nce of appetite or
passion, enfeeble or defile the offering which they present to their
heavenly Father.

Peter says, "Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul."(814)
Every sinful gratification tends to benumb the faculties and deaden the
mental and spiritual perceptions, and the word or the Spirit of God can
make but a feeble impression upon the heart. Paul writes to the
Corinthians, "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh
and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."(815) And with the
fruits of the Spirit,--"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness,"--he classes "temperance."(816)

Notwithstanding these inspired declarations, how many professed Christians
are enfeebling their powers in the pursuit of gain or the worship of
fashion; how many are debasing their godlike manhood by gluttony, by
wine-drinking, by forbidden pleasure. And the church, instead of rebuking,
too often encourages the evil by appealing to appetite, to desire for gain
or love of pleasure, to replenish her treasury, which love for Christ is
too feeble to supply. Were Jesus to enter the churches of to-day, and
behold the feasting and unholy traffic there conducted in the name of
religion, would He not drive out those desecrators, as He banished the
money-changers from the temple?

The apostle James declares that the wisdom from above is "first pure." Had
he encountered those who take the precious name of Jesus upon lips defiled
by tobacco, those whose breath and person are contaminated by its foul
odor, and who pollute the air of heaven, and force all about them to
inhale the poison,--had the apostle come in contact with a practice so
opposed to the purity of the gospel, would he not have denounced it as
"earthly, sensual, devilish"? Slaves of tobacco, claiming the blessing of
entire sanctification, talk of their hope of heaven; but God's word
plainly declares that "there shall in no wise enter into it anything that
defileth."(817)

"Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in
you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? for ye are bought with
a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are
God's."(818) He whose body is the temple of the Holy Spirit will not be
enslaved by a pernicious habit. His powers belong to Christ, who has
bought him with the price of blood. His property is the Lord's. How could
he be guiltless