Thinking, reasoning man is not naturally carnivorous. The teeth, the stomach, the structure of the alimentary canal, and the entire organism, all show beyond a reasonable doubt that man is not to be classed either in his conscious and moral make-up or his foods, with wolves, jackals, hyenas, lions, and tigers.

Vegetarianism has been practiced and taught from time to time since the days of Adam. On the dispensation of time before the flood no meats were eaten, and men lived to be hundreds of years old. After the flood, when Noah came out of the ark, he was told that every moving living thing should be meat for him (Gen. 9 : 3). But notice what God told him the result would be, in the following words: "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it" (Gen. 9 : 5). The lives of mankind have been required and given from that day to this, excepting Enoch and Elijah. The children of Israel under Moses may be cited as an example of what followed their lusting for flesh. God sent manna as food until they murmured and grumbled. Then a strong wind blew a great number of quails to them. This was what they desired, but note thousands died in one day while the flesh was vet between their teeth" (Numbers 11 : 32).

The law of Moses permitted the eating of clean meats. But in the commandments this same law of life will be found.

Vegetarianism is undoubtedly the natural diet of man. Can anyone imagine a cleaner and sweeter diet than nuts, fruits, cereals, and vegetables. Meat unquestionably tends to fill the blood with elements that cannot readily be eliminated by the depurating organs. Meat produces unnatural heat in the system, inflames the passions and appetites, ultimately leading to the nervous debility which affects so many meat eaters. Why then is meat eaten? The reason why the old evils continue, and why the old errors are handed down from generation to generation is because we have been ourselves educated in the old traditions, are working under the same conditions, and are surrounded by the same influences as our ancestors.

In the Buddhist scriptures are these words: "You, the Buddha's sons, should not voluntarily eat flesh food of any kind. If you eat it, it destroys all the spiritual seeds of great compassion. All living beings seeing you eat flesh, walk away with contempt. For this reason all the Bodhisatovas are not allowed to live on any flesh food. In view of this we, Buddhists, abstain from flesh eating."

The Zend Avesta says: "Surely hell fire and repentance are in store for those who for their pleasure and gratification cause the dumb creatures to suffer pain."

Annie Besant says: "I would not take for myself, needlessly, the life of any sentient creature that lives around me, and everyone who eats flesh has part in that brutalisation; everyone who uses what they provide is guilty of this degradation of his fellow men For this reason, fundamentally, I am a vegetarian."

The Mouth-Treatment Of Food: Mastication Or Chewing

"Food well chewed is half digested."

MASTICATION (chewing of food) is an art which has become well-nigh extinct among civilized people. In the rush and excitement of the age, people with the "rush-hurry" habit think they haven't time to do any such thing as masticate food, but bolt their meals like sharks, afterwards swallowing nauseous doses of medicines, "after dinner" pills, liqueurs, etc., in the effort to compel the stomach to do the grinding which belongs to the mouth. They forget the stomach has no teeth.

Attrition or the grinding of food is the province specifically of the teeth - hence digestion begins in the mouth. Every book of physiology mentions the necessity and importance of thorough mastication, but the highly important character, the absolute necessity for "grinding" of the food in the mouth and the thorough mixing of the saliva with all food, liquid or solid, is the result of largely conducted scientific experiments of the twentieth century. Thorough and complete insalivation of both solid and liquid foods is the keynote to digestion.

Digestion Begins In The Mouth

Mouth-treatment of food, mastication or chewing has to be learned by the adult as well as the child. It's a new order of things. The reader may, at the outset, accept this as an axiom, one from which there is no departure, that food must be prepared for digestion in the mouth. If not properly prepared there, everything regarding digestion and the perfect assimilation of food will be deranged. Food bolted at a "white hot" pace acts as a poison. It must go through certain digestive processes in regular order, otherwise it cannot and will not be assimilated by the blood, as Nature intended it should be. Food so eaten (bolted) ferments, putrefies or rots to some degree in some part of the alimentary tract, and this destructive fermentation contributes towards making impure blood, which produces the one main, general Disease, to which all local diseases or symptoms are traceable. This mal-assimilation of food may show itself in any one of a hundred different forms of disease, in Skin and Blood Diseases, to wit: Rheumatism, Salt-rheum, Gout, Asthma, Bronchitis, Chronic Invalidism, General Weakness, Premature Old Age, Decline and Decay of the Vital Powers, all the result of a "poisoned" system from erroneous habits of eating; it may be of proper food or improper food, but in both cases im-properly eaten.