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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour etre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche i droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants iilustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ^^r^mirimi^'^mn^ MANHOOD WRECKED AND RESCUED BY REV. W. J. HUNTER, Ph.D., D.D. MONTRKAL, CANADA A SERIES OF CHAPTERS TO MEN ON SOCIAL PURITY AND RIGHT LIVING TORONTO : VV^ILLIAM I3RIGGS, WESLEr BUILDINGS. MDCCCXCIV. 20^9 /Tdr^ T ^ ^< ^^ Jlntered, according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-four, by Wilmam J. Hunter, Montreal, at the Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. A PREFACE. This book is an expansion of a series of addresses on Social Purity, delivered to men only, in St. James Methodist Church, Montreal, on Sunday evenings after the regular services, in the autumn and winter of 1892-8. These addresses were largely attended, as many as fifteen hundred men being present on a single night; tliey evoked widespread interest, and called forth many requests for their i)ub]ication. To those requests I now respond, and send forth this book on its mission of rescue. 1 have dealt with every phase of the sub- ject, and have given in brief form and simple language what might have covered a thousand pages and bewildered the reader. This book ought to have a place PREFACE. in every home. No man can read it with- out an abhorrence of illicit pleasure ; no boy can read it without feeling ever after what a great sin self^pollution is, and no victim of that sin can read it without the inspiration of hope, and the assurance thtit, without medicine and ^vithout expense, he may be restored to perfect manhood, health, and happiness. W. J. H. Montreal, 1894. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE WllKCK. Primeval man-His dignity and purity-Some noble specimens of manhood still— Causes of the wreck- Ignorance of natural law— Poverty and lack of proper food- Stimulants and narcotics— Sexual ])or versions the crowning cause— Touches more than half the race- Puberty— When sexual passion abates in man- Rebukes to the clergy. . . . .' 9 CHAPTER II. AN ANCIENT WRECK, Sensuality the sin of the ages— Proof that the flood was a direct punishment of sensuality- The Mosaic ac- count critically examined— Testimony outside the Bible— Why Noah was spared— Per f Jet in his gen- erations— Bhimeless in his sexual relations— The indecency of Ham— Tlie old devil of sensuality— Cir- cumcision; its meaning and its lessons— Sensuality the sin which caused the destruction of Sodom and the cities of the plain— Sensuality in the patriarchal age— The chastity of Joseph-A modern incident- Prostitution in the i)atriarchal age— The Mosaic economy— Sensuality the sin which destroyed the Canaanites and surrounding nations— Sexual purity in the law of Moses 3J ■I. ,. .J ■ CONTENTS. CILVPTKRIir. A MODKUN WUIiCK. The history of prostitution — The Christina era — The diictrinc of cluistity — The voiee of the uposiies and tiie life of the early Christians — No coinproniise with impurity — Modern civilization — Statistics of prosti- tution — A startling testimony — The blood of the race poisoned by venereal diseases — Thirty thousand men daily infected iu the United States— History of venereal diseases — A State document — National de- cay—Prevention l)etter than cure — Licensed prosti- tution a failure — Roman laws for the regulation of prostitution — Facts and statistics of recent date — A threefold a))peal 61 CHAPTER IV. A YOUTHFUL WUKCK. Masturbation — Pul)erty, its indications and sequence — Prevalence of the solitary vice — An ancient habit — Referred to in the law of Moses — Impossible to ex- aggerate its ruinous results — Testimony of medical experts and of educationists — Duty of ministers — Duty of parents — Loss of semen is loss of blood— Re- sults of its expenditure — Seminal emissions — EfTeets on the nervous system — Conservatism of nature — The nervous system explained — Where masturbation and marital excess do their most deadly Avork — A word to parents and boys — Quacks and charlatans — No medicine required to cure seminal emissions. ... 95 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. A WIIKCK KSCAPED. CoDtiiicntc of young men— Is continence po8sil)lc?— Trc- memlous power of the sexual appetite— Created of God for the ])erpetuati()n of the race— Continence outside of wedlock is possible— None but impure men question this— Impure thoughts the cliief cause of self-abuse and fornication — Testimony of Ur. Acton and his personal experience — How to live ■■. continent life 14i CHAPTER VI. TIIK UKSCUE BEGUN. Does nature forgive?— Natural law is God's jnethod of operation — Forgiveness in the moral rr.ilm a higher type than forgiveness in the natural reahn — Nature repairs and restores when we cease to disregard her laws— Three letters to the author— Comments on the same — Difficult to convince the victim of seminal weakness that no medicine is needed — Cut loose from charlatans— Burn their i>:imphlets— High med- ical testimony that medicine is not required — Is mar- riage a cure? — The question answered— The habit abandoned — Helps and encouragements — A cure as certain as the rising of the sun— Old-time philos- ophy — An anudet — Perseverance and victorv. . . 157 CHAPTER VII. THE RESCUE CONTINUED. Some earnest words— Imperative— Philosophy of tlu; diflerence between nervous function and muscular CONTENTS. power — Nervous scnstition frequently evokes results it) sensitiveness und clel)ility — Strong drink — To- bacco and its effects on the nervous system — How to cure yourself of the tobncco habit without ex- pense and without inconvenience — What to eat and drink — Employ meut — Exercise — Bathing— Bleep — Society 195 CHAPTER VIH. THE RESCUE COMPLETED. , , The medical profession — If y(m must have medical advice, consult a resident ])hysician — Beware of medical companies and sharks — They take jour money and shorten your life— Additional testimony that medicine cannot cure seminal weakness— The parts affected— Their intimate relationship— The ])rincipal aggravating cause of seminal weakness — A flood of light on the subject— Special treatment, without exjiense— An absolutely infallible remedy— A certain cure for piles, and relief from the suttering resulting from irritation of the l)ladder and enlarge- ment of the prostate gland— It is your life— Worth a struggle — A man again 225 THE WRECK. MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. CHAPTER I. THE WRECK. " And God said, Let iis make man in our image, after our likeness : and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air. and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that ci-eepeth upon the earth." Gen. \, 26. "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and tlie son of man, that thou visitest him ? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and hom^r. Thou madest him to have dominion over the 12 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. works of tliy hands ; thou liast put all tilings under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field ; the fowl of tlie air, and the lisli of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." Psalm viii, 4-8. I accept as rational and trustworthy the Bible account of the creation of man. It is in harmony with well-estal)lislied scien- tific truth, and is confirmed l)y mythology and tradition. It is impossible to conceive of the dignity and purity of man as lie came from the forming hand of the Creator and while yet unstained by sin. A fine w^riter has given tliis pen-picture of tlie first man : " He was placed in a world of grandeur, beauty, and utility. It w'as canopied with other distant worlds to exhibit to his very sense a manifestation of the extent of space and the vastness of the varied uni- verse ; and to call his reason, his fancy, and his devotion into their most vigorous THE WRECK. 13 and salutary exercise. With a body per- fect in form, full of vigor as of life, he Lad an intellectual power that grasped all ci'eated objects, and ranged the loftiest heights of sublime in([uiry and research." That glory has passed awa^-, and we must study man as we see him to-day, with his long train of diseases, infirmities, and im- pedhiients. And vet, even now, in this world of marvels and of beauty, thei-e is nothing to compare wdth the human form and face divine. There are specimens of manhood ^vhom we cannot pass on the sti-eets without admiration; we involuntarily tui-n round and look at them as they move on with the tread of a giant. There are kings of the stage, the platform, the pul[)it, the bar, and the senate, who need but to speak and stand erect, when all eyes are riveted and all hearts are cai-ried away into a sweet captivity. These men inherited il- 14 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. noble forms and high intellectual faculties, and have lived in obedience to natural law, and are examples of what following genei'ations might become if |)eople were properly educated, and if the same care and common sense were exei'cised in the propagation of the race as in the breeding of cattle, sheep, and horses. DETERIORATION. The causes of deterioration are numerous and perplexing. Ignorance of the anatomy, physiology, r.ul functions of the human system is a most prolific cause. Sanitary science is doing much to remove this cause, and the time is approaching when in the homes of the peoph^, as well as in colleges and universities, these important subjects will be studied and understood. Poverty and consequent lack of whole- some food is another cause. The human body is the most delicate and exquisite f THK WRECK. IS DS piece of mechanism in the world, and can be sustained in strength and beauty only by regular and proper quantities of nutri- tious food. An engine cannot work with- out fuel ; a horse cannot work without grain, and a man cannot work without waste-repairing food. More than half the human family are inadequately fed, and fifty per cent of the remaining half are im- properly fed. Poverty is the mother of dirt, vice, and crime ; and the attention of the Christian, the statesman, and tlie phi- lanthropist must be directed more than ever to the elevation of the masses. Thev are fast filling the ^vorld with a race of imbe- ciles and incompetents who are becoming a charge on the State and a tax on the generosity of the thrifty and benevolent. Stimulants and narcotics are another cause of physical and national deteriora- tion. Strong drink works ruin everywhere, and tobacco, opium, and morphine are sap- m 16 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. M ping the foiuidatious of health and threat- en! ns: national existence itself. The habits of modern society in the matter of dress, recreation, late hours, and sensational literature tend to deplete vital force and convert men and women into pygmies and puppets. But towering high above all these, some- times gi'owing out of them, sometimes giv- ing lise to them, and always associated with one or more of them, is sexual perver- sion in its multitudinous forms and with its concomitant army of shame and degra- dation. Tiie subject is one of great deli- cacy, and hitherto has received but little attention save in publications of limited circulation ; but of late it has engaged the thought of the Church, the pulpit, the plat- foi'm, and social reformei'S in Europe and America. It is safe to say that sexual perversion in its various forms touches more than half \ THE WRECK. 