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, Aime 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 withers all that is human--mind, body, and soul.

It strikes our youth at the unhappy moment when they first cross the thresholds of vice.