The Seven Cardinal Virtues

James Stalker, 1902
 

Let us begin, with a word or two about the connection.

Wisdom, courage, temperance — these are the first three of the seven cardinal virtues, and they are closely connected with one another.

Wisdom chooses the end of life — the goal that has to be reached.

Courage fights down the enemies and overcomes the obstacles which present themselves in the path to the goal.

Temperance has to do with the enemies within — with the lusts and passions that war against the soul.

Many must feel that for them, the latter are the real enemies. No doubt in everyone's lot, there is a share of temptations coming from without; but a whole army storming on the citadel from the outside, is less formidable than a single enemy within the walls. And who has not such an enemy?

The danger of temptation lies not so much in its own strength as in an affinity for it within the soul of the tempted; for this is a traitor that will convey the key of the gates to the attacking forces. Who is there among us who is not aware of some weakness in himself, that gives temptation its power and its advantage? In some of us this native or acquired bent towards certain sins may be so strong that we hardly need to be tempted, but may almost be said to tempt the tempter.

Which of us would like to unveil to the public eye all that goes on in his own imagination in hours of solitude and reverie? Are we not ashamed of it? Do we not wonder at ourselves? Like serpents weltering in the dark depths of some obscene pit, lust and passion turn and twist, inflate themselves and rage with mad violence; and they lift up their heads after being wounded apparently unto death a hundred times! It is with the control of these unruly elements in human nature, that temperance has to do; for, if they are not overcome, the goal will certainly be missed.

I. There are voices at present which deny that temperance is a virtue. Holding the only law of life to be development, they demand for every power the fullest expansion, and they ask why capacities of enjoyment have been bestowed on us by nature, if they are not to be satisfied. Often has the thirst for strong drink been thus vindicated; and bacchanalian poets have poured glittering shafts of contempt on those who avoid too scrupulously the boundaries of intoxication, or try to impose abstinence on others. With nearly equal frequency, has the privilege of nature been claimed against the Christian law of chastity, which has been represented as an outrage on reason, and a cruel and arbitrary limitation of the joys of existence.

But such doctrines are contradicted by their fruits. The unbridled indulgence of desire, soon ends in both physical and moral exhaustion. For a short time, indeed, the remonstrances of conscience and reason may be drowned by the revelry of lust; the songs of bacchanalian pleasure may shake the air with applause; goblets may foam, eyes sparkle, and laughter echo; but soon the roses wither, and in place of the beaming eye — there grins the horrible eye-socket.

No one has ever given more eloquent and daring expression to the claims of liberty in the use of the wine-cup than the poet Robert Burns; but his own end, in its inexpressible sadness, was a commentary of nature which even the most thoughtless could not mistake. If among the masters of song there is one in modern times who, for the perfection and inevitableness of the lyric note, deserves to be placed in the same rank as Burns, it is the German poet Heine, and he employed his transcendent gifts in glorifying and vindicating the flesh; but the long years which he spent at the close of life, buried alive in his mattress grave, as he called it, taught all Europe, with a force and a pathos which nothing could have exceeded, that the end of those things is death!

On the contrary, experience shows how beautiful and beneficient, when subject to control and restrained to their own time, place and function, are even those parts of human nature which, when uncontrolled, tend most inevitably to corruption and destruction.

As fire, when it breaks loose and rages on its own account, carries swift destruction in its course; but, when restricted within certain bounds, warms our rooms and cooks our food, illuminates our towns and drives our locomotives.

Or as water, when in flood, roots up trees, carries away houses and sweeps the crops from the fields; but, when confined within its banks, drives the wheel and floats the barge and rejoices the eye, either by its placid flow or by the splendours of the cataract, so the very qualities which, when unregulated, waste and brutalise life may, when subjected to the control of temperance, be its fairest ornaments.

Thus the man who is prone to conversation may, by making unrestrained use of his power, gradually become a bore, from whose garrulity everyone flees; whereas the restrained use of his tongue would cause him to be looked upon as the possessor of a delightful gift, by which all who knew him would be disposed to profit.

Nothing is, in this respect, more remarkable than the instinct of sex — one of the parts of our nature with which the virtue of temperance has most to do. When emancipated from the law of God and the law of modesty, it brutalises more quickly and more completely than any other form of indulgence.

But, when is obedient to the laws of nature and of God, it blossoms into virgin love, the most exquisite flower of human happiness, and subsequently, in the form of wedded love, it is the very essence of those charities and joys which make the home to be the center of attraction to the heart, as well as the basis of the whole fabric of society.

Thus is intemperance demonstrated to be wicked, and temperance to be virtuous — by their patent and undeniable effects.

II. The necessity for temperance is based on the fact that the constitution of man is composed of many parts of different degrees of value and dignity, on the harmonious working together of which his happiness depends. It is as in an army, where there are many degrees, from the general to the private soldier. How would it do in a battle, if every soldier were to act on his own initiative, no one waiting for the word of command? Even if every man were loyal and brave, and acting for the best, as he understood it, the whole army would become a scene of immeasurable disorder and fall an easy prey to the enemy.

