daughter is within." (Ps. xliv. 14.) Of what use, then, says St. Jerome, is it to abstain from food, and at the same time to allow the mind to swell with pride? or to abstain from wine, and to indulge in the drunkenness of anger? ” Quid prodest tenuari abstinentia, si animus superbia intumescit? quid vinum non bibere, et odio inebriari ?" Christians who act in this manner do not lay aside their vices; they only cover them with the mantle of devotion. A man, then, must divest himself of all bad passions; otherwise he will not be the king, but the slave of his affections, and in opposition to the command of the Apostle sin shall reign in his heart. "Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, so as to obey the lusts thereof." (Rom. vi. 12.) Man, then, is, as St. Thomas says, the king of himself when he regulates his body and his carnal affections according to reason. ” Rex est homo per rationem, quia per cam regit totum corpus et affectus ejus." (In Joan, iv.) But, according to St. Jerome, ” when the soul serves vice she loses the honour of a kingdom." (In Thren., ii. 7.) She loses the honour of a queen, and becomes, as St. John teaches, the slave of sin. ” Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." (John viii. 34.)
4. St. James exhorts us to treat the body and its lusts as we would treat a horse. "We put a bridle in the mouth of a horse, and we bring him wherever we please. “We put bits in the mouths of horses, that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body." (St. James iii. 3.) Hence, as soon as we feel the cravings of any bad passion, we must restrain it with the bridle of reason; for, if we yield to its demands, it will bring us to the level of brute animals, that obey not the dictates of reason, but the impulse of their beastly appetites. ” And man, when he was in honour, did not understand: he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them." (Ps. xlviii. 13.) ” It is worse," says St, John Chrysostom, "to become like, than to be born, a senseless beast; for, to be naturally without reason is tolerable." The saint says, that to want reason by nature is not disgraceful; but, to be born with the gift of reason, and afterwards to live like a beast, obeying the lusts of the flesh, is degrading
