RESULTS OF PERVERTED APPETITE.
THE gifts of God to man are all good and intended to promote his highest welfare and happiness. But fallen and degenerate man has perverted and abused many of these and turned them into forms of positive evil. The wine which cheers is no longer sufficient for his depraved taste and appetite, and he doctors and drugs and sharpens it until it is no longer wine, but a deadly poison. The very indulgence no longer satisfies, but makes all the stronger the ever-growing desire. The Bible condemns unequivocally all forms of intemperance and dissipation as an enemy to health, fortune, and character. To each of these it is an enemy precisely according to the degree to which it is carried. As the man of dissipation often makes his appearance in public, his course is marked, and his character is quickly decided by general opinion according to the line which he is observed to pursue, and he soon dwindles into utter insignificance. By vicious excesses and criminal pleasures, he incurs disapprobation or contempt. The fair prospects which his friends had once entertained of him die away in proportion as his idleness or extravagance grows, and the only hope that remains is, that some fortunate incident may occur to check his career and reclaim him to a better life. In the meanwhile the respectable, while they may smile at his follies, studiously avoid his company. In his own special class, and among his brave companions, he may be admired, but in the world, he is of no significance or consequence whatever. Health, the most valuable of all temporal blessings, is readily sacrificed at the shrine of indulgence. No constitution can long withstand the disorderly living, the reckless indulgence into which intemperate habits draw those who become victims to them. Hence the shattered and debilitated body, and the premature old age. The native vigor and sprightliness are melted down by effeminacy and sensuality. The spirits are weakened, enervated, and the man, no longer able to resist, is lost forever. Against no other sin has the Bible presented so many warnings as the sin of intemperance, or affirmed more positively its punishment. In its description of Salome’s indecent dance before the drunken court, it marks how lust and strong drink have always gone hand in hand, and how it is the inspiration and the fruitful cause of almost every other crime. The story of Noah, in the first book of the Bible shows us the age-long impetus that this curse has gained, a curse that since that day has ever been growing in strength and volume until now it abounds almost everywhere. As to Paul’s prescription to Timothy which so many moderate drinkers are so fond of quoting, we may well wait to drink wine till we have a Paul to prescribe, and are sure that we are Timothys. No one has more strongly condemned wine drinking, when used as a beverage, than this same apostle. No man can be a free man who is brought under subjection to this vice. Vice is, indeed,9inconsistent with liberty, for it deprives its victims of all power of free choice, by bringing them under the domination of passions and habits. On the contrary, religion and virtue address themselves to reason. They call us to examine well every side, to think well of the consequences of our actions, and before we take any step of importance, to compare the good with the evil which may result from it. He, therefore, who follows their dictates acts the part of a man who freely consults, and chooses for his own interest. But vice can make no pretensions of this kind. It awaits not the test of deliberate comparison and choice, but overpowers us at once. It hurries us with the violence of passion and captivates us by the force of unreasoning impulse. Reason may remonstrate, conscience endeavor to check him, but all in vain. Having allowed passion or appetite to gain the ascendant, he has thrown himself into the midst of a torrent, against which he may sometimes faintly struggle, but whose impetuosity still bears him along. Instead of being a free man, he is not master of himself. He does not go, but is driven, tossed, and impelled, like a ship driving upon the rocks. He that committeth sin is the servant of sin. No man who has once given rein to his appetites and passions can tell how far those may carry him.—Christian Work.