Chapter 16—Social Purity
“Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.” [
Matthew
5:8
.] Man has fallen, and the work of his life-time, be it longer or
shorter, must be to recover through Christ what he has lost by sin,—the
likeness to the divine. This work requires a thorough transformation of
soul, body, and spirit. God mercifully sends rays of light to show man
his true condition; but if he will not walk in the light, it is manifest
that he takes pleasure in darkness. He avoids the light, lest his deeds
should be reproved.
A picture of the terrible condition of the world has been presented
before me. Immorality abounds on every hand. Licentiousness is the
prevailing sin of this age. Never did vice lift its deformed head with
such boldness as now, and by its strength and prevalence the lovers
of virtue are almost discouraged. Unless man has more than human
strength to resist the current of evil, he will be overcome, and borne
down to perdition.
But the mind does not come down in a moment from purity and
holiness to depravity, corruption, and crime. To degrade to the brutal
and satanic those who are formed in the image of God, takes time. By
beholding we become changed. Though formed in the image of his
Maker, man can so accustom himself to evil that the sin which he once
loathed will become pleasant to him. As he ceases to watch and pray,
he ceases to guard the citadel—the heart—and is betrayed into sin and
crime. Constant war against the carnal mind must be maintained; and
we must be aided by the refining influence of the grace of God, which
will attract the mind upward, and habituate it to meditate upon pure
and holy things.
A large class of the human beings we everywhere meet are a curse
to the world. They live only for self-indulgence, and are given up,
soul and body, to corrupt and dissolute habits. What a terrible rebuke
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are such lives to the mothers who have worshiped at fashion’s shrine,
and have neglected to cultivate their own mind and to form their own
character after the divine Pattern; and who have thus been unprepared
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