The All-wise and Almighty Designer of life has seen fit to employ in the work an agent that is already familiar to us. This agent is pure water. God washes food into the body, exactly as he washes worn-up material out of it. The very water, indeed, which carries away the waste, has in the first instance carried in the food. God has laid down pipes of supply which run every where through the structures of the body, exactly as he has laid down the drain-pipes. These pipes branch out to the hair, the eyes, the head, the feet, the flesh, the bones, and the skin. At the beginning of the supply pipes there is a great pump always at work, pumping on the supply. This pump is called the heart. Place your hand on the left side of your chest, and you will feel how this heart is springing at its pumping work. You will be sensible that it is raising itself up at its labor, at every stroke, so determined is the exertion of its strength. The supply-pipes are termed arteries. One large arterial pipe comes out from the heart, and then sends out branches in all directions, very much like the water-pipes sent out from the great reservoir into all the houses of a town. The branch-pipes get smaller and smaller as they go from the main, until at last they are many times smaller than the smallest hair. The food that is washed through the branching supply-pipes, by the strokes of the heart, is called blood. There are about twenty pounds of blood in the body of a full grown, active man; of these twenty pounds nearly sixteen are nothing else than pure water, the other four pounds are the finely divided food which is being hurried along by the water. This then is what I mean when I say that the food is washed into the body, by the agency of water. Take the finest needle you can find, and stick its point any where into your body, and you will find that blood will rush out of the hole. This will show you what great care has been taken to send supply-pipes everywhere. There is no spot, however small, into which a needle point can be thrust without wounding a supply-pipe. When the heart pumps, red blood thus flushes through every portion of the living frame, repairing and warming it, and supporting it in its offices. But you will say I have not yet proved my case. Food is washed out of the heart to all parts of the body. This heart, however, is already in the body. There is therefore no washing of the food into the body here. It is already in, when it is pumped from the heart; but where does the heart get the blood from, which it pumps onwards? How can it be shown that the blood comes from the food? This is to be my next step. I am going on to explain to you that the heart gets its blood from the food which is eaten; that the blood indeed is finely divided food given up to the carrying power of water; food finely prepared for its task of nourishing the living frame. How then is the food thus prepared? how is solid food turned into liquid and easily flowing blood?