A BACKWOODSMAN'S OPINION OF GRACE BEFORE MEAT.

Otago Witness, Issue 1320, 17 March 1877, Page 21

A BACKWOODSMAN'S OPINION OF GRACE BEFORE MEAT.

"It does my old jaws good, Harry, to see ye so familiar and off-hand like with the victuals. A parson I guided last summer used to think it ongrateful not to say grace before he tetched a morsel, and he lived up to his ideas of right and wrong, for sartin, for he never failed to say grace over his plate before tasting it ; but he had a powerful strong hold on language, and I used to conceit many a time that he overdid the thing a leetle. You see, Harry," said the old trapper, in a low, confidential tone, as if half talking to himself, "the man was chock full of words, and gave tongue like a young hound on his first track, and he sort of spilled over because he was so full of 'em. The least chance to say something religious joggled him, and I do think I have heerd the man say his prayers so long over his plate that his vittals actooly cooled before he got to 'em, and that's what I call .darned foolishness, put it any way you are a mind to. Now, Henry, I never cook a steak or bile a tater or brown a flapjack that I don't sort of have a pleasant feelin' inwardly to the Lord for his inarcy to me ; and sartin, I never sot my teeth into the crumpy edge of a brown corn cake like this and didn't feel how pleasant and cheerful a thing it is to live ; for a cake like this ia toothsome eatin', and if the meal isn't too fine, there are chunks of the karnals lying around in it that the teeth git into, and the tongue interprets the full vartue of the corn, in a way that sartinly ought to make a man grateful for the faculties the Lord has gin him, and the sweet growths of natur'. But as for a man stoppin' to ontangle a string of pious words when his stomack is empty, and he feels like a cellar with no house over it, and the steam of the hot vittala is strong in his nostrils, why, Henry, I

must say that it seems to me to be agiri natur' and reason. My idee is that the Lord knows all about our feelin's and can see the grace of the man's heart as the vittals go down, and that he loves to see us dip in hearty-like, and as if we enjoyed the smell and taste of the things he has made to grow for us ; and if the words must be said, I conceit that they should be said after the man is full, and is ready to sit back and feel religious-like ; but as to wastin' timeinlayin' hold of the Lord's marciea when they are all smokin' hot and afore ye, and the wind is coolin' 'em, I don't conceit that the Lord expects any such foolishness from men of sense and jedgment."— Parson Murray's Adirondack Story in the Golden Rule.