17 •sion half the popuLitioii of every city, town, .'iiul country in our luodeni civiliziitioii. It shortens human lite, burdens it with intir- niities and diseases, de])letes its working power, enfeebles its mentality, and makes it a drudgery and a sorro\v. Look at the men \vhom you meet day after day, and how few s^^eciniens of perfect manhood do you see ! Note their walk aud beai'ing ; how sliilly-shally the gait, how lusterless the eye, how utterly devoid of snap and spirit the whole demeanor ! Contrast men with tlie males of the brute creation — the lion, the tiger, the bull, or the entire liorse. AVhat a majesty there is in the movements of these creatures, what fire in the eye, what thunder in the voice ! " Hast tliou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? canst thou make him afraid as a grass- hopper ? the glory of his nostrils is terrible. He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in 18 MANHOOD: WliECKKD AND RESCUED. his strength: he goeth out to meet the armed men. He mocketh at feai*, and is not affrighted ; neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield. lie swallovveth the ground ^vitll fierceness and rage : neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha ! and he smelleth the battle afai* off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." Job xxxix, 19-25. That is Job's description of the war horse, and it is the climax of sublimity. And shall not man, standing at the head of creation, excel in beauty and in bearing all lower animals ? The eunuchs of the East were castrated and appointed to the care of bed-chambers in palaces and in the homes of the wealthy. They were effemi-. nate and harmless creatures with smooth faces and without force and energy of THE WRECK. \ 19 character ; for wheu sexual power is de- stroyed or depleted thei'e is always a lack of force and energy. A CKrnCAL PERIOD. At the period of puberty, explained in a subsequent chapter, the seminal fluid is secreted ; at the age of twenty-five virility is well and fully established, and at the age of fifty the sexual passion begins to abate, and after that peiiod it should never be stimulated, and seldom gratified. Then life retains its brightness, and a long and happy old age awaits the man who has been observant of nature's laws. Think of Gladstone bearing the weight of an empire on his shoulders at eighty-four, and then think of the thousands of men who are superannuated and with- ered at fortv, and see the difference be- tween manhood retained and manhood wrecked, 20 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND UESCUKI). Now tills period, from puberty to forty- five or fifty yeai's of age, is the critical period in tlie life of man. If boys were properly instructed by their parents or by the family physician before they attain the age of puberty ; if, in simple language, they were told what self-abuse is, and what its terrible consequences are, most of them would be saved from this first step to ruin. And if at the age of puberty a book like this one were put into their hands, they would see the sin and peril of illicit inter- course' in all its forms, and be saved from the second step to ruin, and they would come to the marriage altar pure in body and in mind, govern their married life according to the laws of health, and thus secure to themselves a heritage of happi- ness, and bequeath to their offspring a mind and body fitted to the discharge of life's high and dignified responsi- bilities. THE WRECK. 21 AN HONORABLE MISSION. I know of iio uiissioi) more honorable than that of guiding the people into paths of virtue, chastity, and purity. It is the mission of parents, teachers, and Christian ministers. As yet we have touched only its fringe. It is a subject that cannot be dealt "svith in minuteness of detail in the public press, in the pulpit, or even on the platform ; ])ut in a book written in a plain, simple style that even the unlettered may understand, we can use that plainness of speech which we could not employ in ad- dressing a promiscuous audience. An Italian mother said of her sons, " They are my jewels," and this book is sent forth to protect and save the jewels of the household and the State. I have no shadow of apology to offer for its publica- tion. My only I'egret is that I did not sooner give wings of type to the startling fF 32 MANHOOD: WliEOKFA) AND RESCUED. and iiiuiuentous trutlis herein contained. The pressure of duties insepai'able from a busy pastorate is my excuse. iiii REBUKES TO THE CLERGY. The demands upon the pulpit increase with the increasing advancement of the age, and I am in pei-fect syni2)athy with the opinion expressed by a medical writer when he says : " All ministers and teachei-s should be as well learned in the laws that govern the sexual organism, and in other departments of human physiology, as they are in the supposed legitimate pursuit of their lives." Dr. Jackson deals with this thought in a plain, outspoken fashion sufficient to paint a blush of shame on many a clerical cheek. He says : "As a class clergymen are honest men, earnest in theii* efforts to bless their fel- lows ; but I have not much respect for their sagacity. They seem to me to lack insight THE WliECK. M to liuiiiau luitiire. They fail in adaptation, and take altogether too narrow views of their sphere of activity, and of the depravi- ty which it i>< theii* object to combat. They chiefly confine their effbrts to saving of souls; whereas Christ instituted the minis- try to save men. As God created him, man has a body as well as a sonl, ai.d without which body it were a misnomer as truly to call hini a man as it would be to call an angel a man. As Christ's minister the clergy- man is to look after the redemption, not of a human soul simply, but of a human being. " The clergymen seem utterly ignoi'ant of the fact that the bodily organization can become depraved, and so force the soul to abnormal conditions. They seem, judging of them by their conduct, not to have the least information respecting the laws of hereditary descent, or the trans- mission of physical and moral traits. True, they see children looking like their I 24 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. fathers or mothers, or both, having their tones of voice, color and toA'tiire of hair, shade of eye-coloring, shape of mouth and lips, or feet and fingers, and they take it for granted that these resemblances happen according to law. But \vhen they see chihlren Avith habits, tendencies, appetites, predispositions all wrong, they are not sufficiently informed to incpiire whether these developments in children have not for long years l)een cultivated in their parents as the alpha and omega of their existence. Can tliey not l)e made to see that a mother likino; rum can conununi- cate her appetite to lier unicorn babe as easily as she can i\\Q features of her face ? that an appetite for to])acco is as easily transmissible as the color of the hair? that a strong lui'ch to\vard licentiousness can l)e given to one's firstborn as readily as the tones of the Vv.ice ? "Now, would luinisters give their atteu- THE WRECK. 2.- }' lat ill! .'IS tiou to physiology, and, in connection Avitli their spii'itiial exhortations, press home on human beings the law of pei*soiial purity, the world would be nearer heaven." The late O. S. Fowler strikes squarely from the shoulder, and speaks like one of the old prophets, \\\\m\ he addresses him- self to clergymen. Listen to these clarion tones: " Are you not volunteer watchmen placed on the sightly watchtowers over- looking the public good, for the specific purpose of Avarning your congregations affainst sexual sins as much as acrainst false- hoods and cheatery ? Yet in this respect are not almost all dumb dogs that will not bark ao-ainst this vilest of all vices ? How can you possibly reconcile this ominous silence, either to truth, to your clerical vows, to public morality, or even to the dictates of unordained humanity, mrjh more or- dained ? Your silence is a crime against 26 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. truth, humanity, and God. Either dis- charge this your solemn duty or else resign your commission." It is hut fair to say that the charge of ignorance, on the one hand, and of timidity, on the other hand, is not by any means uni- versal in its application. The AVhite Cross movement, which has girdled the world, owes its inception to a clergyman, and in all lands Christian ministei's, with few ex- ceptions, stand in the front ranks of social and moral reform. But it can be seen at a glance that these subjects cannot be dealt with in detail in our ordinary pulpit min- istrations. Ministers can address the sexes apart and do much good, and they can use the pen as I do in these pages, and speak with all freedom, but beyond that they cannot go in a public way. In private they can do more ; and if their pulpit discourses show that they have given attention to these subjects THE WRECK. 2t if they will Lave more patients coming to them for counsel and sympathy than any doctor hiis for opinion and medicine. Henry Ward Beecher, in one of his published sermons, says : "Young men want to act upon their feelings. They are for joy. They are for outspring. And I like to see young men full of life and vigor and elasticity. And it is not their racing, or wrestling, or rid- ing, or shooting, or fishing that breaks them down. It is leaking. It is wasting the nei've substance by pleasures that draw out the very vitality of their life. I wish I could read you the letters tliat come to me with implorations and suppli- cations that I would save the writers from the evils into which they have fallen, as they say, through ignorance." Mr. Beecher does not stand alone in this particular. Eveiy pastor in large cities, whose sermons and addresses show" 28 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCITED. that he is in touch with the young, and that he knows the pei'ils which beset them, lias a like experience. Canada is a young country, and its moral atmosphere is supposed to be the purest in the world, but after a pastorate of eight years in its rural districts, and thirty years in its prin- cipal cities, the publication of lettei*s which have come pouring in upon me in response to pulpit and platform appeals for social and pei'sonal purity, and a narration of personal interviews, in which the unhappy victims of sexual perversions have im- plored me to help them, would fill a large volume and make any pure heart sick. These considerations have prompted the publication of this book. There are not a few publications on sexual science, and some of them are not devoid of merit. Some are wi'itten ioY the profession, and are comparatively useless to the ordinaiy reader; some are written by specialists THE WRECK. 29 with a view to secui-e patients, and those who have taken treatment from these spe- cialists know how expensive it is, and how transient the relief obtained. But nuun^ of these publications are wi'itten by un- principled charlatans, whose sole object is money. Millions of dollars are paid to these charlatans every year. Their adver- tisements are found in every paper and magazine whose columns admit them, irre- spective of cost, and their pamphlets flood the land, like the locusts of Egypt, and, like them, eat up " every green thing." MONEY THROWN AW/VY. And I now solemnly declare that every dollar spent on medicine for the cure of seminal weahness, nocturnal emissions^ errors of youth^ and loss of manhood is so much money thrown away; for not one drop or grain of medicine is needed to effect a cure. And not more confidently do I off'er the t SBva 30 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. salvatiou of God a* a panacea for the soul than I offer hope and health and happiness to every suff'erer loho conscientiously fol- lows the directions contained in this hook. ■ This is a strong and unqualified state- ment, but I know whereof I affirm, and my character and standing in the commu- nity are involved in the statement, and I do not fear the result. 1 1 ' '1' i ; niAmmmmUHoaamm AN ANCIENT WRECK. i: <'> HP' ■ i i ^I'll AN ASCIENT WRECK. 33 CHAPTER II. AN ANCIENT WRECK. Sensuality is the sin of the ages ; it is the sill wliich God htites and visits with special punishment. Let us begin at the beginning and examine a remarkable and somewhat obscure passage in the Book of Genesis : ■ . " And it came to pass, \vhen men began to multiply on the face of the eai-th, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair ; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Loi*d said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh : yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days ; and also after that, when the sons 1 1' r 1 ' 1 lilt !! I hiim i ill 84 MANHOOD: WJihJCKKD AND ItESCUED. of God came in unto the (Liughters of men, and they bare children to them, the stime became mighty men which were of ohl, men of reno^vn. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of tlie thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it I'epented the I^ord that he liad made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I ^vill destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth ; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air ; for it repenteth me that I have made them." Gen. vi, 1-7. The o])inion of some of the ancients that tliese sons of God were fallen angels who had illicit intercourse with women is now set aside as utterly without foundation. The supposition that these sons of God were the male children of Seth, and the fair women the female children of Cain, is iil: AN ANCIENT WRECK. 