r the weapon we wield, it is unendurable to the devil; he
cannot abide it. Christians need both equipments, that their hearts
may ever turn to God, cleave to his Word, and continually, with
ceaseless longing, pray a perpetual Lord's Prayer. Truly, the
Christian should learn from the temptations and straits wherewith the
devil, the world and the flesh constantly oppress him, to be ever on
his guard, watching for the enemy's point of attack; for the enemy
sleeps not nor rests a single moment.

5. Here is applicable Peter's injunction for the Christian to keep
within the bounds of physical temperance and sobriety; not to overload
the body and injure it by excessive eating and drinking: so as to be
watchful, intelligent, and in a mood, to pray. He who is not careful
to discharge the obligations of his office or station with temperance
and sobriety, but is daily in a sottish condition, is incapable of
praying or performing any other Christian duty; he is unfit for any
service.

6. Right here a special admonitory sermon might well be preached to us
dissolute Germans, in warning for our excesses and drunkenness. But
where would be forthcoming a sermon forcible enough to restrain the
shameful sottishness and the drink devil among us? The evil of
overindulgence has, alas, swept in upon us like a torrent,
overwhelming as a flood all classes. It daily spreads further and
further throughout the nation, embracing every station from the lowest
to the highest. All preaching, all admonition, seem far too weak--not
vain and impotent, but despised and scorned--to meet the emergency.
But the apostles, and even Christ himself, declared that in the end of
the world such a state of affairs should obtain. For that very reason
did Christ (Lk 21, 34) admonish Christians to take heed to themselves
lest at any time their hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and
drunkenness and the cares of this life, and so that day come upon them
unawares.

7. Now, God having in his infinite goodness so richly shed upon us
Germans in these latter times the Gospel light, we ought, in honor and
gratitude to him, to try to reform ourselves in the matter of
intemperance. We should fear lest through this evil besides committing
other sins we draw upon us the wrath and punishment of God. For naught
else can result from the pernicious life of intemperance but false
security, and contempt of God. Individuals continually dead in
drunkenness, buried in excesses, livi