Southern city, was the youngest son of parents who were in moderate
circumstances, but appreciated the value of education, and were anxious
to give their children every advantage possible for them to receive.
With this end in view, the young man was sent to college, where he did
well for a time, being naturally studious and intelligent; but after
a brief period he began to drop behind his classes. He seemed moody
and obtuse. He could not complete his tasks even by the most severe
application. It seemed impossible for him to apply himself. The power
of concentration appeared to be lost. Soon he was seized by fits of
gloominess from which he did not seem to have power to free himself.
His strength began to fail to such a degree that he could hardly drag
himself to his meals, and at last he was almost confined to his room.
He became greatly emaciated. The failure of his mental powers seemed
to keep pace with the wasting of his body, so that it was soon evident
that he must abandon all hope of pursuing his studies for some time
at least. His case being brought to our notice, we gave him every
attention possible, and spared no effort to rescue him from his
condition. We readily perceived the cause of his troubles, but for a
long time he did not acknowledge the truth. At last he confessed that
he had sinned for years in the manner suspected, and was suffering the
consequences. A knowledge of his guilt weighed upon him and haunted
him day and night. He promised to reform; but if he did, it was too
late, for the wasting disease which was fastened upon him continued.
At his mother's request he returned to his home, and a few weeks later
we received the awful intelligence that he had ended his miserable life
by blowing out his brains with a pistol. Thus tragically ended the
career of this young man, who might, with the advantages afforded him,
have become a useful member of society. In total despair of this life
or the next, he rashly ended his probation, and with his own hand
finished the work of destruction which he had himself begun. No words
can tell the grief of his stricken mother; but, fortunately, she was
spared the knowledge of the whole truth, else would her sorrow have
been too great to bear.
From Bad to Worse.--C. E., a young man from the West, was sent to us
by his father with the request that we would do what we could to save
him. His father's letter intimated that the son had been a source of
grief to him, but he hoped that he had repented of his prodigal course,
and was really determined to reform. Though scarcely more than twenty
years of age, the young man's face wore an aspect of hardness, from
familiarity with vice, that we have rarely seen. He was reduced to a
mere skeleton by the vice which he made no secret of, and was so weak
that he could scarcely walk a rod. It seemed as if every organ in his
body was diseased, and that he had so squandered his vital resources
that he had no power to rally from his wretched condition even should
he carry out the determination to reform which he announced. However,
we gave him the best counsel and advice within our power, and placed
him under treatment. After a few weeks it was evident that nature was
still willing to respond to his endeavors to reform, by vigorous efforts
to restore him to a condition of comparative health. Thus he was
snatched, as it appeared, from the very jaws of death. Under these
circumstances it would seem that the most hardened criminal would
reform, at least for a season, and lead a life of rectitude; but so
utterly depraved was this poor wretch that no sooner did he find that
he was not liable to die immediately than he began at once again his
career of sin. By long indulgence his moral sense had become, apparently,
obliterated. He seemed to be utterly without the restraint imposed by
conscience. In less than a month he was detected in the crime of theft,
having stolen a watch from a fellow-patient. Upon his arrest,
stimulated by the hope of in some degree mitigating his punishment,
he confessed to have been carrying on a series of petty thieving for
weeks before he was finally detected, having scores of stolen articles
in his possession. The last time we saw the wretched fellow he was being
led away in irons to prison. We have since heard that he continues in
his downward career, having served out his time in prison, and will
undoubtedly end his life in a felon's cell unless he is shrewd enough
to escape his just deserts. Having lost all desire to do right, to be
noble, pure, and good, all efforts to reform and restore him to the
path of rectitude were fruitless. It was only the fear of impending
death that caused him to pause for a few days in his criminal course.
Young man, take warning by this sad case; enter not the pathway of vice.
A course of vice once entered upon is not easily left. A youth who once
gives himself up to sin, rarely escapes from going headlong to
destruction.
An Indignant Father.--A case came to our knowledge through a gentleman
who brought his daughter to us for treatment for the effects of
self-abuse, of a father who adopted a summary method of curing his son
of the evil practice. Having discovered that the lad was a victim of
the vile habit, and having done all in his power by punishment, threats,
and representations of its terrible effects, but without inducing him
to reform, the father, in a fit of desperation, seized the sinful boy
and with his own hand performed upon him the operation of castration
as he would have done upon a colt. The boy recovered from the operation,
and was of course effectually cured of his vile habit. The remedy was
efficient, though scarcely justifiable. Even a father has no right thus
to mutilate his own son, though we must confess that the lad's chances
for becoming a useful man are fully as good as they would have been
had he continued his course of sin.
Disgusted with Life.--T. A. was a young man of promise, the son of
ambitious parents, proud-spirited, and without respect for religion.
