FATHER’S THIRD TALK--IMPERFECT BOYS BECOME IMPERFECT MEN
=Why some trees, kittens, calves, colts, do not become perfect.=--In the
last chapter we found how perfect boys become perfect men. In this
chapter we shall find why some boys do not become perfect men. If a
crooked sprout is not made straight before it gets to be a young tree,
it can never entirely outgrow the defect. If it received a wound before
it grew to be a young tree, nature may heal the wound but the scar will
indicate a weak place when it is grown. If the wound is a deep one,
decay may follow and its life greatly shortened. If a kitten, calf or
colt be starved or crippled while young, they will rarely outgrow these
defects.
=Boys may injure themselves.=--There are many ways by which a boy may
injure himself physically, mentally and morally and prevent perfection
in his manhood. We have learned that when the mind is kept pure and no
bad habits are formed, that the sexual life will gradually change a boy
into a perfect man. Now we are to study the bad effects of wasting this
energy. Why are there so many men with defective bodies? When we study
the lower animals in their wild state, or when the domestic animals have
been well kept by their owners, we find nearly all of them to be
perfect. This is due to the fact that the lower animals have not
violated the laws of sex. They do not waste their sexual energy.
=Many defective men.=--If you were to visit some of the insane asylums and
look into the faces of from one to two thousand of the unfortunates, you
would see some who do not possess a sign of intelligence. Many of them
were born of parents who had violated these laws. Many are personally
guilty and have brought on their own ruin. In the penitentiaries and
hospitals we find that many are there because they have been guilty of
the same wrongs. If many of these poor people had read the book you are
reading, they would now be well and happy.
The following story is told by an author:
=Robbing a vine of its life.=--“When I was only a small boy, one lovely
spring morning, I stepped up to a vigorous young grapevine, at the time
the sap was rising and flowing out the branches to every bursting bud
and cluster of blooms. I had watched my father bore holes in the sugar
maple trees, a century old, and we would use the sap to make syrup and
maple sugar. I did not know that this really injured the old trees and
that tapping them when ten or twenty years old would have very seriously
injured them. So, with my knife, I cut a hole in the vine some two feet
from the ground. At once the sap flowed as freely as from an old sugar
tree. I stood by proudly and watched the sap flow out. Soon a puddle of
sap had formed at the foot of the vine and the ground became damp all
around. An hour passed and still the sap flowed. I became frightened. I
wondered whether, at that rate, the vine would not disappear after a
while. With mud, made from the sap and soil, I tried to stop up the
wound and stop the flow. Quickly the flowing sap dissolved the mud and
washed it down. After repeated failures, I ran to the house and got some
rags and strings and tried to stop the flow, but soon the rags would get
damp and the sap flowed as before.
“I decided to leave the vine to its own fate. The next morning I
ventured out to see what had occurred. The vine looked as it did the day
before. I found that kind nature had formed a reddish substance and had
filled the wound and stopped the flow. That day I cut another hole in
the vine. Again the sap flowed but not so freely as the day before. Day
after day I repeated this for ten days. Will you be surprised when I
tell you that the buds never matured into full size leaves, the clusters
of blooms never matured into large clusters of grapes, and that the
vine did not live many years? I had robbed the vine of its very life.”
=Some boys and men sap their life.=--Now there is an act that is performed
by many boys and men by which they waste the vital fluid from their
bodies. This act soon becomes a habit. It has the same effect upon them
that we found in the vine. Instead of their eyes glowing with luster,
they become dull and sunken. Instead of their cheeks having the rosy
look of youth and health the face becomes pale. Instead of offering a
hearty warm handshake, it is lifeless and cold. Instead of muscles being
hard and elastic, they are soft and weak. Instead of bright, alert
minds, they are dull and listless. Instead of an elastic bearing and a
straightforward step, there are the languid movements and the swaggering
walk.
=Boys do not know that it will hurt them.=--Very early in life some boys
learn to handle the sexual organs so as to produce a sense of pleasure.
Not one in a hundred has been told that this habit will injure him. They
have an idea that this will make them men. You will some day, if you
have not already, hear boys boasting of committing this sin; or they
will want to teach it to you. These poor ignorant fellows have not been
taught that it is wrong and will injure them. They are to be pitied.
They need a friend that will take them off, one at a time, and have a
friendly talk with them. You may some time have a chance to give such
advice. Where a boy will not take your advice, it is not safe to make
him your companion.
