great harm. Many men do not control their work; they are controlled by it. Such men do not live; they drudge in a wearing bondage. Work, work, work, is the sum-total of their lives. They rob their families of that generous, affectional intercourse which is worth more than any amount of wealth. Their day has no breadth of horizon, and is void of beauty and song. They do much, but what they do is despoiled of more than half its value by their failure to become the cultivated, ample personalties that they might become. Society suffers, the Church suffers, and the nation suffers by the sacrifice of capacious and many-sided manhood which intemperance in work demands. Work is not an end, but a means to an end. It is a wretched subversion of true human interests to turn life into a mere grind of unillumined toil. Wealth, as accumulated money is miscalled, is not worth its cost when it costs life. I know that the preacher on this theme speaks to many deaf ears. The gold-god casts a powerful spell over his devotees, and I fear that the day is still distant when men will work that they may live, instead of living that they may work. But the truth has a more powerful advocate than the preacher's voice; the wrecking of many a life before its prime, in premature break-down, ner vous prostration, heart-failure, and suicide speaks with a force greater than that of any sermon. Let me now summarize this counsel of wisdom as to the practical conduct of life. Be temperate in your pleasures; make them recreative incidents in the serious business of living. Rule appetite with a strong hand, and persistently keep the body in its true place. Be temperate in your feeling; do not be stoics; strong feeling is an important element in a noble character; but rule feeling by reason and conscience. Do not suppress passion and imagination, but let them loose on noble ends. Be temperate in judgment and speech. Put a bridle on the tongue, and keep the reins in a firm and watchful grasp. Be temperate in work. Let the thing you do be done with all your might; pour out your enthusiasm and energy in unstinted streams, but always under such control that your work will not harness and drive you as a mere slave. In one word, be men, self-controlled and patient and strong, — always stronger than your passions, always better than your speech, always superior to your task. In Sir Thomas Browne's fine phrase: "Be Cæsar within thyself." Remember that all conduct begins within. "Out of the heart are the issues of life." Out of the heart proceed the thoughts and motives which are the mainspring of all deeds. If the inner kingdom of a man's heart is rightly governed, all his conduct will be right and good. A true self-control in relation to things evil enforces abstinence; in relation to things lawful it enforces moderation. Such a self-control produces and evinces a harmonious and balanced character; it insures true enjoyment of pleasure, efficiency in work, patience and resourcefulness under adversity, and chastened gladness in success. Such is the temperance inculcated by Jesus Christ. If you have attained this temperance you will never be the slave of appetite; you will be free from the loathsome bonds of lust; you will command with ease the various faculties of your minds. Your heart will escape the oppression of sombre moods, and the dissipation of foolish and unwholesome fancies, and you will experience the calm and sweet satisfaction of conscious integrity before God and men. will feel within you, as Shakespeare puts it: "A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience." For truly, as Milton said: You "He that has light within his own clear breast, How shall you attain such self-control as I have described? The answer now must be brief, and, fortunately, it need not be long. The secret of true self-control is in a right education of the mind, in discipline of the will, and in development of the spiritual nature. Accept intelligently, and never reject without well-meditated and well-grounded reasons the restraints which are thrown about you by home and society. Many a young man is impatient to be his own master; the authority of parent or guardian becomes irksome, and he longs for the hour when he can take the reins of his life wholly into his own hands. "But too often," as Hare has said, "he who is impatient to become his own master, when the outward checks are removed, only becomes his own slave,— the slave of a master in the insolent flush of youth, hasty, headstrong, wayward, and tyrannical. Had he really become his own master, the first act of his dominion over himself would have been to put himself under the dominion of a higher Master and a wiser." It is only he who has learned to obey who is fitted and able to command. Discipline your wills by choosing to do the difficult, right deed with promptness and unflinching courage; form the habit of mastering yourselves in the daily experiences of the home and the school. Life is a moral gymnasium with all the appliances for training the moral forces in you to strength and efficiency; spring to the magnificent task of making yourselves upright, pure, and generous men. You prize manliness; you believe in virtue; you desire to give a good account of yourselves in the arena and conflict of life,—put yourselves voluntarily under subjection to the one supreme Master of the art of right living; be obedient, chivalrous followers and imitators of Jesus Christ. For not good resolutions alone, not mere hard willwork alone, will certainly bring you into a clear mastery of yourselves; you need the inspiration of a personal faith, a personal love, and a personal enthusiasm. You need, too, the help that comes through the appeal of God to your spiritual nature; that appeal is made in the matchless character of Jesus Christ. Subjection to him is entrance into freedom and power. The poet Tennyson exclaimed in passionate faith: |