5. UNCHASt.i.tY.--So far as the record is preserved, unchast.i.ty has contributed above all other causes, more to the ruin and exhaustion and demoralization of the race than all other wickedness. And we shall not be likely to vanquish the monster, even in ourselves, unless we make the thoughts our point of attack. So long as they are sensual we are indulging in s.e.xual abuse, and are almost sure, when temptation is presented, to commit the overt acts of sin. If we cannot succeed within, we may pray in vain for help to resist the tempter outwardly. A young man who will indulge in obscene language will be guilty of a worse deed if opportunity is offered.
6. BAD DRESSING.--If women knew how much mischief they do men they would change some of their habits of {410} dress. The dress of their busts, the padding in different parts, are so contrived as to call away attention from the soul and fix it on the bosom and hips. And then, many, even educated women, are careful to avoid serious subjects in our presence--one minute before a gentleman enters the room they may be engaged in thoughtful discussion, but the moment he appears their whole style changes; they a.s.sume light fascinating ways, laugh sweet little bits of laughs, and turn their heads this way and that, all which forbids serious thinking and gives men over to imagination.
7. THE l.u.s.tFUL EYE.--How many men there are who lecherously stare at every woman in whose presence they happen to be. These monsters stare at women as though they were naked in a cage on exhibition. A man whose whole manner is full of animal pa.s.sion is not worthy of the respect of refined women. They have no thoughts, no ideas, no sentiments, nothing to interest them but the bodies of women whom they behold. The moral character of young women has no significance or weight in their eyes. This kind of men are a curse to society and a danger to the community. No young lady is safe in their company.
8. REBUKING SENSUALISM.--If the young women would exercise an honorable independence and heap contempt upon the young men that allow their imagination to take such liberties, a different state of things would soon follow. Men of that type of character should have no recognition in the presence of ladies.
9. EARLY MARRIAGES.--There can be no doubt that early marriages are bad for both parties. For children of such a marriage always lack vitality. The ancient Germans did not marry until the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth year, previous to which they observed the most rigid chast.i.ty, and in consequence they acquired a size and strength that excited the astonishment of Europe.
The present incomparable vigor of that race, both physically and mentally, is due in a great measure to their long established aversion to marrying young. The results of too early marriages are in brief, stunted growth and impaired strength on the part of the male; delicate if not utterly bad health in the female; the premature old age or death of one or both, and a puny, sickly offspring.
10. SIGNS OF EXCESSES.--Dr. Dio Lewis says: "Some of the most common effects of s.e.xual excess are backache, la.s.situde, giddiness, dimness of sight, noises in the ears, numbness of the fingers, and paralysis. The drain is universal, but the more sensitive organs and tissues suffer {411} most. So the nervous system gives way and continues the princ.i.p.al sufferer throughout. A large part of the premature loss of sight and hearing, dizziness, numbness and p.r.i.c.king in the hands and feet, and other kindred developments, are justly chargeable to unbridled venery. Not unfrequently you see men whose head or back or nerve testifies of such reckless expenditure."
11. NON-COMPLETED INTERCOURSE.--Withdrawal before the emission occurs is injurious to both parties. The soiling of the conjugal bed by the shameful manoeuvres is to be deplored.
12. THE EXTENT OF THE PRACTICE.--One cannot tell to what extent this vice is practiced, except by observing its consequences, even among people who fear to commit the slightest sin, to such a degree is the public conscience perverted upon this point. Still, many husbands know that nature often renders nugatory the most subtle calculations, and reconquers the rights which they have striven to frustrate. No matter; they persevere none the less, and by the force of habit they poison the most blissful moments of life, with no surety of averting the result that they fear. So who knows if the too often feeble and weakened infants are not the fruit of these in themselves incomplete procreations, and disturbed by preoccupations foreign to the natural act.
13. HEALTH OF WOMEN.--Furthermore, the moral relations existing between the married couple undergo unfortunate changes; this affection, founded upon reciprocal esteem, is little by little effaced by the repet.i.tion of an act which pollutes the marriage bed. If the good harmony of families and the reciprocal relations are seriously menaced by the invasion of these detestable practices, the health of women, as we have already intimated, is fearfully injured.
14. THE PRACTICE OF ABORTION.--Then we have the practice of abortion reduced in modern times to a science, and almost to a distinct profession.
A large part of the business is carried on by the means of medicines advertised in obscure but intelligible terms as embryo-destroyers or preventives of conception. Every large city has its professional abortionist. Many ordinary physicians destroy embryos to order, and the skill to do this terrible deed has even descended among the common people.