35 equally uiiteiuible. Adam had other chil- dren than Cain and Seth, and how would this interpretation designate /A^'^V offspring ? CRITICAL EXAMINATION. It is necessaiy, in order to understand this remarkable passage, to turn to verse 26 of chapter iv, wheie we read : "And to Seth, to him also there was Lorn a son ; and he called his name Enos : then beo-an men to call upon the name of the Lord." What do these words mean ? They cannot mean that now for the first time men be- gan to worship God and pray to him, for Adam and Abel had certainly worshiped God and called upon his name long before this. The maro-inal readincf casts some light on the passage : " Then began men to call themselves by the name of the Lord ; " and this reading has suggested the opinion that at the period alluded to the descendants of Seth formed themselves ^Ik^ 86 MANUOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. into ii society, <jr church, which they cuHcd after the iiaine of the Loid. But this o])inioii })reaks (U)\vii in tlie light of liis- tory, for in none of the subsequent wi'itings of Moses do we find reference to any such society, church, or organization ; nor is there any reason in nature wliy tlie cliil- dren of good nien and bad Avonien should more tlian others become "mighty men, men of renown." At this point I beg to submit a critical examination of this passage wliich meets us at the very entrance to the history of sensuality and its work of desolation and ruin. It is from the [)en of a most schol- arly man, a member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland — George Smith, F.S.A. In a lengthy and exhaustive exposition of the passage in question Mr. Smith says : "There is, however, another rendering of the text which some of the best scholars AN ANCTKKT ^VRKCK. tn contend is not only allowable, but re- (iuiied V)y the original words. They say tliat thr A'ord which we render hegan sliould translated hegan profanely ; and that we are therefore led to the be- lief that the Holy Spirit marks out in this Scripture the beginning of that awful profanation by which i)rond and wicked men arrogated to themselves and to each other the names, titles, and atti'ibutes of Deity. 'Then men profanely began to call themselves by tlie name of the Lord.' If this be the true sense of the passage, we can easily offer a consistent interpreta- tion of the text to which our attention was fii'st directed. If proud and power- ful and wicked men were called after the name of God, then by the ' sons of God ' we should understand the sons of these mighty and profane men. These, we are told, 'saw the dauglitei*s of men that they were fair ; and they took them wives 38 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. (the word meaus " to ravish, to take by violence ") ^f all which they chose.' In- flamed by passion, their desires were un- checked by the dictates of reason, the claims of right, or the principles of religion. They were given np to unbridled licentious- ness. The latter part of the passage states that the issue of this connection were ' mighty men, men of renown.' " In favor of this sense it may be urged that it accords with the conduct of those powerfid but wicked men who in later ages acted in exact conformity with the letter of the text, according to this last rendering ; it affords important informa- tion respecting those v' .^s of government and society Avhich soon after filled the world with violence ; and it presents a consistent account of the orio-in of those men whom tlie Scriptures call 'giants.' " We should not have been so particular in our examination of these passages had ws^ AN ANCIENT WRECK, 89 they not involved a moat important feature in the history of this age. According to the reading of these texts in the Authorized Version, although we are told that pre- viously to the deluge the earth was filled with violence, we have not a single intima- tion of any deterioration of morals, or of the existence of any religious or political causes in operation, likely to lead to so serious a result. But if the interpretation now advanced be received, we have a clear notice of a combined religious and political deterioration which, I'ising into vigorous action with an increasing popula- tion, at length overruns the whole surface of society, and introduces and confirms the most feaiful and extensive corruption." ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY. In confirmation of this view of the passages under consideration, the author of Ancient Universal History^ speaking of / 40 MANHOOD. ' WRECKED AND ItESCUED. Jewish authorities such iis the Targums of Oiikelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel, says : " They suppose by the ' sons of God ' in this phxce are meant the princes, great men, and magistrates of those times, who, instead of using their authority to punish and discountenance vice, -were themselves the greatest examples and promoters of lewdness and debauchery ; taking the daughtei's of the inferior people and de- bauching them by force." Then, in the Essay for a New Transla- tion^ the author says: "It must have been observed further that the verb Lahacli not only signifies 'to take,' here, and in several other places, but ' to take by force or sur- prise, or to ravish.' So that the words should be rendered : The sons of the sovereigns, seeing that the daughters of the inferior sort were fair, took them by force and ravished them at their pleasure." An ANCIENT WRECK. 4i Dr. Adam Clarke, in allusion to this in- terpi'etation of the passage, says, " Most of the Jewish doctors were of this opinion." This terrible sin, therefoi'e — unbridled lust and passion — was the sin which, in this early age of the world, provoked God to shorten the period of human life and drown that polluted generation with a flood of water. WHY NOAH WAS SPARED. In Gen. vi, 9, we find the reason why Noah and his household were raved from the general ruin : " Noali was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah Avalked with God." AVhat is the meaning of these words, " perfect in his genera- tions ? " It is not enough to say that the word generations means the offspring of Noah. It is not enough to say that it means the age in which Noah lived. It may include all these, but it includes much I I I 42 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. more than these. In the niai'gin of the Revised Version the words are : " Noah was blameless in his generations." The idea is that Noah Avas blameless in his sexual relations ; he observed the law of chastity, and remained nncontaminated by the prevailing pollution around him, and God spared him and made him a kind of second Adam to begin the race over again. He was blameless in his generations. AN IMPORTANT INCIDENT. It is clear tliat Noali's sons were not as pure in thought and life as their father, but had suffered more or less from the associations inseparable iVom their early life. At least one of them had so suffered. The proof of this is found in an incident recorded in Gen. ix, 20-25. We are told that Noah '^ planted a vineyard : and he drank of the wine, and was drunken." This incident is sometimes cited by tem- AN ANCIE27T WRECK. 4d perance lecturers and ministers to show that drunkenness is as old as the flood, and that even Noah, who walked with God, was guilty of the sin of drunkenness. But the history does not warrant such conclu- sions. It rather suggests that now for the first time wine was made from the juice of the grape. It would naturally ferment and become intoxicating if the means to pre- vent its fermentation, now so well known, were not employed; and thus Noah may have become drunken because he was igno- rant of the intoxicating properties of the wine which he drank. There is no record that he was ever intoxicated as^ain ; and the fact that the spirit of prophecy came upon him immedi- ately after he awoke from his wine is suffi- cient proof that, as Dr. Clarke expresses it, "of the crime of drunkenness he was in- nocent as a child." But an incident is recorded in connec- m U m 44 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUE A \ ! tion with Noah's intoxication which reveals the displeasure of God at any breach of that instinct of modesty which is born in all of us. This is the record : " And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard : and he drank of the wine, and was drunken ; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren with- out. And Shem and Japheth took a gar- ment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the naked- ness of their father ; and their ftices wei'e backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cui*sed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." This malediction was not the utterance of an incensed father in a moment of anger. ■"•^ AN ANCIENT WHECK. 45 It was the spii'it of prophecy, divinely im- parted, and furetellinr' the future of the descendants of Hani ai 1 Canaan, in whom the old devil of indecency and sensuality had survived the flood and found a foot- hold. Neither was it a direct infliction from the Almighty, but a j)rediction of the consequences — the outcome of a life of impurity and sensuality. And this is an additional proof that sensuality is the sin which God hates and visits with punish- ment prompt and severe. • k CIllCUMCISIOlS^. The waters of the flood did not extin- guish evil passion. Soon we find the tow^er of Babel in coui*se of erection — a daring project to defy the God of heaven to send another flood ; and even the pos- terity of Shem fell into idolatry and its associate corruptions. Then followed tlie call of Abraham, and 'Mi 1)E ROBPmVAL. Hi! ill! ill I PI Rob. Take this good sword from good Rochelle: The citizens liad it forged, And i)aid for it, And give it to yonr little Excellency. Buckle it on your hip. Don't be afeared. We know you know how to make it flourish Against the King's enemies. Zip-zip-huzza ! Roberval unbuckles his own sword, and replaces it by the citizens' gift. Excellent Syndic, and good Kochellese, My heart leaps at the sight of this good sword ! I take it as a pledge 'twixt you and me To live or die for service of the King. Ne'er shall 1 draw it save for France's cause, \ And never shall I sheathe it save with honor As pure and stainless as its polished blade. Citizens. Zip-zip I Wireworkers. The skilled men who spin iron into wire, And weave in wire as spiders weave in thread, By their guild-fathers, now in presence here. Beg your acceptance of a gross of mouse-traps. Rdb. Perhaps in the whole range of industry Is nothing I would long for more, the rather That in New France we ti*ap beasts for their skins ; Moreover, these will keep my mind assured 'Gainst depredations on our farmers' cheese. Breeches-makers. Our Art and mystery as old as Adam — For he was our tirst customer for breeches — Present you with a pair of leather smalls. Rub. These I shall keep for high-class festivals. Cliord-spinners. Valiant Commander, our illustrious guild Is passed apprentice to the Muse of Music, And in its name we offer you a type Of industry pecidiar to Rochelle — The very primest strain of catgut strings. ▼"!"■ AN ANCIENT WRECK. 47 man child in your generations, be that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is })ought with thy money, must needs be circumcised : and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut oif from his people ; he hath broken iny covenant." MEANING AND INTENT OF CIRCU3ICISI0N. The literal meaninc: of the word circum- cision is cutting around^ and refers to the act of cutting off the foreskin of the male organ. It is clnimed by Herodotus that the Egyptians and Ethiopians observed the rite of circumcision from the i-emotest period, and that other nations borrowed it from them. But when we consider that Herodotus flourished but four hundred and I 48 MAMJOOU: WltECKElJ AND liESCUEl). eighty-fuur years })et()i'e the Chi istiaii era, and that Jacob and his family Uved in Egypt 1800 B. C, and that the rite of circnnicision was transmitted to them from Abraham, the presumption is that the Egyptians received it from the Israelites, and not the Israelites from the Egyptians. It was unquestionably a divine institution, and its introduction so soon after the terri- ble dissolution of manners and morals which grew out of sexual perversions is significant in the extreme. It is clear that circum- cision involved more than ♦pei'sonal clean- ness. It is still resorted to by physicians in some cases in order to keep the parts free from offensive and irritating secretions ; and this cleanliness is important in all cases of seminal weakness. But the original rite implied more than this. Its deeper mean- ing was purity in thought and word and action. Tlie operation was delicate and painful, and it pointed to the organs of ■ i 1 i 1 J 1 ** 1 ■1 AN ANCIENT WRECK. 49 generation as the instruments for the trans- mission from parent to child of the qualities inherent in tlie parent. That was at least one great lesson. It was the voice of (irocl calling men away from the sensuality and irapnrity which had resulted in the destruc- tion of former generations by the judg- ments of heaven. A FLOOD OF FIRK. AVe need but to turn from the sixth to the nineteenth chapter of Genesis to learn that the flood had not extinguished evil passions. