Pushing to the Front

by Orison Swett Marden

Purity is defined as "free from contact with that which weakens, impairs or pollutes." How forceful then is the converse of the definition: Impurity weakens, impairs, and pollutes. It weakens both mind and body. It impairs the health. It pollutes not only the thoughts but the conduct which inevitably has its beginning and its end in thought.

Innocence is the state of natural purity. It was the state of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When they sinned "they knew that they were naked." They lost innocence never to regain it. But purity may be attained. As an unclean garment may be washed, so the heart may be purified and made clean. Ghosts of past impurities still may dog us, but they are ghosts that may be laid with an imperative "Get thee behind me, Satan." They are like the lions that affrighted Bunyan's pilgrim—chained securely. They may roar and threaten, but they are powerless if we deny their power. The man who is striving for purity whole-heartedly is like one who sits safely in a guarded house. Old memories of evil things like specters may peer in at the windows and mow and gibber at him, but they can not touch him unless he gives them power, unless he unlocks the door of his heart and bids them enter.

As the lotus flower grows out of the mud, so may purity and beauty spring up from even the vilest past if we but will it so.

As purity is power so impurity is impotence, weakness, degeneracy. Many a man goes on in an impure career thinking himself secure, thinking his secret hidden. But impurity, like murder, will out. There was a noted pugilist who was unexpectedly defeated in a great ring battle. People said the fight was a "fake," that it was a "put up job." But those who knew said "impurity." He had lived an evil, debauched life for several years, and he went into the ring impaired in strength, weakened by his transgressions of the law of pure living. Purity is power; impurity is weakness.

There is a saying of Scripture which is absolutely scientific: "Be sure your sin will find you out." Note this; it is not that your sin will be found out, but your sin will find you out. Sin recoils on the sinner, and of all sins that surely find us out, the sins against purity are the most certain to bring retribution.

Young men do not think that listening to an off-color story, or anything that is vulgar, can injure them much, and, for fear of ridicule, they laugh when they hear anything of the kind, even when it is repulsive to them, and when they loathe it. It is a rare thing for a young man to express with emphasis his disapproval. To know life properly is to know the best in it, not the worst. No one ever yet was made stronger by his knowledge of impurity or experience in sin.

It is said that the mind's phonograph will faithfully reproduce a bad story even up to the point of death. Do not listen once. You can never get the stain entirely out of your life. Your character will absorb the poison. Impurity is especially fatal in its grip upon the young, because of the vividness of the youthful imagination and the facility with which insinuating suggestions enter the youthful thought.

Our court records show that a very large percentage of criminals began their downfall through the fatal contagion of impurity communicated from various associations.

Remember that you can not tell what may come to you in the future, what honor or promotion; and you can not afford to take chances upon having anything in your history which can come up to embarrass you or to keep you back. A thing which you now look upon as a bit of pleasure may come up in the future to hamper your progress. The thing you do to-day while trying to have a good time may come up to block your progress years afterwards.

I know men who have been thrust into positions of honor and public trust who would give anything in the world if they could blot out some of the unclean experiences of their youth. Things in their early history, which they had forgotten all about and which they never expected to hear from again, are raked up when they become candidates for office or positions of trust. These forgotten bits of so-called pleasure loom up in after-life as insurmountable bars across their pathway.