Genesis 1:29-30 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree… Perhaps it may appear to you a very natural thing that corn, strawberries, cherries, grapes, figs, dates, peaches, pineapples, and all the various and delicious fruits of our orchards and of other climates, should feed and nourish you; but think of the miracle which must be wrought in your body — in your stomach, your lungs, your heart, your veins, your glands, your arteries, and all the various parts within you — before these fruits, or any other food that you eat, can be prepared in your stomach, changed into a kind of milky substance, and conveyed in your veins, and passed with your blood through one of the ventricles of your heart, and thence into your lungs, to be burned and purified there, and return again as perfect blood into the other ventricle, and thence be driven by a rapid movement into your arteries, and to the very extremities of your body, in order that it may reproduce, without your interference, your skin, your flesh, your bones, your nerves, your nails, and the thousands and thousands of the hairs of your head. It is a miracle wrought by God, that any kind of food, whether leaves, seeds, fruits, or bread should serve as food and nourishment to me at all; it is a mystery and a wonder how it is changed into a part of my body, so as to make it grow, repair it, and renew its waste: and therefore it was a work of almighty power when God appointed man's food, and said of the trees and plants, "To you it shall be for meat." What is bread? It is a paste composed of ground corn, water, and salt, baked after it has begun to ferment. But how does it happen that the corn and the salt should nourish me? Corn, we are told, is composed of carbon and the two gases which form water. Now, how can carbon or charcoal nourish me? Try to eat a bit of charcoal, and you will find it like taking a mouthful of sand. Think how wonderfully these substances, of which corn is composed, must be transformed by Divine power to produce the corn, and then still further changed to become a part of our bodies. Then salt is composed of two substances which separately would hurt me, and yet combined they are wholesome, and help to cause the corn and other things to nourish me. If I were to take two phials, one filled with sodium and the other with hydrochloric acid, and if I were to mix them in a glass, they would combine and form salt at the bottom of the glass; and yet, separately, each of these phials would contain a destructive poison. If I were to swallow the hydrochloric acid, it would burn my stomach; and if I were to pour it into the palm of my hand and hold it there, it would soon burn a hole right through my hand; and yet this dreadful poison, when combined with sodium, forms salt, which is so wholesome and so necessary for our health. (Prof. Gaussen.) Parallel Verses KJV: And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. |
    |