published once a week, in those stories of vice and shame, full of
infamous suggestions, going as far as they can without exposing
themselves to the clutch of the law. I name none of them; but say that
on some fashionable tables there lie 'family newspapers' that are the
very vomit of the pit.
"The way to ruin is cheap. It costs three dollars to go to Philadelphia;
six dollars to Boston; thirty-three dollars to Savannah; but, by the
purchase of a bad paper for ten cents you may get a through ticket to
hell, by express, with few stopping places, and the final halting like
the tumbling of the lightning train down the draw-bridge at
Norwalk--sudden, terrific, deathful, never to rise."
[Footnote 43: T. De Witt Talmage.]
Poverty.--The pressing influence of poverty has been urged as one cause
of prostitution. It cannot be denied that in many cases, in large cities,
this may be the immediate occasion of the entrance of a young girl upon
a life of shame; but it may still be insisted that there must have been,
in such cases, a deficiency in previous training; for a young woman,
educated with a proper regard for purity, would sooner sacrifice life
itself than virtue. Again, poverty can be no excuse, for in every city
there are made provisions for the relief of the needy poor, and none
who are really worthy need suffer.
Ignorance.--Perhaps nothing fosters vice more than ignorance.
Prostitutes come almost entirely from the more ignorant classes, though
there are, of course, many exceptions. Among the lowest classes, vice
is seen in its grossest forms, and is carried to the greatest lengths.
Intellectual culture is antagonistic to sensuality. As a general rule,
in proportion as the intellect is developed, the animal passions are
brought into subjection. It is true that very intellectual men have
been great libertines, and that the licentious Borgias and Medicis of
Italy encouraged art and literature; but these are only apparent
exceptions, for who knows to what greater depths of vice these
individuals might have sunk had it not been for the restraining
influence of mental culture?
Says Deslandes, "In proportion as the intellect becomes enfeebled, the
generative sensibility is augmented." The animal passions seem to
survive when all higher intelligence is lost. We once saw an
illustration of this fact in an idiot who was brought before a medical
class in a clinic at Bellevue Hospital, New York. The patient had been
an idiot from birth, and presented the most revolting appearance,
seemingly possessing scarcely the intelligence of the average dog; but
his animal propensities were so great as to be almost uncontrollable.
Indeed, he showed evidences of having been a gross debauchee, having
contracted venereal disease of the worst form. The general prevalence
of extravagant sexual excitement among the insane is a well-known fact.
Disease.--Various diseases which cause local irritation and congestion
of the reproductive organs are the causes of unchastity in both sexes,
as previously explained. It not unfrequently happens that by constantly
dwelling upon unchaste subjects until a condition of habitual
congestion of the sexual organs is produced, young women become seized
with a furor for libidinous commerce which nothing but the desired
object will appease, unless active remedial measures are adopted under
the direction of a skillful physician. This disease, known as
_nymphomania_, has been the occasion of the fall of many young women
of the better classes who have been bred in luxury and idleness, but
were never taught even the first lessons of purity or self-control.
Constipation, piles, worms, pruritis of the genitals, and some other
less common diseases of the urinary and genital systems, have been
causes of sexual excitement which has resulted in moral degradation.
Results of Licentiousness.--Apparently as a safeguard to virtue,
nature has appended to the sin of illicit sexual indulgence, as
penalties, the most loathsome, deadly, and incurable diseases known
to man. Some of these, as _gonorrhea_ and _chancroid_, are purely local
diseases; and though they occasion the transgressor a vast amount of
suffering, they may be cured and leave no trace of their presence except
in the conscience of the individual. Such a result, however, is by no
means the usual one. Most frequently, the injury done is more or less
permanent; sometimes it amounts to loss of life or serious mutilation,
as in cases we have seen. And one attack secures no immunity from
subsequent ones, as a new disease may be contracted upon every exposure.
By far the worst form of venereal disease is _syphilis_, a malady which
was formerly confounded with the two forms of disease mentioned, but
from which it is essentially different. At first, a very slight local
lesion, of no more consequence--except from its significance--than a
small boil, it rapidly infects the general system, poisoning the whole
body, and liable forever after to develop itself in any one or more
of its protean forms. The most loathsome sight upon which a human eye
can rest is a victim of this disease who presents it well developed
in its later stages. In the large Charity Hospital upon Blackwell's
Island, near New York City, we have seen scores of these unfortunates
of both sexes, exhibiting the horrid disease in all its phases. To
describe them would be to place before our readers a picture too
revolting for these pages. No pen can portray the woebegone faces, the
hopeless air, of these degraded sufferers whose repentance has come,
alas! too late. No words can convey an adequate idea of their sufferings.
