Septuagesima Week. Chapter from "The Way that Leads to God" by the Abbe A. Saudreau

2. The love of the pleasures of senses.
43. The love of sensual pleasures is a degrading passion which results in the obscuring of the intelligence and weakening of the whole character. Thus it is that we have seen men of talent stupefied, as it were, by vice, or brave men sapped of their energy after being the heroes of mighty conflicts; while others whom we have once known as full of affection and kindliness become hardhearted, and exhibit the blackest ingratitude. And, further, the vicious man does not seal up within himself the corruption upon which he feeds, and which he breathes out through every pore. His heart, having become a reservoir in which all the impurities gathered by the senses are stored up, overflows upon all around; while his tongue distils its poisoned filth, which is all too often a source of pollution to those who come near him.