ans the sacred
pages whereon it is manifested. And the reason of His uncompromising
hostility to voluptuousness can be found in the intrinsic malice of the
evil. In man, as God created him, the soul is superior to the body, and
of its nature should rule and govern. Lust inverts this order, and the
flesh lords it over the spirit. The image of God is defiled, dragged in
the mire of filth and corruption, and robbed of its spiritual nature,
as far as the thing is possible. It becomes corporal, carnal, animal.
And thus the superior soul with its sublime faculties of intelligence
and will is made to obey under the tyranny of emancipated flesh, and
like the brute seeks only for things carnal.

It is impossible to say to what this vice will not lead, or to
enumerate the crimes that follow in its wake. The first and most
natural consequence is to create a distaste and aversion for prayer,
piety, devotion, religion and God; and this is God's most terrible
curse on the vice, for it puts beyond reach of the unfortunate sinner
the only remedy that could save him.

But if God's justice is so rigorous toward the wanton, His mercy is
never so great as toward those who need it most, who desire it and ask
it. The most touching episodes in the Gospels are those in which Christ
opened wide the arms of His charity to sinful but repentant creatures,
and lifted them out of their iniquity. That same charity and power to
shrive, uplift and strengthen resides to-day, in all its plenitude, in
the Church which is the continuation of Christ. Where there is a will
there is a way. The will is the sinner's; the way is in prayer and the
sacraments.

CHAPTER XII.
ANGER.

NEVER say, when you are angry, that you are mad; it makes you appear
much worse than you really are, for only dogs get mad. The rabies in a
human being is a most unnatural and ignoble thing. Yet common parlance
likens anger to it.

It is safe to say that no one has yet been born that never yielded,
more or less, to the sway of this passion. Everybody gets angry. The
child sulks, the little girl calls names and makes faces, the boy
fights and throws stones; the maiden waxes huffy, spiteful, and won't
speak, and the irascible male fumes, rages, and says and does things
that become him not in the least. Even pious folks have their tiffs and
tilts. All flesh is frail, and anger has an easy time of it; not
because this passion is so powerful, but because it is insidious and
passe