Precept & Practice – FEBRUARY 16 – Temperance

In ordinary vernacular speech the word ‘temperance’ usually limited to the narrow significance of temperance in drink.   Nothing, however, can well be more certain than that St. Paul, in his catalogue of spiritual fruits, did not intend to employ the word ‘temperance’ in this narrow and restricted sense.   A gracious gift sufficiently divine to be considered the top and crown of spiritual character must, by the logical necessity of the case, be a gift of ampler scope than the restraint of any single bodily appetite.

And the Greek word  ἐγκράτεια used by St. Paul in his catalogue is an evidence of the very ample and inclusive range of the gift to which he alluded;  for type is a large and strong word;  a word of great power;   a word which denotes the mighty holding of one’s self in.   Temperance, in the inspired Pauline sense, therefore, is synonymous with self-control;  and in the margin of the Revised Version it is accurately denominated by its rightful term.

Bishop Diggle (Sermons for Daily Life)

Temperance is not only a virtue in itself;  it is also the guard and girdle as I think Ruskin calls it – of all the other virtues.   It is, as it were, the Cestus which clasps together the full drapery of each virtue and prevents it from flying to the winds of either extreme;  which keeps its folds together;  binds it into grave harmonies; retains it in its place;  fits it tightly to the figure of each act;  and makes the virtue itself, by such noble restraint of its forms, beautiful in the eyes of men.   Every virtue needs this virtue, as every robe needs its girdle. 

Reverend Stopford A. Brooke

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW