Gluttony

“ Among these men are many chiefly addicted to fattening themselves up by gluttony, who, following the scent of any delicate food, and the shrill voices of the women who, from cockcrow, cry out with a shrill scream, like so many peacocks, and gliding over the ground on tiptoe, get an entrance into the halls, biting their nails while the dishes are getting cool. ”

“ On beholding a person indulge in such gluttony, I feel a distaste to eating, as a certain double-refined lady of my acquaintance declared that witnessing the demonstrations of love between two persons of low and vulgar habits so disgusted her with the tender passion, that she was sure she never could experience it herself. ”

“ You are both a glutton and superstitious. You have not the strength to resist your craving for good things; then, your gluttony satisfied, you are afraid of having committed a great sin, which sometimes spoils the pleasure of good cheer, and above all, injures the calmness and regularity of your digestion. Is this not true?"
"It is true," meekly replied the canon, dominated, fascinated by the doctor's words, "it is too true." ”

“ There are two ways of putting a limit to a meal—to eating. One—the wrong one—comes in the shape of a protest on the part of a too full stomach while the appetite is yet ravenous. The right one comes naturally from a perfectly satisfied feeling—a ceasing of desire for anything more, no matter how previously alluring to the palate, before the stomach is overburdened. The former is evidence of glut, or gluttony, and the latter is Nature's way, for which there is every desired reward. ”

“ I was entirely absorbed in your sophistical but intelligent conversation."
"Ah, abbé, abbé, you overwhelm me!"
"You wish, in a word, doctor, to prove to me that gluttony is a noble, sublime passion, do you not?"
"Sublime, abbé, that is the word, sublime,—if not in itself at least in its consequences; above all, in the interest of agriculture and commerce."
"Come, doctor, that is a paradox. Agriculture and commerce are sustained as other things are." ”

“ Altering these by means of condiments, the gluttons gape for the sauces. "Whatever earth and the depths of the sea, and the unmeasured space of the air produce," they cater for their gluttony. In their greed and solicitude, the gluttons seem absolutely to sweep the world with a drag-net to gratify their luxurious tastes. ”

“ If you are one of those who has to have something to eat which will gratify your gluttony, you should refuse this to your body and despise it as much as you previously loved it. When your body wants to cost you your soul, you must punish it. ”

“ Yes, my lord; and I am sure you will be faithful, because you live alone, without family, and, by condition as well as character, you have not, like so many others, all sorts of inclinations which always bore or annoy one; as a serious and convinced man, you have only one passion, but profound, absolute, and that is gluttony. Well, this passion, I offer, my lord, to satisfy, as you have never been satisfied in your life. ”

“ But the common gluttony is when it is done for the pleasing of the appetite, with such a pleasure, as is no help to health or duty, but usually a hurt to body or soul; the body being hurt by the excess, the soul is hurt by the inordinate pleasure. ”

“ For when food and drink is served to us late or too little or poorly prepared, if we are weighed down by the domination of gluttony, it will follow that we will also be provoked by the goads of anger. ”

“ Secondly, I must consider the punishments of this vice, reducing them to three classes. Some proceed from gluttony itself, as from an evil tree; others God our Lord has added, and does add in this life, to discover how displeasing this vice is to Him; and others He has reserved for the other life.
1. Gluttony is a chastisement of itself, and pays in ready money with pain the delight of the sin; for it over-charges the body, takes away health, shortens the life, and hastens death. " Watching, and choler and gripes are with an intemperate man." ”

“ Watch your appetites as to meat and drink, both quantity and quality. Gluttony is a common, unobserved sin: the flesh no way enslaves men more than by the appetite; as we see in drunkards and gluttons, that can no more forbear than one that thirsteth in a burning fever.
2. Take heed of the lust of uncleanness, and all degrees of it, and approaches to it ”

