our present system of dietetics. We do not eat the good of the land; for, without going to the extravagance of Graham and Dr. Alcott, we have not trained our taste to the amplitude or simplicity of nature. There is one proof

1 See Spencer, Michaelis, Lowman, Jahn, Dr. Harris of Dorchester. They have all looked very deep for the causes of the discrimination in food related in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus.

2 De Situ Orbis, Lib. I. c. viii. Cyrenaica.

* In our relishes of the palate, as in our colors, and forms of dress, there is a line where habit and nature mect, a permanent line, which it is desirable to find

that the poverty of art has usurped the riches of nature; that we neglect the useful to adopt the pernicious, namely: THE EARLY DECAY OF THE TEETH OF THE RISING GENERATION. It is a growing evil, and we cannot but ask what it signifies. We know no devourer below man that eats up its own teeth. Nature made our bodies to last; and, when any part of them prematurely decay, it is a certain sign we have violated some of her fundamental laws.

Two objects, then, are before us, and let no one smile if we insist on their importance. One is, to import from the open field of nature all those good and wholesome things which our Father has laid up for us; and, secondly, to train our taste and habits for the using of those things which are nutritive and sweet, and which may have the best influence on our moral character and social happiness.2

There are many things which we shall never throw away, but we are equally clear that there are some things which we shall yet discover.

Horace laughs at the Romans for eating the peacock, because his plumage was fine:

Num vesceris istâ,

Quam laudas, plumâ ? 8

One relic of this folly we have. We pay a higher price for

and rest on. Thus, gaudy colors please at first, but plainer ones meet our improved and permanent taste. Now what is the food that will always be pleasing, always healthful, and always abundant?

Τῶν δ ̓ ὅστις λωτοῖος φάγοι μελιηδέα καρπόν,
Οὐκετ ̓ ἀπαγγεῖλαι πάλιν ἤθελεν, οὐδὲ νεέσθαι.

Odyssey, Lib. IX. lines 94, 95.

1 One advantage of providing such food as is permanently grateful and wholesome will be, that students and professional gentlemen will not be tempted to eat too much. A copious source of disease and suffering! A gentleman in this vicinity has written the following recipe, on which he stakes his reputation as a poet and a philanthropist :

"Your sickness, languor and distress

You often might restore,

If you would eat a little less

And work a little more."

2 The evil of smoking cigars, chewing tobacco, etc., is, that it tends to pervert and ruin this permanent taste for the wholesome and the good.

8 See Satir, II. Lib. II. lines 26, 27.

the white flour that looks well, than for the coarse wheat which is far more nutritive and far more palatable. When the last treasures are discovered; when we have brought fashion and nature together;

Then, like the Sun, let bounty spread her ray,
And shine that superfluity away.

ARTICLE VIII.

THE TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS.

By William A. Stearns, D. D., Cambridge, Mass.

In attempting to explain the transaction recorded in Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1: 12, 13, and Luke 4: 1-15, we do not forget that the subject is mysterious, and should be approached with awe. It comprehends a deep spiritual philosophy. Its interpretation is beset with difficulties. We have never met with any satisfactory commentary upon it. Nor shall we be disappointed if our own explanation should fail of commending itself to all. The subject, however, is exceedingly important, and invites study. If we are able to make even a small contribution towards a proper understanding of it, we shall not feel that we have labored in vain.

1. The circumstances under which the temptation occurred. It took place at the commencement of our Lord's ministry. In the history of his experience, it followed a season of high spiritual exaltation. He had just received baptism; the heavens had been opened unto him; the Spirit had descended upon him; the Father had said, in a voice from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," and, according to Luke, he was at that time full of the Holy Ghost. These are the circumstances, and such was the state of mind, under which he was conducted to the scene of temptation.

2. The time occupied with this event. It is commonly spoken of as forty days and forty nights. But the record shows that

forty days and forty nights elapsed since he was led up into the wilderness, before the three special temptations here mentioned, commenced. "And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights," says Matthew, "he was afterward an hungered." Luke is equally explicit. He says, that when the forty days and forty nights "were ended, he afterward hungered." We have no means of exactly limiting the time. The three temptations may have occurred on the fortieth day, or the first on that day, and the second and third at intervals of some days after. Nor are these three temptations the only ones to which our Lord was subjected. As he was led into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, the natural inference is, that the whole forty days was a scene of conflict. Accordingly Marks says, that he was "in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan:" and Luke says, that he was forty days tempted of the devil, after which time the three great master-plots were brought to bear upon him. Nor is there anything in the record to indicate that the first of these three temptations was the first of all the temptations to which our Saviour had been subjected. Matthew indeed, says, after his fast of forty days, and his hunger had become extreme:" And when the tempter came to him." This does not imply that he had never come before. He might have approached him often. But now, in new circumstances, and much more than ever exposed to danger, a new onset from the adversary, as might be expected, was realized. Our conclusion, therefore, is, that, during the whole forty days, he was more or less of the time subject to those temptations which found their culminating points at the end of the time specified, or to other temptations not here mentioned.

3. The nature of the fasting. The fast of forty days may have been more or less rigid. Fasting implies sometimes partial, and sometimes total, abstinence. When Luke says, that “in those days he did eat nothing," he may mean that he had no regular supplies, that he subsisted only on the roots and wild fruits which he found in the desert. So Daniel says of himself, that he was "mourning three full weeks, that he ate no pleasant bread neither came flesh nor wine into his mouth." But whether this fast was more or less rigid, doubtless the Saviour suffered greatly from it; and, at the end of the time, the severest knawings of hunger come upon him.

4. The scene of the temptation. The scene of the temptation was the wilderness. What wilderness the Scripture refers to,