Be chaste. I dare say you know what that means. Whatever bad examples
you may have had, you should now and henceforth keep from that
destructive vice which God has forbidden in the seventh commandment.
It is, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This means, to keep to your
own wife, and the wife keep to her own husband. If you break over this
bound, you break God’s law. In slavery, this vice or wickedness has not
been thought so very bad; and perhaps, in some instances, it may even
have been encouraged. But it was wicked _then_, and it is wicked _now_.
Whatever apologies you may have made for it before, you are now out of
the house of bondage, and under the same laws that all are. A woman’s
character, married or unmarried, is blasted if she is impure; and in
the sight of God an impure man is equally sinful.
All young people should guard against this vice. They have a character
to form and to maintain; and how can that be done if this vile habit is
indulged? A virtuous character is as precious to a colored woman as it
is to any woman. And with regard to men and women both, the Bible says,
“Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”