The habits of this distinguished individual, though often adverted to, are yet not sufficiently known. For the last half of his long life (eighty-eight years) he was a thorough going vegetarian. He also testifies that for three or four successive years he lived entirely on potatoes; and during that whole time he never relaxed his arduous ministerial labors, nor ever enjoyed better health. LAMARTINE. Lamartine was educated a vegetarian of the strictest sort--an education which certainly did not prevent his possessing as fine a physical frame as can be found in the French republic. Of his mental and moral characteristics it is needless that I should speak. True it is that Lamartine ate flesh and fish at one period of his life; but we have the authority of Douglas Jerrold's London Journal for assuring our readers that he is again a vegetarian. FOOTNOTES: [17] Some, however, represent the great apostle to have been a rigid vegetable eater. On this point I have no settled opinion. [18] It may be found at full length at page 233 of the 6th volume of the Library of Health. [19] Instances, he says, are not rare (but this I doubt), of two hundred children born to a man by his different wives, in some parts of the interior of Africa. [20] A date but little later than that of the work whence this article is extracted. CHAPTER VII. SOCIETIES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE VEGETABLE SYSTEM. The Pythagoreans.--The Essenes.--The Bramins.--Society of Bible Christians.--Orphan Asylum of Albany.--The Mexican Indians.--School in Germany.--American Physiological Society. GENERAL REMARKS. The following chapter did not come within the scope of my plan, as it was originally formed. But in prosecuting the labors of preparing a volume on vegetable diet, it has more and more seemed to me desirable to add a short account of some of the communities and associations of men, both of ancient and modern times, who, amid a surrounding horde of flesh-eaters, have withstood the power of temptation, and proved, in some measure, true to their own nature, and the first impulses of mercy, humanity, and charity. I shall not, of course, attempt to describe all the sects and societies of the kind to which I refer, but only a few of those which seem to me most important. One word may be necessary in explanation of the term communities. I mean by it, smaller communities, or associations. There have been, and still are, many whole nations which might be called vegetable-eating communities; but of such it is not my purpose to speak at present. THE PYTHAGOREANS.