The dictates of self-interest every day prompt sacrifices of this kind; and the maxims of natural virtue go much further, and often require a man to make the greatest deposit possible, even when the future advantage is doubtful, and when it is not the sufferer who is to reap the expected benefit! On this principle the soldier places himself at the cannon's mouth, because the safety or future welfare of his country can be purchased at no other price. On this principle a pious son denies the wishes of his heart, and remains unmarried, that he may sustain a helpless parent. Christianity is not therefore at all peculiar in asserting the claims of higher, over lower reasons of conduct, in peculiar circumstances, or in demanding that, on special occasions, the enjoyments of life, and life itself, should be held cheap, or abandoned. Our Lord and his ministers explicitly enjoined such sacrifices, whenever the interests of the present and of the future life came in competition: and themselves set the example of the self-denial which they recommended. Nothing can be more clear than the rule of bodily sacrifice maintained and exemplified in the New Testament; and this rule is in perfect accordance with the dictates of good sense, and with the common practice of mankind. Fasting, celibacy, martyrdom, and such like contrarieties to the "will of the flesh," stand all on the same ground in the system of Christian morals: they are ills which a wise and pious man will cheerfully endure whenever he is so placed that they cannot be avoided without damage or hazard to the soul, or to the souls of others. But when no such alternative is presented, then the voluntary infliction becomes, as well in religious as in secular affairs, a folly, an impiety, and often a crime. To die without necessity, or to inflict one's self without reason, is not only an absurdity; but a sin. And how immensely is this folly and immorality aggravated, when it is found that the voluntary suffering, instead of being simply useless, becomes, in its consequences, highly pernicious; and when, by abundant evidence, it is proved to generate the very worst corruptions and perversions to which human nature is liable! Such, clearly, are the inflictions of the monastic life—the solitude, the abstinence, the celibacy, the poverty!