It is as in a ship or a boat, where every sailor or rower has his own place and his own work. In a boat on the river, when the prize for oarsmanship is about to be decided, how would it do if every oarsman considered it his right to let himself go and pull with all the strength at his command? This would correspond exactly with the theory of those who hold that every part of human nature is entitled to unrestrained development; but it would work havoc on the river and entail inevitable defeat. If there is to be any hope of victory, every oarsman has to consider his neighbors and keep his eye on the coxswain; he must do nothing for his own glory or gratification, but regulate the amount of force he puts into every stroke by a calculation of what is demanded of him at that particular point at that particular moment.

So in ourselves there is the broad distinction of the body with its parts and the soul with its powers. The body has its own dignity and its own rights; but the soul is manifestly superior. Yet the body is constantly endeavoring to assert itself and get the upper hand. Hence the need to keep the body under control, as Paul phrases it. Then, among the powers of the soul there is the utmost variety, with many gradations of dignity.

Some powers are near akin to the body. Such are the appetites, of which the chief are these three — the appetite for eating, the appetite for drinking, and the appetite of sex. These are common to man with the brutes, and are specially apt to become unruly and violent. So much is this the case that the word temperance is sometimes restricted to the control of these alone.

At the opposite extreme from these animal propensities, are such imperial powers as conscience and reason; while in between come the feelings, some of which are more and some less noble. Thus, the feeling of reverence which we entertain for God, and the feelings of affection of which the chief arena is the home are noble — while there are many feelings, such as the desire for money or the desire for praise, which, though not base in themselves, tend to baseness.

Temperance, then, is the control of the lower by the higher powers. It is the force of will, by which all are kept in their own places and compelled to do their own work. When the habit of temperance is thoroughly formed, every excess is instantly checked, and every reluctant power promptly stimulated. Thus the whole being develops steadily and acts harmoniously; and the effects of temperance ought to be internal peace and external beauty.

III. The self-control just described, can neither be won nor maintained without severe and continuous effort, accompanied by many a failure and many a new beginning. In more than one passage of his writings, Paul speaks of his own heart as a scene of civil war, the more earthly principles contending with the more spiritual — and of this struggle, no man that breathes is wholly ignorant.

Everyone has his own besetting sin. It may be a tendency bequeathed by ancestors, such as a cursed craving for drink. It may be a peculiarity of temperament, such as a liability to uncontrolled fits of temper. It may be a habit acquired in years of youthful folly which still clings to us, although the past has been blotted out by repentance. It may even be allied to what is noble and good, like some forms of pride. But there it is; and we have to wrestle with it all our days. It seems to me there is encouragement in the reflection that this conflict is going on, in one form or other, in every heart. This should make us sympathetic towards others, and hopeful about ourselves. Others whose distress has been as desperate as ours, have conquered; and why should not we? We are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses.

Every time the unruly appetite is indulged, it becomes stronger, and its next victory will be more easily won. But every time the will, directed by reason and conscience, gets the upper hand, it is itself strengthened, and its next effort will be more prompt and successful. Such is the law of the battle; and it is by the growth of the will in vigor, swiftness and perseverance that victory is secured.

Yes, this secures the victory, but not this alone. Paul, in one of his epistles, compares this moral struggle to the games so renowned in ancient Greece; and he says that everyone taking part in these games was temperate in all things. The training undergone by athletes in preparation for signal efforts is proverbial. In Greece the fixed period for this purpose was ten months; and the discipline was most severe. It could not be relaxed for a single day; otherwise the benefit of the preceding time was lost, and some rival would get to the front. But the candidates for the honors of the arena, did not go about from day to day, all the ten months, complaining of their hard lot. They took it as a matter of course; and what they thought and talked about was the prize they expected to win — the chaplet of green leaves to be placed on their brows amidst the applause of admiring Greece; the privileges of many kinds which they would enjoy for the remainder of their days.

Temperance becomes easy and even exhilarating when the prize to be won by it is great enough. "Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever!" 1 Corinthians 9:25

What father of a family has not observed with reverence and amazement, the superiority to the most urgent demands of the body, such as sleep, exhibited by a mother when nursing an ailing child? Temperance is easy, when there is a strong enough affection involved.

The terms of the moral struggle we have all to wage, may be suddenly and completely altered by the entrance into our consciousness of the prize to be won, or of the person for whose sake the sacrifices have to be endured. For the believer, the prize and the person have the same name — Christ! The victory is difficult, and yet it is easy.

To obtain the control over an unruly passion, or to disencumber oneself of a besetting sin, may be painful as the plucking out of a right eye and the cutting off of a right hand. Jesus does not deny it; the words are His own. Yet His yoke is easy and His burden light. How is the contradiction between these two statements to be reconciled? The answer to that question is the secret of the Gospel, and blessed are those to whom it has been revealed.