deeds, not by ignobly seeking the sympathy of your fellows who are no better than yourself. A man's social and spiritual discipline must answer to his corporeal. He must lean on a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed. He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy of friends.
Can love be in aught allied to dissipation? Let us love by refusing, not accepting, one another. Love and lust are far asunder. The one is good, the other bad. When the affectionate synipathize by their higher natures, there is love; but there is danger that they will sympathize by their lower natures, and then there is lust. It is not necessary that this be deliberate, hardly even conscious; but, in the close contact of affection, there is danger that we may stain and pollute one another, for we can not embrace but with an entire embrace.
We must love our friend so much that she shall
be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts
alone 
When there is impurity, we have
"descended to meet," though we knew it not.
The luxury of affection,— there 's the danger.
There must be some nerve and heroism in our
love, as of a Winter morning. In the religion of all
nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men
never attain to. We may love and not elevate
one another. The love that takes us as it finds us
degrades us. What watch we must keep over the
fairest and purest of our affections, lest there be
some taint about them ! May we so love as never