While still quite young he enlisted in the service of the government,
and after a time rose to the position of an officer in the U. S. army.
Having in boyhood acquired the habit of self-abuse, he had stimulated
his passions without restraint, and was readily led still farther
astray by the evil companions with whom he was surrounded. He indulged
his passions in every way and on every occasion when he found
opportunity, and speedily began to feel the effects of his vices. Before
he was fully aware of his condition, he found himself being literally
devoured by the vilest of all diseases, which only those who transgress
in this manner suffer. The disease made rapid advances and speedily
reduced him to a condition of almost absolute helplessness. He was
obliged to obtain a furlough; but his vital forces were so nearly
exhausted that he did not rally even under skillful treatment; and when
his furlough expired, he was still in the same pitiable condition.
Getting it extended for a time, he by accident came under our care,
and by the aid of very thorough treatment he was in a measure improved,
though the progress of the disease was simply stayed. When apprized
of his real condition, he exhibited much agitation, walking nervously
about his room, and finally exclaimed that he was utterly disgusted
with life anyway, and after a few weeks or months more of suffering
he should blow his brains out and end his misery. He had no fears of
death, he said, and we presume that he could not imagine it possible
that there was any greater suffering in store for him than he already
endured. We pitied the poor fellow from the bottom of our heart. He
had natural qualities which ought to have made him distinguished. He
might have risen high in the world of usefulness. Now he was compelled
to look back upon a short life of squandered opportunities, a pathway
stained with vice, memories of vile debaucheries which had wasted his
youth and broken his constitution. Wretched was he indeed.
Notwithstanding his vileness he was not lost to shame, for his greatest
fear was that his friends might ascertain the real cause of his
sufferings, to conceal which he was obliged to resort to all sorts of
subterfuges. As soon as he was able to travel he left us, being obliged
to report to his superior officers, and we have heard nothing of him
since.
Scores of similar cases we might recount in detail, but we have not
here the space. These will suffice to give to the young reader an idea
of the terrible results of this awful vice which are suffered by its
victims. We have not dared to portray on these pages one-half the misery
and wretchedness which we have seen as the results of self-abuse and
the vices to which it leads. The picture is too terrible for young eyes
to behold. We most sincerely hope that none of our readers will ever
have to suffer as we have seen boys and young men do, languishing in
misery as the result of their own transgressions of the laws of chastity.
We will now devote the remaining pages of this chapter to the
consideration of some of the causes of the vice, the avenues that lead
to the awful sin which we are considering, and the terrible consequences
which attend it.
Bad Company.--The influence of evil companionship is one of the most
powerful agents for evil against which those who love purity and are
seeking to elevate and benefit their fellow-men have to contend. A bad
boy can do more harm in a community than can be counteracted by all
the clergymen, Sabbath-school teachers, tract-distributers, and other
Christian workers combined. An evil boy is a pest compared with which
the cholera, small-pox, and even the plague, are nothing. The damage
which would be done by a terrific hurricane sweeping with destructive
force through a thickly settled district is insignificant compared with
the evil work which may be accomplished by one vicious lad.
No community is free from these vipers, these agents of the arch-fiend.
Every school, no matter how select it may be, contains a greater or
less number of these young moral lepers. Often they pursue their work
unsuspected by the good and pure, who do not dream of the vileness pent
up in the young brains which have not yet learned the multiplication
table and scarcely learned to read. We have known instances in which
a boy of seven or eight years of age has implanted the venom of vice
in the hearts and minds of half a score of pure-minded lads within a
few days of his first association with them. This vice spreads like
wild-fire. It is more "catching" than the most contagious disease, and
more tenacious, when once implanted, than the leprosy.
Boys are easily influenced either for right or for wrong, but especially
for the wrong; hence it is the duty of parents to select good companions
for their children, and it is the duty of children to avoid bad company
as they would avoid carrion or the most loathsome object. A boy with
a match box in a powder magazine would be in no greater danger than
in the company of most of the lads who attend our public schools and
play upon the streets. It is astonishing how early children, especially
boys, will sometimes learn the hideous, shameless tricks of vice which
yearly lead thousands down to everlasting death. Often children begin
their course of sin while yet cradled in their mother's arms, thus early
taught by some vile nurse. Boys that fight and swear, that play upon
the streets and disobey their parents, may be wisely shunned as unfit
for associates. In many instances, too, boys whose conduct is in other
respects wholly faultless sometimes indulge in vice, ignorant of its
real nature and consequences. At the first intimation of evil on the
part of a companion, a boy who is yet pure should flee away as from
a deadly serpent or a voracious beast. Do not let the desire to gratify
a craving curiosity deter you from fleeing at once from the source of
contamination. Under such circumstances do not hesitate a moment to
escape from danger. If an evil word is spoken or an indecent act of
any sort indulged in by a companion, cut the acquaintance of such a
boy at once. Never allow yourself to be alone with him a moment. On
no account be induced to associate with him. He will as surely soil
and besmear with sin your moral garments as would contact with the most
filthy object imaginable your outer garments.