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone was a judgment on their inhabitants for their degrading sensuality. TIk; corruption of morals ^vas well-nigh universal. Look at the picture. The sacred narrative informs us that " the l)lain of Jordan ^vas w^dl watered every- where, before the Lord destroved Sodom ' i 50 MANIIOOJ): WHECKEI) AND liKSCUEI). and Gomorrah, eveu as the garden of the Lord." The limpid stream, the quiet lake, the hill and dale, with their variegated loveliness, are there ; the homes and palaces and towers of tlie young cities throw back, in diamond brightness, the rays of the rising sun. And yet these fair cities are the home of abominations deep and foul as hell. They have become so utterly cori'upt that God must wipe them out of existence, and convert the site which they occupied into a sea of death. THE SIN OF S0DO3I. The sin of Sodom cannot be mistaken. It is clearly indicated in the Epistle of Jude : " Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." One cannot read the inspired 1! : AN ANCrKXT WItKCK. hi account of that last uiglit in Sodom with- out a sense of horror at the depths of dej^ravity to wliicli its inliabitants had sunk; and tlie closing scene in the his- tory of Lot shows that even his daughters were contaminated by the corruption of the age and the place. THE IIKJJKEW PEOPLE. Following the stream of history in the line of Abraham, wt; have first t)f all the pa- triarchal age, when society existed in a very simjile form, and the habits of the people were principally pastoral. They dwelt in tents and raised large herds of sheep and cat- tle, and the heads of families conducted relig- ious worship, adjusted disputes, and presid- ed over family and tribal matters in general. The history of this period is condensed and fragmentary, but enougli is revealed to show that marriage was respected and prostitution was punished by heavy pen- !i! i 52 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND UESCUED. jilties. And altlioiigh polygamy existed to a limited extent, yet not witli the divine a2)pi'oval, and subsequent events show how disastrous it was to all concerned. CnASTITY OF JOSEPH, The chastity of Joseph is one of the b]"ightest incidents of the patriai'chal age, or of any age. A young man full of life and blood, with all the natural appetites in a state of perfection, solicited by a lady of rank, and with no pi'ob.^bility of detectioii ; and yet he stands in his virtue firm a^ a I'ock and says, "Can I do this great wick- edness, and sin against God ? " The fear of God was in his heart as a controlling principle, and before it human passion stood rebuked and Avithering. A :\ioDEUN iNCir ?:nt. Some years ago a friend related to me the following;, which he received from the msassssamm AN ANCIENT WRECK. 68 ]ips of the gentleman who was the prin- cipal actor in the scene. This gentleman was in Europe on a three months' business engagement, when passion was awakened ])y the thouglit that in the high class houses there was supposed to be neither danger of detection nor infection. His conscience rebuked him, but passion rose liigh above the voice of the faithful moni- tor. Pie made his way to one of these houses, selected a partner of his guilt, and retired to a room, when, quick as a flash of lightning, there rose up before his vision the sweet faces of his pure and confid- ing wife and three iiappy children pray- ino; for him even^ nii2:ht and waitinc: for his return. In a moment desire was gone, the great drops of perspira- tion stood like beads upon his brow, and he rushed fi'om the house thanking God that he had escaped from the jaws of hell. 54 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. 1 1 ■; .■ !■ , . . y - ! 1 ^ 1 1 % ii J STILL AT WORK. But all men in the patiiarchal age were not like Josej)h, and through the side lights of Scriptui'e history we see enough to warrant the conclusion that the old demon of sensuality was still at large, and that the vices Avhich are rampant to-day were doing their deadly work in that early age. One of these side lights opens to us in the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, and reveals the i^ict tliat at least one method for the prevention of conception was already known and practiced. It was a law of that period that Avhen a married man died childless his brother — if he had one — must maiTy his widow, and it chil- dren ^vere born they were considered as the children of the first husband, and in- herited his property. Judah's eldest son had died, and it became the duty of Onan to marry the widow and raise up seed unto AN ANCIENT WRECK. 55 liis brutLer. Tlie inspired writer aayH : "And Onau knew that the seed should not be his ; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord : wherefore he slew him also." The sin of Onan was not, as is commonly supposed, the sin of masturbation, but the sin of " withdrawal," or incomplete coition. Then in this same chapter we learn that prostitution existed; for we have the story of Tama. Judah's daughter-in-la\v, disguising herself as a harlot and seducing Judah to illicit commerce. So that even in this sim- ple age sensuality was the sin befoi'e which, above all other sins, men and women fell. THE MOSAIC ECONOMY. AVhen we come to the age of Moses we find the Hebrew people emancipated from 50 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND IIESCUEIK {[ l(ing years of slavery, Init not from con- secjuent lax morality, and we can imagine the magnitude of the task assigned to Moses as leader and instructor of these millions of people. It will assist ns to the end in view to digress for a little at this point and glance at the condition of the tribes and nations dispossessed and driven out to make place for the Israelites. AVe shall find that moral causes were at work, as they always are, in determining national ex- istence. In the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, when God promises that the land of Canaan should be given to the posterity of Abra- ham, he intimates that ])ossession must be delayed for a long period, and at the same time assigns a reason for the delay : " For the inicpiity of the Amorites is not yet full." The inhabitants of Canaan were wicked, and their crowning sin was sensuality, i I I ESI .LV ANCIENT WUKCK. .)( but so long as there remained a frag- ment of vii'tue and a Lope of I'eformation not even the Israelites could dispossess them. Then, if we turn to the Book of Leviti- cus, ^ve find a long series of laws and prohibitions and penalties — a series of laws which, the more it is studied and under- stood, commands the admiration of the world. The eighteenth chapter deals with unlawful marriages and unlawful lusts. In verses 2-i, 25, it is written, "Defde not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: and the land is defiled : therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself voraiteth out her inhabitants." What were these terri- ble crimes which rooted out these great t: ;bes and nations ? Not simply idolatry, but incest, adultery, fornication — every species and form of sexual perversion. r.8 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND IlESCUED. SEXUAL PUKITY. And therefore when we examine the sanitary laws of Moses we are not sur- prised at tlie space and prominence given to sexual puiity. Referi'ing to these laws a medical writer says : " The Old Testament by its clear and sublime teachings preserved the Israelites from the contamination by which they were surrounded. Situated in the midst of nations by whom an unlicensed de- bauchery was regarded as a part and parcel of religious life, the chosen people successfully retained its purity; and even in the darkest hour of its history there were found four hundred men who had never bowed the knee to Baal. The doc- trines of Moses are most explicit in \vhat I'elates to individual purity. Far from passing by in silence those delicate rela- tions as indifferent, or of doubtful utility, ■"""J f- g^ y AN ANCIENT WRECK. 59 or as possibly harmful if discussed openly — as the modern fashion widely prevails — the sacred word enters with singular ini- nuteness into the admonitions for chastity, for temperance in the marital relations, and for sanitary precautions connected therewith. Anyone who will take the pains to examine the various chapters in Leviticus and Deuteronomy which contain the directions to single and married men will there find an explicitness and a minute- ness which writei's oi the present day can- not attenij^t to imitate." How sadly these laws were neglected in the reigns of Ahah and Solomon, and how dejjradino; and destructive this neglect was, the history of those times abundantly testifies. And ^vhen we approach the ad- vent of Christ w^e find the world tottering to its fall. The religions and civilizations of men had lost their hold on the faith and affections of the people. Vices foul TT msBS ii^ III 00 MANHOOD: WEEGKKD AND RESCUED. and black as hell devastated the nations and, like a mighty volcano, were burn- ing out their strength and vitality. A Deliverer must come, else the world must perish. ,! ' I ^ I A MODERN WRFXK. I ■ i a u-l aqi I A MODKHN WHKVK. 63 CHAPTER III. A MODERN WRECK. We liav^ iollowed ^vitli hasty glance the stream of history in the line of the chosen people, and have seen that sensu- ality was the sin Avhicli broke out again and attain, workino' disc:race and I'uin. It would be a tedious and i)aint'ul task to give even a sketch of the history of sexual perversion in ancient nations outside the line of Abraham. As I write I have before me a volume of 685 pages, entitled The History of Prostitution : Its Extent^ Causes^ and Effects Throughout the World. It was published in 1858, and was written by William W. Sanger, M.D., resident phy- sician, Blackwell's Island, New York city. After tracing the history of prostitution in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, in Greece I , i( ' I 64 MANHOOD: WltECKKD AND ItKSGUED. jiiul ill Komc, Dr. Sanger approaches the Christian era in these words ; it HM THE ClIKISTIAN ERA. "Perhaps tlie most marked oi'iginality of the Christian doctrine was the stress it laid on chastity. It has been well re- marked tliat even the most austere of the j)agan moralists recommended chastity on econoiiilcal grounds alone. The apostles exacted it as a moral and religious duty. They j)reached against lewdness as fer- vently as against heathenism. Not one of the ej)istles contained in the New Testa- ment but inveiglis, in the strongest lan- guage, against the vices classed under the generic head of luxury. Nor can it be doubted that, under divine Providence, the obvious merit of this feature in the new religion exercised a large influence in ral- lying the better class of minds to its sup- port. A MODERN WRECK. 66 "From the first the Chiistiau cominu- nities made a jik't boast of the purity of their morals. Their adversaries met them on this ground at a great disadvantage. It was notorious that tlie C(;llec:e of vestals had been sustained with great difficulty. Latterly, it liad been found necessary to su[)ply vacancies with children, and even under these circumstances the number of vestals buried alive bore but a very small proportion to the number who had incurred this dread penalty. Nor could it be denied that the chastity of the Roman virgins was, at best, but partial, the purest among them being accustomed to unchaste language and unchaste sights. The Chi'istian congrega- tions, on the contrary, contained numbei's of virgins who had devoted themselves to celibacy for the love of Christ. They were modest in their dress, decorous in their manners, chaste in their speech. They refused to attend the theaters, lived fru- m 5 mllp« I ! 66 MANHOOD: WRECKED AJ!^D UEHCUED. gaily iiiid temperately ; allowed no dances at their banquets ; used no perfumes, and abstained generally from every practice which could endanger their rigorous conti- Tience. Marrias-e aniom:' the Christians was a lioly institution, whose sole end was the procreation of children. It was not to be used, as was the case too often among the heathen, as a cloak for im- moralities." In the light of this testimony consider the condition of morals ^vhen the apostles be2:an their mission of reform and salvation. Take, for example, the picture sketched by Paul in Rom. i, 24-27 : " Wherefoi-e God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their o\vn hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between them- s^lvea: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause I A MODERN WRECK. ()7 God gave tlieiii up unto vile utfectious : for even their woineii did change the natural use into that which is against nature : and likewise also the men, leav- ing the natural use of the woman, burned in tlieir lust one toAvard another ; men Avith men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recom- pense of their error wliicli was meet." NO COMPROMISE. How did Christianity ineet this awful corruption of mannei's and morals ? Did the apostles advocate a system of licensed and regulated prostitution ? Did they teach that, the sexual appetite being nat- ural and God-given, its gratification must be innocent and natural, out of v.edlock as well as in it? No: tliey reiterated the connnandment, " Thou slialt not commit adultery." They declared that " whore- mongers and adulterei's God will judge." » 68 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND ItESCUED. They proclaimed tluit " they who commit such things are worthy of death." They taught tlie sacreduess of marriage and the purity of the conj'igal relation ; and these teachings were the salt which prevented the utter cori'uption and consequent ex- tmction of the race. And in all subsequent ages, in proportion to the diffusion of the system of morality taught in the Ncav Testament, and the hold which this system lias taken on the heart and conscience of nations and individuals, has been the degree of national elevation, as well as the standard of social and do- mestic purity, which have distinguished Christian from non-Christian conmiunities. Let no student of history pronounce Christianity a failure even if limited to this single line of improvement. It has elevated woman, sanctified mari'iage and the home, driven adulteiy and fornication into the darkness to which they belong. A MODEllN WliECK. 