But I will not dwell longer on the evils of excessive drinking. You know the admonitions of Scripture,—Take heed lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness. Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. You know that drunkards cannot inherit the kingdom of God; you know that drunkenness is spoken of by St. Paul as being the vice of those, who remain sunk in the thick darkness of ignorance and heathenism, and as utterly unbefitting those who are blessed with the light of the Gospel. Indeed, it is unworthy of any man possessed only of common sense.
Guard, then, my dear nephew, against this degrading habit with determined resolution. Let neither the example, nor the solicitations, nor the taunting jests of your companions, induce you to demean yourself so far, as to be guilty of a vice so utterly unworthy of you, both as a man and as a Christian. If they, for their amusement, were to request you to cut off your right hand, you would not feel bound to comply with them. Do not, for their gratification, expose yourself in the condition of a fool, or an idiot. Do not, in order to please a party of thoughtless revellers, incur the displeasure of Almighty God, and run the hazard of eternal ruin.
And take care, that you do not yourself acquire a taste for any such sensual indulgences. “The appetite for intoxicating liquors,” says Paley, “appears to be almost always acquired.” Guard against the first beginnings of intemperance. Principiis obsta. If you are not on your guard, you will be in danger of being carried on, step by step, until retreat becomes out of the question.
You would avoid many trials of your firmness, and be relieved probably from much irksome importunity, if you could make up your mind to renounce wine altogether. This you would do with the less difficulty, if backed by the sanction of medical advice. I apprehend that most medical men, if desired to give their candid opinion, would recommend abstinence from wine as conducive to a young man’s health both of body and mind. I knew water-drinkers at Oxford, who yielded to none of their companions in liveliness and all social qualities, either in their own room or at the wine-party of a friend. Many young men in the army, I believe, adopt this system, from motives both of moral and of economical prudence. A pint, or even half a pint, of wine per day, makes a considerable hole in the pay of a subaltern, or in the stipend of a country curate, or in the allowance of a briefless barrister. Avoid acquiring factitious wants. Do not by habit make wine necessary to your comfort. It is wise, when young, not to indulge in luxuries which in any future period of your life you probably will not be able to afford, consistently with the claims which will then be pressing upon you. I throw out this idea, however, for your own consideration, without urging it as matter of positive advice. I think, however, that your intellect will be clearer, and your mind often more cheerful, if you comply with the suggestion.
Shall I add a word or two upon temperance in eating? I hope that there are few young men who are apt to be guilty of the porcine vice of eating to excess; in plain English—of gluttony. Perhaps, however, the temptations of a well-appointed dinner, prepared by an exquisite artiste, may induce them occasionally to transgress. It is, perhaps, hardly fair to quote from any thing so well known as Addison’s paper on Temperance, in the Spectator[128:1], but it is much to my purpose. “It is said of Diogenes, that meeting a young man who was going to a feast, he took him up in the street, and carried him home to his friends, as one who was running into imminent danger, had not he prevented him. What would that philosopher have said, had he been present at the luxury of a modern meal? Would he not have thought the master of a family mad, and have begged his servants to tie down his hands, had he seen him devour fowl, fish, and flesh; swallow oil and vinegar, wines and spices; throw down salads of twenty different sorts, sauces of a hundred ingredients, confections and fruits of numberless sweets and flavours? What unnatural motions and counter-ferments must such a medley of intemperance produce in the body? For my part, when I behold a fashionable table, set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes.”
“Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet.” He then gives some rules for temperance, which are well worth attending to. This passage of Addison is much in the spirit of that of Horace:
——“Variæ res
Ut noceant homini, credas, memor illius escæ
Quæ simplex olim tibi sederit. At simul assis
Miscueris elixa, simul conchylia turdis;
Dulcia se in bilem vertent, stomachoque tumultum
Lenta feret pituita.”
Most of the modern writers on dietetics, as well as those who have preceded them, recommend a very considerable abridgment of the quantity of food, usually consumed at the table of the affluent.
And while I strongly advise you to be rather abstemious as to quantity of food, so I wish you not to be in the slightest degree fastidious as to its quality, provided it is wholesome, and free from qualities absolutely revolting. You may naturally like one thing better than another, and partake of what you prefer, when it comes in your way; but it is painful to see a young man of any intellect indulging in the niceties of an epicure, and really appearing to care much about what he eats, and what he drinks. When I commenced the life of a country clergyman, I was often received, with almost parental kindness, in a house, in which good taste of all kinds,—moral, intellectual, social, and culinary,—presided in an eminent degree. Every now and then, some particular dish made its appearance, under the impression that I was particularly fond of it. Probably I had eaten of it some days before, because it chanced to be near me, or from some similar accident. I was grateful for the kindness and attention, but felt mortified, almost degraded, at its being supposed that I cared about one thing more than another, where all were good and wholesome.
Do not get into the habit of spending your money in ices, and other delicacies, at the pastry-cook’s and confectioner’s. You say that you are hungry;—