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Order has been called the first law of God. And order implies perfect control on the part of intelligence over all things within its domain. And we know — slight as our real knowledge is of the natural forces that are around us in the earth and air and waters under the earth — how essential that the bond which binds all forces together in orderly connection should not be cut or weakened in a single strand. The nobility of self-control, as well as the absolute necessity of it, is perceived in the study of the nature and the administration of God. It can also be seen as we study the nature and doings of man. Now, man has his realm, In it he is sovereign; and his realm is first his own nature, and secondly the space circumscribed within the influences which that nature exerts. In the first place, I say, man must have control over himself. He must treat himself as a force that needs control, as a collection of energies that need restraint and direction, as a being of emotions that must not rise save in certain directions, as a creature of appetite which must be kept subordinate; and by appetite we mean any strong desire, any urgent craving after a thing. In looking into the matter of human appetites, perhaps the most prominent fact you discover is that they are natural. They are found imbedded in the organic structure of man. The physical appetites reveal themselves first; but the mind has its native cravings as truly as the body. The spirit also — by which we mean that faculty in us which holds relations to the moral realm — has its natural characteristics. Neroes and Caligulas are born. Their gratification in cruelty made them monsters. Even time, that rounds off so many angles and mellows so much that is garish, refuses to soften a single line of their harsh vices, or soften the fierce and baleful expression of their career. Bonapartes and Caesars are born as truly as drunkards — born with the appetite for fame, for glory, for power. History tells us to what excesses these mental appetites can carry persons, and into what miseries they can plunge mankind. These men and their like were born with violent appetites, unruly desires, an inordinate craving after prominence, power, and the splendour of a great career. What to them were sacked cities, burning villages, and blazing hamlets? What to them the dying agonies of slaughtered troops, the widow's wail, the orphan's cry, the imprecations of men and the indignation of God? These men knew no moderation. Their appetites, uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable by mortal power, urged them into such excesses that Justice, forgetting her function in her righteous rage, smote their memories with her scales as if she would not deign to weigh them in her balances; and Mercy herself refused to champion their cause, being utterly alienated in her sympathy by the number and magnitude of their dreadful crimes. Observe, now, the actions of physical appetites. How gross the spectacle of the animal exhibition we behold! In our country gluttony is not in vogue; but the time has been when it flourished in nations of highest civilization, and I think it may be said, as a natural adjunct of the civilization. In our age intemperance crops out not in eating but in drinking. We stimulate the nerves instead of gorging the stomach. We sin against the mind more directly than against the body. The sin of intemperance springs from two causes: a physical appetite and a mental habit. The mental habit is acquired, and is especially acquired by brain-workers. But the question may be asked — and I have often asked it myself — why did the Creator make us so? Why did He who designed our structure and mingled the elements of our nature, not make us more moderate, self-contained, and less impulsive? Why did He kindle in us such fiery heats, or build, as it were, into the very walls of the edifice such combustible material? In reply. Our creation, as it seems to me, is as it is because it is one of power and dignity. Greatness is great because of the strength of its tendencies, the warmth of its emotions, and its liabilities to overdo and go astray. We could have been made more moderate if we had been made weaker; but we could not have been made more moderate and possessed the strength, the force, the impulsive and emotional energies that we do. Now and then you come across a man who is all moderation; not because of any masterly control he has over himself whereby he holds the outgoing forces of his nature back with benevolent restraint; but because he lacks the force and energy. What small sinners some people are! They sin weakly. Their morality is limp. It takes a great angel to make a great devil. It takes great strength to be monumentally virtuous or monumentally wicked. It seems to me, then, that we were made as we are in order that we might become truly great. And how do men and women become great? They become great through great resistances, great struggles, and great victories. One must wrestle with the angels of light and the angels of darkness both, if he would be thewed and corded with spiritual power. Therefore, temperance, or a wise and noble control of one's nature touching every outgoing of one's power, does not imply negation, but the strongest kind of affirmation. And again: Self-control is the only kind that really covers the whole man. Laws control the actions; but actions are only the results of emotional causes. And while the actions can be dictated to by law, can be checked — yet the emotional causes strike their roots deeper into the nature than the hand of law can reach. You may arrest a thief and put him into the prison cell, and thereby restrain his thievish actions; but his thievish instincts remain untouched, remain in all their force laughing from the depths in which they are imbedded at your attempts to reach them, when you only pass your hand, as it were, over the surface far beneath which they lurk. Nothing short of, nothing less penetrative, nothing less potent or radical than, the Spirit of God can put its arrest upon the instincts of man. The central idea of the word temperance, which in our text is named as one of the fruits of the Spirit, is self-control. And this self-mastery relates first and with greatest emphasis to ourselves. It is the foundation on which all nobility of nature must be builded. Without it, character is essentially unsound and likely to become corrupt. For your own selves, therefore, for your peace of mind, for your self-esteem, for that satisfaction in living which comes from the consciousness that you are living rightly, we should all alike make it the first object of our endeavours. To be able to stand up against the pressure of any current, from whatever direction it may come, and with whatever force it may strike us — to be able to bit and bridle our passions and control the otherwise wild and runaway forces of our nature — is a consummation so devoutly to be wished that all others may be regarded as subordinate. Nor should we fail to put ourselves in connection with any helpful agencies. If Christianity can help us, then we should avail ourselves of the teachings, and above all of the spirit, of Christianity. If the power needed for such a sublime service can only be received from heavenly bestowment, then heaven should not go unbesought of us. If the Father can help us, then the Father's aid should be invoked. This is a conclusion in respect to which I feel confident, whatever may be our views and opinions touching subsidiary questions, we can unite in common and hearty agreement. But we cannot and we do not live alone. The social structure of the world, based upon our social natures common to all men, makes isolation impossible to us. We are knitted and knotted together. We are interwoven as threads when they have been, by the skill of men and the pressure of machinery, incorporated into one fabric. We cannot help influencing others, nor can we protect ourselves from that interaction of influences which, as we affect others, causes others to affect us. We mar or make the happiness of many. The joy of many lives holds to us the same relation that the flowers in spring-time hold to the sun. From us they receive those warm and vivifying influences which, and which alone, make them floral. We can be the sun or we can be the frost unto thousands. We are strong enough in our capacities of imparting pleasure to make them happy. We are strong enough in our capacity to impart pain to make them wretched. If we hold ourselves in such control that the going forth of our natures is salutary and blessed to them, then do we indeed make their lives, If, lacking this self-control, the forces of our natures go forth lawlessly, then it is not only their happiness, but even the existence of their virtue, put in peril. How solemn, therefore, is the exhortation which comes to us from these grave and tender considerations that we become temperate in our lives; that we surrender our natures to the influences of that Spirit that worketh out in them so desirable a result! For what is the use of living unless we can make some one happy? Why do we draw breath? Why do we toil? Why do we pile our backs with burdens? Why do we fill our mouth with laughter, and yield our eyes to tears, unless in so doing we supply our own souls with their natural food for good, and give unto others the support, the pleasure, and the consolation that they need?

(W. H. Murray, D. D.)

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KJV: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

WEB: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,