“The Spanish ladies of the New World, it is said, carried their love for chocolate to such a degree that, not content with partaking of it several times a day, they had it sometimes carried after them to church.

This favoring of the senses often drew upon them the censures of the

bishop; but the Reverend Father Escobar, whose metaphysics were as

subtle as his morality was accommodating, declared, formally, that a

fast was not broken by chocolate prepared with water; thus wire-drawing,

in favor of his penitents, the ancient adage, ‘_Liquidum non frangit

jejunium._’

“Time and experience,” he says further, “have shown that chocolate, carefully prepared, is an article of food as wholesome as it is agreeable; that it is nourishing, easy of digestion, and does not possess those qualities injurious to beauty with which coffee has been reproached; that it is excellently adapted to persons who are obliged to a great concentration of intellect; in the toils of the pulpit or the bar, and especially to travellers; that it suits the most feeble stomach; that excellent effects have been produced by it in chronic complaints, and that it is a last resource in affections of the pylorus.

Look forward to Pt7 next week.

-Nick