Many practical tests of strength prove conclusively that non-meat eating people have a greater power of endurance than those who depend upon meat for strength. These experiments have been tried, not only among individuals where the training and mental attitude has much to do with accumulating vitality, but among nations. The non-meat eating nations excel in health and strength.

In India, China, Japan, and adjacent countries there are about 400,000,000 people who live almost entirely without meat. They are capable of doing an immense amount of physical labor without fatigue, thus proving that meat is not essential as food.

The peasants of Russia live without meat. The sturdy Scotch Highlander maintains his strength on oatmeal, vegetables, and buttermilk. The Greek and Roman soldiers, during the years of greatest power of the nations, were kept upon a vegetable diet. Many of the best German soldiers to-day subsist with a meatless diet.

The Greek athletes were trained without meat, and in the athletic world to-day the importance of avoiding meat and stimulents of all kinds is well known. In all of the most severe competitions the prizes are won by those who are trained on a simple meatless diet. The system is kept as free as possible from an excess of food that is not utilized to the best advantage. Even the prize fighter regulates his appetite more perfectly than many who would feel that it was not to their credit to witness his feats. Even the football and baseball teams realize the value of avoiding stimulants, meat, rich food and deteriorating habits, in developing physical strength. The exact reason why may not be fully understood by many young people, but, after experiencing the fresh, free, vital feeling natural to a system well nourished, but not loaded with heavy deadening, poisonous waste, and excitants, the false conditions of life are not desired. A boy who is a baseball enthusiast may unconsciously cultivate moral habits for the sake of reserving and increasing his vital force that will put his mother, who is a good prohibitionist, to shame, as every day she must be "braced up" by the stimulating influence of tea, coffee, and beefsteak. If the "antis" attempted to pass a law to protect her and her boy, she would resent being deprived of her stimulant, but she will not object to being educated away from the desire for it.

Just think for a moment of the slavery to which the appetite for meat and stimulants subject women. If they go to church without a cup of coffee they have sick headache; if the preacher comes to dinner the faithful hen that has eaten all the green worms from the tomato vines must be cooked for him. If "two-bits" is to be raised to decorate the altar a dozen women roast themselves baking turkeys and mince pies. When missionary money is needed to save the cannibals from eating human flesh it is necessary to serve innocent school children "chili" at five cents a dish until their little stomachs remind them of the hot place the Sunday-school teacher warns them against. Upon club days fathers, brothers and husbands sulk if they do not find a fat steak or a nice tender roast for dinner.

The dear women are not to blame for these conditions, as they are reared to think them right, just as the cannibal is reared with an appetite for human flesh. When he knows a better way the truth gradually destroys the false desires and he is free. The wives and mothers must be the missionaries who will prevent the children of the next generation from forming many abnormal habits that are deteriorating to health and morals.

Many defend the use of meat by claiming that the meat eating nations are the most intelligent. If this is so meat has not been the cause of the superior intelligence. They use more of it because they can better afford the expense of it, just as they use more of all kinds of rich food and intoxicating drinks. The same people free from these things would be even more intelligent. Pythagoras, Plato, Seneca, Paracelsus, Spinoza, Peter Boyle, and Shelly were vegetarians. Many of the most noted brain workers of to-day are non-meat eaters, hence it is clearly not essential to mental or physical vigor.

Biological data also indicates from the shape of the teeth, the length and construction of the alimentary canal, and other conditions, that man is not intended to be a meat-eating animal.

The moral influence of avoiding meat, or gradually using less of it, is one of the strongest points to consider, in all religious and educational movements. When less meat is used, animals will be better bred - kept in more normal and healthful con-tions, and painlessly executed.

The great mass of laborers who now work in packeries, living in poverty and intemperance, would gradually take up agricultural or other congenial pursuits.

The same land that is now leased for large pastures would be broken up into small farms, and yield much greater income from small grains, fruit, nuts and cotton, and the condition of the laborer, and his family, be much improved and more desirable. There would be no loss, but rather a gain, to the business world, by such a change.

The expense of meat and the labor required to prepare it for food is another reason why it should be avoided. Beans, peas, nuts, cheese, cereals, eggs, and milk should be used in the place of meat. They have higher nutritive value and are less expensive. These combined with fresh fruits and fresh vegetables, afford many pleasing variations.

As it can hardly be expected that the use of meat will be abandoned suddenly, mothers must use judgment in substituting other things in its place until it is gradually forgotten. Reduce it to once a day, then to twice a week, then in a short time to once a week, but never tell the members of the family they can never have it again. Let them know that they can have it as long as they want it. After a while, as new combinations become habitual, they cease to ask for meat. They do not miss it, hence the change is made without friction. Children should be kept from cultivating a taste for it then it will never need to be overcome and they will be saved much suffering later in life.

When meat must be used it should be simply cooked - broiled rare, or a pot roast in the fireless cooker. Meat pies, dumplings, rich gravies, and fried meats should never be thought of.