do it half-heartedly when he sees that
you repel him with a whole-hearted repugnance. It is this attitude even
more than individual acts which fixes the tone of a society.

When there is no prevalent sense that there are those present who
maintain this attitude of hatred and contempt for sin and everything that
breeds or fosters it, the tone, as men say, becomes low, or lax, the air
becomes corrupt, and life in such surroundings becomes full of peril. If
the good are timid, shrinking, showing no positive fervour, no zeal for
virtue, and no moral indignation against evil influence, then the bad in
their society will lift up their heads and walk boldly. But when, on the
other hand, they who are in their hearts convinced of the sinfulness of
sin, and of the infinite mischief that may arise out of any form of it,
are not ashamed to show it by their attitude, they cause the base to hide
itself in its proper darkness, and they create an atmosphere around them
in which temptations lose a great deal of their force and strength.

Let this, then, be your feeling about your life--that when it is assailed
by any sin, that sin is not something isolated or insignificant; it is
not something which may be indulged or accepted, as if it had no relation
with other sins; it is a part of an infinite brood of evil; and that if
you admit it within the circle of your life, or tolerate it in the air
you breathe, you never know where its pestilent germs may fall, and
breed, and multiply, and what mischief may come of it.

It is this feeling of the mysterious vitality of sin, and the subtle
kinship of one form of sin with other forms, and its destructiveness when
it seizes on a life or poisons an atmosphere, that helps us more than
anything else to feel the force and the intensity of the Saviour's prayer
for us: "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast
given Me. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but
that Thou shouldest keep them from evil." It is this same feeling of the
spreading, insidious, infectious and destructive nature of sin that makes
us echo this as our first and most earnest prayer for all we love, that
God may keep them from evil; and it is this that makes us value so highly
and recognise with thankful hearts every example of a pure and strong
life, which gives inspiration and strength to those around it.

XVI. SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS.

"As it is written, God hath given