15. s.e.xUAL EXHAUSTION.--Every s.e.xual excitement is exhaustive in proportion to its intensity and continuance. If a man sits by the side of a woman, fondles and kisses her three or four hours, and allows his imagination to run riot with s.e.xual visions, he will be five times as much exhausted {412} as he would by the act culminating in emission. It is the s.e.xual excitement more than the emission which exhausts. As shown in another part of this work, thoughts of s.e.xual intimacies, long continued, lead to the worst effects. To a man, whose imagination is filled with erotic fancies the emission comes as a merciful interruption to the burning, hara.s.sing and wearing excitement which so constantly goads him.
16. THE DESIRE OF GOOD.--The desire of good for its own sake--this is Love.
The desire of good for bodily pleasure--this is l.u.s.t. Man is a moral being, and as such should always act in the animal sphere according to the spiritual law. Hence, to break the law of the highest creative action for the mere gratification of animal instinct is to perform the act of sin and to produce the corruption of nature.
17. CAUSE OF PROSt.i.tUTION.--Dr. Dio Lewis says: "Occasionally we meet a diseased female with excessive animal pa.s.sion, but such a case is very rare. The average woman has so little s.e.xual desire that if licentiousness depended upon her, uninfluenced by her desire to please man or secure his support, there would be very little s.e.xual excess. Man is strong--he has all the money and all the facilities for business and pleasure; and woman is not long in learning the road to his favor. Many prost.i.tutes who take no pleasure in their unclean intimacies not only endure a disgusting life for the favor and means thus gained, but affect intense pa.s.sion in their s.e.xual contacts because they have learned that such exhibitions gratify men."
18. HUSBAND"S BRUTALITY.--Husbands! It is your licentiousness that drives your wives to a deed so abhorrent to their every wifely, womanly and maternal instinct--a deed which ruins the health of their bodies, prost.i.tutes their souls, and makes marriage, maternity and womanhood itself degrading and loathsome. No terms can sufficiently characterize the cruelty, meanness and disgusting selfishness of your conduct when you impose on them a maternity so detested as to drive them to the desperation of killing their unborn children and often themselves.
19. WHAT DRUNKARDS BEQUEATH TO THEIR OFFSPRING.--Organic imperfections unfit the brain for sane action, and habit confirms the insane condition; the man"s brain has become unsound. Then comes in the law of hereditary descent, by which the brain of a man"s children is fashioned after his own--not as it was originally, but as it has become, in consequence of frequent functional disturbance. Hence, of all appet.i.tes, the inherited appet.i.te for drunkenness is {413} the most direful. Natural laws contemplate no exceptions, and sins against them are never pardoned.
20. THE REPORTS OF HOSPITALS.--The reports of hospitals for lunatics almost universally a.s.sign intemperance as one of the causes which predispose a man"s offspring to insanity. This is even more strikingly manifested in the case of congenital idiocy. They come generally from a cla.s.s of families which seem to have degenerated physically to a low degree. They are puny and sickly.
21. SECRET DISEASES.--See the weakly, sickly and diseased children who are born only to suffer and die, all because of the private disease of the father before his marriage. Oh, let the truth be told that the young men of our land may learn the lessons of purity of life. Let them learn that in morality there is perfect protection and happiness.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GETTING A DIVORCE]
{414}
Physical and Moral Degeneracy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DEGENERATE TURK.]
1. MORAL PRINCIPLE.--"Edgar Allen Poe, Lord Byron, and Robert Burns," says Dr. Geo. F. Hall, "were men of marvelous strength intellectually. But measured by the true rule of high moral principle, they were very weak.
Superior endowment in a single direction--physical, mental, or spiritual--is not of itself sufficient to make one strong in all that that heroic word means.
2. INSANE ASYLUM.--Many a good man spiritually has gone to an untimely grave because of impaired physical powers. Many a good man spiritually has gone to the insane asylum because of bodily and mental weaknesses. Many a good man spiritually has fallen from virtue in an evil moment because of a weakened will, or, a too demanding fleshly pa.s.sion, or, worse than either, too lax views on the subject of personal chast.i.ty."
3. BOYS LEARNING VICES.--Some ignorant and timid people argue that boys and young men in reading a work of this character will learn vices concerning which they had {415} never so much as dreamed of before. This is, however, certain, that vices cannot be condemned unless they are mentioned; and if the condemnation is strong enough it surely will be a source of strength and of security. If light and education, on these important subjects, does injury, then all knowledge likewise must do more wrong than good. Knowledge is power, and the only hope of the race is enlightenment on all subjects pertaining to their being.
