佚名/Anonymous
Our whole life is startlingly moral.There is never an instant's tr uce between virtue and vice.Goodness is only investment that never fail s.In the music of the harp which trembles round the world it is the ins isting on this which thrills us.Though the youth at last grows indiffer ent,the laws of the universe are not indifferent,but are forever on th e side of the most sensitive.We cannot touch a string or move a stop bu t the charming moral transfixes us.Many an irksome noise,go a long way off,is heard as music,a proud,sweet satire on the meanness of our liv es.
We are conscious of an animal in us,which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers.It is reptile and sensual,and perhaps canno t be wholly expelled;like the worms which,even in life and health,occ upy our bodies.Possibly we may withdraw from it,but never change its n ature.I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own;that we may be well,yet not pure.
If I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity I would go to seek him forthwith.Yet the spirit can for the time pervade and control every member and function of the body,and transmute what in form is the gross est sensuality into purity and devotion.The generative energy,which,w hen we are loose,dissipates and makes us unclean,when we are continent invigorates and inspires us.Chastity is the flowering of man;and what are called Genius,Heroism,Holiness,and the like,are but various frui ts which succeed it.Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open.By turns our purity inspires and our impurity casts us down.He is blessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him day by day,and the divine being established.Perhaps there is none but has cause for shame on account of the inferior and brutish nature to which he is a llied.I fear that we are the divine allied to beasts,and that,to some extent,our very life is our disgrace.
All sensuality is one,though it takes many forms;all purity is one.The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity.If you would be chas te,you must be temperate.What is chastity?How shall a man know if he is chaste?He shall not know it.We have heard of this virtue,but we kn ow not what it is.We speak conformably to the rumor which we have heard.From exertion come wisdom and purity;from sloth ignorance and sensual ity.In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind.An unclean p erson is universally a slothful one,one who sits by a stove,whom the s un shines on prostrate,who reposes without being fatigued.If you would avoid uncleanness,and all the sins,work earnestly,though it be at cle aning a stable.Nature is hard to be overcome,but she must be overcome.