Mother: Yes; and sometimes they have a terrible fight with Taste before they convince him that they intend to be master. Sometimes he gets them down, and again they put him under; many have fought the battle for weeks, it may be for months, night and day, and at last Taste gives up and the master wins.
Helen: Wouldn’t it be better if they did not let him have his own way at first?
Mother: Surely it would. That is why I wish you, while children, to train your Taste, or appetite, so he will only call for the things which are best for your bodies, and so you will form no bad habits of eating and drinking. Then you will not have the battles of which we have been speaking; for, as I have said, Taste is a good servant. All he needs is to be taught that he must keep his proper place, and that he is not to rule the house. If boys and girls begin to eat between meals; if their Taste calls for rich food and sweetmeats; if they want spices, pepper, mustard, and hot sauces with their food, they are letting Taste become their master, and it will be easy for them to begin to use cigarettes and to drink beer. When they open the gate for Taste to become master, they know not where they will end. They have entered the path to death and ruin.
Elmer: I should think that this servant has more power to do harm than any of the others.
“The bits turn the horse.”
Mother: He has. Next to the master himself, he holds the most important position of all. Not only does Taste live in the tongue, but it is with the tongue that we talk. It is such an unruly fellow that it is fastened to the floor so that it can not get away; there are strong walls all around it; a double row of servants stand in front to guard it; and the double doors are made to shut closely, to keep out anything that should not go in, and to keep back anything that should not come out. Yet for all that it is so unruly that it often puts the master to shame, and wounds his best friends. The Bible says that if any one can control the tongue, which means, I suppose, their taste and talk, he can govern his whole body.
Amy: Who would think that such a little fellow could do so much harm!
Mother: Little things may do much good or evil. A bridle is a small thing, yet the bits turn the horse any way we wish him to go. I was once on a great ship at sea. There was a fearful storm. In the ship there was a little helm, which turned it any way the captain wished it to go. So it is with the tongue; life and death are in its power.
