Page:The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 2.djvu/68

 be swept away and the native grandeur revealed to the people's heart, our nation, too, may realise and appreciate the sublime truth that piety without purity is grosser than rank superstition — it is sanctified sin. But it is one thing to hold out indiscriminately on our past greatness; it is another to emulate it judiciously. The next topic that may engage attention is

(b) Public recognition of social impurity.

in any form and with any excuse. Ruskin has taught us that the acme of goodness is not merely to do the right thing but also to love it and to enjoy it. The reverse is equally true that virtue fails of its essence, if abstinence from vice does not amount to a total refusal to lend countenance to it to any degree and under any circumstances. To pity and pass by the weakness that hides itself in the shade may be charity; to mark impurity as an unfortunate element in some lives and bind it down with restraints and penalties calculated to confine it to its natural place as the grossest of indulgences — the last and the