Vegetarians

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 26, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 55.

Vegetarians.—In the Outlook of some time ago Catharine M. Bott gives an interesting account of the monks of Certosa di Val d'Emo, and incidentally gives us something of the value of their asceticism as affecting health and longevity. One of the rules of the order was that meat never was to be eaten. Hearing of this, one of the popes sent a message to the monastery, recommending that strict adherence to this rule be broken in the case of weak or ailing members, and in reply the prior sent a delegation of thirty monks to Rome. When they arrived, the pope asked the youngest member of the delegation to step forward. "How old are you?" inquired the pope. "Eighty-four," was the prompt reply. The pope came to the conclusion that if the baby member of the delegation was eighty-four years old, improvements in their methods of life were quite unnecessary, and forebore further suggestions as to their diet. The present inmates of Certosa are from seventy to ninety years of age, and furnish a strong argument in favor of the vegetarian theory.