ANGELS' FOOD. (For The Post.)

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 47, 25 February 1908, Page 4

ANGELS' FOOD. (For The Post.)

Many Wellington shop-windows are a source of parti-coloured emotions, and there is one Wellington shop-window that may affect the fit observei to tears. It contains, or recently contained, among other apparatus of the higher life, a pure vegetarian biscuit upon a scalloped china saucer. The saucer is merely an unobtrusive settmg for the gem. Of the biscuit it can be proclaimed fearlessly that nothing in this world of peculiar food did ever deserve better to be called chaste. The adjectfve is misapplied so often that soiled and pallid journalists have been led to wish it banished from the language. Hagpily their wish lias been unfruitful, for no other adjective would fit thafc biscuit. It is a rather 6rown biscuit, but its soul is white indxipressibly- Thus it 1.3 symbolic-; it represents the Vegetarian himself, tried as with fire in a community of flesh-eat-ers, and. showing externally the tinge of their gross intercourse, yet for ever uplifting his flame of serene aspiration to the Belter Da.y when prunes will be appreciated properly and nuts devoured as If&ura's last word' upon nutriment. Earlier words are bananas "and unleavened bread, and about the middle of the first chapter we meet the blessed name of Nebuchadnezzar, father, and master of all vegetarians and such as handlo green fodder in private. Nebuchadnezzar is 'dead, for even vegetarians die. But they live a long time beautifully. Their thoughts and complexions are clear"; their secretions are wholesome ; .tlfeir when they have any, s.re Sternly controlled ; and at all times their conduct* will bear inspection as worthily as the conduct of the pure biscuit in the Wellington shop-wmdow. Tho gazer upon that typical biscuit may in moments" of inevitable exaltation imagine hfe See's" little white wings sprouting •from its rather brow^ sides, as they «proufe in the mind of a Vegetarian. Is it auUacious to suggest Uiat those wings tnay expand until all New Zealand shall "lake shelter beneath , tlieir mighty ■Shield? New Zealand is a great country : already she leads the nations industrially :|ind legislatively, and in the provision f of hot baths for wharf-labourers and tourists. The outside of the platter is .cleansed; the Wellington streets, as j&very laic morning traveller is aware, •«re swept and garnished ; may we not telream, with the aid^o'f the women's vote, %o become famous also as & Pure Country, the jpuie'st' of all countries,, led up"Ward aria jmi until the heights to which vegetarian "biscuit soars are trodden daily by every- butcher's' foot, and every publican aM/simier ip the. community .shall Jlave. ascended; metaphorically the Mount "Oook of .morale culture? The "jomena iii'dfee'd" are f foptunate. % " 'Pretty 'jfreddlngs gftrtf- continually more numerous; Clutha calls unto Balclutha with Ifche noise of her waterspouts ; and the "Hon. George FoWlQs has proved by an unanswerablo syllogism that only idots tote at Riccarton or are totsd tardily to .Trentham. On all hands we see sporudic growths of* the fineir flowers in tho of human ideals. ' At, Wanganui $he vile body ha.s been brought K under -■subjection, and trained "to ' wander for iforty days "in ths local, wilderness withput quails or, manna or anything but the squeeze of an Occasional lemon. At Pal>merston lives .the' inventor of the system of leap-year -iiiatmge, with the sexes strictly segregated in years intervening, land the' aw J ful - wasto of time in courtship and flirtation reduced to its least multiple corisistent with the .preservation of the raca. At Christchurch, where tho curly Avon trickles modestly through -trim herbage, the morning stars 'bang together periodically' •to advertise cosmic impact, and Liberty, -Equality, and Fraternity may be descried walking' in a peculiar garden in Jthe cool of the day. Auckland has the -sapital-in-'-her nuna'fl< eye, Horatio, and ow-ny.^LOquent,. channels of public emotfoTrtrrlrer municipal ~bb&yr Wellington has "Mormons, gentlemen without hats', aud the biscuit. Dunedin has a worn fe'gend of a Land o' Granite, showing tharrwhisky may wear away the hardest rock, and a phrase about a Land o' Cakes that is everybody's latchkey of the heart, thriftily economising ianguage. New Zealand generally has scenery and visitors do the rest. Let brotherly love continue. From this brief didactic ploughing of the epoch a vegetable moral may be turned up like a root. Tho religion of abstinence is admirable for people who cannot profit by a. religion oi indulgence, if thine eye offend thee, cut it out; if thy chop upset thee, cut that out. But eyes and chops are useful things for anybody who can use them rightly. A flesh diet, like the popular Aovel, should enii with a happy marriage ; and what digestion joins together let no crank set asuqder. The true rulo of eating is to listen attentively to the admonition of appetite : that is" the secret of wisdom learned by the great Buddha as he lay contemplating his stomach under a bo-tree, and is typified by his familiar attitude in Asiatic statuary, with his hands • crossed on the vital spot. New Zealand travellers, affirming by a European voyage tho superiority of their own land, have seen him feated passionless in many a temple of Ceylon, asking himself the immemorial question: "What* would I like for dinner to-day?'' and bending forward a little to hoar his stomach's answer. The voice of the in the voice of Buddha, and the satisfaction of a healthy natural craving is healthy. Of course one must be sure that tne craviug is natural, and not merely a symptom of j perverted appetite. As; Colonel Dave j Crockett said : "Be suri^ you've right, j then go ahead' through the bill-of-fare" ; or as Sam Weller said, "I vos alvays | comfortable yen' Little Mary vos" ; or as Shakespeare said, "7 dare eat all that ! may become a man : who dares eat less is none." Wr quote these celebrated authorities, noo on this occasion to par-

ade our learning, but to prove the case. A vegetarian, diet is a lovely and soothing thing, for vegetarians ; but vegetarians are not sinning, struggling, -human beings : they are saints, foretasting desperate delights. By the road of oxcess, like Mr. Blake- and the fox who lost his tail, they have reached tho place of wisdom. Their own excess or ancestors' : that is irrelevant. Abstinence is a creed for weaklings, made necessary by their weakness. But the hard work of the world has always been done by the indulging races, following thenneed ; and the best work of the world is done 'by sanely self-indulging individuals, guarding their instincts. Thwarted instincts, if reason approve them, mean lop-sided development; and every fanatic walks and talks askew. The doctrine is as old as St. Paul at least, as young as yesterday's stter driven into Petone. There is nothing to good as beef, for those who can stand it— and after bacf, at a long mtt'val, mutton — with vegetables and neaven following, let us hope, at the proper time and place for us all. Meanwhile, earth is our home, and at the sight of ancels' food the natural man yearns, with a red and sudden yearning for real meat yith blood in it.