4. MORAL MANHOOD.--It is clearly visible that the American manhood is rotting down--decaying at the center. The present generation shows many men of a small body and weak principles, and men and women of this kind are becoming more and more prevalent. Dissipation and indiscretions of all kind are working ruin. Purity of life and temperate habits are being too generally disregarded.
5. YOUNG WOMEN.--The vast majority of graduates from the schools and colleges of our land to-day, and two-thirds of the membership of our churches, and three-fourths of the charitable workers, are females.
Everywhere girls are carrying off most of the prizes in compet.i.tive examinations, because women, as a s.e.x, naturally maintain a better character, take better care of their bodies, and are less addicted to bad and injurious habits. While all this is true in reference to females, you will find that the male s.e.x furnishes almost the entire number of criminals. The saloons, gambling dens, the brothels, and bad literature are drawing down all that the public schools can build up. Seventy per cent. of the young men of this land do not darken the church door. They are not interested in moral improvement or moral education. Eighty-five per cent.
leave school under 15 years of age; prefer the loafer"s honors to the benefit of school.
6. PROMOTION.--The world is full of good places for good young men, and all the positions of trust now occupied by the present generation will soon be filled by the competent young men of the coming generation; and he that keeps his record clean, lives a pure life, and avoids excesses or dissipations of all kinds, and fortifies his life with good habits, is the young man who will be heard from, and a thousand places will be open for his services.
7. PERSONAL PURITY.--Dr. George F. Hall says: "Why not pay careful attention to man in all his elements of strength, physical, mental, and moral? Why not make personal purity a fixed principle in the manhood of the present and coming generations, and thus insure the best men the world has ever seen? It can be done. Let every reader of these lines resolve that he will be one to help do it."
{416}
Immorality, Disease and Death.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Charles d.i.c.kens" Chair and Desk.]
1. THE POLICY OF SILENCE.--There is no greater delusion than to suppose that vast number of boys know nothing about practices of sin. Some parents are afraid that unclean thoughts may be suggested by these very defences.
The danger is slight. Such cases are barely possible, but when the untold thousands are thought of on the other side, who have been demoralized from childhood through ignorance, and who are to-day suffering the result of these vicious practices, the policy of silence stands condemned, and intelligent knowledge abundantly justified. The emphatic words of Scripture are true in this respect also, "The people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."
2. LIVING ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.--Without fear of truthful contradiction we affirm that the homes, public a.s.semblies, and streets of all our large cities abound to-day with living ill.u.s.trations and proofs of the widespread existence of this physical and moral scourge. An enervated and stunted manhood, a badly developed physique, a marked absence of manly and womanly strength and beauty, are painfully common everywhere. Boys and girls, young men and women, exist by thousands, of whom it may be said, they were badly born and ill-developed. Many of these are, to some extent, bearing the penalty of the sins and excesses of their parents, especially their fathers, whilst the great majority are reaping the fruits of their own immorality in a dwarfed and ill-formed body, and effeminate appearance, weak and enervated mind. {417}
3. EFFEMINATE AND SICKLY YOUNG MEN.--The purposeless and aimless life of any number of effeminate and sickly young men, is to be distinctly attributed to these sins. The large cla.s.s of mentally impotent "ne"er-do-wells" are being constantly recruited and added to by those who practice what the celebrated Erichson calls "that hideous sin engendered by vice, and practiced in solitude"--the sin, be it observed, which is the common cause of physical and mental weakness, and of the fearfully impoverishing night-emissions, or as they are commonly called, "wet-dreams."
4. WEAKNESS, DISEASE, DEFORMITY, AND DEATH.--Through self-pollution and fornication the land is being corrupted with weakness, disease, deformity, and death. We regret to say that we cannot speak with confidence concerning the moral character of the Jew; but we have people amongst us who have deservedly a high character for the tone of their moral life--we refer to the members of the Society of Friends. The average of life amongst these reaches no less than fifty-six years; and, whilst some allowance must be made for the fact that amongst the Friends the poor have not a large representation, these figures show conclusively the soundness of this position,
5. SOWING THEIR WILD OATS.--It is monstrous to suppose that healthy children should die just as they are coming to manhood. The fact that thousands of young people do reach the age of sixteen or eighteen, and then decline and die, should arouse parents to ask the question: Why? Certainly it would not be difficult to tell the reason in thousands of instances, and yet the habit and practice of the deadly sin of self-pollution is actually ignored; it is even spoken of as a boyish folly not to be mentioned, and young men literally burning up with l.u.s.t are mildly spoken of as "sowing their wild oats." Thus the cemetery is being filled with ma.s.ses of the youth of America who, as in Egypt of old, fill up the graves of uncleanness and l.u.s.t. Some time since a prominent Christian man was taking exception to my addressing men on this subject; observe this! one of his own sons was at that very time near the lunatic asylum through these disgusting sins. What folly and madness this is!
