c order which is "sinful only when it refuses
to be spiritualized." If we regard the body as an exquisite instrument
provided by our Maker for the translation of the things of the Spirit,
then so long as the Spirit working by grace is the master, we can
hardly attach too much importance to the body as a temple of God.

"If any man defile this temple," says the Apostle, "him shall God
destroy." The ways in which it can be defiled are endless, as some of
them are fatal. For my present purpose there are three which I want to
urge upon your serious consideration. I must try to compress what I
have to say about them into one address, because the first I shall
mention is something about which no clean-minded person would choose to
write or talk without having, what he conceives to be, the gravest
reasons for so doing. In this case, the fewer the words the more
effective they may be, if they arrest attention, arouse thought, and
make some headway with the conscience.

There are three ways, I repeat, in which we may defile this temple, and
the first I will venture to speak about is the sin of Impurity. And
when I say I will venture to mention it, I quite realize that I am
taking some risk. He who would speak with authority and with wisdom on
this subject to a mixed audience, should possess a poet's gifts in the
art of putting things. But some one must speak, and to whom does the
duty fall, if not upon him whose calling it is to stand between the
quick and the dead? If the good work of the world must wait to be done
by perfect men, the lease of evil has a long while to run. It is, in
truth, a sad reflection which should stir up strong protest in every
earnest soul, that this sin--so deadly in its nature--should be
practically safe so far as the pulpit is concerned. In many cases this
is a result of sensitive timidity, or it may be an affectation of
refinement which is but veneered coarseness. If it be the first, it
should be respected but not yielded to; if it be the second, it should
receive no indulgence from us. The great Hebrew prophets, and the
Supreme Teacher Himself, did not surrender this stronghold of the soul
to the evil one from a shrinking which, if a man cannot conquer, he is
no preacher, and still less to a mental indolence that will not seek
out acceptable words through which to convey a warning. I speak as
unto wise men, and submit it to your judgment whether the preacher who
has to any extent the