69 mid placed oii the statute books of civilized nations laws which protect virtue and punish rape and seduction. SUPPRESSED BUT NOT EXTINCT. The passions which the watei^s of the flood could not (piench, and which the fire of Sodom could not burn out, have sur- vived through all ages. Stimulated by wealth and luxury, on the one hand and by the poverty which drives to despair, on the other hand, the old sin of sensuality is making; such strides and workino: such havoc in our age as may well a^vaken tlie apprehension and excite the alarm of the Christian, the philantlu-opist, and the states- man. The revelations of the I-^allJ fall Gazette a few years ago startled tlie civilized world. That such a condition of st)ciety could exist in Christian Enij^land, not anionic: its criminal classes, l)ut amongst its nobil- ro MANIWOI): ]Vl{ECKEn AND RESCUED. i ity and tlie higher classes, Avas a revelation which made the pulse of the world stand still, and its face pallid with alarm. It is the boast of the nineteenth century that ours is the richest inheritance becpieathed to any generation ; that the wisdom and learning of all })ast ages have come down to us, and a beacon light has been erected on every rock and shoal on Avhich immortal cargo has Ijeen w-recked. But alas ! the sins and follies and evil habits of the past have come doAvn to us as well ; and to-day sen- suality, the sin of the ages, lives in the midst of our boasted civilization : in our great cities ; in the ])resence of wealth and luxury; undei' the very shadow of onr churches and schools and colleges. 0])en prostitution, seci'et and illicit commerce, and the solitary vice are destroying the sanctity of the home and threatening the security of the nation. Shall we sleep while this I'uin goes on ? A MODERN WliECK. 71 STATISTICS OF PROSTITUTION. It is very tliffieiilt to ohtain statistics of prostitution. It is absolutely impossible to obtain exact statistics, for this sin is committed in secret. In Montreal, witli its population of some 220,000, there ai'e 218 houses of shame known to the police ; and I am not aware that Moutieal is worse in this regai'd, in proportion to j)opulation, than the other great cities of the American continent. Of course the number of such liouses, in any city, known to the police will uot ])y any means repi-esent the ex- tent of this vice. Dr. Foote, of New York, bears this tes- timony to the physical and national effects of prostitution : "Tlie blood of the whole hnman race is becoming contaminated with venereal poison. Do you question this ? Look at the fact that in tlie United States there are \: < 73 MAmiOOD: WUECKED AND RESCUED. not less than 100,000 luirlots, and in Lon- don alone nearly an equal number, nightly dealing out sensual pleasure and physical death to a still greater number of incon- siderate men. It is computed that in the ten chief cities of England thei'e are about 800,000 prostitutes. Cincinnati is one of the smallest cities on tliis side of the Atlantic, but a paper published thei'e remarks that the amount of property, per- sonal and real, invested in the traffic of prostitution in that city, as revealed by late police investigations, is one million of dollars, and it places the annual expen- dituie in this direction atone million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But they are not all diseased, says one. Admit that ; but it is safe to infer that one third of the whole number are, and a little exer- cise in simj)le division shows to us that the seeds of venereal poison are commu- nicated nightly to over thirty thousand .1 MODERN WRECK. 73 pei'soiis in our coimtry alone, many of wlioni liave wives or bed-companions to ^\ horn tliey are liable to impart tlie dis- ease. "I have not the least doubt — and my estimate is leased on authoritative figures which cannot lie — that thirty thousand males ai'e dailv 'infected with venereal ])()ison in the large cities of the United States, a majoi'ity of whom are residents of inland towns, whither they i*etnrn to spi'ead the seeds of the loathesome disorder. In the public institutions of New Yoj'k city about 10,000 cases of venereal disease are treated annually, to say nothing of those ^vho seek the advice of their own physicians. The reader cannot fail to see from the foregoing that prostitution is a prolific source of blood disease, and that it is rapidly converting the great fountain of life, as originally imparte<l to man by his Creator, into a slough of deatli. Of all ^i I U MANHOOD: WliECKED AND RESCUED. ]>lo(>(l impurities, tliei-e are none wliicli lead to such endless xarieties of disease as those induced by the virus with which whoi'edoin is inoculating the whole human fnmily." It is said that for years pasta little pam])h- let of less than t\venty ])nges — price, one dollar — ]irofessing to give prescriptions and directions fov the cui'e of venereal diseases, has sold at the rate of t^venty thousand copies per month in the United States and Canada ah^ne. Think of it ! Two hun- dred and forty thousand copies a year. That means two hundred and forty tliou- sand new cases of these horrible diseases every year. And the victims \\'\\o pur- chase this ]>amphlet represent but a fraction of the total contaminated each yeai'. Does one need to present further jn'oof that sensuality is sapping the very founda- tions of national life ? AVhen cholera or smallpox threatens the land Congress and A MODFAiN WRECK. "ity Parliament and boards of health rush to the rescue ; but this deadly plague is going on by night and by day, and we close our eyes to its widespread desolation. IIISTOUY OF VENEREAL DISEASES. No autlientic liistory of venereal diseases exists. At one time it was the o[)inion of the medical facult}' that they were of com- paratively I'ecent origin, and that the sail- ors of Columbus contracted them from the aborigines of this continent ; l)ut this opinion does not rest on aiiy solid basis, and is now generally rejected. It is a Avell-established fact that venereal diseases existed in Europe as eai'ly as the fiftli cen- tury, and Dr. Sanger i-emarks, in his woi-k already referred to, that "the pi-esumption from an imposing mass of circumstantial evidence is that venei'eal disease has afflicted humanity from the beginning of its history." ' "SH 1 1 70 MANIIOOJ): WRKCKhJJ) AND liEHCV' '» ! 1 lUliLE LIGHT. I iisk the reader to examine carefully the fifteenth chapter of Leviticus, whore he will .^Mcl the huv given by Moses for the un- clean.iess of men and women, and for their cleansing : " When any man hath a run- ning issue out of his flesh, becanse of his issue he is unclean." There can be no doubt that the issue here mentioned was gonorrhoea, or syphilis. The Sei)tnagint version renders the word gonorrhoea., instead of issue, nine times in this chapter. Dr. Adam Clarke, in his Commentary, ^iiyii>'. "The disgraceful dis- order referred to hei'e is a foul blot which the justice of God in the course of provi- <lence has made in general the inseparable consequent of these criminal indulgences, and serves in some manner to correct and restrain the vice itself. In countries Avhere prostitution was permitted, where it A MODERN WUECK. Wfis even a religious ceremony among those \vlio were idolaters, ^liis disease must necessarily have been frequent and prevalent. . . . That the Israelites might have received it fi'om the Egyptians, and that it must, through the Baal-peor and Asliteroth abominations which they learned and practiced, have prevailed among the Moabites, etc., there can be little reason to doubt." Physicians tell us how infectious these diseases are, being communicated by inter- course, by vaccination, by utensils, and even by a kiss ; and when we consult the . Mosaic laws we find a perfect system of septiration enjoined, so as to preclude the possibility of infection and contagion. This awful disease, this subtle infection, is God's immediate penalty attached to a violation of the law of purity ; and if I could speak with a voice of thunder I would peal into the ears of the world a ! 78 MANHOOD: WIlEGKhJl) AN J) UESCUKI). solemn warning : A]);uulon nil Iio[)e, ye who dally with illicit pleasure, use what prev^entive and precaution }ou may. Pi'esently you will awake to the conscious- ness that you have been stung hy the fangs of a scorpion whose poison no materia medica can extract. A STATE DOCUMENT. State documents are not platform ora- tions, but sober, solemn utterances of men who study the public weal. When they convey public warning the warning is the outcome of facts carefully gathered and tabulated. Listen to these notes of warn- ing from one of the annual reports of the Board of State Charities of Massachusetts anent venereal disease : " Woe to the bodi- ly tabernacle in which it once enters ; for it is one of those evil spirits which not even prayer and fasting can cast out. With slow, painless, insidious, resistless march it .1 MODERN WliEVK. 70 })eiietrates into the very iiuirrow of the bones, and poisons the fountain of* life be- yond purification. All imiylook fairwith- (►ut and feel fair within, ])ut the taint is there, and it aft'ects the oft'spiing. The effects i)f this disorder in corrupting the human stock and predisposing offspring to disease are more deadly than is usually be- lieved. They are hardly exceeded by the effects of alcohol. Nature readily foigives unto the sons of men other sins and blasphemies wherewith soever they may bkspheme; but this one, like him that blas- phemeth against the Holy Spirit, hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation, for he hath an unclean spirit." • I'iJIi TTIR RIVER OF DEATH. Dr. Dio Lewis calls the sensuality of this age " a deep, swift I'iver on which half the race is being borne away into the dark- ness," 0, that deep, dark river, the river !• 80 MAN 110 OD : WllE CKED AND JiES C UEJJ. II i i. II i I. m m i death ! Hear what Solomon says about it under a change of figure : " For tlie lips of a strange woman drop as a honey- comb, a)id her mouth is smoother than oil : but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death ; her steps take hold on hell. . . . Remov^e thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: lest thou give thine honor unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: lest strangers be mied with thy wealth ; and thy labors be in the house of a stranger." Pro v. v, 3-10. NATIONAL DECAY. All history teaches that national decay follows in the wake of this vice. The en- feeblement and corruption, the deteriora- tion and (ollapse, of the nation in which tliis r-il 18 allowed to work out its conse- ([uences are as certain as the law of grav- ity. Surely the time has come when pul- C ^. A MODKIiX Wh'ECK. 81 pit, platfoi'm, press, liurcli, and legislature, ill a worel, when all good citizens should unite in the demand for the enactment and enforcement of such laivs as shall make this vice a crime, and thus ai'rest the stream of poison wliich is con Laminating the blood of the nation, and which must ere long consign it to a like ol)livion Avith the old empires which ^vere consumed by the flames of ^ust and passion. niEVENTIOX BETTER THAN CURE. Haj)py is the man who retains the pu- rity of manhood. My heart's desire is to SO iniDress the readers of these i)aii:es with a loathing and abhorrence of sexual im- purity in all its forms as to create in them a purpose lastiiig as life and strong as death that they will nevei' violate the laws of personal and social purity. I make my plea, first of all, on the ground of self-preservation. You cannot 83 MANHOOD: WRECK HI) AND RESCUKD. nft'ord, for the sake of moiiientaiy gi'atifica- tioii, to imperil youi* health and happiness, J ltd even life itself. Let no man deceive }()u with the suggestion that there are re- lia])le preventives of infection, either me- chanical or otherwise. There is no safety for the man who consorts with women who sell their virtue for money. There is no safety for any man save in obedience to the law of purity. LICENSE AND INSPECTION. The attempt to escape the penalty at- tached to illicit commerce by a system of license and inspection has not proved a success to any appreciable extent. Roman laws governing prostitution date as early as the reign of the emperor Augustus. The object of these laws was, first, to presei've Roman blood from polhition, and, secondly, to degi'ade the prostitutes. To this end the marriage of citizens with j)rostitutes, ■ )»: jj^i t4_L^'"^ ..,>■ «^«^^^.