In the propagandism of his principles through the press he was not idle. The Independent Democrat, and, in 1838, the Morning Star, was printed and published at his own office—by which latter journal, in spite of the promise of support from political friends, he was a pecuniary loser to a large amount. The Temperance Advocate, also issued from his office, had no better success. Several years earlier, about 1820, it is interesting to note, he had published a tract on The Duty of Abstinence from all Intoxicating Drinks; and the founder of the Bible Christian Church in America can claim the merit of having been the first systematically to inculcate this social reform.
In the year 1847 the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain had been founded, of which Mr. James Simpson had been elected the first president. Metcalfe immediately proposed the formation of a like society in the United States. He corresponded with Drs. Graham, Alcott, and others; and finally an American Vegetarian Convention assembled in New York, May 15, 1850. Several promoters of the cause, previously unknown to each other (except through correspondence), here met. Metcalfe was elected president of the Convention; addresses were delivered, and the constitution of the society determined upon. The Society was organised by the election of Dr. William Alcott as president, Rev. W. Metcalfe as corresponding secretary, and Dr. Trall as recording secretary. An organ of the society was started in November, 1850, under the title of The American Vegetarian and Health Journal, and under the editorship of Metcalfe. Its regular monthly publication, however, did not begin until 1851. In that year he was selected as delegate to the English Vegetarian Society, as well as delegate from the Pennsylvania Peace Society to the “World’s Peace Convention,” which was fondly supposed to be about to be inaugurated by the Universal Exhibition of that year. The proceedings at the annual meeting of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain, and the eloquent address, amongst others, of the American representative, are fully recorded in the Vegetarian Messenger for 1852. On this occasion Joseph Brotherton, M.P. presided.
Two years later he suffered the irreparable loss of the sympathising sharer in his hopes for the regeneration of the world. Mrs. Metcalfe died in the seventy-fourth year of her age, having been, during forty-four years, a strict abstinent. Her loss was mourned by the entire Vegetarian community. By far the larger part of the matter, as well as the expenses of publication, of the American Vegetarian, was supplied by the editor, and, being inadequately supported by the rest of the community, the managers were forced to abandon its further publication. The last volume appeared in 1854. It has been succeeded in later times, under happier circumstances, by the Health Reformer which is still in existence.
In 1855 Metcalfe received an invitation to undertake the duties attached to the mother church at Salford. Leaving his brother-in-law in charge of the church in Philadelphia, he embarked for England once more, and the most memorable event, during his stay in this country, was the deeply and sincerely lamented death of Joseph Brotherton, who for twenty years had represented Salford in the Legislature, and whose true benevolence had endeared him to the whole community. Metcalfe was chosen to preach the funeral eulogy, which was listened to by a large number of Members of Parliament and municipal officers, and by an immense concourse of private citizens. Returning to America soon afterwards, at the urgent request of his friends in Philadelphia, he was, in 1859, elected to fill the place of President vacated by Dr. Alcott, whose virtues and labours in the cause he commemorated in a just eulogy. His own death took place in the year 1862, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, caused by hemorrhage of the lungs, doubtless the effect of excessive work. His end, like his whole interior if not exterior life, was, in the best meaning of a too conventional expression, full of peace and of hope. His best panegyric is to be found in his life-work; and, as the first who systematically taught the truths of reformed dietetics in the “New World,” he has deserved the unceasing gratitude of all sincere reformers in the United States, and, indeed, throughout the globe. By all who knew him personally he was as much loved as he was esteemed, and the newspapers of the day bore witness to the general lamentation for his loss.[264]
XLVII.
GRAHAM. 1794–1851.
AS an exponent of the physiological basis of the Vegetarian theory of diet, in the most elaborate minuteness, the author of Lectures on the Science of Human Life has always had great repute amongst food reformers both in the United States and in this country. Collaterally connected with the ducal house of Montrose, his father, a graduate of Oxford, emigrated to Boston, U.S., in the year 1718. He must have attained an advanced age when his seventeenth child, Sylvester, was born at Suffield, in Connecticut. Yet he seems to have been of a naturally dyspeptic and somewhat feeble constitution, which was inherited by his son, whose life, in fact, was preserved only by the method recommended by Locke—free exposure in the open air. During several years he lived with an uncle, on whose farm he was made to work with the labourers. In his twelfth year he was sent to a school in New York, and at fourteen he was set for a short time to learn the trade of paper-making. “He is described as handsome, clever, and imaginative. ‘I had heard,’ he says, ‘of noble deeds, and longed to follow in the field of fame.’ Ill health soon obliged his return to the country, and at sixteen symptoms of consumption appeared. Various occupations were tried until the time, when about twenty years of age, he commenced as a teacher of youth, proving highly successful with his pupils. Again ill-health obliged the abandonment of this pursuit.”[265]
At the age of thirty-two he married, and soon after became a preacher in the Presbyterian Church. Deeply interested in the question of “Temperance,” he was invited to lecture for that cause by the Pennsylvania Society (1830). He now began the study of physiology and comparative anatomy, in which his interest was unremitting. These important sciences were used to good effect in his future dietetic crusade. At this time he came in contact with Metcalfe, by whom he was confirmed in, if not in the first instance converted to, the principles of radical dietary reform. “He was soon led to believe that no permanent cure for intemperance could be found, except in such change of personal and social customs as would relieve the human being from all desire for stimulants. This idea he soon applied to medicine, so that the prevention and cure of disease, as well as the remedy for intemperance, were seen to consist mainly in the adoption of correct habits of living, and the judicious adaptation of hygienic agencies. These ideas were elaborated in an Essay on the Cholera (1832), and a course of lectures which were delivered in various parts of the country, and subsequently published under the title of Lectures on the Science of Human Life (2 vols., Boston, 1839). This has been the leading text-book of all the dietetic and nearly all the health reformers since.”[266]
The Science of Human Life is one of the most comprehensive as well as minute text books on scientific dietetics ever put forth. If it errs at all, it errs on the side of redundancy—a feature which it owes to the fact that it was published to the world as it was orally given. It therefore well bears condensation, and this has been judiciously done by Mr. Baker, whose useful edition is probably in the hands of most of our readers. Graham was also the author of a treatise on Bread and Bread-Making, and “Graham bread” is now universally known as one of the most wholesome kinds of the “staff of life.” Besides these more practical writings, for some time before his death he occupied his leisure in the production of a Philosophy of Sacred History, the characteristic idea of which seems to have been to harmonise the dogmas of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures with his published views on physiology and dietetics. He lived to complete one volume only (12mo.), which appeared after his death.
Tracing the history of Medicine from the earlier times, and its more or less of empiricism in all its stages, Graham discovers the cause of a vast proportion of all the egregious failure of its professors in the blind prejudice which induces them to apply to the temporary cure, rather than to the prevention, of disease. As it was in its first barbarous beginning, so it has continued, with little really essential change, to the present moment:—