Chapter I Grace Before Mea

2018-04-15 作者： 外研社编译组

Chapter I Grace Before Mea

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by Carles Lamb

THE custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its origin in the early times of the world, and the hunter state of man, when dinners were precarious things, and a full meal was more than a common blessing; when a belly full was a windfall, and looked like a special providence.In the shouts and triumphal songs with which, after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer’s or goat’s flesh would naturally be ushered home,existed, perhaps, the germ of the modern grace.

It is not otherwise easy to be understood, why the blessing of food the act of eating should have had a particular expression of thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied and silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good things of existence.I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner.I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for aamoonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem.

Why have we none for books, these spiritual repasts a grace before Milton a grace before Shakspeare a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading the Fairy Queen? but, the received ritual having prescribed these forms to the solitary ceremony of manducation, I shall confine my observations to the experience which I have had of the grace, properly so called; commending my new scheme for extension to a niche in the grand philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part heretical, liturgy, now being compiled by my friend Homo Humanus, for the use of a certain snug congregation of Utopian Rabelaesian Christians, no matter where assembled.

The form then of the benediction before eating has its beauty at a poor man’s table, or at the simple and unprovocative repasts of children.It is here that the race becomes exceedingly graceful.The indigent man, who hardly knows whether he shall have a meal the next day or not, sits down to his fare with a present sense of the blessing, which can be but feebly acted by the rich, into whose minds the conception of wanting a dinner could never, but by some extreme theory, have entered.The proper end of food the animal sustenance is barely contemplated by them.The poor man’s bread is his daily bread, literally his bread for the day.Their courses are perennial.

Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be preceded by the grace.That which is least stimulative to appetite, leaves the mind most free for foreign considerations.A man may feel thankful, heartily thankful, over a dish of plain mutton with turnips, and have leisure to reflect upon the ordinance and institution of eating; when he shall confess a perturbation of mind, inconsistent with the purposes of the grace, at the presence of venison or turtle.

When I have sate (a rarus hospes) at rich men’s tables, with the savoury soup and messes steaming up the nostrils, and moistening the lips of the guests with desire and a distracted choice, I have felt the introduction of that ceremony to be unseasonable.With the ravenous orgasm upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a religious sentiment.It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out praises from a mouth that waters.The heats of epicurism put out the gentle flame of devotion.

The incense which rises round is pagan, and the belly god intercepts it for his own.The very excess of the provision beyond the needs, takes away all sense of proportion between the end and means.The giver is veiled by his gifts.You are startled at the injustice of returning thanks for what? for having too much, while so many starve.It is to praise the Gods amiss.

I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce consciously perhaps, by the good man who says the grace.I have seen it in clergymen and others a sort of shame a sense of the co presence of circumstances which unhallow the blessing.After a devotional tone put on for a few seconds, how rapidly the speaker will fall into his common voice, helping himself or his neighbour, as if to get rid of some uneasy sensation of hypocrisy.Not that the good man was a hypocrite, or was not most conscientious in the discharge of the duty; but he felt in his inmost mind the incompatibility of the scene and the viands before him with the exercise of a calm and rational gratitude.

I hear somebody exclaim would you have Christians sit down at table, like hogs to their troughs, without remembering the Giver? no I would have them sit down as Christians, remembering the Giver, and less like hogs.Or if their appetites must run riot, and they must pamper themselves with delicacies for which east and west are ransacked, I would have them postpone their benediction to a fitter season, when appetite is laid; when the still small voice can be heard, and the reason of the grace returns with temperate diet and restricted dishes.Gluttony and surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving.

When Jeshurun waxed fat, we read that he kicked.Virgil knew the harpy nature better, when he put into the mouth of Celaeno any thing but a blessing.We may be gratefully sensible of the deliciousness of some kinds of food beyond others, though that is a meaner and inferior gratitude:but the proper object of the grace is sustenance, not relishes; daily bread, not delicacies; the means of life, and not the means of pampering the carcass.

With what frame or composure, I wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his benediction at some great Hall feast, when he knows that his last concluding pious word and that, in all probability, the sacred name which he preaches is but the signal for so many impatient harpies to commence their foul orgies, with as little sense of true thankfulness (which is temperance) as those Virgilian fowl!It is well if the good man himself does not feel his devotions a little clouded, those foggy sensuous steams mingling with and polluting the pure altar sacrifice.

The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the banquet which Satan, in the Paradise Regained, provides for a temptation in the wilderness:A table richly spread in regal mode,With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sortAnd savour; beasts of chase, or fowl of game,In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled,Gris amber steamed; all fish from sea or shore,Freshet or purling brook, for which was drainedPontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast.The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would go down without the recommendatory preface of a benediction.They are like to be short graces where the devil plays the host.