LXXXIII.
PURITY OF CHARACTER.
Boys and girls, if you will take a plum or an apricot you will find that over the outer coat of either one of them there glows a bloom more beautiful than the fruit itself—a soft, delicate powder that overspreads its rich colors. Now, if you strike your hand over that you will find that the bloom will at once depart, and when it goes it is gone forever. It only appears once. You go out into the flower garden early in the morning. The flower that hangs there impearled with dew, like so many jewels—you shake it once, so that the drops or beads will roll off. You take that same flower, after the dew has been shaken off, and you may sprinkle water over it as you please, yet it can never be made again what it was when the dew fell on it so gently from heaven. Again, on a frosty morning, you may see the panes of glass covered with landscapes, mountains, lakes and trees, blended into a fantastic picture. Now, lay your hand upon the glass and by the scratch of your finger or by the warmth of the palm; all the delicate tracery will be obliterated—all the beautiful picture will vanish, and you could not reproduce it, although you tried for a hundred years. Once wiped out, the picture on the glass is wiped out forever.
So there is in youth a purity of character which, when once touched and defiled, can never be restored—a fringe more delicate than frostwork or the dew on the flowers or the bloom on the plum or apricot. Character is a thing which, when once stained, can never be again what it was. When a young boy or girl leaves the home of his or her parents, with the blessing of a mother’s tears upon the cheek or the blessing of a father’s hand upon the head, if earthly purity of character be once lost it is a loss that can never be made up again. Though by God’s mercy the sin may be forgiven, yet its effects cannot but be in some way felt, and the boy or girl will never be what he or she was before.