I say our flesh, our animal nature, is selfish and self-
indulgent. I do not say, therefore, that it is bad: God forbid.
God made our bodies and brains, as well as our souls; and God makes
nothing bad. It is blasphemous to say that he does. No, our bodies
as bodies are good; the flesh as flesh is good, when it is in its
right place; and its right place is to be servant, not master. We
are not to walk after the flesh, says St. Paul: but the flesh is to
walk after the spirit--in English, our bodies are to obey our
spirits, our souls. For man has something higher than body in him.
He has a spirit in him; and it is just having this spirit which
makes him a man. For this spirit cares about higher things than
mere gain and comfort. It can feel pity and mercy, love and
generosity, justice and honour; and when a man not only feels them,
but obeys them, then he is a true man--a Christian man: but, on the
other hand, if a man does not; if he be a man in whom there is no
mercy or pity, no generosity, no benevolence, no justice or honour;
who cares for nothing and no one but himself, and filling his own
stomach and his own pulse, and pleasing his own brute appetites in
some way, what should you say of that man? You would say, he is
like a brute beast--and you would say right--you would say just what
St.
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