CHAPTER XXXI.
A TEMPERANCE TALK.
(_Frank and Personal._) A correspondent sends me, under cover of a personal letter, this request: "Will Marion Harland show her hand upon the temperance question?
The occasional mention of wine, brandy, etc., in her cookery-books, and her silence upon a subject of such vital moment to humanity, may predispose many to doubt her soundness as to the apostle's injunction to be 'temperate in all things.'" To clear decks for action, I observe that the text quoted by my catechist contains no "injunction" but an impersonal statement of the truth that "Every man that striveth for the mastery" (or in the games) "is temperate in all things." The apostle is likening the running and wrestling of the Olympic games to the Christian warfare, and throws in the pregnant reminder that he who is training for race or fight must, as he says elsewhere, "Keep his body under." The same rules hold good with the athlete of to-day.

While training, he neither drinks strong liquors nor smokes.
The stringency of the regulation, I interject in passing, is a powerful argument laid ready to the hand of the advocates of total abstinence.

A habit that so far injures the physical powers as to tell upon the action of heart, brains, lungs or muscles, must be an evil to any human being, however healthy.
The Chief Apostle, in another place, admonishes his neophytes to let their "moderation" be known of all men.

The revised version translates the word "forbearance" or "gentleness." We will try to keep both texts in mind during the informal homily that is the outcome of the question put to my surprised self.
"Surprised," because in the course of thirty-odd years of literary life I have had so many opportunities of "showing my hand" upon this and other great moral issues, and have improved them so diligently that my readers should by now be tolerably familiar with the platform on which I stand.

Not being a card player, and knowing absolutely nothing of the technicalities of the game, I am at a loss whether or not to look for an implication of underhand work in the phrase chosen by the inquisitor.