Bread and butter and the Bible are synonymous with civilization and
Christianity. Bread and the Bible, civilization and Christianity, have
kept step together since the history of each began.
Two shipwrecked sailors, floating on a spar, after long privation and
suffering, were thrown upon an unknown land. After looking about very
shyly,--for every thing looked wild and uncivilized,--they came suddenly
upon a hut. Jack was afraid to advance, but his hungry companion
cautiously approached, and finally entered the hut. In a moment he came
rushing out, exclaiming,--
"Come on, Jack. It's all right. Nobody at home; but it's civilized land
we're grounded on. I found a loaf of bread."
This was conclusive evidence, next to finding a Bible, that it was a
civilized country; and Jack waited for no further proof, but followed
Captain Duncan into the cabin, where the two soon appeased their hunger.
Wheaten bread was never an article of diet amongst savages. "Take away
wheat bread and butter from our families for a few generations, and who is
prepared to say that civilization would not glide easily to a state of
barbarism? There is sound philosophy in this suggestion, because there is
no other kind of human food that is so admirably adapted to the
development of the human frame, including a noble brain, as good wheat
bread." It contains phosphates in just sufficient quantities to keep up a
healthful supply for brain work. Fish contains more phosphorus; but are
fish-eating Esquimaux,[10] or coast-men, the more intellectual for having
made fish their principal diet?