ANCIENT If{STORY OF HONEY, 
It: the books of antiquity, Honey is mentioned as one of 
the most ancient articles of food—man’s first source of 
“2 nourishment, Aye, and are we not informed that when 
“the morning stars sang together” over the pristine beauty 
of a new born world, that under the bright smile of Heaven, 
Adam and his happy spouse were presented with.a glorious 
home in an enchanting garden filled-with ‘‘ supernal fruits 
and flowers” of Ifeaven’s own planting — nurtured and 
watched by hosts of angelic attendants, who had made that 
Eden-home a beautiful Paradise ? There ‘‘ the beasts of the 
tield and fowls of the air”? dwelt togetherin perfect harmony, 
under sun-lit skies ; and among the beautiful bowers of that 
holy retreat, Eden’s feathered songstersrapturously joined in 
“the swelling chorus.” 
There, too, reveling in the precious nectar yielded from 
the bloom of glory-clad trees, shrubs and flowers, was ‘the 
little busy bee,’ with its joyous hum and rapid flight—gath- 
ering the plenteous sweetness for the tiny but numerous 
_family about to spring into existence, at its little home! 
Ever did it flit from leaf to leaf and flower to flower, gather- 
ing the honeyed treasures, that its ‘‘ stores’? may be abundant 
for generations yet unborn —when winter’s sable-shades 
should settle down upon the earth, visiting it with cold and 
storm, and chilling the ‘little pets ” by its frozen breath and 
fiercer blast ! 
No historian has transmitted to our day a description of 
the rude hive provided for the bees that’ Noah carried into 
the ark, nor are we informed whether Abraham’s bees were 
kept in log-gums or box-hives, but it is recorded that the 
land where Abraham dwelt—Canaan—was one “‘ flowing with 
milk and honey ;” and when the old Patriarch, because of 
the famine that prevailed there, sent his sons to Egypt to 
buy corn, he sent as a present to the Egyptian ruler some of 
Canaan’s famous honey.—Gen. 48: 11. 
