Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/595



Ex. : I.  Wisdom  and  drunkenness. II. Drunkard among  creatures. III. Bacchus.

I. Objections:  1. Timidity. 2. Liberty. 3. Necessity.

II. Drink affects :  1. Pocket. 2. Self  and  family. 3. Neighbors.

III. Appeal to:  1. Total abstainers,   2. Moderate drinkers. 3. Drunkards.

Per. : Woman's  help,  and  tableau  for  young  men.

" Brethren,  be  wise  unto  sobriety." These words, my  dear  Brethren,  taken  from  the  Epistle  of St.  Paul  to  the  Romans,  express  the  relation  between common  sense  and  drunkenness,  between  a drunkard  and  a  wise  man. They tell  us  that  on  the steep incline  of  human  perfection  and  human  degeneration wisdom  is  the  highest  point,  drunkenness the very  lowest,  as  far  removed  the  one  from  the other as  is  the  brute  creation  from  man,  as  is  the basest vice  from  the  noblest  virtue,  as  is  hell  from heaven itself. So that  the  more  one  approaches  to perfect  sobriety  the  wiser  he  becomes,  the  nearer  he comes  to  habitual  drunkenness  the  greater  his  folly. For what  position  in  God's  fair  creation  does  the drunkard hold? An angel  is  a  pure  creature  that  enjoys God;  a  man  is  a  creature  that  thinks  and  rea-