-IuB A MODK/iN' WRECK. 83 or with the descendants of women of loose virtue, \\ms strictly prohibited. 'J'he wom- an desiring to be licensed as a prostitute had her name registered as such, and by that rei^istration incurred a brand of re- proacli which could never be wiped out. No repentance and I'eformation could re- store lier to society. Even when she mar- ried and became tin; mother of children the brand of reproach remained. No laws conld be more detei lent, and yet Rome failed to regulate this vice by license and registration. Lust and sensuality became I'egnant over intellectual culture and na- tional aml)ition, and destroyed that might- iest empire of tlie world. STILL A FAILURE. The New York Medical Record contains the following facts and figures, which show how completely the system of license raid rcirulation fails to save from coutamination ■—— i i I I; ; t ! V \ 84 MANHOOD: WliECKED AND RESCUED. and disease. The article in question states : "1. During the last twenty-seven years that he has been practicing, Dr. Fourniei' has been consulted by 887 women afflicted with syphilis. Of this number 842 cases were of sexual origin, and in 45 cases, which is already a proportion of fiv^' per cent, the disease was contracted otherwise than by sexual connection. As regards the social position of the 842 cases, the author divides the patients into three cat- egories : First, ^vomen ])elonging to the (lemi-mondey 360 ; second, married women, 220; third, women wliose social position was unknown, 25(). In striking out from tlie tio;ures 220 a certain nund)er of the cases of married women who evidently got the disease from other sources than their hus- bands, there reuiaiu 1()4 infected by their husbands. " 2. Megnlating Prostitution, — Fournier ■tfumm-i^tf- A MODERN WRECK. 85 asked 873 male sypliilitics how they had become infected. It was found that 625 got the disease from registered, licensed, and regularly examined prostitutes, 100 from working women, 24 from domestics, 24 front married ^volnen, 46 from clandes- tine prostitutes. The incpiiry showed that the licensed prostitute was the most serious source of infection. " 3. A Protest against Licensed Prosti- tution. — A memorial has been presented to the Japanese Parliament praying for the abolition of licensed prostitution in the empire. It is contended by the peti- tioners that the system encourages immo- rality, debases women, and promotes, rather than hinders, the spread of venereal disease. There never was a measure, the memorial states, which showed more plainly the sex that devised it than this system of license, and never (Mie which showed more tlie brutal side of man's na- ill 80 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. tiire. It is a scbeme to pi'otect inaii in his baser impulses at the expense of woman, and society is corrupted in tlie effort." If men would bnt use their connnon sense they w^ould see how utterly impossi- ble it is by any system of medical inspec- tion to make contact with an inmate of a house of shame free from infection, no matter how high the house may be. These women are after money. The doctor may make his inspection at six o'clock, and at seven the woman nifiy have inter- course with an infected man, and at ten o'clock with one free from disease, but wlio now contracts it from her. Be assured that God has put his mai*k on this great sin, and as you value your life and health and happiness make a covenant with your nobler manhood that you \vill preserve your body in honor and chastity to the last day of your life. For the man wlio seeks illicit pleasui'e, whether jminJii^lliSii, A MODE UN WRECK. 87 in the low brothel or in the fashionable house of shame, there is no permanent escape. God's pursuivant is on his track, and will run him down and run him in ; and, with a bcjdy reeking with putrefac- tion, there Avill come home to the soul the sad retribution indicated in the divine warn- ing, " And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed." HIGHER MOTIVES. I plead for purity not only on national and patriotic grounds, not only on the ground of self-preservation, but on higher grounds as well. You are somebody's child ; I am somebody's child. Somebody to-day at the old home, it may be, or in the spirit world, used to call you " darling," and you called her " mother." She In'ought you into the world through the pangs of labor; from her breast you drew the nourishment of your infant life, and she 11! a u i 88 MANHOOD: WltKGKED AND liESCUED. c.ired for you in cliiklhood as none otlier could. Peril jips, too, you know what the ^vord 6-is-t€)' means, and what the woi'd wife means. Tell me, then, what is the feeling which thrills your whole being like a shock of electricity, and sends the blood galloping through your veins, as you think of the bare possibility of some man violating the honor of your mother or sister or wife. I know what your thought i:^. You say, " I would shoot him down like a doic." But you are the man who deserves to be shot down like a dog when }ou violate the honor of another man's mother or sister or wife. This is not all. Every poor fallen woman, ready to sell he)" soul for money and jewelry and gay attire, is somebody's child. Some mother pressed her to her heart, and dandled her on her knee, and, perchance, some man of God sprinkled baj^tismal water on her brow. A MODE UN WRECK. 8!) Tell me, if you will, that she has ostra- cised hei'sell: tVoiii decent society, and put herself into the market, and it is her own lookout and not yours. All ! my brother, you do not know the history of that sad life. You do not know with what flat- tery, and protestation of love and promise of marriage, some devil dressed like a gen- tleman seduced and I'uined her, '* Then flung her off with taunt and scoff, And bade her work or die." You do not know how, with wido^ved motlieror sick sister to care foi", or stand- ing behind the counter all day ^vith weary limb, and tired brain, and small pay, the seducer of souls whispered into her ear that the world is cruel, and the church is cold, and life is short, and beauty commands money, and others do it, and why not she ? You do not stay to think of the anguish of that poor soul v,dien the short career of 90 MANHOOD : WliKCKICD AND ItESCUKD. ( [■■• 1,1,, ^i| 1 ' '. ' 1 • 1 1 lAi. shame is ended, and the past haunts tlie memory like a dismal gliost, and the fiituie I'ises up witli its fire of retribution, and the broken heart sobs out its pitiful wailings: " Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell, Fell like a snowflake from heaven to hell ; Fell to be trampled as filth in the street, Fell to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat ; Pleading, cursing, dreading to die ; Selling my soul to whoever would buy ; Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread; Hating the living and fearing the dead. Merciful God ! have I fallen so low ? Aud yet I was once like the beautiful snow." You do not think of all these things, else you would say : Let who ^vill contril)- ute to a ruin so apj^alling, no hot passion shall make me accessory to jui end like that. But I turn from tlie outcast to our homes, our offices, aud our stores ; for out of all these tair young girls are taken every year by the arts of the accom- A MODEliN WUECK. 1)1 plished seducer. And I say before high heaven that wlien a man deliberately sets himself to seduce a wonian there are no words in our vocabulary which can ade- quately express the depths of depravity to which he has descended. The libertine, niai'ried or single, who plans and perpe- trates the ruin of a woman, married or sin- gle — does he think of the extent of that ruin. It touches many hearts. Dark are the shadows that have fallen on that home, and heavy is the blow that crushes to the earth the aged parents. Their gray hairs gr{)^v grayer, and the sobs of their aching hearts grow louder, as tliey weep over the fact that now they are worse than child- less. Men may be thoughtless and snaj* their fingers and say : " She tempted me more than I tempted lier, and what does it signi- fy ? " T answer that question partly in the language of another : IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) V / O // % ^ if' Me .^ <»- :/ <; % w. v. 1.0 I.I 1.25 541 IM IIIII2.5 IIM m ;40 12.2 2.0 1.8 \A. Illli 1.6 VQ <? /^ /. "el /; O 7 //a Photographic Sciences Corporation s. <^ ■^■^ K^ \ <> ■'^ m ^ . ^ o > 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4503 I <" M? * Cp^ '€ 93 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. man, it shall signify. As sure as there is a God in heaven thou shalt meet again that lost one to whom thou didst o})en the door of shame, of infamy, and of ruin. Her own lips shall tell thee liow thou didst help to put out in her all that was pure, and send her into the streets an out- cast. It shall signify. That child of neg- lect shall claim thee as its father. Before God and holy angels it will tell thee of its bare infant feet on snowy sidewalks ; of the ignorance and wretchedness and foul examples through which its struggling life was passed, and which left it no chance of virtue. From thee it will demand account of those parental duties thou didst incur but didst not discharge. It shall signify. A TiniEEFOLD APPEAL. 1 make, thou, this threefold appeal for purity. After having traced the windings of the river of sensuality in primitive his- Hi m n A MODERN WRECK. 93 tory ; after having seen that this sin pro- voked (tO(1 to drown the antediluvian world and to burn the cities of the plain ; after having traced this dark river from Noali to the Advent, and on to the present day, noting how sensuality has sapped the nations, and how it threatens our modern civilization, I appeal on the ground of patriotism that you set your face as a flint against this vice of all vices. I ap- peal on the gi'ound of self-preservation that you vow to God that you will shun every form of illicit indulgence and pi'e- serve your body in honor and i)urity. I appeal on the ground of the reverence with which you oherish the name of mothei', sister, and wife that you scoin to soil the white feather of female virtue. And if these poor words of mine abide in your heart, and come like uiinistering angels in moments of temj^tation, I am repaid. A YOUTHFUL WRECK. , i 1 m v I 1 ^^^M ■ tt-^'.