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Appeal to the Church
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purify, leading him to strive earnestly to govern his passions and
be more spiritually minded, that they might be partakers together
of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
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world through lust. The power of influence can be great to lead the
mind to high and noble themes, above the low, sensual indulgences
for which the heart unrenewed by grace naturally seeks. If the wife
feels that in order to please her husband she must come down to his
standard, when animal passion is the principal basis of his love and
controls his actions, she displeases God; for she fails to exert a sanc-
tifying influence upon her husband. If she feels that she must submit
to his animal passions without a word of remonstrance, she does
not understand her duty to him nor to her God. Sexual excess will
effectually destroy a love for devotional exercises, will take from
the brain the substance needed to nourish the system, and will most
effectively exhaust the vitality. No woman should aid her husband in
this work of self-destruction. She will not do it if she is enlightened
and has true love for him.
The more the animal passions are indulged, the stronger do they
become, and the more violent will be their clamors for indulgence.
Let God-fearing men and women awake to their duty. Many pro-
fessed Christians are suffering with paralysis of nerve and brain
because of their intemperance in this direction. Rottenness is in the
bones and marrow of many who are regarded as good men, who
pray and weep, and who stand in high places, but whose polluted
carcasses will never pass the portals of the heavenly city.
Oh, that I could make all understand their obligation to God
to preserve the mental and physical organism in the best condition
to render perfect service to their Maker! Let the Christian wife
refrain, both in word and act, from exciting the animal passions of
her husband. Many have no strength at all to waste in this direction.
From their youth up they have weakened the brain and sapped the
constitution by the gratification of animal passions. Self-denial and
temperance should be the watchword in their married life; then the
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children born to them will not be so liable to have the moral and
intellectual organs weak, and the animal strong. Vice in children is
almost universal. Is there not a cause? Who have given them the
stamp of character? May the Lord open the eyes of all to see that
they are standing in slippery places!