Our miserable and weak human flesh is like unto the hog which ever delighteth to lie down in the mud and to befoul itself therewith, deeming the mud its great delight. Our flesh is the devil’s knight; because it wars against and resists all those things which are according to the will of God and for our salvation.
Purity
The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it. Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open. By turns our purity inspires and our impurity casts us down. He is blessed who is assured that the animal is dying out in him day by day, and the divine being established. Henry David Thoreau, Walden