“When, again, in the course of time we were about to be blessed with an addition to our family, a renewed effort was made. We were assured it was impossible for my wife to get through her confinement without some _more strengthening food_. Friends and physicians were alike decided upon that point. We were, notwithstanding, unmoved and faithful to our principles. Next we were told by our kind advisers that the little stranger could not be sufficiently nourished unless the mother could eat a little ‘meat’ once a day; or, if not that, drink a pint or half a pint of ale daily. To both proposals my wife turned a deaf ear; and both she and the child did exceedingly well.[263] It may be proper to add here [remarks the biographer], that the ‘little stranger’ above referred to is the author of this _Memoir_,--that he is in the fifty-sixth year of his age, that he has never so much as _tasted_ animal food, nor used intoxicating drinks of any kind, and that he is hale and hearty.” These experiences, it is scarcely necessary to remark, in the lives of followers of reformed dietetics, have been not seldom repeated. In the Academy of Sciences, instituted by Dr. Cowherd, Metcalfe was invited to assume the direction of the “classical” department (1811). In the same year he took “Orders,” and, at the solicitation of the secessionists from the Swedenborgian Communion (which, with some inconsistency, seems to have looked with indifference, or even dislike, upon the principles of akreophagy), he officiated at Adingham, in Yorkshire. By the voluntary aid of one of his admirers a church was built, to which was added a commodious school-room. He then resigned his position under Dr. Cowherd, and opened a grammar school in Adingham, where he was well supported by his friends.