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occasionally dropped his eyelids, and laid down his knife and fork; (the handles were, of course, of vegetable ivory) and once or twice during each course, he crossed his hands calmly on the table cloth. In these movements there might, however have been a double purpose, as they piqued his wife and at the same time displayed his own propriety of demeanour under the trying ordeal of corroborating his bodily system by such creature-comforts.

The meal was a miserably cold affair, inspiring neither on the part of Mr. Singleton or myself much disposition to conversation. But when matters rose almost to an issue between man and wife, I interposed a word or two. Lifting my glass of water to the light, I looked through it, and said, with as much cheerfulness as I could summon to my aid

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Major-a sentiment with your permission. May our motives be as pure, our actions as transparent, and our end as brilliant as this element."

Our host seemed to think me frivolous-but he put his own glass to his lips. Mrs. Goode did the same, and with a cheerful smile said, "Really Mr. Enderby-"

What more she might have added, was cut off in the bud by a severe frown from the other end of the table.

The major himself was seldom complimentary-seldom indeed pleased. I was, therefore, cheered by such cold comfort even as an unmeaning smile, and waxing, perhaps, imprudently bold, began to challenge the doctrines of the Vegetarians. But not liking to march up full front to my antagonist, I manœuvred in manner following:

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'Major,” said I, “when you were in India, I presume you paid some attention to the religious notions of the natives. Their theology is a strange one; and I dare say, as in most other false religions, you found a great tendency to Pharisaic forms and rites. I am told, indeed, that some sects go far beyond the strictest of our Talmudists. Did you ever meet with any of that class who wear a veil over their mouths lest they should inhale those insect atomies that people the sun beams?"

"Many-thousands;" said the major, "the notion is com

mon to all who hold the notion of transmogrification*: it is, in fact, a necessary part of that doctrine. Yes-yes-” added he deliberately, as if preparing some dire fulmination against these heretics, “but where, Enderby, even in our own land, do you not find fellows—graceless fellows like these-daubing the clay walls of our Old-Adam nature with untempered mortar?”

The metaphor was quite in keeping-not with itself, indeed, but with the major's style of thought; I saw that its meaning favored my object, and soon summoned courage to cross swords. "And these men drink water?" I inquired.

“Aye," said he, "the pure Perryian spring." The major was no classic, and his ideas wavered between Pierian waters, and elastic steel-pens-" the pure Perryian spring."

"And, perhaps,” I added, "they are Vegetarians?"

The last word unfortunately disclosed the whole plot; and an explosion followed. But as the mischief was now done, I was determined to say all I had to say upon the subject. “Dr. Chalmers," I remarked

"Chalmers was a free-willer-but poor man, he knew no better; and he's gone now;" interjected the major.

"Dr. Chalmers," I resumed, "has a passage in one of his lectures to this effect, In the leaves of every forest; in the flowers of every garden; in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament."

"Well?" said Major Goode.

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"And these worlds of life' are swallowed at every meal by every Vegetarian, whilst he is all the while flattering himself that he abstains altogether from animal food."

"Hem!" said the major; but his wife though attempting to look grave, gave a sinister smile, twisted a corner of the table cloth, and said nothing.

The little harmony we had enjoyed seemed now fast waning, and after a few words on the immediate object of our visit, we took leave of Major Goode as soon as coffee had been served, which was in little more than half an hour.

We presume the Major refers to the Metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls..-ED.

As we walked home together, Mr. Singleton frankly told me that he thought I was somewhat discourteous on the subject of Vegetarianism. Why, I had taken it up so warmly, will be explained by a perusal of our conversation. I told him of its Pharisaic tendency, and the superciliousness it naturally generated, so clearly developed in the prayer of Major Goode-of its inevitable influence in distracting, dividing, and macadamizing schisms already thick as leaves in Vallombrosa, instead of melting into one the kindred sects of our common Christianity-of its illogical and worthless fallacies on which so much breath must necessarily be wasted, and so much ink spilled, which might be employed to benefit the world, and move it forward; and illustrated my last remark by the quotation of a Vegetarian versicle

"Ah! then refrain, the blood of beasts to spill,
And till you can create, forbear to kill!
Unthinking man! renounce that horrid knife,
Nor dare to take for food a creature's life."

"Had God for man its flesh design'd,
Matured by death, the brute
Lifeless to us had been consign'd,

As is the ripen'd fruit."

