ETERNAL REST GIVE UNTO THEM, O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM. AMEN.
The general term Temperance has come to be applied to one specific form of moderation, which properly is called Sobriety and abstinence from food. One of the first and most obvious duties of our temporal life is to maintain it by means of constant supplies of meat and drink; it is the first of physical appetites, and is exposed to the danger of very noxious excess. The virtue of Sobriety is the form of Temperance which regulates the use of bodily nourishment. All things should be used for their proper purposes and not distorted to others; and it should be always borne in mind that the object of food is not the pleasure which comes from the gratification of the palate, but the maintenance of the body in a fit condition for its duties. We should eat in order to live, and not live in order to eat and drink. The virtue of Sobriety commands us equally to take a sufficiency of food and to abstain from an excess of it. If we offend against this virtue in either way, we are doing a physical injury to an instrument of the service of God, and committing a moral wrong. Sobriety is more frequently violated by excess than by defect. There are some "whose god is their belly" (Phil. iii. 19), and who arrange their lives, and employ their thoughts, and squander their substance, and sacrifice their eternal happiness, for the transient pleasures of the table. Inordinate appetite turns the means of maintaining life into an instrument for impairing and destroying it. Never commit such folly. "Take heed to yourselves lest perhaps your hearts be over charged with surfeiting and drunkenness" (Luke xxi).