“ SPRING CHICKEN
Gluttony, it has been written—and with wisdom—deserves nothing but praise and encouragement. For two reasons. "Physically, it is the result and proof of the digestive organs being perfect. Morally, it shows implicit resignation to the commands of nature, who, in ordering man to eat that he may live, gives him appetite to invite, flavour to encourage, and pleasure to reward." But there is a third reason, too often overlooked even by the professional glutton: love of good eating is an incentive to thought, a stimulus to the imagination. ”

“ Is it not too absurd to contemplate without both tears and laughter that that man who should plead with his fellow men to abstain from habitually living on butter cakes and coffee, should be charged with obscenity and imprisoned in consequence? And imagine some sapient postoffice official solemnly declaring that any discussion of digestion is obscene! Consider how the land would be flooded with literature describing the pleasures of gluttony and depicting impossible gastronomic feats! ”

“ Mental gluttony, or over-reading, is a dangerous propensity, tending to weakness of digestive power, and in some cases to loss of appetite: we know that bread is a good and wholesome food, but who would like to try the experiment of eating two or three loaves at a sitting? ”

“ For the most selfish man, who has spent a louis or more for his dinner, feels, in spite of himself, a painful sense of benefits, a sort of bitter after-taste, at the sight of those who suffer. A generous alms absolves him in his own eyes, and from a hygienic point of view, dear canon, this little act of charity would give him a most happy digestion."
"Doctor, I confess myself vanquished!" cried Abbé Ledoux. "I drink, if not to the seven deadly sins in general, at least, in particular to gluttony." ”

“ Now you spend your time in gluttony and drunkenness, and all sorts of sensual indulgence; then you will chastise your body by fasting, watching, and wearing the garb of penitence, and you will take the bread out of your own mouth to feed the hungry and indigent stranger. ”

“ A mind does not receive truth as a chest receives jewels that are put into it, but as the stomach takes up food into the system. It is no longer food, but flesh, and is assimilated. The appetite and the power of digestion measure our right to knowledge. He has it who can use it. As soon as our accumulation overruns our invention or power to use, the evils of intellectual gluttony begin,—congestion of the brain, apoplexy and strangulation. ”

“ We swallow with stupid gluttony muscle, fat and intestines of beasts without discerning in those substances such parts as are truly adapted to our nourishment and those much more abundant which we ought to reject; and we fill our stomach indiscriminately with good and bad, useful and injurious. That’s the very point, where a separation is to be made, and, if the whole medical faculty could boast of a chemist and philosopher, we should no more be compelled to partake of such disgusting feasts. ”

“ Let there be ever so strong an alliance between it and the stomach, on the score of gluttony, still, what can it possibly have to do with the back? It is not enough, forsooth, that we are fed upon what is acquired by perils, but we must be clothed, too, in a similar way; so true it is, that for all the wants of the body, that which is sought at the expense of human life is sure to please us the most. ”

“ It should be indelibly impressed on all school children that gluttony is a vice which defeats its own end, and that by eating very slowly much more pleasure can be got from one mouthful than by bolting a whole plateful. ”

“ Eat in proportion to thy hunger; how can he give praises who scarce can breathe by reason of his gluttony?
He whose stomach is full is void of wisdom. The prey is entrapped in the snare because of its greed. ”

“ The rich are more liable than the poor to sin by gluttony; but gluttony is fatal to longevity, and they who enjoy best life, desire to live longest. 'Tis true, physicians claim that a large portion of diseases are due to over-eating and over-drinking; but it must be admitted that this is through ignorance rather than malice. So that this passion can hardly be said to be commonly yielded to, at least to the extent of grievous offending.
Naturally, the degree of excess in eating and drinking is to be measured according to age, temperament, condition of life, etc. The term gluttony is relative. ”

“ The canon, thanks to his religion, is not deceived about the grossness of his ruling passion. He knows that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. He believes that his sin will send him to hell, yet he has not the courage to resist it; he eats with voluptuousness, and remorse comes only when he is no longer hungry. ”