I saw that he smiled at the quotation.

"Well,” said he, False reasoning

"there is something in your animadversions. can help no good cause forward; and more false than this, you do not often see. Were the idea not deserving of serious reprehension, it would be really ludicrous; for in point of fact it just amounts to this, that if the Vegetarians be wrong, God should have created life-dead. But, supposing them to be right, how is it that our corn-fields do not produce readymade bread, quarterns and half-quarterns, French rolls, and crumpets?"

It was my turn to laugh now. But I preferred being serious, for the subject after all, is a grave one. The system warps, and disguises, and contracts every great principle with which it comes in contact. We are actually, indeed, threatened with a Vegetarian Bible, "one principal design of which, is to show that the killing of animals for food is inconsistent therewith."

Really if the Bible itself do not teach this, no commentaries can enforce it, and no Christian should receive it as part and parcel of the pure Word of God.

But why we have laid such stress upon the Vegetarian movement; why the major thus rushed from Scylla to Charybdis— whether he was influenced by his new wife or her connections— who this new wife was—and how our whole story is to illustrate its strange title-must be reserved for future discussion. H. R. E.

(To be continued.)

THE YOUNG MEN OF LONDON.

(Resumed from page 176.)

"Recollect, gentlemen, I am not underrating the value of historic proof. Christianity is affluent and mighty in this; so much so, that the incredulity of infidelity is the excess of credulity; and its boasted philosophy the extreme of irrationality-which must be set down as at open war against all the laws of a sound logic. I am not speaking lightly of the wonderful productions of Butler, Paley, and Chalmers—that grand artillery on the heights of our Zion, which has carried such discomfiture and defeat into the trenches and the armies of the besieging foes; but still I remind you that, in addition to all this, and to multitudes above all this, there is the inward witness which every true believer carries in his own bosom, and which to him is always nearer at hand, and may often be of more service than the ablest productions of the mightiest champions of our faith."

Thus, in his able lecture referred to more at length in our last number, speaks the Rev. J. A. James, respecting the outward and inward evidence and power of Christianity. With reference to the last of these, we have already said much; and we now propose in carrying on our notice of the Exeter Hall Lectures, to shew how firm and victorious a front the Bible opposes to all forms and phases of error, and especially to those dangerous latitudinarian principles so prevalent at the present time.

Assuming what we believe every one will be disposed to allow, that these Lectures flow, one and all, over the bed of

inspiration, and represent the honest, manly Christianity of those men who are not mere hearers of the Word, but doers of the Work of God, we shall see how thoroughly furnished such persons are for every crisis and emergency, and how well able to contend against spiritual wickednesses of every kind, and so to pourtray the varied aspects of society as Providence allows of their more prominent development, that the Christian world may be stirred up by their hideousness to renewed zeal and effort against them.

Amongst the monster sins of our own day, we shall mention but a few,-worldly ambition-disloyalty-infidelity—and the already wide-spread and still extending tendencies towards Romanism and Puseyism on the one hand, and a loose, licentious, latitudinarian creed and conduct on the other. And ably are all these dealt with in the Lectures before us.

On the subject of worldly ambition we are presented with both bane and antidote. "Cardinal Wolsey," by the Rev. Samuel Martin, furnishes a profitable lesson to the go-a-head class of the present time. Ambition—one of the noblest elements of our nature, when sanctified and directed by Christian motives-is here traced in all its strange workings when leading away from truth and integrity, and anxious only for temporal aggrandizement and carnal power. The Lecture itself is an interesting one, occasionally, however, mistaking vulgarity for smartness, and the analysis of the lordly Cardinal's character is shrewd and practical. The following remarks are fair and well-timed.

"Thomas Wolsey was born at Ipswich, in the year 1471, rumour saith his father was a butcher. From the use made of this report in the court of Henry VIII. it would seem that this description of Wolsey's parentage was a nail driven by the hand of some silly enemy into the history of Wolsey, for the sake of splitting his reputation. The spirit that led men to exclaim with a sneer, "Is not this Jesus the carpenter's son ?"

had not then left the world, but still induced them to endeavor to depreciate personal greatness by the ascription of a lowly origin to the mighty. This class of detractors accomplish what they aim to prevent. If a number of statues were before you, and one were taller than the rest, and that one the only statue

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