We hit down directly on its moral inequalities, without giving a thought to what has caused the imperfection, when constantly, as in the sheet of metal which has to be straightened, the moral disorder has to be met, not directly, but indirectly--not at the point of the disorder itself, but of its often unsuspected cause.

Purity, like health, like happiness, like so many of the higher aims of our life, has to be attained altruistically.
Seek them too directly, and they elude our grasp.

Like the oarsman, we have often to turn our back upon our destination in order to arrive at our end.
Do not, therefore, think impatiently that I am putting you off with vague theories when you want practical suggestions, if I ask you first to give some patient thought to the causes of the disorder which seems to mark the side of our human nature on which the very existence of the race depends, and which cannot, therefore, be evil in itself.

To me the problem presented was almost paralyzing.

It seemed as if Nature, in her anxiety to secure the continuance of the species, had taken no account whatever of the moral law, but had so overloaded the strength of passion as not only to secure the defeat of the moral law, but even of her own ends, by producing the sterility which results from vicious indulgence.
It was not till I met with two wonderful sermons on "The Kingdom of God," by that great master of "divine philosophy," Dr.James Martineau, that I first got a clue to the moral difficulty and to that fuller understanding of our human nature which is so essential to all who have the training and moulding of the young.