Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/91

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OF TASTE.
71

acts of bodily refreshment and delight, but as acts of piety and gratitude towards the GIVER OF ALL GOOD. Whilst Epicurus, therefore, converted the sense of bodily taste into an instrument of his own destruction, by exalting it above every higher taste, whether intellectual or spiritual, whether temporal or eternal, it was the happiness of Eusebius, on every occasion of gratifying that taste, to render it subservient to the most blessed of all purposes, by calling every higher taste to his recollection, and thus elevating him above the husks and dregs of mere sensual delight, to feed upon the corn and wine of every rational, spiritual, and heavenly joy and blessedness. Whilst Epicurus too, in his eating and drinking, converted its delight into a carcass, by depriving it of its life and soul, in consequence of separating it from the purer delight of mental taste, Eusebius, in his daily eating and drinking, never failed to enjoy both a soul and body of delight united, and thus to give new life to the otherwise unclean carcass of sensual gratification.

Leaving you now, my good Friend, in possession of the above portraits, I shall, for the present, bid you adieu! but not without first offering up my most devout prayers to the FATHER OF MERCIES, that you may be led henceforth to reflect, as every rational being ought to do, on the sense of which I have been