onger the
will-power to confine them to his private thoughts and feelings. The
habits of his body become then a true expression of his state of mind.

We may prove the relation between sin and disease by tracing what might
be called a mild sin to its logical extreme. Just as we may follow
almost any disease in its development, until it causes the death of the
body, if the body is not protected from its growth, so we may follow
any sin in its development to the death of the soul, if the soul is not
similarly protected. All sin, when allowed to increase according to its
own laws, is the destruction of both soul and body.

Macbeth's mind became diseased; and we may find many an Iago in our
insane asylums to-day, for, with all his cleverness, no Iago can, in the
long run, keep control of his mind if his selfish plans are frustrated.
The loathsome diseases of the body which are liable to overtake a Don
Juan may only be spoken of, or thought of, as a means of removing the
blindness of those who, from dwelling upon the sensations of the body,
come to think of sin as pleasant. When their blindness is removed, the
least touch of the sensuality which causes the disease will fill them
with wholesome horror. It is wonderfully provided by the Creator that
any sensation, which is selfishly indulged in, any sensation that a man
remains in for its own sake, must lead first to satiety,--and then to
worse than satiety and death. This is true both of all selfish
sensations of the body and of all useless emotions of the mind. Our
sensations and our emotions must be obedient servants to a wholesome,
vigorous love of usefulness, or they become infernal masters whose rule
leads only to weakness and death.

The old asceticism,--the spiritual stupidity of primitive times,--placed
the world, the flesh, and the devil on a level of equality, whereas both
the world and the flesh are capable of noble uses, but the devil is not.
The world and the flesh are servants, and good servants; they are
necessary instruments for the carrying out of the Divine purpose in
human life. But the devil is merely the perversion of good things to
useless, trivial, and degrading ends. He has no power in himself except
as we give him power, and we give him power every day when we associate
the idea of the world with that of the villains in it, and when we
debase the flesh by not realizing the clean, good service for which it
is intended. Indeed, we are really feeding t