tyrant really exists amongst us--the tyrant
of unrestrained appetite, whom no force of arms, or voices, or votes can
resist, while men are willing to be his slaves.

The power of this tyrant can only be overcome by moral means--by
self-discipline, self-respect, and self-control. There is no other way
of withstanding the despotism of appetite in any of its forms. No
reform of institutions, no extended power of voting, no improved form
of government, no amount of scholastic instruction, can possibly elevate
the character of a people who voluntarily abandon themselves to sensual
indulgence. The pursuit of ignoble pleasure is the degradation of true
happiness; it saps the morals, destroys the energies, and degrades the
manliness and robustness of individuals as of nations.

The courage of self-control exhibits itself in many ways, but in
none more clearly than in honest living. Men without the virtue of
self-denial are not only subject to their own selfish desires, but they
are usually in bondage to others who are likeminded with themselves.
What others do, they do. They must live according to the artificial
standard of their class, spending like their neighbours, regardless of
the consequences, at the same time that all are, perhaps, aspiring after
a style of living higher than their means. Each carries the others
along with him, and they have not the moral courage to stop. They cannot
resist the temptation of living high, though it may be at the expense
of others; and they gradually become reckless of debt, until it enthrals
them. In all this there is great moral cowardice, pusillanimity, and
want of manly independence of character.

A rightminded man will shrink from seeming to be what he is not, or
pretending to be richer than he really is, or assuming a style of living
that his circumstances will not justify. He will have the courage to
live honestly within his own means, rather than dishonestly upon the
means of other people; for he who incurs debts in striving to maintain a
style of living beyond his income, is in spirit as dishonest as the man
who openly picks your pocket.

To many, this may seem an extreme view, but it will bear the strictest
test. Living at the cost of others is not only dishonesty, but it is
untruthfulness in deed, as lying is in word. The proverb of George
Herbert, that "debtors are liars," is justified by experience.
Shaftesbury somewhere says that a restlessness to have something which
we