And as he doubts or balances between the heavenward or hellward course; as he struggles to rise or consents to fall; is there in all the universe of God a spectacle of higher exultation or of deeper pathos?
Within him are the appetites of a brute and the attributes of an angel; and when these meet in council to make up the roll of his destiny and seal his fate, shall the beast hound out the seraph?
Shall the young man, now conscious of the largeness of his sphere and of the sovereignty of his choice, wed the low ambitions of the world, and seek, with their emptiness, to fill his immortal desires?
Because he has a few animal wants that must be supplied, shall he become all animal,--an epicure and an inebriate,--and blasphemously make it the first doctrine of his catechism,--"the Chief End of Man ?"--to glorify his stomach and enjoy it?
Because it is the law of self-preservation that he shall provide for himself, and the law of religion that he shall provide for his family, when he has one, must he, therefore, cut away all the bonds of humanity that bind him to his race, forswear charity, crush down every prompting of benevolence, and if he can have the palace and equipage of the prince, and the table of a sybarite, become a blind man, and a deaf man, and a dumb man, when he walks the streets where hunger moans and nakedness shivers?
The strong man is the one who ever keeps himself under strict discipline, who never once allows the lower to usurp the place of the higher in him; who makes his passions his servants and never allows them to be his master; who is ever led by his mind and not by his inclinations.

He drills and disciplines his desires and keeps the roots of his life under ground, and never allows them to interfere with his character.

He is never the slave of his inclinations, nor the sport of impulse.

He is the commander of himself and heads his ship due north even in the wildest tempests of passion.

He is never the slave of his strongest desire.
A noted teacher has said that the propensities and habits are as teachable as Latin and Greek, while they are infinitely more essential to happiness.