VIII. FED WITH FASTING.

THE salmon may pass for the riddle of the river. The oldest fisherman never, as yet, met with any meat in the maw thereof, thereby to advantage his conjecture on what bill of fare that fish feedeth. It eats not flies with the perch, nor swallows worms with the roach, nor sucketh dew with oysters, nor devoureth his fellow fishes with the pike: what hath it in the water but the water? yet salmons grow great, and very fat in their season.

How do many (exiles in their own country) subsist now-a-days of nothing, and wandering in a wilderness of want (except they have manna miraculously from heaven) they have no meat on earth from their own means. At what ordinary, or rather extraordinary, do they diet, that for all this have cheerful faces, light hearts, and merry countenances? Surely some secret comfort supports their souls. Such never desire but to make one meal all the days of their lives on the continual feast of a good conscience. [Prov. xv. 15.] The fattest capons yield but sad merrythoughts to the greedy glutton in comparison of those delightful dainties which this dish daily affords such as feed upon it.