ever-increasing force, that the proposition that purity is vitally
necessary for the woman, but of comparatively small account for the man,
is absolutely false. Granted that, owing to social ostracism, the
outward degradation of impurity to the woman is far greater, I contend
that a deeper inner debasement is its sure fruition in the man. Cruelty
and lies are its certain accompaniment. As Burns, with a poet's insight,
has truly said:

"But oh! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling."

Yes, it is exactly that; "it hardens all within"--hardens and darkens.
It is as our Lord says: only "the pure in heart" are capable of divine
vision. Only the man who has kept himself pure, who has never sullied
his white faith in womanhood, never profaned the sacred mysteries of
life and love, never fouled his manhood in the stye of the beast--it is
only that man who can see God, who can see duty where another sees
useless sacrifice, who can see and grasp abiding principles in a world
of expediency and self-interest, and discern

"In temporal policy the eternal Will,"

who can see God in the meanest of His redeemed creatures. It is only
the virginal heart that has kept itself pure, that grows not old, but
keeps its freshness, its innocent gaiety, its simple pleasures. The
eminent Swiss Professor, Aimé Humbert, does but echo these words from
the sadder side, when, speaking of the moral malady which is the result
of impurity, he says:

"It does not attack any single organ of the human frame, but it