What remorse and useless regrets add to the misery of their wretched
existence as they daily watch the progress of a malignant ulceration
which is destroying their organs of speech, or burrowing deep into the
recesses of the skull, penetrating even to the brain itself! Even the
bones become rottenness; foul running sores appear on different
portions of the body, and may even cover it entirely. Perhaps the nose,
or the tongue, or the lips, or an eye, or some other prominent organ,
is lost. Still the miserable sufferer lingers on, life serving only
to prolong the torture. To many of them, death would be a grateful
release, even with the fires of retributive justice before their eyes;
for hell itself could scarcely be more awful punishment than that which
they daily endure.
Thousands of Victims.--The venturesome youth need not attempt to calm
his fears by thinking that these are only exceptional cases, for this
is not the truth. In any city, one who has an experienced eye can
scarcely walk a dozen blocks on busy streets without encountering the
woeful effects of sexual transgression. Neither do these results come
only from long-continued violations of the laws of chastity. The very
first departure from virtue may occasion all the worst effects
possible.
Effects of Vice Ineradicable.--Another fearful feature of this
terrible disease is that when once it invades the system its eradication
is impossible. No drug, no chemical, can antidote its virulent poison
or drive it from the system. Various means may smother it, possibly
for a life-time; but yet it is not cured, and the patient is never safe
from a new outbreak. Prof. Bumstead, an acknowledged authority on this
subject, after observing the disease for many years, says that "he never
after treatment, however prolonged, promises immunity for the
future."[44] Dr. Van Buren, professor of surgery at Bellevue Hospital
Medical College, New York, bears the same testimony.
[Footnote 44: Venereal Disease.]
Prof. Van Buren also says that he has often seen the disease occur upon
the lips of young ladies who were entirely virtuous, but who were
engaged to men who had contracted the disease and had communicated it
to them by the act of kissing. Virtuous wives have not infrequently
had their constitutions hopelessly ruined by contracting the disease
from husbands who had themselves been inoculated either before or after
marriage, by illicit intercourse. Several such unfortunate cases have
fallen under our observation, and there is reason to believe that they
are not infrequent.
The Only Hope.--The only hope for one who has contracted this disease
is to lead a life of perfect continence ever after, and by a most careful
life, by conforming strictly to the laws of health, by bathing and
dieting, he may possibly avoid the horrid consequences of the later
stages of the malady. Mercury will not cure, nor will any other poison,
as before remarked.
The following strong testimony on this subject we quote from an
admirable pamphlet by Prof. Fred. H. Gerrish, M.D.:--
"The diseases dependent upon prostitution are appallingly frequent,
a distinguished surgeon recently declaring that one person in twenty
in the United States has syphilis, a malady so ineradicable that a
profound observer has remarked that 'a man who is once thus poisoned
will die a syphilitic, and, in the day of Judgment, he will be a
syphilitic ghost.' Prof. Gross says: 'What is called scrofula, struma,
or tuberculosis, is, I have long been satisfied from careful
observation of the sick and a profound study of the literature of the
subject, in a great majority of cases, if not invariably, merely
syphilis in its more remote stages.' Though there are doubtless many
of us who believe that a not inconsiderable proportion of scrofulous
and phthisical cases are clearly due to other causes than syphilis,
we must admit that this statement contains a very large element of
truth."
Hereditary Effects of Venereal Disease.--The transgressor is not the
only sufferer. If he marries, his children, if they survive infancy,
will in later years show the effects of their father's sin, exhibiting
the forms of the disease seen in its later stages. Scrofula, consumption,
cancer, rickets, diseases of the brain and nerves, decay of the bones
by caries or necrosis, and other diseases, arise in this way.
But it generally happens that the child dies before birth, or lingers
out a miserable existence of a few days or weeks thereafter. A most
pitiable sight these little ones are. Their faces look as old as
children of ten or twelve. Often their bodies become reduced before
death to the most wretched skeletons. Their hollow, feeble cry sends
a shudder of horror through the listener, and impresses indelibly the
terrible consequences of sexual sin. Plenty of these scrawny infants
may be seen in the lying-in hospitals.
No one can estimate how much of the excessive mortality of infants is
owing to this cause.
In children who survive infancy, its blighting influence may be seen
in the notched, deformed teeth, and other defects; and very often it
will be found, upon looking into the mouth of the child, that the soft
palate, and perhaps the hard palate as well, is in a state of ulceration.
There is more than a suspicion that this disease may be transmitted
for several generations, perhaps remaining latent during the life-time
of one, and appearing in all its virulence in the next.
Man the Only Transgressor.--Man is the only animal that abuses his
sexual organization by making it subservient to other ends than
reproduction; hence he is the only sufferer from this foul disease,
which is one of the penalties of such abuse. Attempts have been made
to communicate the disease to lower animals, but without success, even
though inoculation was practiced.