It were better for a boy never to see or associate with a lad of his
own age than to run any risk of being corrupted before he is old enough
to appreciate the terrible enormity of sin and the awful consequences
of transgression. It should be recollected also that not only young
boys but vicious youths and young men are frequently the instructors
in vice. It is unsafe to trust any but those who are known to be pure.
Bad Language.--We have often been astonished at the facility with which
children acquire the language of vice. Often we have been astounded
to hear little boys scarcely out of their cradles, lisping the most
horrible oaths and the vilest epithets. The streets and alleys in our
large cities, and in smaller ones too in a less degree, are nurseries
of vice, in which are reared the criminals that fill our jails, prisons,
work-houses, school-ships, and houses of correction. Many a lad begins
his criminal education by learning the language of vice and sin. At
first he simply imitates the evil utterances of others; but soon he
learns the full significance of the obscene and filthy language which
he hears and repeats, and then he rapidly progresses in the downward
road.
A boy that indulges in the use of foul language will not long be chaste
in acts. It is a safe rule to be followed by those who wish to grow
up pure and unsullied by sin, untainted by vice, that those who use
bad language are persons to avoid, to keep away from. Even those who
are well fortified against vice, who have been faithfully warned of
its consequences and fully appreciate its dangers, cannot be safely
trusted to associate with vile talkers. The use of bad language by old
and young is an evil which is of the very greatest moment. It is too
often ignored; too little is said about it; far too often it is
disregarded as of little consequence, and persons who are really not
bad at heart thoughtlessly encourage the evil by listening to and
laughing at obscene and ribald jokes, and impure language which ought
to make a virtuous man blush with shame to hear.
Boys, if you want to be pure, if you wish to be loved by a pure mother,
an innocent sister, and when you are grown to manhood to be worthy of
the confidence of a pure, virtuous wife, keep your lips pure; never
let a vile word or an indecent allusion pass them. Never, under any
circumstances, give utterance to language that you would blush to have
your mother overhear. If you find yourself in the company of persons
whose language will not bear this test, escape as soon as possible,
for you are in danger; your sense of what is right and proper in speech
is being vitiated; you are being damaged in a variety of ways.
Bad Books.--A bad book is as bad as an evil companion. In some respects
it is even worse than a living teacher of vice, since it may cling to
an individual at all times. It may follow him to the secrecy of his
bed-chamber, and there poison his mind with the venom of evil. The
influence of bad books in making bad boys and men is little appreciated.
Few are aware how much evil seed is being sown among the young everywhere
through the medium of vile books. It is not only the wretched volumes
of obscenity of which so many thousands have been seized and destroyed
by Mr. Comstock which are included under the head of bad books, and
which corrupt the morals of the young and lead them to enter the road
to infamy, but the evil literature which is sold in "dime and nickel
novels," and which constitutes the principal part of the contents of
such papers as the _Police Gazette_, the _Police News_, and a large
proportion of the sensational story books which flood the land, and
too many of which find their way into town and circulating libraries
and even Sunday-school libraries, which are rarely selected with the
care that ought to be exercised in the selection of reading matter for
the young.
Bad books often find their way even where evil companions would not
intrude; and undoubtedly effect a work of evil almost as great as is
wrought by bad associations.
Look out, boys, for the tempter in this guise. If a companion offers
you a book the character of which is suspicious, take it home to your
father, your mother, or some reliable older friend, for examination.
If it is handed you with an air of secrecy, or if a promise to keep
it hidden from others is required, have nothing to do with it. You might
better place a coal of fire or a live viper in your bosom than to allow
yourself to read such a book. The thoughts that are implanted in the
mind in youth will stick there through life, in spite of all efforts
to dislodge them. Hundreds of men who have been thus injured when young,
but have by some providence escaped a life of vice and shame, look back
with most intense regret to the early days of childhood, and earnestly
wish that the pictures then made in the mind by bad books might be
effaced. Evil impressions thus formed often torture minds during a
whole lifetime. In the most inopportune moments they will intrude
themselves. When the individual desires to place his mind undividedly
upon sacred and elevated themes, even at the most solemn moments of
life, these lewd pictures will sometimes intrude themselves in spite
of his efforts to avoid them. It is an awful thing to allow the mind
to be thus contaminated; and many a man would give the world, if he
possessed it, to be free from the horrible incubus of a defiled
imagination.
