l; in one case it obeys
the spirit, in the other, the flesh; in one case its true name is
charity, in the other, it is animal, sexual instinct, and it is only
improperly called love. For God is love. Love therefore is pure. That
which is not pure is not love.

People who trifle with the affections usually come to woe sooner or
later, sooner rather than later; affairs of the heart are always
morally malodorous affairs. Frequently there is evil on one side at
least, in intention, from the start. The devil's game is to play on the
chaste attachment, and in an unguarded moment, to swing it around to
his point. If the victim does not balk at the first shock and surprise,
the game is won; for long experience has made him confident of being
able to make the counterfeit look like the real; and it requires, as a
general rule, little argument to make us look at our faults in their
best light.

Many a pure love has degenerated and many a virtue fallen, why? because
people forget who and what they are, forget they are human, forget they
are creatures of flesh and blood, predisposed to sin, saturated with
concupiscence and naturally frail as a reed against the seductions of
the wily one. They forget this, and act as though theirs were art
angelic, instead of a human, nature. They imagine themselves proof
against that which counts such victims as David and Solomon, which
would cause the fall of a Father of the desert, or even of an angel
from heaven encumbered with the burden we carry, if he despised the
claims of ordinary common sense.

And this forgetfulness on their part, let it be remembered, is wholly
voluntary and culpable, at least in its cause. They may not have been
attentive at the precise moment that the flames of passion reached the
mine of their affections; but they were well aware that things would
come inevitably to such a pass. And when the mine went up, as it was
natural, what wonder if disaster followed! Who is to blame but
themselves? People do not play with matches around a powder magazine;
and if they do, very little consolation comes with the knowledge of
their folly when they are being picked up in sections from out of the
ruins.

Of course there are easier victims than these, such as would not
recognize true inter-sexual love if they saw it through a magnifying
glass; everything of the nature of a fancy or whim, of a sensation or
emotion with them is love. Love-sick maidens are usually soft-brained,
and