Origin of the Foul Disease.--Where or when the disease originated, is
a mystery. It is said to have been introduced into France from Naples
by French soldiers. That it originated spontaneously at some time can
scarcely be doubted, and that it might originate under circumstances
of excessive violation of the laws of chastity is rendered probable
by the fact that gonorrhea, or an infectious disease exactly resembling
it, is often caused by excessive indulgence, from which cause it not
infrequently occurs in the newly married, giving rise to unjust
suspicion of infidelity on both sides.
Read the following from a noted French physician:--
"The father, as well as the mother, communicates the syphilitic virus
to the children. These poor little beings are attacked sometimes at
their birth; more often it is at the end of a month or two, before these
morbid symptoms appear.
"I recall the heart-rending anguish of a mother whom I assisted at her
fifth confinement. She related to me her misfortune: 'I have already
brought into the world four children. Alas! they all died during the
first months of their existence. A frightful eruption wasted them away
and killed them. Save me the one that is about to be born!' cried she,
in tears. The child that I delivered was sickly and puny. A few days
after its birth, it had purulent ophthalmia; then, crusted and
ulcerated pustules, a few at first, numerous afterward, covered the
entire surface of the skin. Soon this miserable little being became
as meager as a skeleton, hideous to the sight, and died. Having
questioned the husband, he acknowledged to me that he had had
syphilis."[45]
[Footnote 45: Bourgeois.]
Cure of the "Social Evil."--With rare exceptions, the efforts of civil
legislation have been directed toward controlling or modifying this
vice, rather than extirpating it.
Among other devices adopted with a view to effect this, and to mitigate
in some degree the resulting evils, the issuing of licenses for brothels
has been practiced in several large cities. One of the conditions of
the license makes it obligatory upon the keepers of houses of ill-repute
and their inmates to submit to medical examination at stated intervals.
By this means, it is expected to detect the cases of foul disease at
the outset, and thus to protect others by placing the infected
individuals under restraint and treatment. It will be seen that for
many reasons such examinations could not be effective; but, even if
they were, the propriety of this plan of dealing with the vice is
exceedingly questionable, as will appear from the following
considerations:--
1. The moment that prostitution is placed under the protection of law
by means of a license, it at once loses half its disrepute, and becomes
respectable, as do gambling and liquor-selling under the same
circumstances.
2. Why should so vile a crime as fornication be taken under legal
protection more than stealing or the lowest forms of gambling? Is it
not a lesser crime against human nature to rob a man of his money by
theft or by deceit and trickery than to snatch from him at one fell
swoop his health, his virtue, and his peace of mind? Why not as well
have laws to regulate burglary and assassination, allowing the
perpetrators of those crimes to ply their chosen avocations with
impunity under certain prescribed restrictions; if robbery, for
instance, requiring the thief to leave his victim money enough to make
his escape to another country; or, if murder, directing the assassin
to allow his intended victim time to repeat a sufficient number of _Ave
Marias_ to insure his safe transit through purgatory or to pay a priest
for doing the same? Such a course would not be inconsistent with the
policy which legalizes that infamous traffic in human souls,
prostitution.
3. By the use of certain precautionary measures the fears of many will
be allayed, so that thousands whose fear of the consequences of sin
would otherwise have kept them physically virtuous, at least,
erroneously supposing that the cause for fear has been removed, will
rush madly into a career of vice, and will learn only too late the folly
of their course.
Prevention the Only Cure.--Those who have once entered upon a career
of sensuality are generally so completely lost to all sense of purity
and right that there is little chance for reforming them. They have
no principle to which to appeal. The gratification of lust so degrades
the soul and benumbs the higher sensibilities that a votary of
voluptuousness is a most unpromising subject for reformatory efforts.
The old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is
strikingly exemplified in this case. The remedy must be applied before
the depths have been reached. It was well said by a celebrated physician
to a young man beginning a life of vice, "You are entering upon a career
from which you will never turn back."
Early Training.--The remedy, to be effective, must be applied early,
the earlier the better. Lessons on chastity may be given in early
infancy. The remedy may be applied even further back than this; children
must be virtuously generated. The bearing of this point will be fully
appreciated in connection with the principles established in the
preceding pages of this work, and which have already been sufficiently
elucidated.
Children should be early taught to reverence virtue, to abhor lust;
and boys should be so trained that they will associate with the name
of woman only pure, chaste, and noble thoughts. Few things are more
deeply injurious to the character of woman, and more conducive to the
production of foul imaginations in children, than the free discussion
of such subjects as the "Beecher scandal" and like topics. The
inquisitive minds and lively imaginations of childhood penetrate the
rotten mysteries of such foul subjects at a much earlier age than many
persons imagine. The inquiring minds of children will be occupied in
some way, and it is of the utmost importance that they should be early
filled with thoughts that will lead them to noble and pure actions.
