ST. JOHN’S BREAD

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 1, 1868

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 32, No. 11.

“ST. JOHN’S BREAD.”

AUG. 24, we received by mail a singularly shaped package, which, on opening, was found to consist of four pods of the locust tree, which grows on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea. Bro. M. G. Kellogg, M. D., now on his way to California, sent them to us from N. Y. City, with the following note:

“Bro. Smith: Please find inclosed a few “locusts,” generally known as St. John’s Bread. They grew near the Mediterranean Sea, and are said to be of that species of vegetation on which John the Baptist subsisted, when his meat was ‘locusts and wild honey.’ I am inclined to think that John was a vegetarian.”

These pods are from four and a half to six inches in length, one inch in width, and about half an inch in thickness. The bean-shaped seeds are small, and the pulp of the pod, which is the principal portion of it, has about the taste of dates. If this kind of fruit abounded in the region where John preached, we should think it probable that it constituted the body of his living. For our part, we should much prefer it to the grasshoppers.