Page:Meda - a tale of the future.djvu/155

Rh societies in those days, took place without being accompanied by monstrous feeding and drinking matches.

"Those who termed themselves abstainers were abstainers only from intoxicants. They reviled those who took wine or spirits in any form, yet these very men would cram themselves with all conceivable kinds of food. They would spare no trouble, or what they called money, to make these great feeding displays. They truly saw the evils of drinking intoxicants, but they overlooked the evils of over-eating, the intemperance in consuming food. The result of this terrible abuse of appetite and intellect had a very baneful influence on the world's inhabitants. No nation was free from it; no class was averse to it; all inclined in the same direction. For want of opportunity and means, some people living in lonely districts were of necessity kept out of the way of temptation, but the credit is not due to their want of inclination, but rather to a want of opportunity. The effects of this abnormal