- . ^IH Itl A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 97 CHAPTER IV. A YOUTHFUL WRECK. That form of sexual perveision which now invites attention is known as the solitary vice, masturbation, or self-abuse, and is generally included in the familiar term, seminal weakness. The habit is frequently acquired at an early period in life, and in utter ignorance of its sinfulness and its serious consequences. PUBERTY. The word puberty means the period in life at which persons are capable of beget- ting or bearing children. In civil law the age is usually fixed at twelve years in females and at fourteen in males, but the period varies in different individuals and in different climates. % h B ■ I I 98 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. u The passage of the boy into manhood is distinctly marked and easily discerned. The muscles become larger and firmer, the skin becomes coai'ser, the hair begins to grow on the face, tlie voice changes into deeper tones, a corresponding change takes place in the mental faculties, and the lad reaches one of the most critical periods of his lite. If he has already learned the solitary vice God pity him in the absence of some wise friend to counsel and in- struct him, and if he has not learned it he is almost certjdn to learn it now in the absence of a knowledge of its ruinous results. Alas ! how many boys come to this crit- ical period ignorant of the marvelous pow- ers which now come into operation ! No book like this one is put into their hands, no instruction is imparted by their parents, and they are left to grapple with the new desires and passions as best they can ; and A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 99 thousands of briglit young lads go down in the struggle, as soldieis fall on the open plain exposed to the fire of the enemy. SAD BUT TRUE. It is sad to think that the majority of boys learn the solitary vice even before the age of pubei'ty, and when this change takes place and passion grows stronger the habit is indulged in day after day, and be- fore the age of strong manhood is reached they are physical and mental wrecks. Our cemeteries and graveyards are peopled with the remains of boys and young men who died victims of the solitary vice ; yes, and men in middle life too — mari'ied as well as single. In all our lunatic asylums its victims are found, while hundreds of the brightest boys in schools and colleges, in stores and offices, in factories and work- shops, in great cities and throughout the rural districts, are suffering from a vital 11 i 'I \U m I 100 MANHOOD: WliECKED AND li?:sCUED. weakness which in nuuiy cases will follow them to the grave. AN ANCIENT IIAIUT. Just how ancient the habit of self-pol- lution is we cannot determine with abso- lute certainty, but it is clear that seminal weakness, which, although sometimes trace- able to other causes, iuv^ariably follows the indulgence of this practice, existed in the days of Moses and called forth divine leg- islation. In Lev. XV, 16, 17, we i*ead : "And if any man's seed of copulation g(^ out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh hi watei', and be unclean until the even. And every garment, and every skin, whereon is the seed of copulation, shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the even." Also in Deut. xxiii, 10, 11, we read: "If there be among you any man, that is not clean by reason of uncleanness that A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 101 chanceth hiiu by uiglit, tlieu shall he go abroad out of the camp, he shall not come ^vithin the camp : but it shall be, when evening cometh on, he shall wash himself with water: and when the sun is down, he shall come into the camp again." These passages teach us that seminal emissions Were regarded as an impurity, and the treatment prescribed was exercise in the open air and ablutions of water. IMPOSSIBLE TO EXAGGERATE. I do not forget that the natural tendency of one who addresses himself to the expo- sure of a particular vice is to exaggerate, unconsciously, both its extent and its con- sequences. It is my purpose to avoid this error, and yet when I submit testimony to the prevalence and to the destructive char- acter of the solitary vice I think you will conclude that exaggeration is impossil^le. My first witness is the late Dr. Work- 102 MANHOOD: WltECKEB AND RESCUED. mau, for mauy yeiira the efficient superin- tendent of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum at Toronto. In one of his annual reports he dwells at length on the causes of insan- ity. I quote his words in full touching the practice now under consideration. He says : " There is one cause, of a physical form, which I fear is very widely extended, but Avhicli I almost dread to mention, which all over this continent appears to be peopling our asylums with a loathesome, abject, and hopeless multitude of inmates. Its victims are not intemperate — nay, in- deed, not unfrequently very temperate — as to indulgence in alcoholic beverages. They are very modest, very shy, very (dare I say it ?) pious — as such, at least, they very often are sent here with sufficient creden- tials ; very studi()U3, very nervous, very everything save what they really are. "I have recently made a careful A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 108 scrutiny of the character of the cases of in- sane men on behalf of whom applications have been nitide, and from \\'hu8e friends and physicians details, in our circular form, have been received. The result has been frightful. I hesitate to state the propoi'tion in which, I feel fully assured or morally certain, secret vice is present. " In liardly any instance is it found that parents have any suspicion of its existence when they place the victims in the asylum ; indeed, very many of them appear to be totally ignorant of the veiy existence of such a habit, and nothing can be more painful and embarrassing to an asylum physician than correspondence by letter with such persons, when the conviction is established in our minds that the insanity of their beloved one is associated with the destructive habit, and in all probability it has been induced by it. "The very frequent, indeed, almost in- ^O' 104 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. variable, observaiK'^ that the habit of secret indulgence is encouraged, not in persons of rougli manners and wliat are called coarse morals, but in those of an opposite character; not in the grossly 'gnorant; not even in the profane, but in the better informed and passingly religious; not in the lover of manly sports and invigo- rating e?ijoyments, but in the ostensible economizers of constitutional 2>o\ver and the shunners of youthful fi'ivolitie-^ ; not in those who, in lano-uasfe or in acts, are re- garded as ovei'stepping the limits of mod- esty or chastity, but among those who evince no wish to mini):le with the other sex, or sometimes, indeed, evince an utter aversion to it — the observance of these, and many othei* I'elated facts, lias con- strained me to v^he ])elief that modern so- ciety, modern training, and modern exac- tion are all too severe upon youth. *' The skillful physician, who measures A YOUTHFUL WRECK. lOS tlie feeble, paltry, accelerated y^t lazy pulse — who notes the pallid coiuiteuance, the waxy features, and fi-equently foul breath — who tries to gain one steady, con- fiding, open look from his patient, and whose cpiestions in a certain suspected direction are met with liesitation, equivo cation, or affected moi'tification, well knows how much ti'utli there is in tlie charge against love ; and he will, in similar cases, acquit religion. " I have in stronij remembrance a case apparently chargeable to I'eligion. The patient, before entering hei'e, did hardly anything but attend prayer meetings and preachings; lie was away from one church and off to another as fast as open <loors permitted him. In the climax of his fervor he was sent to the asylum. We know liow much relisrion had to do witli his insanitv — not more than smoke has in kindling the fire from \vhich it proceeds. I 1 II ':■. 106 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. " What is to be done to check the prog- ress of the evil ? — for that it is progressing and accumulating is beyond doubt. Surely the right course cannot be to avoid all notice of it, or to do all v.e can to ignore its very existence ; much less to manifest disopproval of those who proclaim the evil. Yet that is exactly what many do. It is unnecessary to speak more pointedly ; those who have so done will be able to apply these remarks — it is to be hoped profitably — and see that they have erred in believing that their mistaken delicacy is to be re- garded as the equivalent of their neglect of duty. The first rational step toward the removal of an evil is the recognition of its existence and the ascertainment of its magnitude. Can it be right that, through fastidious delicacy on the part of those possessed of information, the youth of our country should be permitted to fall into the traps and pitfalls with which their A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 101 paths are studcled? Of all the hidden dangers besetting them, assuredly none is of a more hideous or more destructive char- acter than that here alluded to." AMERICAN TESTIMONY. Side b}^ side with this Canadian testi- mony I place that of Anx^'ican witnesses equally competent and trustworthy. Dr. Woodward, during his suj^erintend- ency of the Massachusetts Asylum for the Insane, said : " Those who think tliat infor- mation on this subject is either unnecessary or injurious are hardly aware how exten- sive this habit is with the young, or how early in life it is sometimes practiced. I have never conversed with a lad twelve years of as^e who did not know all al)out the practice, and understand the language used to describe it." Dr. Snow gives his testimony in these words : " Self-pollution is undoubtedly one li 108 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND liESCVEb. of the most common causes of ill health that can be found anioug the young men of the country. From the observations that I have been able to make I am satis- fied that the practice is almost universal. Boys commence it at an early age, and the habit once formed, like that of intemper- ance, becomes almost unconquei'able. In boarding schools and colleges it obtains, oftentimes, without an exception. Hence the many sickly students, and the many young men of the most brilliant and 2:>rom- ising talents, who have broken their con- stitutit)n, and ruined their health, as it is said, hy hard study.'''' The late O. S. Fowler devoted a long life to the lecture platform and to the private delineation of character, and was brought into personal contact with people of all ages, sexes, and nationalities ; and whatever we may think of some of the hohhies discussed in his voluminous writ- .1 YOUTHFUL WRECK. 109 ings, his utteiances are true and telling on Jill questions of personal and social purity. His little work on self-abuse reached a sale of more than half a million. Let us re- ceive his testimony on this subject : "While sexual sin is the most destruct- ive of all human vices, this personal form is by far its worse form, because it is the greatest outrage on nature's sexual ordi- nances which man can possibly perpetrate. It is man's sin of sins, and vice of vices, and has caused incomparably moj-e sexual dilapidation, paralysis, and disease, as well as demoralization, than all the other sex- ual vices combined. Neither Chi'istendoin nor heathendom suffers any evil at all to compare with this, because of its univer- sality and its tei'ribly fatal ravages on body and mind, and because it attacks the yoiing idob of our hearts and the hopes of our future years. Forty years of personal ob- servation, -with the best of facilities, war- \i\ HSS 110 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. rant the solemn Jeclaration that few escape its ravagesP He cites many incidents in those forty years of personal observation, and I cpote one at this point for the benefit of parents and guardians. It is the experience of a lady who was determined to save her three adopted boys troni this vice. This is her own language : " I warned my eldest son on his sixteenth birthday, but was too late, as he had per- petrated it for years. Determined to be in ample season with my other two, I warned the next youngest at thirteen, never dreaming that it could be pi'acticed before puberty, but found m^^self again too late. Half frantic with disappointment, and de- termined to make sure of seasonabl}^ warning ray now only nndefiled, I warned him at ten, but, horrible to relate, was still too late ; for he had already learned and perpetrated it,'' ^^ A YOUTHFUL WRECK. Ill ADDITIONAL TESTIMONY. Dr. Sylvester Graliam, whose pamphlet on Chastity is one of the best in print, speaking of the prevalence of this habit, says : "The common notion that boys are gen- erally ignorant in relation to this matter, and that we ou2:ht not to remove that ig^no- ranee, is wholly incorrect. I am confident that I speak within bonuds when I say that seven out of every ten boys in our country, at the age of twelve, have at least heard of this pernicious practice; and I say again, the extent to which it prevails in our public schools and colleges is shock- ing be3^ond measure." TESTIMONY OF AN EDUCATIONIST. The Eev. E. M. P. Wells, a distinguished educationist, says : " From an intimate acquaintance with i\r' ll"!*" »i JM iiin 112 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. about sev^en hundred boys for the past nine years, from the recollections of a pretty extensive acquaintance in boyhood, and from information derived from gentle- men of the highest distinction and most eminent success in the great subject, not of learning only, but of education, in my own country and several nations of Europe, I am fully convinced that the practice of the self-gratification of the sexual desires is more common than any other indulgence Avhich we consider at all wrong." These are my witnesses, and not one of them is a qnack or a charlatan seeking to make money by alarming the fears of the suffering; but they are men who have studied tlie subject and know whereof they affirm. It would be easy to multiply such testimonies, but it is not necessary to do so. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, and the question is. Who shall give our boys and young men instruction on these .1 YOUTHFUL WRECK. 