The Star in the West

182 THE STAR IN THE WEST you Love alone is immortal , love for the good , love for the bad . Redolent with divinity, it floats onward through life , through heaven , through hell , till the flaming forms of Paolo and Francesca rise before us , an everlasting answer to the eternal word of Love . Nay ? kiss in double death -pang , if dare ! Or one day I will strangle you within My heavy hair !? Slowly , and solely through temptation can man be purified . Burns, who was possessed with the happiest knack of striking the nail full on the head , driving it home at one blow , describes this well in his “ Address to the Unco Gude " : What's done we partly may compute But kenna what's resisted . It is this resistance alone which sanctifies man , body and soul . There is sparse morality in the well - fed , the well - housed , the well - dressed , their existence is indolent , comfortable , affluent ; but in the ill - fed , the houseless , the unclothed , there may be much . There is nothing sublime in an oily gourmet passing a baker's shop without wishing to steal a loaf ; but in a hungry child whose hollow bowels growl for food the oppor tunity of theft if resisted is noble . The sleek , smiling society hostess has no need to frequent the streets for gain , but who dare say that the poor hounded outcast has not ? HE THAT IS WITHOUT SIN AMONG YOU , LET HIM FIRST CAST A STONE AT HER . Even the Scribes and Pharisees , who were thus rebuked , departed in silence , convicted by their own conscience ; but not so our modern Christian canaille , from the Pope and the Archbishop and the Patriarch 1 Aceldama , vol . i, p . 6