and Superman," and other such advanced literature, may caress
himself with the notion that he is an immoralist, that his soul is full
of soothing sin, that he has cut himself loose from the revelation of
God. But all the while there is a part of him that remains a sound
Christian, a moralist, a right thinking and forward-looking man.
And that part, in times of stress, asserts itself. It may not worry him
on ordinary occasions. It may not stop him when he swears, or
takes a nip of whiskey behind the door, or goes motoring on
Sunday; it may even let him alone when he goes to a leg-show. But
the moment a concrete Temptress rises before him, her noses
now-white, her lips rouged, her eyelashes drooping provokingly--the
moment such an abandoned wench has at him, and his lack of ready
funds begins to conspire with his lack of courage to assault and
wobble him--at that precise moment his conscience flares into
function, and so finishes his business. First he sees difficulty, then
he sees the danger, then he sees wrong. The result is that he
slinks off in trepidation, and another vampire is baffled of her prey.


It is, indeed, the secret scandal of Christendom, at least in the
Protestant regions, that most men are faithful to their wives. You
will a travel a long way before you find a married man who will
admit that he is, but the facts are the facts, and I am surely not one
to flout them.




36.