Sobriety
P. 230 I. Temperance, considered as a Cardinal Virtue, is a general habit of self-restraint, the moderation of all the faculties, and the avoidance of extremes even in the practice of virtue. In every matter true virtue is the golden mean between too much and too little. Our inherited tendency to disorder makes us always liable to go too far in one direction or the other; and we are so blind that we easily mistake the excess for the virtue. A sense of moderation is involved in the practice of every virtue. If there be any deficiency in it, our actual good qualities take irregular forms and become tainted with imperfection, we give scandal and think it to be good example, and our most cherished virtues are recognized by observers to be no more than disguised vices. Even in regard to the great virtue of wisdom, the Apostle thinks it necessary to caution us "not to be more wise than it behoveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety" (Rom. xii. 3). It is peculiarly sad to see great gifts rendered useless by a want of moderation, and to see good intentions producing a crop of evils. Is this the case with you? Do you mistake temper for zeal, tyranny for authority, weakness for meekness, insolence for self-respect, buffoonery for geniality, timidity for prudence? Ask God to infuse into you the habit of moderation so that in all things you may know how far to go and when to stop, how much God expects of you, and how much you are to expect from others.
II. The more definite scope of Temperance is to moderate the impulses of natural vitality when they are prejudicial to our supernatural life. These impulses have their uses, and are necessary for the maintenance of our animal existence; but we have also a life on a higher plane, social life, intellectual life, spiritual life. On account of the fall, these no longer act harmoniously one with the other, the lower impulses rebel against the higher law, and tend to injurious excess. Reason is able to perceive the dangers and the degradation that result from physical excesses, and the injury they do to social life; but, unlike instinct in animals, it does not supply the strength to restrain all such excess. The qualities which constitute the strength of the physical life become a source of weakness to the intellectual and social life. It is necessary that the weakest points in the human mechanism should be specially strengthened in view of the supernatural life; and reason is aided to do this by means of the infused virtue of Temperance. Your natural energies are like unruly horses: a firm hand and a strong curb are needed to keep them within the limits of utility, and prevent them from hurrying you to destruction.
III. Consider the external objects of the virtue of Temperance. While Fortitude surmounts the difficulties which arise from opposition and suffering, Temperance deals with those which spring from the beguilements of pleasure and the delights of this mundane life. Pleasure has its just place in the economy of our lives; it directs us towards certain duties and testifies to their accomplishment. The tendency of human nature, however, is to dwell on the immediate gratification of sense, to make it the end of all endeavour, and to forget that its ultimate purpose is to subserve our bodily well-being in order to the promotion of the higher stages of human life. Inordinate indulgence in the pleasures of sense interferes with the efficiency of the intelligence, weakens the mastery of the will, and obscures the spiritual vision. "The corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the mind that museth on many things" (Wisd. ix. 15). Remember the uses of pleasure and recreation, and do not esteem them as the object of existence on earth. Enjoy them in due moderation, and always with a view to God's glory.
