The herald., 1895-07-28

out, the extreme immortality and ilegiti-
macy which have disgraced our rural dis
tricts would have been largely dimin-
ished. and the reputation for chastity of
the English girls today would have
equalled that of their sisters in Ireland.
Originally the word cnaste meant decor
ated or adorned. Now it means pure, un-
tainted, uncontaminated. 1t is a good
old English word and has seen good SER
vice. Be as chaste as chyld. wrote
Piers Poug ghman" more than five cen
turies ago. To chasten. to castigate,
and to chastise, ave the same derivation
as chastity, and mean to purify by some
process or other; it may be By fire, by
suffering. by endurance, or by punish
ment. For whom the Lord loveth he
chastenetb,' says our version, but Wicliff's
Bible gives The Lord chastiseth him
chastity does not necessarily mean entire
abstention but rather restraint. and is
governed by the condition of the individ-
ual. What would be chastity with the
married would be opposite with the un-
married. Thus the Bible Of 1851 says:
II am gelous over you with godly
gelousy. For | coupled you to one man,
TO make you chaste virgin to Christ"
1t must be understood that young mar
ried women, as we'll as single, are termed
virgins in the scriptures, just as they
were among the Romans Chastity, there
fore. is as much required from the mar
lied as from the unmarried. Nor is it con-
fined to the body, as the church catecb-
is >, might be thought to imply, but ex-
tends also to the mind. The one must be
as pure as the other. Jesus said Who
sJever looketh on woman to lost after
her hath committed adultery with her
already in his heart" TINS is obviously
Il married woman or it would not be
adultery. And the celebrated Udal. an
this no. qaiI HI that n
beholdeth another mans wife chastely,
like as he looketh upon his sister, or
daughter, re hath well cast out his noy-
some I'VE, and taken for it the i've of
doue, a clean, and single iye.' The
common idea that chastity concerns the
body lone is thus mistake. We're it
otherwise the dogs given to Vulcan by
his sister Diana, and bred from her
hounds, ought to have been perfect judges
of purity. For that renowned English
classic. the Spectator" OF Addison and
Steele (No. 519), remarks 1t is well
known by the learned that there was
temple upon Mount Aetna dedicated to
Vulcan which was guarded by dogs Of
SO exquisite a smell, say the historians.
that they could discern whether tho per-
sons who came tbither were chaste or
otherwise" But it requires a keener per-
ception than any possessed by man to
distinguish between the chastity "or
UlueTWlSe VI tHe HeaTt. lHe SIN VI tue
body is an injury to 'our neighbor :"
the sin of the mind is an injury to our
selves; that must be knownfto someone
else, whereas this may be locked up in
the secret reoesses OF our souls. And ex-
perience has shown that secret sins are
ever more persistent and more deadly
than open ones.
Therefore, so far as the ethics of abso
lutte purity are concerned, the coy maiden
who has never known lover. or the nun
in her sanity cell. may be really less i'm
maculate tnan Mary Magdelene. This.
however, belongs to the exalted aspect Of
the matter. What concerns us more i'm
mediately is of humber consideration,
namely, purity Of life. We may struggle
against the desires of the heart ana may
not be always able to suppress them, but
the course of our daily conduct lies more
freely within the compass of our will.
Here We hold larger responsibility, and