fasting admits drinking without eating. Therefore consumers are, without the help of casuists, troubled themselves and afflicted, when in Lent they empty chocolate cups. Excited on the one hand by the pungent cravings of the throat to moisten it, reproved on the other by breaking their fast, they experience grave remorse of conscience; and, with consciences agitated and torn with drinking the sweet beverage, they sin. Under the guidance of these skilful theologians, the remorse aroused by natural and Divine light being blunted, Christians drink joyfully. For all agree that he will break his fast who eats any portion of chocolate, which, dissolved and well mixed with warm water, is not prejudicial to keeping a fast. This is a sufficiently marvellous presupposition. He who eats 4 ozs. of exquisite sturgeon roasted has broken his fast; if he has it dissolved and prepared in an extract of thick broth, he does not sin."
As for the introduction of cocoa into this country, the contemporary Gaze tells us that
"Our English and Hollanders make little use of it when they take a prize at sea, as, not knowing the secret virtue and quality of it for the good of the stomach, of whom I have heard the Spaniards say, when we have taken a good prize, a ship laden
