“For the woman and the child it is a grace--an amiable grace (_grâce d’amour_)--to be, above all things, _frugivorous_--to avoid the coarseness and foulness (_fétidité_) of flesh-meats, and to live rather upon innocent foods, which bring death to no one (_qui ne coûtent la mort à personne_)--sweet nourishment which charms the sense of smell as much as it does the taste. The real reason why the beloved ones in nothing inspire in us repugnance but, in comparison with men, seem ethereal, is, in a special manner, their [presumed] preference for herbs and for fruits--for that purity of regimen which contributes not a little to that of the soul, and assimilates them to the innocency of the flowers of the field.”[260] XLV. COWHERD. 1763-1816. In any history of Vegetarianism it is impossible to omit record of the lives and labours of the institutors of a religious community who, in establishing humane dietetics as an essential condition of membership, may well claim the honourable title of religious reformers, and to whom belongs the singular merit of being the first and only founders of a Christian church who have inculcated a true religion of life as the _basis_ of their teaching. William Cowherd, the first founder of this new conception of the Christian religion, which assumed the name of the “Bible Christian Church,” was born at Carnforth, near Lonsdale, in 1763. His first appearance in public was as teacher of philology in a theological college at Beverley. Afterwards, coming to Manchester, he acted as curate to the Rev. J. Clowes, who, while remaining a member of the Established Church, had adopted the theological system of Swedenborg. Cowherd attached himself to the same mystic creed, and he is said to be one of the few students of him who have ever read through all the Latin writings of the Swedish theologian. He soon resigned his curacy, and for a short time he preached in the Swedenborgian temple in Peter Street. There he seems not to have found the freedom of opinion and breadth in teaching he had expected, and he determined to propagate his own convictions, independently of other authority. In the year 1800 he built, at his own expense, Christ Church, in King Street, Salford--the first meeting-place of the reformed church.[261] His extraordinary eloquence and ability, as well as earnestness of purpose, quickly attracted a large audience, and may well have brought to recollection the style and matter of the great orator of Constantinople of the fourth century. One characteristic of his Church--perhaps unique at that time--was the non-appropriation of sittings. Another unfashionable opinion held by him was the Pauline one of the obligation upon Christian preachers to maintain themselves by some “secular” labour, and he therefore kept a boarding school, which attained extensive proportions. In this college some zealous and able men, who afterwards were ordained by him to carry on a truly