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LEFT FAT 105 FATHEBS, THE food while in prison, and died on the 63d day of his fast, in October, 1920. Other Irish prisoners carried on a food strike for over fifty days and several of them died. See Ireland. Amo7ig the Ethnic Nations. — Its chief object was to produce religious exalta- tion, with visions, dreams, and imagined intercourse with superior beings. Fast- ing exists for this purpose among the North American Indians and many other tribes. Dreams, visions, etc., thus pro- duced are not supernatural, but morbid. Amoyig the Jews. — It was practiced in seasons of affliction, nature having in a manner prescribed this by taking hunger away during keen sorrow (I Sam. xxxi: 13; Esther iv.) ; to chasten or humble the soul (Psalm XXXV : 13; Ixix: 10). Among Christians. — Jesus miracu- lously fasted 40 days and nights (Matt, iv; 2; Luke iv: 2), as Moses and Elijah had done previously (Exod. xxxiv: 28; I Kings xix : 8), and as several Roman saints claim to have done since. The practice is not, however, formally en- joined in the New Testament, though our Lord indirectly sanctioned it (Matt, vi.: 16-18), as did St. Paul (I Cor. vii: 5). The apostles and the Church of which they constituted a part practiced it on specially solemn occasions (Acts xiii : 2 ; xiv: 23). In the Roman and Greek obedi- ence, communion must be received fast- ing, except when administered by way of viaticum. FAT, in anatomy, an animal substance of a more or less oily character deposited in vesicles in adipose tissue. It forms a considerable layer under the skin, is col- lected in large quantity around certain organs, as, for instance, the kidneys, fills up furrows on the surface of the heart, surrounds joints, and exists in large quantity in the marrow of bones. It gives to the surface of the human frame its smooth, rounded contour. In chemistry, fats are glycerides of acids belonging to the fatty or acetic series and of acids belonging to the acrylic se- ries, being the ethers of the triatomic alcohol glycerine. They are insoluble in water, but soluble in ether. They vary in consistence from a thin oil (olive oil) to a hard, greasy substance (suet). When fats are boiled with any caustic alkali they are decomposed, and yield an alka- line salt of the fatty acid (see Soap), and Glycerine {q. v.). In printing, copy which affords light work, as blank or short pages or lines. The fat is in the fire: All is confusion, or all has failed. FATALISM, the doctrine that all things are ordered for men by the arbi- trary decrees of God or the fixed laws of nature. In theology, it has given birth to theories of predestination, and in moral science to such systems as those of Spinoza and Hegel, and more recently to the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. It is carried out to its most pitilessly logical extreme among the Mohammedans, where everything that can happen is "kismet," i. e., fated, or decreed by fate. FATA MORGANA, a remarkable aerial phenomenon observed from the harbor of Messina and adjacent places, and supposed by the Sicilians to be the work of the fairy Morgana. Objects are reflected sometimes on the surface of the sea, and sometimes on a kind of aerial screen to 30 feet above it. FATES, the Parcas, or Destinies; the goddesses supposed to preside over the birth, life, and fortunes of men. They were three in number; Clotho held the spindle, Lachesis drew out the thread of man's destiny, and Atropos cut it off. FATHERS, THE, a name applied to the early writers of the Christian Church — those writers who have given us ac- counts of the traditions, practices, etc., that prevailed in the early Church. The term is mostly confined to those who lived during the first six centuries of the Christian era, and no writer is dignified with the title of father who wrote later than the 12th century. They are fre- quently divided into the Greek and Latin fathers; and those who flourished before the Council of Nice, in 325, are called the ante-Nicene fathers. The chief fathers of the first six centuries were as follows: In the 1st century flourished Clement, Bishop of Rome, and Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch; in the 2d century we have Poly- carp, Bishop of Smyrna, Justin Martyr, Hermias, Dionysius of Corinth, Hege- sippus, Tatian, Athenagoras, Thcophilus, Bishop of Antioch, Irenaeas, Bishop of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, and Ter- tullian; in the 3d century, Minucius Felix, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyprian, Dio- nysius, Bishop of Alexandria, Gregory (Thaumaturgus) ; in the 4th century, Arnobius, Lactantius, Eusebius, Julius Firmicus, Maternus, Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, Athanasius, Basil, Ephraim the Syrian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, Epiphanus, Bishop of Salamis, Chrysostom, Bishop of Con- stantinople, Ruffin, Presbyter of Aqui- leia; in the 5th century, Jerome, Theo- dorus. Bishop of Mopsuestia, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, Vincent of Lerins, Isidore of Pelusium, Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in Syria, Leo I., surnamed the Great, Virgilius, Bishop of Thapsus; in the 6th century, Pi'ocopius of Gaza, Are- tas, Gregory, Bishop of Tours, and Greg-