the lowest. We have them in common with all animals, even the most imperfect, while there are many which lack the other three, seeing, hearing, and smelling. These former senses, tasting and feeling, are not only the basest, but their pleasures are the least enduring, for they vanish with the object which produced them. Add to these considerations the thought of the sufferings of the martyrs, and the fasts and mortifications of the Saints. Think, too, of your many sins which must be expiated; of the pains of purgatory; of the torments of hell. Each of these things will tell you how necessary it is to take up the cross, to overcome your appetites, and to do penance for the sinful gratifications of the past. Remember, then, the duty of self-denial; prepare for your necessary meals with such reflections before your mind, and you will see how easy it will be to observe the rules of moderation and sobriety.
Though this great prudence is necessary in eating, how much more is required in drinking! There is nothing more injurious to chastity than the excessive use of wine, in which, as the Apostle says, there is luxury.[1] It is at all times the capital enemy of this angelic virtue; but it is particularly in youth that such indulgence is most fatal. Hence St. Jerome says that wine and youth are two incentives to impurity.[2] Wine is to youth what fuel is to fire. As oil poured upon the flames only increases their intensity, so wine, like a violent
