But you want to know something further about self-denial.  First, I will say that it does not require any one to give up anything that is for his present or future good.  Love is at the bottom of all the Lord says respecting it.  He requires man to give up nothing but what is opposed to man’s present and eternal good.  But I find it very difficult to get people to realize that the only way to be happy is to be good.  And the only way to be good is to love the Lord our God with all the heart, and our neighbor as ourself.

In the second place, self-denial is the giving up of all bad habits and the suppression and removal of those evil states of mind and heart out of which bad habits grow.  When one is tempted to do evil, that means to take strong drink that causes drunkenness, or to take God’s name in vain, or to steal something, or defraud someone, or to kill, or to commit adultery, or to wish evil to some one, or to tell for the truth what one knows is not true, self-denial for Christ’s sake, stays the hand from doing the evil and restrains the heart from desiring to do the evil.  This is the self-denial taught by our Lord, and this is the cause of the Jews not receiving him.

But self-denial with the enlightened Christian goes still further and suppresses all sense of pride or desire to appear above others.  This feeling was often checked by our Lord.  He told his disciples always to take the lowest seat when invited to a feast; that to be his disciples in the true sense and become prepared for the kingdom of heaven, they must have the meek and teachable spirit of a little child.  With all this and more, the enlightened Christian is not desirous of being conformed to the world.  True self-denial forbids all conformity to the vain and useless styles in dress which are ever changing in the circles of fashionable society.  I will here relate what I once heard a preacher tell from the stand.  He gave it as a fact that really occurred; but it appears plain to my mind that the incident proceeded more from a desire to amuse than to reform; nevertheless it does show that fashions, long ago, were probably subject to as frequent changes as at the present time.  This is it:  A man who had several grown-up daughters in his family was going home, apparently in a great hurry, with a fashionable headdress or hat for each one, which he had just purchased at a shop in the city.  On his way he met a friend who seemed inclined to exchange courtesies and a few words with him.  But he apologized for being in a hurry by holding up the hats he had bought for his girls, saying as he went:  “I must hurry home, or they will go out of style before my daughters get to try them on.”