Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/57

 control of our appetites by our higher faculties as a course of life the most favourable to complete growth. "There is," says a vigorous writer on this subject, "a dignity conferred upon us— bringing men near to the high and solemn relationship of the Creator" —in our possession of the power of reproduction. With this honor is reposed the responsibility on every man to be pure and worthy in life and sentiment— in act, speech and thought. Social purity is chastity in body and chastity in spirit—stern, uncompromising repugnance to whatever is base or vulgar, indecent or immodest, in work or pleasure, speech or song, thought or sentiment, belief or life—stout, unrelenting opposition, despite the threat of law or the frown of society, the curse of pretentious piety or the loss of spurious attachment, to every rule or habit, practice or institution that defeats, or tends to defeat, the high purpose of human life by gilding shame with fashion or condoning carnal longing as venial. It brands as mean and cowardly,