Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/58

 notwithstanding mimic nobility and affected bravery, the man who uses the frailty of the weak or the want of the needy for his own base purpose, who haunts beauty till it is tarnished or pursues innocence till it is vitiated, who repays friendship, with infidelity, or affects piety to pollute all the more securely. It demurs to the law, though backed by power, that declines to shield the helpless from the ravage of the brutal or to screen the guileless from the craft of the wily. It decries the customs that invite undisguised shame to the hall of honour, or restore convicted impurity to the place of position. It silences the song that deifies the brute and proscribes the picture that perpetuates the immodest. It shuns the book that feeds the budding mind with "the sewage of the slum," and rebukes the speech that glorifies "our swine enjoyments." It loathes the longings "that fancy begets on youthful thoughts," and detests the desires that delight to wallow in "troughs of Zolaism." It stifles the