Dry Eatings.
In what way the day of Lent is to be kept this year in order to distinguish it from other seasons of the year, might puzzle a Carthusian monk. Under the dietetic laws of that order, the brethren were not to eat meat at any time, and during Lent they were prohibited the use of eggs, milk, butter and cheese. Dry bread with water was their Lenten fare, but dry bread and water have been the daily food of some salaried officials in this city all the year round. This is not the result of any scarcity of the fruits of the earth, but of the disordered currency, for there is no article of food or clothing which cannot be purchased at pretty much old prices for gold. But whatever the cause, the "Dry Eatings" are an established institution, and Lent, instead of forty, lasts three hundred and sixty-five days. As misery loves company, it may be consolatory to those who are keeping Lent by compulsion to recall the austerities of the table which some ascetic persons have voluntarily endured. We find a number of edifying instances collected to our hand in a chapter before us on the "Diet of Saints." It is recorded of St. Macarius that for years together he lived only on raw herbs and pulse; that during three consecutive years he existed on four or five ounces of bread daily, and that he consumed but one small measure of oil in a twelve month. At Lent he distinguished himself by eating nothing at all on the week days, and a few raw cabbage leaves on Sunday. St. Macarius ought to have lived in Richmond. He would have learned a lesson of humility. Cabbage heads there are in abundance, but cabbage leaves on Sunday or any other day is a piece of extravagant sensuality which neither saints nor sinners, in any great number, indulge. St. Genevieve was another dry eater, for she only ate twice in the week, and then only beans and bread. St. Cedd, Bishop in old times of London, never broke his fast till evening, and then only ate a solitary egg, an inch of bread, and a cup of milk and water. Walston, Bishop of Worcester, had a strong relish for savory viands, but it is told of him that he was one day during mass so distracted by the smell of meat roasting in a kitchen near the church that he made a vow to abstain from meat forever. A worthy example! We advise the general adoption of a similar vow, to last during the war. Those who make it are likely to keep it, which is the best part of a vow. St. Publius did not allow his monks wine, milk, cheese, grapes, or even vinegar. Pulse and herbs, coarse bread and water, were their only fare, except during the period from Easter to Whitsuntide, when they were permitted to grow merry over a gill of oil apiece. St. Martin lived on herbs boiled with a little vinegar for seasoning. Southey, in his "St. Romnald, " thus narrates a good man's self-denial: ‘ Then, sir, to see how he would mortifyThe flesh! If any one had dainty fare,
Good man, he would come there
And look at all the delicate things and cry,
O, belly! belly!
You would be gourmandizing now, I know;
But it shall not be so!
Home to your bread and water, home, I tell ye.
’ Winwaloe, a Welch saint, kept his monks at starving point all the week, refreshing them on Sundays by microscopic rations of hard cheese and shell fish. He lived himself on barley bread, strewn with ashes, and when Lent arrived the quantity of ashes was doubled. Innumerable examples might be multiplied, of a similar character, to stimulate our abstemious Richmonders in that Lenten austerity of life which is preached to them from the butcher and vegetable stalls of the city markets. Not many of them are likely to come to such short commons as "Diet of Saints," and it is some consolation to reflect that the majority have not yet felt the war. We have heard of no case of starvation as yet, which we attribute to the fact that those who have plenty eat enough for themselves and all the rest of the community.
