ΙΟ

ON THE RIGHT CONDUCT OF THE

APPETITES.

One of the most important, but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind, is to restrain its impulses and appetites, even those which are intellectual and moral, as well as those which are animal and sensual.

What is Man,

If his chief good, and market of his time,

Be but to sleep and feed? a beast-no more.
Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike Reason
To rest in us unused.

APPETITE in common language often means merely hunger. It is here used to signify a particular sort of uneasy feeling returning at certain intervals, and demanding such gratification as is necessary to support the life of the individual. Hunger and thirst are two of our natural appetites; and their importance to our preservation is obvious. Before we cease to be infants, our reason informs us that food is indispensable; but through the whole of life appetite continues to be necessary, to remind us of our natural wants and the proper time of supplying them. For, as nourishment becomes more needful, appetite grows more clamorous,

till at last it calls off our attention from everything else, whether business or amusement, and if the gratification be still withheld, terminates in delirium or death. Hunger and thirst are the strongest of all our natural appetites, being the most essential to our preservation.

In obeying the natural call of appetite in eating when hungry, or drinking when thirsty, there is neither virtue nor vice, unless by so doing we intentionally promote some good purpose or violate some duty. But rightly to manage our appetites so as to keep them in due subordination to reason is a chief part of virtue, as the unlimited license or licentious indulgence of them degrades our nature and perverts all our rational faculties. Our bodies are formed with these appetites in order to maintain life, and therefore we should not abuse them. St. Paul, by a beautiful allusion, calls our bodies the temples of the Holy Ghost,' by which he means to impress us with a strong idea of their dignity, and to deter us from debasing by sensual indulgence what should be the seat of so much purity.

It were well for man if he had no appetites but those which Nature gave him; for they are but few, and they are all beneficial, not only by ministering to his preservation and comfort, but also by rousing him to industry and other laudable exertions. But of unnatural appetites, if they may be called appetites which man

creates for himself, there is no end; and the more he acquires of these, the more he is dependent and the more liable to want and wretchedness. It behoves us, therefore, if we value our own peace and the dignity of our nature, to guard against them. Some of the propensities now alluded to may, no doubt, have been occasioned, in part, by disease of body or distress of mind; but they are, in general, owing to idleness and affectation, or to a foolish desire of imitating fashionable absurdity. They are not all criminal, but they all have a tendency to debase us, and by some of them men have made themselves disagreeable, useless, contemptible, and even a nuisance to society. When I mention the use of tobacco, strong liquors, and opiates, it will be known what I mean by unnatural appetite, and acknowledged that I have not characterised it too severely. To caution youth against these is very necessary, because their passions and appetites are strong, their reason and judgment weak. They are prone to pleasure and void of reflection. How, therefore, these young adventurers in life may best steer their course so as not to abuse their appetites is a consideration demanding attention. One of the earliest lessons that ought to be impressed upon their minds while their powers of life are fresh and vigorous, and before they are sent forth amidst the temptations of the world, should be the

wisdom of self-control and self-denial in all matters where the gratification of the appetites is concerned. Taste is generally the first thing that gets the ascendant in our younger years, and therefore a guard should be set upon it early. What an unbecoming thing it is for the young to be craving after every dish that comes to a table! And this they will do, if they have never been taught to bridle their craving. How often do they make a foul inroad on health by excess of eating. How many graves are filled and funeral vaults crowded with little bodies which have been brought to untimely death by the foolish fondness of parents giving the young creatures leave to eat everything they desire! Oh, it is a mean and shameful thing to be a slave to our taste, and to let this brutal appetite subdue reason and govern a man. But if appetites are gratified in a child, they will grow strong in the years of youth, and a thousand to one but they will overpower him when a man. Thus nature is soon burnt up, and life pays for the deadly indulgence.

SOLOMON'S APOSTASY AN INSTANCE OF
UNCONTROLLED APPETITES.

What led Solomon to apostasy? And what again was the effect of that apostasy on himself? He did not obey his own maxims.

Luxury and sinful attachments made him an idolater, and idolatry made him still more licentious. He became a victim to his uncontrolled appetites, and, as a consequence, lazy enervation and languid day-dreaming took possession of his mind. He lost the wisdom of the sage and the prowess of the sovereign, and, when he woke up from the tipsy swoon, he woke to find his faculties, once so clear and limpid, all perturbed, his reason paralysed, and his healthful fancy poisoned. He woke to find the world grown hollow and himself grown old. Like a deluded Samson starting from his slumber, he sought to recall that noted wisdom which had signalised his early days; but its locks were shorn; and, cross and self-disgusted, wretched and guilty, he woke up to the discovery which awaits the sensualist -he found that when the beast gets the better of the man, the man is abandoned by his God. Like one who falls asleep amidst the lights and music of an orchestra, and who awakes amidst empty benches and tattered programmes-like a man who falls asleep in a flower-garden, and who opens his eyes on eyes on a bald and locustblackened wilderness: the life, the loveliness, was vanished, and all the remaining spirit of the mighty Solomon yawned forth that verdict of the tired voluptuary, Vanity of vanities! vanity of vanities! all is vanity!"