=The habit is often commenced early.=--Many boys begin this habit before
they are twelve, sometimes as early as five and six. They have watched
young men and boys older than themselves. They do not know that the
glands do not begin the secretion of this energy until after they are
fourteen to fifteen. They try to follow the example of older boys. While
there is no waste of sexual material, it injures the nerves and pollutes
the mind and starts a habit that, unless stopped in the early teens,
will be hard to break off from later. Usually when a boy gets to be
fourteen his conscience begins to tell him that the habit is wrong.
Fortunately, many boys quit at this age, some check themselves, others
go recklessly on to their certain ruin. When a boy breaks from the habit
at fourteen or fifteen, this new energy soon overcomes the bad effects
of the habit. If he continues until he is a young man, eighteen or
twenty, he will have a harder struggle to break from the habit, and it
will require a longer period for nature to overcome the bad effects of
the habit. Boys who go on through life practicing the habit never amount
to much and in many cases shorten their lives.
=How to keep from the habit.=--I hope you have never formed the habit. It
is not necessary to do so. It is far wiser never to commit the sin. If
you will keep your hands off your sexual organs, refuse to let your mind
entertain impure thoughts, your lips to speak vulgar words, your ears to
listen to obscene stories, your eyes to look upon impure pictures, you
can master your passions, be pure and clean.
=Some effects of the habit.=--Some of the effects of this sin are as
follows: It injures the morals. The victim will take on a guilty look;
may become irritable and cross; may avoid good company and seek the
vile; may quit reading the Bible and going to church. This is one class.
They are called bad boys. There is another class that are affected
differently and would usually be called good boys. They are very modest,
retiring fellows, rather shy of girls and would be shocked at immodest
language. As the habit fastens itself more firmly, they become more
sensitive, stay more alone, the presence of girls becomes more
embarrassing to them, they become quite suspicious and feel that
everybody knows of their guilt. In both of these cases, if the habit is
continued, it will get the mastery of them and will be very difficult to
quit. The latter class will feel gloomy and discouraged. They feel that
everything is going wrong and that everybody is against them. This is
due to the effect of the sin upon their nervous system. It is hard for
them to dismiss this idea. This state of mind will unfit them for
business of any kind. Unless they break from the sin and dismiss these
gloomy feelings, they can’t hope to succeed.
=It injures the mind and morals.=--The boy who practices the secret sin
will one day find that he is falling back in his classes. His memory is
not as good as it once was. He cannot solve problems as easily as he
once could. If a kind-hearted, wealthy man should offer to put all the
young men in a town of ten thousand people through college and meet all
their expenses, on the conditions that they study hard and stand their
examinations, not half of them would accept his kindness. Why? They have
wasted this energy and are without ambition. The young men who have been
wise enough to live pure lives, have so much manly ambition that poverty
will not keep them from graduating.
Many young men who die from consumption when from eighteen to thirty
years old are victims of this sin. In a few cases the sin leads to
epilepsy or insanity.
=It injures the sexual organs.=--The sexual organs become soft and flabby,
when this sin is practiced much. Sometimes they do not develop properly.
The most common effect of the habit is varicocele. This often occurs at
the age of eighteen. The blood vessels in the scrotum become gorged with
impure blood and feel like a mass of tangled cords. There will be felt a
very unpleasant dragging pain in these cords and the left gland. Soon
the left gland will waste away until it is no larger than in a small
boy. Sometimes both glands become affected. Passion aroused by the mind
and handling the organs, even when the habit is not practiced, will
cause this disease.
There are other bad effects that do not occur until the boy is a man and
it is not necessary to mention them here. You have learned enough for
you to know that boys should not form the habit, and, if they have, they
should break away from the habit at once.
=How to quit the habit.=--Where a boy has commenced the habit and desires
to quit, there are some things he should know and do. The feeling of
sexual desire, called passion, is caused almost entirely by the mind. As
long as a boy can keep his mind on something else, he will not have
these desires. He will need to avoid those things that lead the mind to
think about these organs. Handling and looking at the organs direct the
mind to them. Looking at the pictures of partly dressed girls, reading
obscene books, talking vulgarly or entertaining impure thoughts will all
cause passion. All these things must be carefully avoided. You can bring
your will into play and become able to say and mean it, “I will never
again commit the act.” But, best of all, God can help you and offers to
do so. Go often to Him in prayer. Ask Him to purify your mind and heart
and give you strength to live a pure life. Ask Him to help you to keep
all His laws, to be a Christian and to become a perfect man.