6. DEATH TO TRUE MANHOOD.--The question for each one is, "In what way are you going to divert the courses of the streams of energy which pertain to youthful vigor and manhood?" To be dest.i.tute of that which may be described as raw material in the human frame, means that no really vigorous manhood can have place; to burn up the juices of the system in the fires of l.u.s.t is madness and wanton folly, {418} but it can be done. To divert the currents of life and energy from blood and brain, from memory and muscle, in order to secrete it for the shambles of prost.i.tution, is death to true manhood; but remember, it can be done! The generous liquid life may inspire the brain and blood with n.o.ble impulse and vital force, or it may be sinned away and drained out of the system until the jaded brain, the faded cheek, the enervated young manhood, the gray hair, narrow chest, weak voice, and the enfeebled mind show another victim in the long catalogue of the degraded through l.u.s.t.
7. THE SISTERHOOD OF SHAME AND DEATH.--Whenever we pa.s.s the sisterhood of death, and hear the undertone of song, which is one of the harlot"s methods of advertising, let us recall the words, that these represent the "pestilence which walketh in darkness, the destruction that wasteth at noonday." The allusion, of course, is to the fact that the great majority of these harlots are full of loathsome physical and moral disease; with the face and form of an angel, these women "bite like a serpent and sting like an adder;" their traffic is not for life, but inevitably for shame, disease, and death. Betrayed and seduced themselves, they in their turn betray and curse others.
8. WARNING OTHERS.--Have you never been struck with the argument of the Apostle, who, warning others from the corrupt example of the fleshy Esau, said, "Lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one mess of meat sold his own birthright. For ye know that even afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears." Terrible and striking words are these. His birthright sold for a mess of meat. The fearful costs of sin--yes, that is the thought, particularly the sin of fornication! Engrave that word upon your memories and hearts--"One mess of meat."
9. THE HARLOT"S MESS OF MEAT.--Remember it, young men, when you are tempted to this sin. For a few minutes" sensual pleasure, for a mess of harlot"s meat, young men are paying out the love of the son and brother; they are deceiving, lying, and cheating for a mess of meat; for a mess, not seldom of putrid flesh, men have paid down purity and prayer, manliness and G.o.dliness; for a mess of meat some perhaps have donned their best attire, and a.s.sumed the manners of the gentleman, and then, like an infernal hypocrite, dogged the steps of maiden or harlot to satisfy their degrading l.u.s.t; for a mess of meat young men have deceived father and mother, and shrunk from the embrace of {419} love of the pure-minded sister. For the harlot"s mess of meat some listening to me have spent scores of hours of invaluable time. They have wearied the body, diseased and demoralized the mind. The pocket has been emptied, theft committed, lies unnumbered told, to play the part of the harlot"s mate--perchance a six-foot fool, dragged into the filth and mire of the harlot"s house. You called her your friend, when, but for her mess of meat, you would have pa.s.sed her like dirt in the street.
10. SEEING LIFE.--You consorted with her for your mutual shame and death, and then called it "seeing life." Had your mother met you, you would have shrunk away like a craven cur. Had your sister interviewed you, she had blushed to bear your name; or had she been seen by you in company with some other wh.o.r.emaster, for similar commerce, you would have wished that she had been dead. Now what think you of this "seeing life?" And it is for this that tens of thousands of strong men in our large cities are selling their birthright.
11. THE DEVIL"S DECOYS.--Some may be ready to affirm that physical and moral penalties do not appear to overtake all men; that many men known to be given to intemperance and sensuality are strong, well, and live to a good age. Let us not make any mistake concerning these; they are exceptions to the rule; the appearance of health in them is but the grossness of sensuality. You have only carefully to look into the faces of these men to see that their countenances, eyes, and speech betray them. They are simply the devil"s decoys.
12. GROSSNESS OF SENSUALITY.--The poor degraded harlot draws in the victims like a heavily charged lodestone; these men are found in large numbers throughout the entire community; they would make fine men were they not weighted with the grossness of sensuality; as it is, they frequent the race-course, the card-table, the drinking-saloon, the music-hall, and the low theaters, which abound in our cities and towns; the great majority of these are men of means and leisure. Idleness is their curse, their opportunity for sin; you may know them as the loungers over refreshment-bars, as the retailers of the latest filthy joke, or as the vendors of some disgusting scandal; indeed, it is appalling the number of these lepers found both in our business and social circles.