Feeding of the Five Thousand

“ A year at length went by, the famine growing in virulence with the passing of the days. Hundreds perished of starvation, yet still the people held out with a fanatical courage that defied assault, still their king kept up their courage by divine revelations, and still he contrived to keep himself sufficiently supplied with food amid his starving dupes. ”

“ There is no famine in any land that produces as much food as will support the people of that land—if the food is left with them. But the English took the food away to England, and let the people starve. ”

“ Those who reaped a harvest at all had their crop bought up by the State for the support of its army. The people therefore starved. At first they had one meal a day, then they went on half rations, and then starved the whole day. ”

“ The picture of the famine is most striking. The rider of the black horse is shown bearing a pair of scales, typifying the exactitude of weight—for single grains counted in these days. A man's full day's wage would purchase only a pint and a half of wheat (a choenix) and that would form but a scant feeding for the day for himself. But there will then not be wheat enough to go round, and people will hail barley with the rapture of starving souls. ”

“ Under wheat that land will feed forty-two people; under oats, eighty-eight; under potatoes, maize, or rice, one hundred and seventy-six; under the banana, over six thousand. The crowded nations of the future must abandon flesh-eating for a diet that will feed more than tenfold people by the same soil, expense and labor. How rich men will be when they cease to toll for flesh-meat, alcohol, drugs, sickness, and war! ”

“ But within the limits of the United States alone, there are now forty-five millions of men where then there were only a few hundred thousand, and yet there is now within that territory much more food per capita for the forty-five millions than there was then for the few hundred thousand. It is not the increase of food that has caused this increase of men; but the increase of men that has brought about the increase of food. There is more food, simply because there are more men. ”

“ Fancy the three million mouths that, on the lowest average, annually demand at these tables the satisfaction of their appetite, craving at one time their accustomed sustenance in one vast aggregate of hunger. It is like having to undertake the feeding of the entire population of London. ”

“ Many donations of food and material were received, and as stated, nearly forty thousand men were fed, and how some of them did eat not only as if they were making up for the fasts of the past, but for any which might occur in the future. ”

“ Five thousand men were fed, and then there was twelve times as much food left as there was before they began to eat. All this was done to satisfy that hungry crowd, and to teach them, and us, what power this glorious Saviour has to comfort those who are in need or trouble. ”

“ But He was "moved with compassion" and, wearied though He was, patiently spent the entire day in teaching, and then, at eventime when the disciples proposed sending them away for food, He, with a handful of loaves and fishes, satisfied the bodily cravings of as many as five thousand.
There is nothing that has so appealed to the masses in all countries and all centuries as ability to furnish plenty to eat. Literally tens of thousands of the human race fall asleep every night hungry. ”

“ The world was full of people. The census of 2010 gave eight billions for the whole world—eight crab-shells, yes, eight billions. It was not like to-day. Mankind knew a great deal more about getting food. And the more food there was, the more people there were. In the year 1800, there were one hundred and seventy millions in Europe alone. One hundred years later—a grain of sand, Hoo-Hoo—one hundred years later, at 1900, there were five hundred millions in Europe—five grains of sand, Hoo-Hoo, and this one tooth. This shows how easy was the getting of food, and how men increased. ”

“ The herds increased in size and number, and, voracious beyond calculation, almost occasioned a famine. Even the great wealth of the speculatist proved insufficient to supply them with the necessary food, and the very keepers were in danger of being eaten alive. ”

“ However, it seems this famine, as all others, fell most severely upon the poor; whereas the oil and the wine, which were dainties of the rich, were not hurt; but if bread, the staff of life, be broken, dainties will not supply the place of it. ”

“ My faith does not lead me to think the Lord will provide us with roast pigs, bread already buttered, etc.; he {449} will give us the ability to raise the grain, to obtain the fruits of the earth, to make habitations, to procure a few boards to make a box, and when harvest comes, giving us the grain, it is for us to preserve it—to save the wheat until we have one, two, five, or seven years' provisions on hand, until there is enough of the staff of life saved by the people to bread themselves and those who will come here seeking for safety. ”

“ The common food was peas, vetches, fern roots, and even the bark of trees. There was no commerce to put off famine. Man was altogether at the mercy of the seasons. The population, sparse as it was, was perpetually thinned by pestilence and want. ”

“ Sir William appears to have pointed out to his associates that the limit of the earth's production of wheat had been reached, and he predicted universal starvation, did not science step in to the aid of a famine-stricken world. ”

“ Brother Brigham told me to-day that he had put his family on half a pound each, for there is scarcely any grain in the country, and there are thousands that have none at all scarcely. We do this for the purpose of feeding hundreds that have none. ”

“ Famine stares the poorer classes in the face, and unless large supplies of grain have been laid up in store previously, or can be readily imported from abroad, the actual starvation of large numbers is the inevitable consequence. ”

“ Half the population was already subsisting on vegetables, roots, and shell-fish, but soon these resources failed, and they were obliged to have recourse to all the deplorable expedients which hunger can impose on the revolted senses. ”

“ While in nearly all lands there are only a few cases of actual starvation reported, there is a vast population in every country I visited who have a limited supply of food, or such food as is incompetent to sustain physical vigor. ”

“ The humanitarians, sentimentalists, crotchet-mongers, and fanatics have therefore, at least, one point in their favour—the cost of their food is far less than that of the shrewd flesh-eater. I mention this point first as being the most plain and indisputable, not necessarily the most important; yet that it is also of great importance will scarcely be denied, in a country whose food supply is yearly becoming a matter of greater difficulty, and where thousands of people are in a state of abject poverty and want. ”

