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.

But if eating ordinary suppers is pernicious, what shall we say of the
practice which some indulge who aspire to be pillars in church or
state, with others of pretensions less lofty, of going to certain
eating houses, at a very late hour, and spending a considerable portion
of the night--not in eating, merely, but in quaffing poisonous
draughts, and spreading noxious fumes, and uttering language and songs
which better become the inmates of Pandemonium, than those of the
counting-house, the college, or the chapel! If there be within the
limits of any of our cities or towns, scenes which answer to this
horrid picture, let 'it not be told in Gath, or published in the
streets of Askelon,' lest the fiends of the pit should rejoice;--lest
the demons of darkness should triumph.

[3] I have occasionally seen four or five persons in constant
employ, solely to supply the wants of a family of the same
number, whose health, _collectively_, required an amount of
physical labor adequate to their own wants.

SECTION XI. _On Dress._

The object of dress is fourfold: 1st. It is designed as a covering; 2d.
As a means of warmth; 3