et thee
behind me, Satan." They are like the lions that affrighted Bunyan's
pilgrim--chained securely. They may roar and threaten, but they are
powerless if we deny their power. The man who is striving for purity
whole-heartedly is like one who sits safely in a guarded house. Old
memories of evil things like specters may peer in at the windows and
mow and gibber at him, but they can not touch him unless he gives them
power, unless he unlocks the door of his heart and bids them enter.

As the lotus flower grows out of the mud, so may purity and beauty
spring up from even the vilest past if we but will it so.

As purity is power so impurity is impotence, weakness, degeneracy.
Many a man goes on in an impure career thinking himself secure,
thinking his secret hidden. But impurity, like murder, will out.
There was a noted pugilist who was unexpectedly defeated in a great
ring battle. People said the fight was a "fake," that it was a "put up
job." But those who knew said "impurity." He had lived an evil,
debauched life for several years, and he went into the ring impaired in
strength, weakened by his transgressions of the law of pure living.
Purity is power; impurity is weakness.

There is a saying of Scripture which is absolutely scientific: "Be sure
your sin will find you out." Note this; it is not that your sin will
be found out, but _your_ sin will find _you_ out. Sin recoils on the
sinner, and of all sins that surely find us out, the sins against
purity are the most certain to bring retribution.

Young men do not think that listening to an off-color story, or
anything that is vulgar, can injure them much, and, for fear of
ridicule, they laugh when they hear anything of the kind, even when it
is repulsive to them, and when they loathe it. It is a rare thing for
a young man to express with emphasis his disapproval. To know life
properly is to know the best in it, not the worst. No one ever yet was
made stronger by his knowledge of impurity or experience in sin.

_It is said that the mind's phonograph will faithfully reproduce a bad
story even up to the point of death_. Do not listen once. You can
never get the stain entirely out of your life. Your character will
absorb the poison. Impurity is especially fatal in its grip upon the
young, because of the vividness of the youthful imagination and the
facility with which insinuating suggestions enter the youthful thought.

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