tance of people of the world, addicted to high living, and immersed in sensual enjoyments; these serious diseases are apoplexy, aneurism of the heart, dropsy, gout, gravel, stone, cancer, scurvy, etc. Now, for twenty-nine years we can certify that we have not met a single case of these various diseases among the Trappists; not even a thing which will appear incredible to our preconceived notions and prejudices-not even, we say, a single instance of scurvy, although we have very often observed it on persons in the world at large. It must be added to this, that the terrible cholera of 1832 invaded no establishment of Trappists.'

"And I, the present writer, will here add, with all truth, that there were several cases among our nearest neighbors, and that we were exempt from it. Typhus fever raged even at Nazareth, Bardstown, and Loretto, but no case presented itself at Gethsemane.

"This scourge,' continues the doctor, 'made great ravages in the environs of Grand Trappe, in the neighboring parishes, but never crossed the cloister of the monastery. Moreover, a virulent epidemic, the diphtherite, appeared several times, fifteen years ago, in the district where La Trappe is situated, but expired at the foot of the abbey wall, where it never penetrated. It is not long since (1849) a malignant dysentery, almost as dangerous as Asiatic cholera, desolated the country. This new scourge raged especially among the poorer classes, and chose its victims among persons the worst or most frugally fed; in this respect, had not the Trappists apparently everything to fear from the deleterious influence of the epidemic, especially when they saw an entire family, composed of six persons, attacked by it almost at their gates? In fact, a blind beggar was seized by it in the monastery itself.

The attack, though serious, was promptly overcome. Like the others, it stopped there, and broke its force, so to speak, against the cloister wall. It seems as though these scourges had been told, 'Thus far shall ye go, and no farther.'

"But I must stop, dear Sir; I fear I may weary you by a too long repetition; for the author is never ready to close, and this is enough, it would seem, to satisfy all your inquiries. You now know what is the life of the Trappist, the condition of his health, and that which constitutes in his case that genial and unvarying wellbeing which in the world would be gladly purchased by gold. This is what gives him contentment amid the severest of his privations, and to his exterior, almost barbarous and repulsive, that air of gayety and inexpressible satisfaction. He is happy, and feels it; God is all his joy and all his riches here below; and one day, the most desired of his life, He will become his eternal recompense. Such, perhaps, is the veritable, the unique, the excellent regimen of the Trappist; the sentiment of his present happiness, and the firm hope of a happiness without end."

It is not to be credited that wearing the same clothes, day and night, lying on a plank, being called up at two o'clock in the morning, when everybody had better sleep until three or four, and eating but once a day in winter, can be as favorable to long life as other conditions which might easily be pointed out.

Capt. John Matthews, of Bath, in March, 1796, when the Constitution was building in Baltimore, went to Norfolk and found the town full of small-pox. Neither he nor his crew, in all six persons on board the schooner, had had the disease, except the mate. The crew kept out evenings, as is common, but Capt. Matthews kept aboard ship

and dieted, eating nothing but mush and rice and molasses. He stayed the first night in a house where they had had the small-pox, and one had died out of the house. None of the crew dieted.

On their arrival at Baltimore, with spars and material for the Constitution, about fourteen days after their arrival at Norfolk, three of the men broke out with the disease. Capt. Matthews and the boy, which last had not been on shore at Norfolk, were inoculated. In eleven days, no small-pox, and he was then inoculated again; in sixteen days was again inoculated; that did not take; he living all the while on the very simple diet. He was then directed by his physician to take two glasses of wine a day, and in four or five days a light small-pox appeared, and the wine was omitted. He had the disease very lightly; it did not confine him; he attended to his business all the while, and although the doctor left him medicine, he did not take it. One of the men died; the other two had it very severely—both delirious. All lived freely during exposure, eating and drinking as usual, without restraint.

The boy dieted, and had it lightly, by inoculation, and dieted after being inoculated. He continued his cooking all the time he had it.

Capt. M. never used tobacco, and rum he never drank; he very rarely took any kind of spirit. He was thirtyone years old, and generally enjoyed very good health; sometimes had pain of the chest, the effect of a former blow.

In 1800, Capt. Matthews sailed for Bermuda, with a deck. load of oxen, cows, horses, and a mule. But very little

hay was put aboard; no screened hay;

only loose hay

on deck. The ninth day they made the island, took a

pilot aboard, and that night a gale of wind came on, blowing them off, and they were out fourteen days longer. They had no hay, they soon used up their corn; had some potatoes. They gave the cattle all the straw in their beds. Capt. M. then gave the animals the bark and shavings from the spars which they had on board. These and the potatoes sustained them. The old cow would not eat them, Capt. M. thinks from their bad teeth; they died. The young cattle and the mule lived, and were in good health, as well as two or three young horses. The other horses, which did not eat the shavings, died.

Capt. Jacob Pearson. Capt. Pearson sailed for ten or twelve years, in the employ of a rich merchant of Salem, and often visited some of the sickliest climates in the world, without being sick.

“What did you do to prevent sickness?" said a gentleman to him. "I left off doing," was his answer. "I ate no flesh-meat, and drank nothing stronger than water." Dr. Robert Jackson. "I have wandered a good deal about the world,” says this distinguished physician of the British army," and never followed any prescribed rule in anything; my health has been tried in all ways; and by the aid of temperance and hard work I have worn out two armies in two wars, and could probably wear out another, before my period of old age arrives. I eat no animal food, drink no wine or malt liquor, or spirits of any kind; I wear no flannel, and regard neither wind nor rain, heat nor cold, when business is in the way."

CHAPTER XV.

VEGETABLE DIET

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES.

Bread and Water Diet.-Capt. Peter Twitchel, of Maine, having failed in business some years ago, and finding himself considerably in debt, betook himself to a bread and water diet, in conformity with an opinion he had often expressed, that a man ought to live on bread and water, if he had no other way to pay his debts. On this diet he did a man's work in making rakes. "Before I lived," says he, on bread and water, the cold would benumb me; the blood would leave my fingers, and I could not walk after riding a little way in the cold. Since the bread and water diet, I have been free from benumbing effects of the cold."

He sleeps seven or eight hours in the night; sometimes. an hour in the day, - never in the day till last winter.

Capt. T., finding his family short of breadstuff, at a period when all communication was cut off by an impassable depth of snow, betook himself to the eating of milk, of which they had only enough to supply each member of the family with a pint a day. He found he could subsist very comfortably upon that quantity, eating it very slowly, sipping it in teaspoonfuls at three meals. At the end of a week, relief came in breadstuff.

Case of Col. Hasket. Col. Hasket, in his journey in