mind and of the body makes one cease to
taste well-used delights; a strong new stimulus is required to revive
the emotional life that is sinking to decay. Such a stimulus must not
only be strong and new, it must be light, delicate, altogether
strange. The effect it produces is due to charm and spell as much as
to substance and form.

To people who are elderly, youth itself, merely because it is youth,
exercises a tremendous fascination. It sheds an atmosphere that is
pleasant to breathe. It seems like a fountain of life in which, if we
might bathe, we should take some rejuvenating virtue as well as a
soothing bliss. There is a common saying that it makes one feel young
just to consort with young people.

Then imagine the selfish unprincipled wretch who at the same time
feels the new stimulus, experiences the mysterious fascination, and
craves for the revivifying delight. Putting himself in the sinner's
place, Dale could realize the pressure that drove him to his sin. He
could estimate the fearful temptation offered by the mere presence of
the fresh young innocent creature that one has begun to think about in
this improper manner. She comes and she goes before one's eyes,
piercing them with her beauty; she fills one with desire as wine fills
a cup; she absorbs one, whether she knows it or not, dominates,
overwhelms, makes one her sick and fainting slave. And suppose that
while one becomes her slave one remains her master. To what a gigantic
growth the temptation must rush up each time that one thinks she is
utterly in one's power! How irresistible it must seem if she herself
does not aid one to resist it, if through her ignorance or childish
faith she invites the disaster one is struggling to avoid, if instead
of flying from her danger she draws nearer and nearer to it.

But to yield to such temptation, however tremendous it may be, is
abominable, disgusting, and inexpressibly base. No explanation can
palliate or apology prevail--the crime remains the same crime, and he
who commits it is not fit to live with decent upright men. That was
what Dale had felt fifteen years ago, and he felt it with increased
conviction now because of the religious faith that had become his
guide and comfort. To a believing Baptist there is a peculiar
sacredness, in unsullied innocence.

Two hours afterward, when he had transacted his business and drew near
to home, he was still thinking of Mr. Barradine and the Orphanage for
unguarded i