REV. JOSEPH EMERSON.
Mr. Emerson was a teacher of eminence, known throughout the United States, but particularly so in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He died in the latter state, in 1833, aged about fifty-five. He had long been a miserable dyspeptic, but was probably kept alive amid certain strange violations of physical law, such as studying hard till midnight, for example, for many years, by his great care in regard to his diet. Mrs. Banister, late Miss Z. P. Grant (the associate, at Ipswich, of Miss Lyon, who died recently at South Hadley, who was his pupil), thus speaks of his rigid habits:
"He not only uniformly rejected whatever food he had decided to be injurious to him, but whatever he deemed necessary for his food or drink, was always taken, whether at home or abroad. As his diet, for several years, consisted generally, either of bread and milk, or of bread and butter, what solid food he wanted could be supplied at any table."[16]
It is also testified of him, by his brother, Prof. Emerson, of Andover, that "for more than thirty years he adopted the practice of eating but one kind at a meal." If I do not misremember, for I knew him well, he was in favor of banishing flesh and fish, and substituting milk and fruits in their stead, on Bible ground.—I refer here to the Divine arrangement in the first chapter of Genesis; and which has never, that I am aware, been altered.