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Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages: Including a System of Vegetable Cookery
by Alcott, William A. (William Andrus) · Page 173 of 274 · 95,875 words
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dignity of their profession--are among the most healthy, vigorous, and long-lived of their race. The accounts of their longevity may, in some instances, be exaggerated; but it is certain that, other things being equal, they do not in this respect fall behind any other caste of their countrymen. SOCIETY OF BIBLE CHRISTIANS. This society has existed in Great Britain nearly half a century. They abstain from flesh, fish, and fowl--in short, from every thing that has animal life--and from all alcoholic liquors. Of their number in the kingdom I am not well informed. In Manchester they have three churches that have regular preachers; and frequent meetings have been held for discussing the diet question within a few years, some of which have been well attended, and all of which have been interesting. Among those who have adopted "the pledge" at their meetings, are some of the most distinguished men in the kingdom, and a few of the members of parliament. Through these and other instrumentalities, the question is fairly up in England, and will not cease to be discussed till fairly settled. A branch or colony from the parent society, under the pastoral care of Rev. Wm. Metcalfe, consisting of only eight members, came in 1817 and established itself in Philadelphia. They were incorporated as a society in 1830. In 1846 the number of their church members was about seventy, besides thirty who adhered to their abstemious habits, but were not in full communion. During the thirty years ending in 1846, twelve of their number died--four children and eight adults. The average age of the latter was fifty-seven years. Of the seventy now belonging to the society, nineteen are between forty and eighty years of age; and forty, in all, over twenty-five. Of the whole number, twelve have abstained from animal food thirty-seven years, seven from twenty to thirty years, and fifty-one never tasted animal food or drank intoxicating drinks. And yet they are all--if we except Mr. Metcalfe, their minister--of the laboring class, and hard laborers, too. Their strength and power of endurance is fully equal to their neighbors
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