We can never too strongly emphasize the necessity of the culture of self-control and moral power to resist all temptation. He who is sinless only because untempted, is not sinless. Temptation conquered is the measure of moral power.
What then? Shall we needlessly multiply and augment temptations, and wilfully put a stumbling-block in our brother's way? By no means. We shall all have temptations enough after we have removed and evaded all we can. He who seeks temptation is the one who is most likely to yield to it, soon or late, and the late is soon. He who needlessly, or wantonly puts, or keeps, a temptation in a weak man's way, is guilty of a greater sin than the weak man is thence led to commit.
This is the moral principle of the prohibition movement in politics. Men should not be so weak as to yield to the temptation to drunkenness. But still less should men be so wicked and unprincipled as to tempt them deliberately and systematically, in order to secure, from their injury or ruin, a material advantage to themselves.