“ Somebody now feeds them--which could hardly have been expected during those stressful times of war, when bread barely sufficed for the human population. They are also fewer in numbers. Their owners, I fancy, can afford to keep them at home once more. ”

“ With bread purposely made dear, with the import of cattle and of flesh meat prohibited, and with lard and butter wilfully reduced from articles of food to grease for wheels, there is no difficulty in accounting for the frequent murmurs of discontent, and for the starvation among the poorer classes in every part of the Kingdom. ”

“ He and his fellows have undeniably doubled the food supply of the world. More—they said, “Presto, change!” and the drudges of the harvest-fields stood up and became men. They have made life easier and nobler for untold myriads of people, and have led the way to the brightest era of peace and plenty that the hunger-bitten human race has ever known. ”

“ In one great visitation half a century ago a million and a quarter of our people died by starvation in the midst of a country which was actually at that time exporting food and grain to the English markets, and which was all the time paying exorbitant rates to maintain the glory and the power of the British Empire. ”

“ Food being scarce, for there was a dreadful famine throughout England, some of the people disgustingly devoured the flesh of dogs and horses; others appeased their insatiable hunger with the garbage of uncooked herbs and roots; many, in all parts, sunk under the severity of the famine and died in heaps ”

“ We want the brethren and sisters to feel around and see if they can find a sixpence, a dollar or five dollars to help out the poor. Talk about the people over yonder being hungry, why I have known them eat not more than a third of a meal for a whole week in order to save enough to feed two or three of us Elders. ”

“ No topic, therefore, could be properly employed by me on the present occasion. All that I could do was to offer him food, and, by pathetic supplications, to prevail on him to eat. Famine, however obstinate, would scarcely refrain when bread was placed within sight and reach. When made to swerve from his resolution in one instance, it would be less difficult to conquer it a second time. ”

“ After they had used up everything they could find, a mere piece of bread cost a bezant. The scarcity of produce and of spices resulted in great hardship, and many died, their bellies bloated with starvation. ”

“ The income of the whole family worked out at about thirteen pounds a year at the most, which, taking into consideration that it had to be the support of about a dozen people, seemed narrow enough, and one could easily understand that the slightest failure of the crops would mean something like famine. ”

“ To ourselves we were saying, many of us: "We have done enough for the poor, whom we have with us always." But not always do we have with us a land famous for its fecundity that is now at grips with famine ”

“ Modern experience supplies us with instances in which, by such a policy, a country might be regenerated and a seven years’ famine hailed as a blessing if, without famishing the people, it put them unconditionally into the hands of an able, bold, and beneficent ruler. ”

“ So considerable a quantity of food was distributed partly as payment for services rendered or for goods purchased, partly as gifts, that we contributed in a very great degree to mitigate the famine which during midwinter threatened to break out among the population. ”

“ If we, as they, were nurtured on other food than our brothers, if no gift of ours could help to allay those pangs of famine, still methinks this undisturbed, unrestrained fruition were not wholly free of guilt. How much more when every crumb we touch is abstracted from that common stock, which in the eternal registers is set down, I fear, as scarcely less theirs than ours? ”

“ Would it not have been wonderful if such a multitude, being in want of their daily bread, had not resorted to plunder and robbery to gain their subsistence, since they could not in any other manner be saved from famine? ”

“ But again the Famine returned, and there came a time when there was no more water in the wells to frighten the Famine with, and he nibbled the corn till all of it was gone and the cattle that he chased grew very lean. And the Famine drew nearer, even to the houses of men and trampled on their gardens at night and ever came creeping nearer to their doors. ”

“ So ’tis with all in times of misery and need;
Let no one, then, come blindly to our house to feed.”
Hast never seen reality of famine near?
Look well at us; thou’lt see effects of food too dear.25
Our outward look is black, like dark pretender’s heart. ”

“ The few unorganised attempts to feed the poor, resulted in the crushing to death of several, and the one loaf of bread doled out to each person on these rare occasions only served to prolong their sufferings. ”

“ You know yourself how hardly we came through the famine of last year, and although by the mercy of God we now may hope to provide our own food, what can we do for clothes, for tools, for even the means of communication with our old home, if the Adventurers throw us over, or if they demand immediate repayment of the moneys advanced? ”

“ But the great famines in India and in other foreign lands farthest removed from us, have awakened a like response in our hearts. Great sums have been given in money and supplies to feed the hunger of far-away peoples, and help them sow their fields and get a fresh start. ”

“ We waste it like water, while Belgium, Serbia, Poland and Armenia call. It is said that there are thirty million people in India who have only one meal a day, and who never know what it is to have enough to eat. Some of them say that if they could have enough to eat for just two days, they would be willing to lie down and die content. Again and again, hundreds of thousands of people in China have been the victims of famine, while we were throwing wealth away. ”

“ Hence no man raises more grain than is barely sufficient for himself, and the first unfavourable season produces a famine. The Mogul government at no period offered full security to the prince, still less to his vassals ”

“ So came the great Famine, punishing the lies; men, women, and children died in their thousands; the poor birds died also, and the dogs and the horses—losing their long faith in the wisdom of [192] imperial man. ”

“ Had that fearful famine, which in the present century desolated the land, fallen upon a people who thought more of accumulating subsistence than of avoiding sin, multitudes might now be living who perished by literal starvation on the dreary hills of Limerick or Skibbereen. ”

“ Whilst all Europe is probably watching with solicitude the progress of the French arms, and the variations of their government, the French themselves, almost indifferent to war and politics, think only of averting the horrors of famine. The important news of the day is the portion of bread which is to be distributed ”