The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-11-23
Not n Large Society, and ny No Means
an Outgrowth of Modern Veg
etarianism.
CURIOUS BELIEFS OF THE CULT
A CENTURY's RECORDS. 1T MUST BE
SAID, SUPPORT THEIR THEORIES.
Originated I'm England and Came to
This Country Hundred
Years Ago.

Correspondence OF the Indianapolis Journal
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 2l.-Do you know
that there is a Vegetarian Church,
church whose chief tenet is that men shall
eat no meat? This church has only one
meeting house in America and only forty
members here. In England IL has only one
meeting house and only seventy-five men,
bers. And yet it is church nearly one
hundred years old. Its American meeting
house is in Philadelphia. and its American
leader is the Rev. Henry S. Club, an old
time friend of Horace Greeley.
In 1907 an Englishman. the Rev. W. Cow
herd. of Manchester. founded this sect OF
the Bible Christians. and the Bible Chris
tians to-day. after the passage OF nearly
one hundred years. are still existent and
are still unknown. In their two churches
the English one. in Manchester. with sew
enty-five members: the American one. in
Philadelphia, with forty members-it is pos
sible to see little children whose fathers
and mothers, whose grandfathers and
grandmothers. and whose great-grand-
fathers and OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES never once
in their lives tasted meat; little children
ignorant of the taste of meat themselves
as We are ignorant of the taste of human
flesh. For vegetarianism is the chief ar
ticle Of the Bible Christians creed.
The Bible Christians, with their century
Of abstinence from meat. afford a good ex-
ample of the effect of vegetarianism on
mankind. Their records, which appear to
have been kept carefully. cover about three
hundred cases. and show that:
A Bible Christians average longevity is
sixty-one years.
He is not. in his old age. obliged to re-
sort 10 false teeth.
His eyes. in seven cases out of ten, do not
ever require spectacles.
His weight keeps close to the normal or
proper weight his frame and height de-
mand. never approaching either to corpu-
lence or to emaciation.
He is singularly free from rheumatism
and from dyspepsia.
FOUNDER OF THE SECT.
DR.. Cowherd, the founder OF the Bible
Christian sect, Swedenborgian, a tee
totaler and a vegetarian. held that meat
eating was at the base of the crime OF the
world. 1t made men cruel, and because
they slaughtered animals daily they were
blind to the wrong of slaughtering their
fellows by the bullet in warfare and by
the moose in criminal law. 1t made men
also thirsty for alcohol. and only through
abstinence be made universal He was ex-
tremely sincere, and the Bible Christian
hymnal that he composed is the best an
thology Of religious verse there is in Eng
land.
The unique article of his creed runs:
THE discipline OF the Bible Christian
Church requires its members to abstain
from eating flesh, fish or fowl as food:
drip int
kinds: from war and capital punishment
and slavery" So rigorous is this article
it is hardly strange that the Bible Chris
tians have not fiourished
DR.. Cowherd died in 1916, and in 1917 a
band of forty-one of his followers took
ship for Philadelphia to found there. in
emulation of the Quakers, a new religion
in new and free land. The leader of
the band was a young man. the Rev. Will
liam Metcalfe. and the Metcalfes are still
resident in this city, where. sons. grand
sons and great-grandsons of the last CEN
fury emigrant. they have not put meat in
their mouths from birth to death.
But the emigration. in so far as II was a
PRONUNCIATION of new faith. did not PROS
per. OF 1t the Rev. Joseph Metcalf. in a
memoir of his father that the Lippincotts
published in 1872. wrote:
1.-The browning objects Of these emil
grants were, as they themselves pro-
fessed, the propagation of their peculiar
religious doctrines and the establishment
of the Bible Christian Church in this high
ly-favored land. But, alas! how frail and
tickle are human purposesi OF the twenty
two adults and their families. eleven adults
and seven children only were faithful
uvhe hey he'd Had
strong salt breeze Of the Atlantic. or some
other cause. dissolved not only their pur-
poses. but their practical precepts: and at
the first opportunity they gave way to in
diligence in eating and drinking those
things which their principles had forbidden.
Some of these might possibly have been
reclaimed had they been able to locate
near their former faithful brethren. But
all were poor. depending for their daily
bread upon their daily labor, and to OBJ
tain employment they were necessarily
scattered far apart. Thus isolated from one
another, in a strange country. and among
a people who had no sympathy with their
habits, but who advised them that it would
be impossible to live in this hot climate
CD without animal food, IL is scarcely sur
prising that they relaxed their interest.
the browning objects OF their emigration,
with them. at least. were abandoned"
A FAITHFUL DISCIPLE.
But their leader did not lose heart He
settled in Philadelphia He opened boys
school at No. 10 North Front street. and in
the room. on Sundays. he preached the
Bible Christian faith. But nothing ever
greatly prospered with him. and the faith
did not prosper greatly. nor did the school.
He. however, could not be discouraged. In
1921 he wrote a pamphlet on Abstinence
from the Flesh of Animals that converted
TO vegetarianism that noted New England
er, Sylvester Graham. TO whom the world
owes Graham bread. In 1850 he organized
the Vegetarian Society OF America. and
was elected its first secretary. and ap-
pointed also editor OF its magazine In 49,
because he could not make living as a
minister. as a school teacher or as an
editor. ne obtained the degree OF NJ. D.
and In 1852 he died. poor. as always. but