“ Or if the delight that the appetite hath in one sort of meat, which is hurtful to the body, prevail against reason and health so with the person that he will not forbear it, it is a degree of gulosity or gluttony, though for quantity and quality it be in itself but mean and ordinary. ”

“ But because the weakness of our flesh compels us to refresh our bodily powers with meat and drink, an act which is productive of pleasure, the devil endeavours to make this an occasion of entangling us in the vice of gluttony, and of leading us into excess in the quality or quantity of our food. ”

“ But as there are some persons, stricken in years, who are, notwithstanding, very gluttonous, and alledge that neither the quantity or quality of their diet makes any impression upon them, and therefore eat a great deal, and of every thing without distinction, and indulge themselves equally in point of drinking, because they do not know in what part of their bodies their stomachs are situated; such, no doubt, are beyond all measure sensual, and slaves to gluttony. ”

“ The glutton intends, not the harm to his body, but the pleasure of eating: and if injury results to his body, this is accidental. Hence this does not directly affect the gravity of gluttony, the guilt of which is nevertheless aggravated, if a man incur some bodily injury through taking too much food. ”

“ Those are the people of gluttony, the people who never fasted nor abstained nor gave alms nor said prayers, who used to be eating and drinking forbidden food and drink, who used to give to the body its own satisfaction, with drunkenness, gluttony and lust, and never checked the want of the poor. ”

“ While cheerfulness, hopefulness, good nature, charity and all the mental good qualities are splendid forced-draughts of oxygenised impulse that assist the stomach in consuming and otherwise in taking care of any erratic or excessive food supply, and are able to help take care of a moderate glut of material; Taste, if allowed to serve its full purpose, furnishes its own draught of cheerfulness by means of the very pleasure it distributes, and at the same time it prevents, instead of inducing, gluttony. ”

“ It will be found also to add to the real pleasure of eating, and eventually will become a habit by choice.
Another objection raised by those who are afflicted with the habit of gluttony is the lack of time permitted by their business occupation.
The time needed to appease the natural appetite of a hearty and active man, to compensate for the daily waste and keep the weight at normal, is from thirty to forty-five minutes for twenty-four hours. [8] This requires attention and industrious mastication. Divided into three meals it is less than a quarter of an hour for each meal. ”

“ To their kindly meant, but hygienically unwise, aggressive hospitality, in begging friends to eat and drink more than they want, just to satisfy their own generous impulses, is due much of the milder gluttony that is prevalent.
Imposition upon the body of any excess of food or drink is one of the most dangerous and far-reaching of self-abuses; because whatever the body has no need of at the moment must be gotten rid of at the expense of much valuable energy taken away from brain-service. ”

“ It is the sin of gluttony which is the least obvious in the Way of the Cross. There are no doubt plenty of gluttons there, but that is not what we are trying to find; we are trying to see how each sin contributed to this final act in the drama of our Lord's life, how each sin contributed to put men in opposition to our Lord. It is not the actual sin of gluttony that we shall find in operation here but certain inevitable effects of it, What is the effect of gluttony on the soul of man? Absorption in the pursuit of the pleasures that spring from material things ”

“ The third species of gluttony is, when a man devoureth his meat, and hath no rightful manner of eating. The fourth is, when, through the great abundance of his meat, the humours of his body be distempered. ”

“ In fine, in the book of Deuteronomy, bidding them to be on their guard against the same cause, he says, ‘Lest when thou hast eaten and art full—when thy flocks and thy herds multiply,’ &c. He makes the enormity of gluttony an evil superior to any other corrupting result of riches.... ”

“ Fasting they regard as a matter not of kind or quality of food, but of abstinence from gluttony and other vices, of purity, meekness and humility of the spirit. Mere outward abstinence from food does not, according to them, yield any good to the soul. ”

“ Accordingly, if the inordinate concupiscence in gluttony be found to turn man away from the last end, gluttony will be a mortal sin. This is the case when he adheres to the pleasure of gluttony as his end, for the sake of which he contemns God, being ready to disobey God's commandments, in order to obtain those pleasures. ”