but while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel." Here, according to the dietists, is a vigorous argument against corpulency and animal food. On the surface it seems so, and as the philosophical dogmatists to whom we refer, abhor the labor of diving, we suppose they are very well pleased with such deduction. Because they were slain while the meat was yet in their mouths,' a judgment is pronounced, they believe, against animal food. This, therefore, is an argument for vegetable diet. But by turning to a verse in the same chapter, which precedes the one we have quoted, the learned Pundits will discover that the Israelitish appetite was as keen for vegetable as animal diet; so that the denunciation was directed as strongly against the one as the other: "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely! the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic." Here is not only fish and flesh, but as select and delicate a regimen of greens as one could wish. But the "fattest" were slain. That is very true, and it seems to us (no very profound biblical critics), that they were particularly smitten because they repined against the manna which had been, to them at least, most healthy and invigorating sustenance. But with our new apostles it is no matter. They were punished for rebellious murmuring, while their mouths filled with flesh-therefore, flesheating is sinful-not merely eating too much of whatever it be, nor even intemperate flesh-eating-but any the least degree of flesh-eating whatever. But our readers may like to see a sample of dietetic lecturing. It is reported in one of the little books placed at the head of this article. It purports to be an outline of the discourse of a celebrated lecturer, "Greenham" (alias Graham), one of the more perfect adepts, who indeed has quite outstripped the first father of the new science, violating altogether the Scriptural maxim that the disciple is not above his master; though, as we shall afterwards see, the master is very far gone on the same road towards the sublime degree of illumination. But let us hear the lecture. It is very fairly reported :

"It is very unfortunate for this city that I am not understood here, [Boston,] and my system is not in proper repute. People do not properly understand my theory here, although I can raise an army in New-York-twenty thousand men, who will go to the death at the mere mention of the name of Greenham. I am afraid, however, that I shall not be able to do myself justice this evening, for I

acknowledge with shame and sorrow that I have disgraced and abused my vital functions. I have reduced myself to a level with brutes-and now I pay the penalty. My friends-before I came to this hall-just before I came-1 yielded to temptation-and ate a slice too much of Greenham bread!* It is fact-[here he spoke very quick, as if in a suppressed passion] eat meat and you know nothing of gustatory enjoyment. You bring on first a sinking here [pointing to his stomach] then dyspepsia, prostration of strength, insanity, death. One or more of these consequences, particularly the latter, sooner or later overtakes all who eat animal food. You have no appetite till you stimulate your depraved organs--but drink water! eat raw potatoes and raw wheat-learn to appreciate their creamy taste, and your stomach will be a stop watch for you. Your senses will be quickened till you can detect fragrance in every thing simple. When you meet the food you have accustomed yourself to, you will eat with pure, holy, voracious appetite. There'll be no stopping you, and there's the danger. Look at me-at my exhilara. tion-all arising, let me assure you, from one extra slice of bread. I should have known better-I did know better.

"You must be punctual in your meals. I breakfast at ten and dine at four. No matter when you eat--but be punctual. Always begin as the clock strikes. There's a sort of a vital papillary erection of the inner coat of the stomach at the moment of receiving its regular food, which must not be cheated. If it is—wo, wo-dyspepsia and sorrow. You know nothing about hunger, on my system, till the hour comes. You never think of food till it is before you. Then the smell, imperceptible to the flesh-eater without the addition of poisonous condiments, awakes a devouring appetite and a keen relish. For myself, I never know when to stop.

"I do not, like most lecturers, talk by the minute; when I talk, I have always something to say. I talk a good while, and when you get tired of hearing, the audience must manifest it, and I will stop. [Here he stopped to take some water.] This is rain water. It is the direct gift of Heaven, and the only water man should drink-except, indeed, he meet such a well as I found near New-York. Why, there was a sort of natural sweetness about that water-not a molasses sweetness--but as if-as if-nature prepared it for man to drink. I would go out of the city, after I had been poisoned with the nasty wash called water there, and get to this pump and drink, and drink, and drink. People would stare, and think me crazy, but I paid no attention to them. I drank, and drank, and drank, and never was satisfied.'

"So he went on, introducing into his introductory, theology and tea and coffee, Dr. Beaumont and predestination, the absorbents and his discoveries, his books and the gastric juice, himself and

* The reason for digression and incoherence reported as actually assigned by a certain lecturer-reported and never contradicted by him.

Socrates, the fifty simple substances and Professor Silliman, his persecution, as parallel to that of one whose name we cannot profane by naming it in the same sentence with Dr. Greenham, flesh of all kinds, pastry flour, sugar, molasses, tea and coffee, snuff and tobac co, mustard, pepper, vinegar and salt, butter, cheese, pigeon broth and oysters.' Methusaleh ate none of these-Abraham ate none; and when manna was sent to the children of Israel in the desert, it was to teach them what they should eat, instead of feeding from the flesh pots of Egypt. They never rebelled or grumbled while they ate manna, but when the quails came, the old Adam was stirred up anew, and they murmured. He forgot to remind his hearers that the same Providence that sent the manna sent the quails. All the bible testimony was against animal food: Canaan was to flow with milk and honey, but no butcher's meat. The directions about clean and unclean beasts for food were given, not because Heaven wished the chosen people to eat flesh, but because, knowing they would do so, it was deemed better to give them sumptuary regulations, than to forbid them animal food. The Old Testament contained dietetic principles, which, if followed out and improved upon, by forbidding all food at all times, which was there forbidden in any part, or at any time, would restore man back to a state of nature and innocence. The vision of the disciple, in which he was told that God had made nothing common or unclean,' and in which he was directed to kill and eat,' did not mean that he must take animal life to gratify his depraved appetite. Paul's permission to eat meat without questions, for conscience sake,' was mere yielding to the taste he could not subdue. That hogs were forbidden to the Jews was proof that all animal food had better be dispensed with. For his part, he would stop at no half-way place. In other times people's habits were consulted, and allowance made-sin was in a measure connived at. Reformers stopped short of the proper point, because they feared people would not follow them. He should go beyond what he really wished, expected, or hoped his hearers would follow, and thus should carry them to the proper stopping place.* He did not wish people to believe in all he said he did not believe it himself. He wished only the good of mankind-he periled life and limb for that great end--he would continue to do so, and glory in persecution."-Means without Living, p. 62-67.

