Amongst the immediate disciples of the founder of the new community, the most active apostle of the principles of Vegetarianism, William Metcalfe, to whom reference has been already made, claims particular notice. Born at Orton in Westmoreland, after instruction in a classical school kept by a philologist of some repute, he began life as an accountant at Keighley, in Yorkshire. His leisure hours were devoted to mental culture, both in reading and in poetic composition. Converted by Cowherd in 1809, in the twenty-first year of his age, he abandoned the flesh diet, and remained to the end a firm believer in the truths of “The Perfect Way.” In the year following he married the daughter of the Rev. J. Wright who was at the head of the “New Church” at Keighley, and whom he assisted as curate. His wife, of highly-cultured mind, equally with himself was a persistent follower of the reformed mode of living. Sharing the experiences of many other dietary reformers, the young converts encountered much opposition from their family and friends, who attempted at one moment ridicule, at another dissuasion, by appealing to medical authority. Unmoved from their purpose, they continued unshaken in their convictions. “They assured me,” he writes at a later period, “that I was rapidly sinking into a consumption, and tried various other methods to induce me to return to the customary dietetic habits of society; but their efforts proved ineffectual. Some predicted my death in three or four months; and others, on hearing me attempt to defend my course, hesitated not to tell me I was certainly suffering from mental derangement, and, if I continued to live without flesh-food much longer, would unquestionably have to be shut up in some insane asylum. All was unavailing. Instead of sinking into consumption, I gained several pounds in weight during the first few weeks of my experiment. Instead of three or four months bringing me to the silent grave, they brought me to the matrimonial altar. “She [his wife] fully coincided with me in my views on vegetable diet, and, indeed, on all other important points was always ready to defend them to the best of her ability--studied to show our acquaintances, whenever they paid us a visit, that we could live, in every rational enjoyment, without the use of flesh for food. As she was an excellent cook, we were never at a loss as to what we should eat. We commenced housekeeping in January, 1810, and, from that date to the present time, we have never had a pound of flesh-meat in our dwelling, have never patronised either slaughter-houses or spirit shops.