Now many of our plain country people do not know that such a practice exists. They often eat too much, it is true, at _their_ third meal, but their active habits and pure air enable them to digest it better than their city brethren could. Besides, their third meal never comes so late, by several hours, as the suppers of cities and towns. Our English ancestors, 200 years ago, on both sides of the Atlantic, dined at eleven, took tea early, and had no suppers. So it was with the Jews of old, one of the healthiest nations that ever lived beyond the Mediterranean. They knew nothing of our modern dinners at three or four, and suppers at nine, ten, or eleven. But not to 'take something late at night with the rest,' would at present be regarded as 'vulgar,' and who could endure it? Here, I confess, I tremble for some of my readers, whose lot it is to be cast in the city, lest they should, in this single instance, hesitate to 'take advice.' But I will hope for better things. If you would give your stomach a season of repose, as well as the rest of your system; if you would sleep soundly, and either dream not at all, or have your dreams pleasant ones; if you would rise in the morning with your head clear, and free from pain, and your mouth clean and sweet, instead of being parched, and foul; if you would unite your voice--in spirit at least--with the voices of praise to the Creator, which ascend every where unless it be from the dwellings of creatures that should be men,--if, in one word, you would lengthen your lives several years, and increase the enjoyment of the last thirty years 33 per cent. without diminishing that of the first forty, then I beg of you to abstain from _suppers_! I am acquainted with one individual, who partly from a conviction of the injury to himself, and partly from a general detestation of the practice, not only abstains from every thing of the kind, but from long observation of its effects, goes to the other extreme, and seldom takes even a _third_ meal. And I know of no evil which arises from it. On the contrary, I believe that, for him, no course could be better. Be that as it may, adult individuals should never eat more than three times a day, nor should they ever partake of any food, solid or liquid, within three or four hours of the period of retiring to rest.