ackwoods neighborhood,
making a stir something like phrenology and spirit-rappings, which
were as mysterious in their attacks as influenza. He then thought it
possible that Plutarch might be turned to account on the food question
by revealing what those old Greeks and Romans ate to make them strong;
and so at last we gained our glorious Plutarch. Dick's "Christian
Philosopher," which I borrowed from a neighbor, I thought I might
venture to read in the open, trusting that the word "Christian" would
be proof against its cautious condemnation. But father balked at the
word "Philosopher," and quoted from the Bible a verse which spoke of
"philosophy falsely so-called." I then ventured to speak in defense of
the book, arguing that we could not do without at least a little of
the most useful kinds of philosophy.

"Yes, we can," he said with enthusiasm, "the Bible is the only book
human beings can possibly require throughout all the journey from
earth to heaven."

"But how," I contended, "can we find the way to heaven without the
Bible, and how after we grow old can we read the Bible without a
little helpful science? Just think, father, you cannot read your Bible
without spectacles, and millions of others are in the same fix; and
spectacles cannot be made without some knowledge of the science of
optics."

"Oh!" he replied, perceiving the drift of the argument, "there will
always be plenty of worldly people to make spectacles."

To this I stubbornly replied with a quotation from the Bible with
reference to the time coming when "all shall know the Lord from the
least even to the greatest," and then who will make the spectacles?
But he still objected to my reading that book, called me a
contumacious quibbler too fond of disputation, and ordered me to
return it to the accommodating owner. I managed, however, to read it
later.

On the food question father insisted that those who argued for a
vegetable diet were in the right, because our teeth showed plainly
that they were made with reference to fruit and grain and not for
flesh like those of dogs and wolves and tigers. He therefore promptly
adopted a vegetable diet and requested mother to make the bread from
graham flour instead of bolted flour. Mother put both kinds on the
table, and meat also, to let all the family take their choice, and
while father was insisting on the foolishness of eating flesh, I came
to her help by calling father's attention to the passage in the Bibl