Character Lessons to Train Youth

By JAMES TERRY WHITE.

[Copyright, 1905, by the Character Development League.]

XII. — Purity.

In "Golden Windows" Mrs. Richards tells a story of a boy who was very dirty in dress and habits. His good angel came one day and, seeing the filthy surroundings, said: "This will never do. You must go out with your brother while I straighten out the house." "I have no brother," said the boy. "Oh, yes, you have. You go out and he will soon come to you." The child went out, and shortly a squirrel came along, and the boy said, "Are you my brother?" The squirrel looked him over carefully and said: "Well, I should think not. Do you mean to insult me? I take great pains to keep my fur and tall in fine condition."

A wren flew up and when asked if he were a brother said: "No, indeed! What impertinence! I plume my feathers and keep them clean." Presently a pig came trotting along. The boy did not like to speak to it because it was so dirty, but the pig called out. "Hello, brother!" "I am not your brother," said the boy. "Oh, yes, you are! There is no mistaking the members of my family. Come and roll in the mud with me." "I don't like to roll in the mud," said the boy. "Tell that to the hens. Look at your hands and clothes." Just then the good angel came out and said: "I have set everything right, and it must stay right. Will you come and be a tidy boy, or will you go and hereafter live with the pig brother?"

To maintain one's self-respect necessitates neatness and cleanliness of person, and this goes far toward winning the respect of others.

No one can help a feeling of disgust at untidiness, and, moreover, want of cleanliness breeds disease. Cleanliness is the first law of health. But, above all, uncleanliness is to lose one's own self-respect as well as to be an object of disgust to others. Be not only neat in externals, but more so in what is concealed from view. It is in cleanliness and neatness that self-respect is most fostered.

Nikola Tesla says: "Everyone should consider his body as a priceless gift from one whom he loves above all; a marvelous work of art, of indescribable beauty and mastery beyond human conception and so delicate that a word, a breath, a look — nay, a thought — may injure it."

"I believe in the sacredness of the human body, this transient dwelling place of a living soul, and so I deem it the duty of every man and woman to keep his or her body beautiful through right thinking and right living," says Jeremy Taylor. "Our parents have told us that of some matters we may speak only to them; of some other matters we should not speak at all."

Impure thoughts are far worse than unclean hands. They should be shunned as the plague. Impure thoughts pollute the stream of life at its very source and defile one's whole nature. They infect the imagination and destroy the ability to appreciate and enjoy the things that uplift and ennoble. Impure thoughts lead to impure acts. They bind a millstone about the neck, which will surely cast one into the sea of imbecility and contempt. How ashamed one would be if his thoughts were suddenly exposed to the world and found to be unclean!

In a certain degree impure thoughts are always revealed in the face, and those who have insight and experience can immediately see all the loathsomeness of such a mind. The man who has governed his thoughts has mastered his passions and has put his body under him.

The impress that a man makes on mankind depends upon what he believes, upon what he loves, and men of pure thoughts shine like stars and make others purer by being purely shone upon. One of the benefits derived from poetry is that it fills a mind so full of beautiful thoughts that there is no room for impure imaginings.

Practice. — Let each child say to himself when impure acts and thoughts entice, "Can I tell my mother?"