CHAPTER VII.

FEEDING ON ASHES.

"He feedeth on ashes."-ISAIAH xliv. 20.

NE of the most extraordinary examples of depraved

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or perverted appetite is the use of earth for food. This propensity is not an occasional freak, but a common custom, and is found among so large a number and variety of tribes, that it may be regarded as coextensive with the human race. From time immemorial, the Chinese have been in the habit of using various kinds of edible earth as substitutes for bread in times of scarcity; and their imperial annals have always religiously noticed the discovery of such bread-stones, or stone-meal, as they are called. On the western coast of Africa a yellowish kind of earth, called caouac, is so highly relished and so constantly consumed by the negroes, that it has become to them a necessary of life. In the island of Java, and in various parts of the hill-country of India, a reddish earth is baked into cakes and sold in the village markets for food; while on the banks of the Orinoco, in South America, Humboldt mentions that the native Indians find a species of unctuous clay, which they knead into

balls, and store up in heaps in their huts as a provision for the winter or rainy season. They are not compelled by famine to have recourse to this clay; for even when fish, game, and fruit are plentiful, they still eat it after their food as a luxury. This practice of eating earth is not confined solely to the inhabitants of the Tropics. In the North of Norway and in Swedish Lapland a kind of white powdery earth, called mountain-meal, found under beds of decayed moss, is consumed in immense quantities every year. It is mixed by the people with their bread in times of scarcity; and even in Germany it has been frequently used as a means of allaying hunger. All these examples of the use of earth as food are so contrary to our experience, that they might seem incredible were it not that they are thoroughly authenticated. Such an unnatural custom must in the long run prove injurious to the constitution of those who indulge in it, although it is wonderful how long it can be carried on by some individuals apparently with impunity.

I have described this extraordinary habit so fully, because it affords an apt illustration of the inspired words at the head of this chapter. Just as in the natural world there are many whose perverted appetites lead them to the use of earth as food, so in the spiritual world there are many who, in the language of Isaiah, feed upon ashes. The prophet is speaking of the idolater, and exposing the senselessness of idol-worship. The poor devotee takes a piece of durable wood, it may be of his own planting, carves it into a human likeness, or into the resemblance of some material object, and sets it up in a shrine in his

own house for adoration. With the chips and shavings he makes a fire and cooks his food. He thus practically proves his god to be identical in substance and essence with his fuel. It is his own capricious choice, his own handiwork alone, that determines the difference between the part of the tree which he worships and the part which he burns on his hearth. He satisfies his bodily hunger with the food prepared by the glowing ashes of the idolwood. He feeds the hunger of his soul with the ashes of his material idolatry. A deceived soul has turned him aside from the knowledge and service of the living and true God, who feeds His worshippers with the finest of the wheat; and he tries to find in the very same materials with which he cooks his food what will appease the cravings of his spiritual nature.

"He feedeth on ashes." Three topics for meditation are suggested by these significant words :-1st, Who is the idolater?—He feedeth on ashes. 2ndly, What is his idolatry?—He feedeth on ashes. And, 3rdly, How does idolatry affect him?—He feedeth on ashes.

1 I. In the first place, then, let us ask who is the idolater-who is the "he" that is said in the text to feed on ashes? The prophet Isaiah had a definite audience before him. He was prophesying to the children of Israel, whose proneness to idolatry was so remarkable, that they are mentioned in the Bible as the only people who voluntarily forsook their own God, to cleave to the false gods of the nations with whom from time to time they came into contact. Notwithstanding the purity and sublimity of their own monotheistic creed,

and the awful threatenings and sanctions with which it was guarded, we can trace throughout their entire history, as a marked feature of their character, a propensity to blend a theoretical belief in the true God with an accommodating reverence to the idols of the heathen Pantheon. Except when under the immediate spell of some special revelation of Jehovah, they craved for some visible shape or outward sign of the divinity—a craving which was satisfied for a time by the erection of the tabernacle and temple, and the establishment of the worship connected with them, but which soon overleaped barriers thus imposed upon it, and sought for novel sensations in the tabernacle of Moloch and in the star of the god Remphan-figures which they made to worship them. The very priests and Levites, who were most concerned in keeping the worship of Jehovah pure, were the leaders of the various national apostasies. The grandson of Moses himself assumed the office of priest to the images of Micah; and all the solemn feasts, sacrifices, and institutions of the Mosaic ritual were copied in detail by Jeroboam, and applied to the worship of the golden calves which he had erected at Bethel and Dan. Under the patronage of royalty, idolatrous priests from time to time multiplied in the land, and increased in wealth and influence. Images were set up in the threshing-floors, in the wine-vats, and behind the doors of private houses; and intermarriages with the surrounding nations were, in every case, the first steps to the worship of their gods. Isaiah deeply deplored this national fickleness and spiritual inconstancy. In the passage under considera

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tion he does not expose, as elsewhere, the heinousness of idolatry as a political crime of the gravest kind against Jehovah as the civil head of the State, or as the greatest of social wrongs against Him with whom they had entered into the marriage-bond. Instead of launching the fiercest invectives of his wrath against it, he seeks to overwhelm it with contempt. He shows in remarkably searching language the degrading nature of the practice, and its contrariety alike to right reason and true piety.

Were Isaiah addressing us in these days, his ideas would be the same, though the form in which he would present them would be different. Material idolatry, in its literal import, has passed away among civilized nations. The old worship of stocks and stones is now impossible among a professedly Christian people. The second commandment, so far as it refers to the worship of graven or molten images, is unnecessary. But although the outward mode has passed away, the essence of the temptation remains the same. Human society is changed, but human nature is unchanged. The impulse which led to idolatry is therefore as strong at the present day as it was in the time of Isaiah; and images are set up and worshipped now as fantastic as any pagan fetish or joss. The tender and solemn admonition of the Apostle John is as needful as ever: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." The New Testament form of the second commandment, "Be not conformed to this world," requires to be frequently and urgently enforced. Idolatry in its essence is the lowering of the idea of God and of God's nature, and the exaltation of a dead image above