"Mention the first place you recollect

where it is named."

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground.'

"And I think the first place in any records in which the word Baker is mentioned, is in Genesis."

"The bread at that early period, father, could not have been like ours?"

"What makes you think so?"

"Because they made it so soon, and just as they wanted it, as appears from the feast which Abraham made for the three persons who called upon him."

"You are right, Harry. Their loaves appear to have been a kind of biscuit. Thus our Lord represents a person requesting of his neighbour three loaves, for the entertainment of an individual, Luke xi. 5. Hence they are

often called cakes. An Eastern traveller, describing a visit which he made to an Arab, says, The woman was not idle, but brought us milk and eggs to eat, so that we wanted for nothing she made also some dough for cakes, which were of the thickness of a finger, and of the size of a trencher,—she laid them on hot stones, and kept turning them; till at length she threw the ashes and embers over them, and so baked them thoroughly. They were very good to eat, and very savoury.' "The food of the Jews was generally very simple. It consisted chiefly of vegetables, milk, honey, rice, and bread."

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"Sometimes the corn was parched, or roasted, and then eaten without any other addition, as appears evident from many passages of Scripture," Levit. xxiii. 14. 2 Sam.

xvii. 28.

6

"In addition to honey, John the Baptist is said to have fed on locusts."

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Canaan, you know, father, was a land flowing with milk and honey.""

"It was. Though meat was eaten occasionally; principally at the time of their national festivals, or provided to honour some superior guest. Thus Abraham, Gideon, and Manoah prepared a calf or a kid for their angelic visitants. When Samuel expected a visit from Saul, he procured for him a joint of meat," 1 Sam. ix. 24.

"But they were not permitted to eat every kind of meat?"

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They were not.

Yet what was denied them, was chiefly such as was unfriendly to health, and unsuitable to the climate. Their common drink was water, though they sometimes took wine, especially at their feasts.

Much appears to have been drank at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, where the Lord turned the water into wine."

"In those hot and dry countries water is of very great value. Hence, when Caleb gave his daughter a portion, springs of water are very particularly mentioned, Judges i. 14, 15. Thus our Saviour intreated water of the woman of Samaria; and the most desirable blessings are represented in the Scriptures by a figurative allusion to water, Psalm lxiii. 1-4. John vii. 37. Isaiah xii. 3. xliv. 3. Jer. ii. 13. Zech. xiii. 1. xiv. 8. 1 Cor. x. 4. Fetch your Bible, and read these passages."