Teach Self-Control.--One important part of early training is the
cultivation of self-control, and a habit of self-denial, whenever right
demands it. Another most essential part of a child's moral training
is the cultivation of right motives. To present a child no higher
motives for doing right than the hope of securing some pleasant reward,
or the fear of suffering some terrible punishment, is the surest way
to make of him a supremely selfish man, with no higher aim than to secure
good to himself, no matter what may become of other people. And if he
can convince himself that the pleasure he will secure by the commission
of a certain act will more than counterbalance the probable risk of
suffering, he will not hesitate to commit it, leaving wholly out of
the consideration the question, Is it right? or noble? or pure? A love
of right for its own sake is the only solid basis upon which to build
a moral character. Children should not be taught to do right in order
to avoid a whipping, or imprisonment in a dark closet,--a horrid kind
of punishment sometimes resorted to,--or even to escape "the lake of
fire and brimstone." Neither should they be constantly coaxed to
right-doing by promised rewards,--a new toy, a book, an excursion, nor
even the pleasures of Heaven. All of these incentives are selfish, and
invariably narrow the character and belittle life when made the _chief_
motives of action. But rather begin at the earliest possible moment
to instill into the mind a love for right, and truth, and purity, and
virtue, and an abhorrence for their contraries; then will he have a
worthy principle by which to square his life; then will he be safe from
the assaults of passion, of vice, of lust. A mind so trained stands
upon an eminence from which all evil men and devils combined cannot
displace it so long as it adheres to its noble principles.
Mental Culture.--The cultivation of the physical organization must not
be neglected. Healthful mental discipline should receive equal
attention. By healthful mental discipline is not meant that kind of
superficial "cramming" and memorizing which constitute the training
of the average school, but sound culture; a directing of the mind from
facts to underlying principles; a development of the reasoning powers
so as to bring the emotions and passions into subjection; the
acquirement of the power to concentrate the mind, one of the best
methods of cultivating self-control,--these are some of the objects
and results of sound culture of the mind.
To supply the mind with food for pure thoughts, the child should be
early inspired with a love for nature. The perceptives should be trained,
the child taught to observe closely and accurately. The study of the
natural sciences is a most valuable means of elevating the mind above
grossness and sensuality. To be successful in this direction, parents
must cultivate a love for the same objects themselves. Take the little
ones into the country, if they are not so fortunate as to live there,
and in the midst of nature's glories, point their impressible minds
upward to the Author of all the surrounding loveliness. Gather flowers
and leaves and call attention to the peculiarities and special beauties
of each, and thus arouse curiosity and cultivate habits of close
observation and attention.
Early Associations.--As children grow older, watch their associations.
Warn them of evil influences and evil practices. Make home so attractive
that they will enjoy it better than any other place. Cultivate music;
its mellowing, harmonizing, refining influence is too great to be
prudently withheld. Children naturally love music; and if they cannot
hear it at home, they will go where they can hear it. Supply attractive
books of natural history, travels, interesting and instructive
biographies, and almost any other books but love-sick novels, and
sentimental religious story-books. Guard against bad books and bad
associates as carefully as though they were deadly serpents, for they
are, indeed, the artful emissaries of the "old serpent" himself. A taste
once formed for reading light literature destroys the relish for solid
reading; and usually the taste, once lost, is never regained. The
fascination of bad companionship once formed around a person is broken
with the greatest difficulty. Hence the necessity for watching for the
very beginnings of evil and promptly checking them.
The mind should be thus fortified against the trifles and follies of
fashionable life. It should be elevated into a sphere far above that
occupied by those who pass their time in fashionable drawing-rooms in
silly twaddle, with thrumming a piano, with listless day-dreaming, or
in the gratification of perverted tastes and depraved instincts in any
other of the ways common to fashionable life.
SOLITARY VICE.
If illicit commerce of the sexes is a heinous sin, self-pollution, or
masturbation, is a crime doubly abominable. As a sin against nature,
it has no parallel except in sodomy (see Gen. 19:5, Judges 19:22). It
is the most dangerous of all sexual abuses, because the most extensively
practiced. The vice consists in any excitement of the genital organs
produced otherwise than in the natural way. It is known by the terms,
self-pollution, self-abuse, masturbation, onanism, manustupration,
voluntary pollution, solitary or secret vice, and other names
sufficiently explanatory. The vice is the more extensive because there
are no bounds to its indulgence. Its frequent repetition fastens it
upon the victim with a fascination almost irresistible. It may be begun
in earliest infancy, and may continue through life.
Even though no warning may have been given, the transgressor seems to
know, instinctively, that he is committing a great wrong, for he
carefully hides his practice from observation. In solitude he pollutes
himself, and with his own hand blights all his prospects for both this
world and the next. Even after being solemnly warned, he will often
continue this worse than beastly practice, deliberately forfeiting his
right to health and happiness for a moment's mad sensuality.