Apart from the question of certain unmentionable forms of perverted sexual vice, the sinfulness of what are commonly classified as "sins of the flesh" consists in wrongful indulgence or lack of self-control in respect of that which in itself is legitimate and good. The Christian ideal is not abstinence, but temperance. A Christian will be temperate, for example, in sleep, food, alcohol, and tobacco. Intemperance means slavery to a habit, the loss of spiritual self- mastery, whereby the whole character is enervated, and efficiency, both physical and moral, is impaired. "All things are lawful," as S. Paul says, but a Christian is not to allow himself to be brought "under the _power_ of any." He is meant to live hard and to live clean. The practice of fasting, that is, of deliberate temporary self- discipline in these matters, even below the standard of what would normally be a reasonable indulgence, is a valuable means of asserting and retaining the self-mastery which is essential to Christian freedom. But fasting should not be allowed to become a mechanical observance, or erected into an unduly rigid law. The fish-dinner upon Fridays and other fast-days of the Church is, as a modern dignitary has remarked, innocuous; and it has the value which belongs to conformity to a rule or recommendation of the Christian brotherhood; but whether or not it is observed in practice, it is hardly adequate by itself to the purposes of Christian self-discipline. It appears to be a fairly widespread delusion in some sections of society that a Christian must necessarily be a teetotaller. The ideal Christian policy, here as elsewhere, if we may judge from the example of our Lord, would seem to be that of a temperate use of the gifts of GOD. It is unfortunate that in this country most of the societies which exist for the purpose of promoting temperance have virtually committed themselves to the confusion of temperance with total abstinence, and their fanaticism is, in the judgment of many persons, a hindrance to genuine reform. But it cannot reasonably be denied that drunkenness, and the still wider prevalence of an excessive drinking which falls short of actual drunkenness, is a frightful evil in the national life; and what is commonly known as the "Liquor Interest" plays a sinister part as an organized obstructive force standing in the way of needed reforms. The number of public-houses and drinking- bars in English towns and villages is monstrously out of proportion to any reasonable needs of the population: and it must be more than ordinarily difficult for brewers and publicans, under existing conditions, to resist the temptation to exploit for the sake of gain the weaknesses of others. A Christian need not be a teetotaller in order to have this problem upon his conscience, and to be ready to support, by his vote and influence, some considered and constructive policy of reform. A man who by experience finds that alcohol is to him