These are weighty considerations. Let us dwell upon them. The heart must be kept right, the conscience pure, the eye single, the spiritual vision undimmed. The soul's business in the holy place must be faithfully and diligently attended to, else we shall go all wrong. Private communion with God must be kept up, else we shall be fruitless as servants, and defeated as men of war. It is vain for us to bustle about, and run hither and thither in what we call service, or indulge in vapid words about Christian armor and Christian warfare. If we are not keeping our priestly garments unspotted, and if we are not keeping ourselves free from all that would excite nature, we shall assuredly break down. The _priest_ must keep his heart with all diligence, else the _Levite_ will fail, and the _warrior_ will be defeated. It is, let me repeat it, the business of each one to be fully aware of what it is that to him proves to be "wine and strong drink"--what it is that produces excitement--that blunts his spiritual perception, or dims his priestly vision. It may be an auction-mart, a cattle-show, a newspaper,--it may be the merest trifle. But no matter what it is, if it tends to excite, it will disqualify us for priestly ministry; and if we are disqualified as priests, we are unfit for every thing, inasmuch as our success in every department and in every sphere must ever depend upon our cultivating a spirit of worship. Let us, then, exercise a spirit of self-judgment--a spirit of watchfulness over our habits, our ways, and our associations; and when we, by grace, discover aught that tends, in the smallest, degree to unfit us for the elevated exercises of the sanctuary, let us put it away from us, cost what it may. Let us not suffer ourselves to be the slaves of a habit. Communion with God should be dearer to our hearts than all beside; and just in proportion as we prize that communion, shall we watch and pray against any thing that would rob us of it--every thing that would excite, ruffle, or unhinge.[22] [22] Some, perhaps, may think that the wording of Leviticus x. 9 affords a warrant for _occasional_ indulgence in those things which tend to excite the natural mind, inasmuch as it is said, "Do not drink wine nor strong drink ... _when_ ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation." To this we may reply that the sanctuary is not a place which the Christian is _occasionally_ to visit, but a place in which he is _habitually_ to serve and worship. It is the sphere in which he should "live, and move, and have his being." The more we live in the presence of God, the less can we bear to be out of it; and no one who knows the deep joy of being there could lightly indulge in aught that would take or keep him thence. There is not that object within the compass of earth which would, in the judgment of a spiritual mind, be an equivalent for one hour's fellowship with God.