"We must," says St. Francis de Sales, "eat, in order to live; but we should not live as if for the purpose of eating." Some, like beasts, appear to live only for the gratification of the palate. "A man," says St. Bernard, "becomes a beast by loving what beasts love." Whoever, like brute animals, fixes his heart on the indulgence of the appetite, falls from the dignity of a spiritual and rational creature, and sinks to the level of senseless beasts. Unhappy Adam, for the pleasure of eating an apple, is "compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them." In another place, St. Bernard says that, on seeing Adam forget his God and his eternal salvation, for the momentary gratification of his palate, the beasts of the fields, if they could speak, would exclaim: "Behold Adam is become one of us." Hence, St. Catharine of Sienna used to say, that "without mortifying the taste, it is impossible to preserve innocence, since it was by the indulgence of his appetite that Adam fell." Ah! how miserable is the condition of those whose God is their belly![1]
How many have lost their souls by intemperance! In his Dialogues, St. Gregory relates, that in a monastery of Sienna there was a monk who led a very exemplary life. When he was at the point of death, the religious, expecting to be edified by his last moments, gathered around him. "Brethren," said the dying man, "when you fasted, I ate in private, and therefore I have been already delivered over to Satan, who now deprives me of life, and carries away my soul." After these words he expired. The same saint relates in another
- ↑ Phil. iii. 19
