Young men, for instance, how often they do things in secret of which it is a shame even to speak, just because it is pleasant.  Young women, how often do they sell themselves and their own modesty, just for the pleasure of being flattered and courted, and of getting a few fine clothes.  How often do men, just for the pleasure of drink, besot their souls and bodies, madden their tempers, neglect their families, make themselves every Saturday night, and often half the week, too, lower than the beasts which perish.  And then, when a clergyman complains of them, they think him unreasonable; and by so thinking, show that he is right, and St. Paul right:  for if I say to you, My dear young people (and I do say it), if you give way to filthy living and filthy talking, and to drunkenness, and to vanity about fine clothes, you will surely die—­do you not say in your hearts, ’How unreasonable:  how hard on us!  If we can enjoy ourselves a little, why should we not?  It is our right, and do it we will; and if it is wrong, it ought not to be wrong.’  Why, what is that but saying, that you ought to do just what your body likes:  that you are debtors to your flesh; and that your flesh, and not God’s law, is your master.  So again, when people grow older, perhaps they are more prudent about bad living, and more careful of their money:  but still they live after the flesh.  One man sets his heart on making money, and cares for nothing but that; breaks God’s law for that, as if that was the thing to which he was a debtor, bound by some law which he could not avoid to scrape and scrape money together for ever.  Another (and how often we see that) is a slave to his own pride and temper, which are just as much bred in his flesh:  if he has been injured by any one, if he has taken a dislike against any one, he cannot forget and forgive:  the man may be upright and kindly on many other points; prudent, too, and sober, and thoroughly master of himself on most matters; and yet you will find that when he gets on that one point, he is not master of himself; for his flesh is master of him:  he may be a strong-minded, shrewd man upon most matters but just that one point:  some old quarrel, or grudge, or suspicion, is, as we say, his weak point:  and if you touch on that, the man’s eye will kindle, and his face redden, and his lip tremble, and he will show that he is not master of himself:  but that he is over-mastered by his fleshly passion, by the suspiciousness, or revengefulness, or touchiness, which every dumb animal has as well as he, which is not part of his man’s nature, not part of God’s image in him, but which is like the beasts which perish.

Now, my friends, suppose I said to you, ’If you give way to such tempers; if you give way to pride, suspicion, sullen spite, settled dislike of any human being, you will surely die;’ should you not, some of you, be inclined to think me very unreasonable, and to say in your hearts, ’Have I not a right to be angry?  Have I not a right to give a man as good as he brings?’ so confessing that I am right, after all, and that some of you think that you are debtors to your flesh, and its tempers, and do not see that you are meant to be masters, and not slaves, of your tempers and feelings.