Seeing and knowing no danger in it, they follow out the natural sex
impulse to touch one another and to caress each other. Why not? Have
they not read in the love story of the lover and the sweetheart kissing
and caressing each other, and furthermore, and _the strongest possible
evidence in the case, have they not seen father and mother kiss and
caress each other_? Is it not the most natural thing, under these
conditions, for these children to enter into such familiar relations as
will lead to serious consequences in many cases?
I know many a girl has lived through this period of ignorant familiarity
with young men without having her character wholly ruined, and she
appears before those of us who know the danger through which she has
passed, as a living miracle.
But having escaped these dangers herself, what has she done for the
young man with whom she has had these familiar relations? She has,
unwittingly of course, multiplied the sex impulses in his life till
they sweep over him like a fire in the forest. He is a manly young
fellow and would scorn the thought even of allowing these impulses to
expend themselves upon the one who had awakened them and increased
their outflooding. In the midst of these experiences he falls in
with some young man older than himself, and they talk it over. This
fellow prides himself on being worldly wise, and so the younger man
is influenced by him. The result is that he goes to someone who will
receive him for a money consideration. Then comes the awful awakening,
and he recognizes the fact, that the blighting leprosy of the sin of
lewdness has fastened itself upon him. But after the first shock his
heart is lightened, because some physician assures him that he can cure
him. But that man is either ignorant or he is wilfully deceiving this
young man, for the Almighty himself cannot assure him that this plague
will ever entirely leave his body. God will forgive his soul, but no
one can honestly assure him that his body is not damned for all time.
It is true some men seem to recover entirely, but no one can give them
any assurance in this matter. The best medical science tells us that
these germs may remain in the body for years and then show themselves
in various forms and diseases.
Is it not time for those of us who know of the awfulness of this dread
plague to “cry aloud from the housetops,” if by chance we may awaken
the fathers and mothers who sleep in ignorance and false modesty?