our numerous diseases, and the dullness of our faculties, seem
principally produced in this way, that flesh, or heavy, and, as I may
say, too substantial food, overloads the stomach, is oppressive to the
whole body, and generates a substance too dense, and spirits too obtuse.
In a word, it is a yarn too coarse to be interwoven with the threads of
man's nature."

I know how it strikes many when they find such men as Gassendi,
admitting the doctrines for which I contend, in theory, and even
strenuously defending them, and yet setting them at naught in practice.
Surely, say they, such persons cannot be sincere. For myself, however, I
draw a very different conclusion. Their conduct is perfectly in harmony
with that of the theoretic friends of cold water, plain dress, and
abstemiousness in general. They are compelled to admit the truth; but it
is so much against their habits, as in the case of Gassendi, besides
being still more strongly opposed to their lusts and appetites, that
they cannot, or rather, will not conform to what they believe, in their
daily practice. Their testimony, to me, is the strongest that can be
obtained, because they testify against themselves, and in spite of
themselves.

PROF. HITCHCOCK.

This gentleman, a distinguished professor in Amherst College, is the
author of a work, entitled "Dyspepsia Forestalled and Resisted," which
has been read by many, and execrated by not a few of those who are so
wedded to their lusts as to be unwilling to be told of their errors.

I am not aware that Professor H. has any where, in his writings, urged a
diet exclusively vegetable, for all classes of the community, although
I believe he does not hesitate to urge it on all students; and one might
almost infer, from his works of various kinds, that if he is not already
a believer in the doctrines of its universal superiority to a mixed
diet, he is not very far from it. In a sermon of his, in the National
Preacher, for November, 1834, he calls a diet exclusively vegetable, a
"proper course of living."

I propose to add here a few anecdotes of his, which I know not how to
find elsewhere.

"Pythagoras restricted himself to vegetable food altogether, his dinner
being bread, honey, and water; and he lived upward of eighty years.
Matthew (St. Matthew, I suppose he means), according to Clement, lived
upon vegetable diet. Galen, one of the most distinguished of the ancient
physicians, lived one hundred and forty years,