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[[preprinted]]
that virtue must be its own reward absolutely an [[...]]
    Doubtless there are highminded men and women [[...]] an increasing happiness in the practice of virtue and wh[...] stoical or ecstatic souls rejoice in the absence of fleshly comforts or worldly return for self-abnegation. But they are few, and especially rare in the Philippines where the body is such a hot member and the soul but a hypothesis to most of us.
    Perhaps it is the prickly heat, the bites of mosquitos, the eternally netted bed, the cautious avoidance of unboiled things, or even the diaphanous garb which makes the flesh so near to the hands so apparent to the eyes; perhaps it is the glaring sun, the trickling rills of sweat, the more usual bath and consequent contemplation of nakedness, (even though our own); or it may be the indolence of the tropics, the puffing up of the white among the dark, the lack of self-service and the breaking down of the American individual independence of menials; or the theory of some scientists that the actinic rays of the overhead sun sodden the soul through the cuticle may be more than the surmises of savants; however it be, yet those of us who have lived some years here know that the soil is poor for spiritual sprouts, and that the appetities feed fat at the expense of the soul.  
    It may be easy to be good in one's Missouri or Tennessee home; it is devilishly hard to walk a chalk line in Manila or the bosque.  Vice appears in strange, romantic guises; seemingly without aftermath or price. The parched throat makes the iced intoxicant but buttermilk for the nonce, and when the nonce is past then sobriety is but nonsense.  The cult of the body gets more and more of our worship as the years roll by; the psychic shrinks into a husk while the physical clasps us tighter.  Dwelling where espionage is careless, where gossip is a jade that drives oftenest on the Luneta and lingers longest at whist parties, yet servants have no eyes nor ears, and the permanent mass no standards nor precepts.  We find on many door [[corner torn off]] invitations to hell looking like birds to paradise, and thos [[torn off]] within to whom the tearing down of a youthful structure [[torn off]] principles is pleasure and profit.
  We think less, drink more, doze more, rest less, talk mo [[torn off]] say less, owe more, pay less, and love more those we should [[torn off]] and less those we should; we harden, degrade and grow wi [[torn off]]  We who came as the unknowing, having nibbled at the f [[torn off]] of tree of knowledge, are soon cynical raconteurs, plan [[torn off]] deviltry, laughing at the funny side of rottenness, and wi [[torn off]] constant eye for a likely piece of wickedness.
  That's a strong indictment.  Is it true with you?  Ex [[torn off]] your heart and your possible sHould!  If you feel clean, i [[torn off]] conscience lets you get mad and say : "That's not I," the [[torn off]] go up to the front pew.
  Bit if otherwise,
  IT IS TIME TO QUIT!