1.H 11. The Art of Eating

The Art of Eating.

Next comes the stomach. In regard to that, everybody feels that he must not be a glutton nor a gormand, but there is very little discrimination and very little observation as to the quantity and quality and the times and seasons of eating.

Preachers may be divided into two great classes, the sanguineous class, who cannot eat much if they are going to think or speak; and the class who have the extreme nervous temperament, who cannot speak or work unless they do eat. On Sunday morning, when I wake, my first thought is, that it is Sunday morning; and the very idea of it takes away my appetite. I go down, drink a cup of coffee, and eat an egg and half a slice of toast. That is all I can eat. There is just enough to sustain my system. Then I preach, and if I have not done very well, I am hungry; but if I have done very well, I cannot eat much dinner. That is hecause there is a reaction of the nervous influence of the system. The whole system is working so much by the brain and the nerves that the stomach does not crave anything. Just as great grief, or fear, or any other extreme passion, takes away appetite, so does active preaching. Ordinarily, I take but a moderate dinner on Sunday. Supper with me is at five o clock in the afternoon, and I usually take a cup of tea and a small piece of cracker. That is all I can take.

Then I go to my evening work, and when I get through, I sometimes am satisfied to take nothing but an orange, which I eat to give my stomach something to do until morning, and to keep it from craving for often a fit of craving will give one a nightmare as quickly as overfeeding will. At other times I feel a strong appetite, and then I eat. Per haps once out of five Sundays I eat more just after preaching, morning or evening, than I do all the rest of the day put together. The system indicates it, and therefore I am not harmed by it. It does not disturb my sleep, and digestion goes on perfectly.

Now the point I take is, not that you shall follow this, but that you shall find out, accurately, in regard to your own eating, what obstructs and what does not obstruct your mental operations. If you go to your study after a hearty breakfast, and you find it takes you from eight o clock to eleven before you really get into your work, you may be pretty sure that you have overloaded your stomach, and that the energies of your system have been so busy in the work of digestion that you could not call them off to do 1 train-work. But if you get up from the table after a comparatively light meal, which requires but little digestion, and when you go into your study find that you can apply yourself at once to your labour, it is because you have eaten in due proportion to the needs of your system. Eating is to the work of the human body just what the firing up of an engine is to travelling. Eating is a means to an end. It is not a habit nor a social custom merely.

It is not a question of luxury. Do men eat stupidly, and simply because they are hungry? You eat to make working force; and as the engineer keeps his eye all the time on the steam-gauge to know the number of pounds of pressure, and to regulate it to the various conditions of going up or down grade or on a level, and to the number of passengers he is carrying, so does a man eat, or so ought he to eat, all the time gauging himself. You have, in fact, to eat much or little, according to the work you have to do. When you come back from a journey, you must be careful not to overwork yourself, and not to cat too much. If you are in regular harness and are working, you ought to know what you shall cat. Your business is to eat so that you can think and work, and not for self-indulgence only.