Not only (if they are to be believed,) is Grahamism the great burden of the Scripture, but it is to be the great auxiliary in spreading Christianity over the earth. The fiend Infidelity is to be put out of the way by nothing less than spare diet and a course of vegetables. This demon, says Hitchcock, the erudite founder of the, dietetic college, "cannot be successfully met and encountered by the puny arm and shrink

* Fact, in substance.

ing sensibility of dyspepsy. It needs the resolution, the assured faith, and the energetic action of our Pilgrim Fathers. And then again, what, but the strong arm, and the resolute courage, and unwavering faith of men, sustained by EUPEPSY as well as the grace of God, can urge forward into the dark and untrodden fields of spiritual death, the mighty wheels of benevolence that are in motion?" Sustained by eupepsy As WELL as the grace of God! This is good; it is admirable; a flight not contemptible--at least as high as the fifth heaven of invention. Have courage! he will be shortly in the seventh! Rising on the wing toward the region we have indicated, he bursts out in the full fervour of Grahamism: "They were Eupeptics who carried the Gospel over the East, in primitive times. They were Eupeptics who, in modern times, have successfully engaged in the same work; AND THEY MUST BE EUPEPTICS WHO ARE TO BRING ON THE MILLENNIUM."

We doubt much whether there will be any human beings extant by the arrival of the millennium, if the dietetic system should be universally adopted. It hath a rapid operation in translating its professors from the "smoke and stir of this dim spot." Their career, on this road to health, brings them speedily in sight of tombstones and family vaults. Pretending by their false and base empiricism to lengthen, they absolutely abbreviate life. There is an amount of moral evil thus committed, which, but for the ignorance of its apostles, should place empirical dietetics at once on the list with Murder.

He who, in a time of scarcity, forestalls the market, and by a monopoly of provisions stints the people of their proper supply, is held guilty of treason to the community, and, in some codes of law, is subject to the penalty of death. But the dietetic preachers would actually snatch from the lips the very sustenance which its possessor has in abundance or can purchase with ease. He perishes, deluded by the sophisms of pretenders, in the midst of a full granary. He falls surrounded by harvests of the richest wheat. He starves in sight of a thousand platters smoking with substantial fare. In truth, this whole system seems to be a disguised and ignoble attempt to establish a kind of monkish creed in the New World. It is a phantom of the Middle Ages, revived from its slumbers, and put forth again into the waking world to marshal under its tattered and faded banner, retouched and repaired, all that class of human beings who, in every age, jump at novelties, and are willing to go out and join in a crusade against their own health, happiness and peace of mind, provided it is done in the guise of accomplishing some mighty moral or national purpose, and

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provided some special mountebank appears boldly in the van to lead them on. In this case Starvation has turned crusader and philanthropist, and by its stalwart strength promises to banish poverty and crime; to annihilate acute and chronic diseases and nervous maladies; to clear and strengthen the mind; to elevate and purify the morals; to brighten and invigorate the religious affections-and finally, to bring about the millennium! Health, morals and intellect, all hang on this. Eupepis the Good Principle, the Evil One is a mighty Dyspepsy. We may remark, in passing, that one learned professor hints that history might be hereafter written on dietetic principles, and gives us an illustration of the manner in which it could be managed, by speaking of England as presenting "an alarming contrast between the eupeptic days of Elizabeth and the dyspeptic times of George the Fourth." Cooks, we suppose, are henceforward to write the chronicles of the times, and waiters will take charge of memoirs and the lighter sketches of manners, morals and customs. We may apply to them, in anticipation, the language which the learned Professor of Chemistry and Natural History uses in reference to the wonders which might be achieved by a phalanx of eupeptic youth: "Oh, the light and influence which they might thus send out into the world, and down to posterity, would not, like other emanations proceeding from a centre, spread and increase in the slow ratio of the square of the distance and the time; but in a ratio so high, that the quadratics of the millennium could alone express and resolve it"!! Certainly, one of the most singular and mathematical emanations we ever read of! We think the professor must have (in addition to his aforesaid duties) a small class in celestial Trigonometry under his charge.

The dietetic philosophers, whether they intend it or not, are practical Atheists, for they rob God of one of his essential attributes, by supposing that he has created the animal and vegetable world merely to prey on each other and encumber the earth. They render it a shrewd problem, too, to explain why man has carnivorous teeth. We consider this system also as most pernicious and abhorrent, when we look upon it as a fanatical attempt to shut out from mankind certain sources of happiness and enjoyment, which were clearly provided and intended for them in the economy of the earth. We humbly believe that all things were made to be enjoyed rationally, temperately, and with an eye to the great Benefactor. The universe was not only built for the eye, that man might sit in its midst, like a child at a theatre, and gaze on its won