With angels may participate, and find
No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare.
And from those corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improved by tract of time, and winged ascend
Ethereal as we; or may, at choice,
Here, or in heavenly paradises, dwell,”
as a picture of the true earthly paradise to be—“the Paradise of Peace.”
With these exquisite pictures of the life of bloodless feasts and ambrosial food we may compare the fearful picture of the Court of Death, displayed in prospective vision before the terror-stricken gaze of the traditional progenitor of our species, where, amongst the occupants, the largest number are the victims of “intemperance in meats and drinks, which on the earth shall bring diseases dire.” In this universal lazar-house might be seen—
“all maladies