Vile Pictures.--Obscene and lascivious pictures are influences which
lead boys astray too important to be unnoticed. Evil men, agents of
the arch-fiend, have adopted all sorts of devices for putting into the
hands of the boys and youths of the rising generation pictures
calculated to excite the passions, to lead to vice. Thousands of these
vile pictures are in circulation throughout the country in spite of
the worthy efforts of such philanthropists as Mr. Anthony Comstock and
his co-laborers. In almost every large school there are boys who have
a supply of these infamous designs and act as agents in scattering the
evil contagion among all who come under their influence.
Under the guise of art, the genius of some of our finest artists is
turned to pandering to this base desire for sensuous gratification.
The pictures which hang in many of our art galleries that are visited
by old and young of both sexes often number in the list views which
to those whose thoughts are not well trained to rigid chastity can be
only means of evil. A plea may be made for these paintings in the name
of art; but we see no necessity for the development of art in this
particular direction, when nature presents so many and such varied
scenes of loveliness in landscapes, flowers, beautiful birds, and
graceful animals, to say nothing of the human form protected by
sufficient covering to satisfy the demands of modesty.
Many of the papers and magazines sold at our news-stands and eagerly
sought after by young men and boys are better suited for the parlors
of a house of ill-repute than for the eyes of pure-minded youth. A
news-dealer who will distribute such vile sheets ought to be dealt with
as an educator in vice and crime, an agent of evil, and a recruiting
officer for hell and perdition.
Evil Thoughts.--No one can succeed long in keeping himself from vicious
acts whose thoughts dwell upon unchaste subjects. Only those who are
pure in heart will be pure and chaste in action. The mind must be
educated to love and dwell upon pure subjects in early life, as by this
means only can the foundation be laid for that purity of character which
alone will insure purity of life. When the mind once becomes
contaminated with evil thoughts, it requires the work of years of
earnest effort to purge it from uncleanness. Vile thoughts leave scars
which even time will not always efface. They soil and deprave the soul,
as vile acts do the body. God knows them, if no human being does, and
if harbored and cherished they will tell against the character in the
day of Judgment as surely as will evil words and deeds.
Influence of Other Bad Habits.--Evil practices of any sort which lower
the moral tone of an individual, which lessen his appreciation of and
love for right and purity and true nobility of soul, encourage the
development of vice. A boy who loves purity, who has a keen sense of
what is true and right, can never become a vicious man. Profanity,
falsehood, and deception of every sort, have a tendency in the direction
of vice.
The use of highly seasoned food, of rich sauces, spices and condiments,
sweetmeats, and in fact all kinds of stimulating foods, has an undoubted
influence upon the sexual nature of boys, stimulating those organs into
too early activity, and occasioning temptations to sin which otherwise
would not occur. The use of mustard, pepper, pepper-sauce, spices, rich
gravies, and all similar kinds of food, should be carefully avoided
by young persons. They are not wholesome for either old or young; but
for the young they are absolutely dangerous.
The use of beer, wine, hard cider, and tobacco, is especially damaging
to boys on this account. These stimulants excite the passions and
produce a clamoring for sensual gratification which few boys or young
men have the will power or moral courage to resist. Tobacco is an
especially detrimental agent. The early age at which boys now begin
the use of tobacco may be one of the reasons why the practice of secret
vice is becoming so terribly common among boys and young men. We never
think a boy or young man who uses tobacco safe from the commission of
some vile act.
The use of tea and coffee by boys is also a practice which should be
interdicted. All wise physicians forbid the use of these narcotic
drinks, together with that of tobacco, and always with benefit to those
who abstain. In France the government has made a law forbidding the
use of tobacco by students in the public schools. In Germany a still
more stringent law has been made, which forbids the use of tobacco by
boys and young men. These laws have been made on account of the serious
injury which was evidently resulting from the use of the filthy weed
to both the health and the morals of the young men of those countries.
There is certainly an equal need for such a law in this country.
Closing Advice to Boys and Young Men.--One word more and we must close
this chapter, which we hope has been read with care by those for whom
it is especially written. Let every boy who peruses these pages remember
that the facts here stated are true. Every word we have verified, and
we have not written one-half that might be said upon this subject. Let
the boy who is still pure, who has never defiled himself with vice,
firmly resolve that with the help of God he will maintain a pure and
virtuous character. It is much easier to preserve purity than to get
free from the taint of sin after having been once defiled. Let the boy
who has already fallen into evil ways, who has been taught the vile
practice the consequences of which we have endeavored to describe, and
who is already in the downward road,--let him resolve now to break the
chain of sin, to reform at once, and to renounce his evil practice
forever. The least hesitancy, the slightest dalliance with the demon
vice, and the poor victim will be lost. Now, this moment, is the time
to reform. Seek purity of mind and heart. Banish evil thoughts and shun
evil companions; then with earnest prayer to God wage a determined
battle for purity and chastity until the victory is wholly won.