113 subjects? Shall they receive their first knowledge from playmates and compuiiions ever ready to initiate them into practices which, before we know it, will lay the foundation for j^hysical, mental, and moral bankruptcy, shame, and disgrace? Tlie White Cross movement, the Young Men's Christian A8so<^Mation, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union are doing a noble work in the supply of addresses and the circulation of literature on social pu- rity; but all this is not enough. Christian ministei-s must come to the front, and, by voice and pen, exert the great influence God has given them. They must study these subjects and speak on them to con- gregations of men, who will crowd to hear them and profit by what they hear. THE DUTY OF PARENTS. Fathers and mothers must instruct their boys and girls, and supply them with 114 MANHOOD: WliECKED AND REF^CUED. \ I books on this delicate and important sub- ject. Surely no father can be too bashful, no mother too modest, to tell tiieii' chil- dren what 8elf-al)use is, and warn them against companions who would tempt them •to commit this sin against God and against their own bodies. But again I say, minis- ters must lead in this as in every great moral reform. " The leaders in health must set a warning everywhere. They must make it impossible for a single youth to walk into the pit with his eyes blind- folded, or f(>' one man to enter the door of shame and incurable disease without a full knowledge that he is taking the ex- press train to ruin." Speaking of this whole question of pu- rity, the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw says: " I makt; my first appeal to the pulpit. The theme, I am well aware, is one on which the min- isters of the Gospel cannot dwell, frequently or freely, before promiscuous auditors, yet A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 115 nil- yet there is danger of excess of squeamishness such as it is not easy to reconcile with faithfulness." And the Rev. Dr. Dwight is most emphatic in his views of the duty of the pulpit on these subjects. He asks : " Is it a phiin and prominent part of the counsel of God to forbid, to discourage, to prevent this profligate conduct of mankind? Why else this precept, the seventh com- mandment, inserted in the decalogue and promulgated amidst the lightnings of Sinai? Why else is it, throughout the Scriptures, made the subject of such forcible pro- hibitions and the object of such awful threatenings? Is it fit, is it safe, is it not preposterous, is it not ruinous to the best interests of mankind, to leave the whole management of it to loose and abandoned men, and to suffer them, from year to yeai* and from century to century, to go on in a course of corruption, seducing and destroy- ing thousands and millions, especially of u lUJ MANHOOD: WltKdKED AND liEHCUKD, the young, the gtiy, and the gitldy, while we, ministers of Chi'ist, divinely ujjpointed to AVfitch for the souls of men, quietly sit by jind see them hurried on to perdition? Shall we be awed by the cry of indeli- cacy? Shall Avc not infinitely rather lay hold of every opportunity to rescue our fellow-creatures fi'om destruction?" The Rev. Dr. Adam Clarke's Coinmen- tary finds a place in thousands of Christian homes, and is read by boys and girls and pure-minded women, and he does not think this sul)ject too indelicate to deal with. Speaking of the solitary vice, he says: "The sin of self-pollution is one of the most destructive evils ever practiced by fallen man. In many respects it is several degrees worse than common whoredom, and has in its train more awful conse- quences. It excites the powers of nature to undue action, and produces violent se- cretions which necessarily and speedily "^r A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 11' exhaust the vitiil principle aiul energy; lience the muscles become flaccid and fee- ])le, the tone and natural action of the nerves I'elaxed and impeded, the under- standing confused, the judgment per- verted, the will iudeterniinate and wholly without energy to resist ; the eyes appear languisiiing and without expression, and the countenance vacant ; nutrition fails ; tremors, feai's, and terroi-s are generated, and thus the wretched victim drags out a miserable existence, till, superannuated even before he had time to arrive at man's estate, with a mind often debilitated even to a state of idiotism, his worthless body tum- bles into the grave, and his guilty soul — guilty of self-murder — is hurried into the presence of its Judge." ly STRONG BUT TRUE. This is strong language, but true in the case of those whose eyes are open to see 118 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. that self-poll utiou is a sin against God and nature. But it is only fair to emphasize the fact that in multitudes of instances the habit is contracted and continued in abso- lute ignorance of its destructive I'esults. No one who reads this book can plead such ignorance. The lad who for the first time excites his sexual organs and causes the seminal fluid to flow has taken a long step to ruin. It may not be until after the lapse of months, or even years in the case of strong and vigorous constitutions, that the debilitating effects of the habit begin to manifest themselves ; but at length they come like an avalanche, that first moves, then rushes, and then roars down the hill- side to crush and be crushed at the base. LOSS OF BLOOD. Loss of semen is loss of blood. The blood is the life, and if y^w drain off a sufficient quantity life becomes extinct. A rOVTIIFUL WRECK. 119 Dr. Miller says : " The semen, or male pi*incii)le, is composed of the elements Avhich form brain, nei've, muscle, bone — in sliort, every tissue of which the body is composed; and by parting with it a por- tion of the life principle is lost ; and a con- stant loss of the life principle, whether for puqjoses of generation or otherwise, must invariably drain the system of a vast amount of life foi'ce, and render it an easy prey to the innumerable diseases to which humanity is subject." Dr. Woodward says : " Nature designs tliat this drain upon the system should be reserved to mature age, and even then that it be made but sparingly. Sturdy manhood, in all its vigor, loses its energy, and bends undei* the too frequent expen- diture of this important secretion ; and no age or condition will protect a man from the danger of unlimited indulgence, though legally and naturally exercised, in the WE^ 130 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND liESGUEl). young, however, its influence is much more seriously felt. No cause is more influen- tial in producing insanity." Some eminent authorities claim that an ounce of this fluid is equal to forty ounces of blood, and that in a well-regulated life it is reabsorbed or taken into the circula- tion, its vital elements going to the vital centers to strengthen them, and its earth- ly elements feeding the bones, hair, nails, etc., and building up the masculine proper- ties of the man. 1'! 1 SEMIXAL EMISSIONS. The opinion j^rev^ails in some quarters that the loss of semen is not, in itself, a serious injury or a source of physical and mental weakness, but that the nervous ex- citement induced by masturbation and by the sexual act works all the mischief. It cannot be denied that the strain upon the nervous system is more destructive than A YOinirFUL WRECK. 121 the loss of semen, but the hitter is a jiositive and a very great injury. When we read lip this sul)ject and consult physicians personally we are somewhat perplexed at the diversity of opinion expressed. I have consulted more than one hundred volumes in the preparation of this book. On the one hand, I find an authority of the rank and standing of Dr. Gross writing as fol- lows on the question of nocturnal emissions: " In a general way, I should say that in single men who lead a continent life and possess a sound nervous system emissions at intervals of two weeks are indicative of excellent health. In such persons they are merely reflex signs of fullness or distension of the seminal passages. Even if they occur several times a w^eek, provided they are not follo^ved by symptoms of nervous disorder, they are not at all inconsistent with temporary good health." Dr. George M. Beard coincides wnth this I ,-v — „- ! 133 MANHOOD : WRECKED AND RESCUED. view when be says: " Some are injured by one emission a week, while others have several weekly and maintain perfect health and strength. Seminal emissions should never excite any alarm so long as our health in other respects I'emains good/' On the other hand, I find a large number of authorities who agree \vith Dr. Graham, who devoted much attention to the subject, and whose views I now submit : " Health does not absolutely require that there should ever be an emission of semen from puberty to death, though the indi- vidual live a hundred years. The fre- quency of involuntary nocturnal emissions is an indubitable proof that the parts, at least, are sufficiently under a debility and morbid irritability utterly incompatible with the genei'al welfare of the system; and the mental faculties are always debili- tated and impaired by such indulgences. The plain truth of the matter is this : An A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 123 individual in what is ordinarily called good health may, sometimes, on account of some disturbing cause in the alimentary canal, some particular position in which he lies, or some other cause, experience an involun- tar}'' venereal paroxysm in his sleep, with- out any very serious injury to health, and without justifying the conclusion that any of his organs are in an actual state of dis- ease. Yet even in these cases the indi- vidual ought always to consider the fact of so abnormal or irregular a character, and so pernicious a tendency, as to I'equire that he should, if possible, ascertain and avoid a recurrence of the cause and a repeti- tion of the effect. " But as a general fact, when the involun- tary venereal paroxysms are frequent, it is entirely certain that the sexual organs are in a state of debility and preternatural irritability inseparable from that general condition of the nervous system which is 134 MANHOOD: Vf KECKED AND IlESCUKD. wholly inconsistent with the pathological welfare of the body. It always evinces that there is more or less of an unhealthy debility and irritability in the sexual organs, and a preternatural sympathy between them and the alimentary canal and the T>rain. So that iri-itations in either of these ])arts serve to induce that train of physio- logical and mental exercises which result in the involuntary venereal paroxysms. More generally, however, disturbing causes in the alimentary organs are the sources of these paroxysms. At any rate, they are always an abnormal or irregular result, and afford no evidence that nature required an emission of semen, nor the least evi- dence that any semen was secreted when the individual retired to rest." Dr. Trail confirms the thought contained in the last sentence quoted, and speaks with great positiveness when he says : " A gen- eral error has prevailed among young a^ A YOUTHFUL WUECK. 135 pei'sons, that the seminal fluid, after the full development of the sexual apparatus, is constantly accumulating, and that un- less it is occasionally or periodically dis- charged its superabundance will produce injury. The fact is, the semen, in its pei'- fect state, is never secreted, except during the period of sexual excitement. Its ele- ments may pervade the whole circulatory system; be diffused throughout the entire organism; and any detrimental excess may be detei'ged through the various excretion- ary functions ; but it is only during vene- real excitement that they are secreted by the proper organs in the form of semen." A FALLACY NAILED. Dr. Ritter, an eminent German physician, says : " We sometimes meet, in common life, with stories of the terrible evils which have befallen young persons on account of their excessive chastity. Nay, we have 126 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND HKSCUED. 1:1 U been told that the seminal fluid has even occasionally entered the brain of one or other of these unfortunate beings, and ren- dered him insjine, with many other things equally silly and equally untrue. Gha-stity can never he exce-s,nve. It is always advan- tageous. It always promotes health and happiness. It never ^vill nor can become the cause of injury or disease." I have been thus particular to present these somewhat conflicting opinions, alike for the encouragement of those who are on the border of despair because of nocturnal emissions after the practice of self-abuse has been abandoned, and as a warning to those who, in vigorous health, indulge the habit and feel no immediate evil results. AVhatever may be said of occasional emis- sions in the case of men of full blood, nothing is more certain than the fact that emissions which are the result of mastur- bation or of e.T.cess in the mamage relation ' ' ^"l llj • « 1} A YOUTHFUL WRECK. la? U are a positive injury, a source of j)liysical and mental weakness, as every victim of these destructive practices well knows. • CONSERVATISM OF NATURE. . Nature makes provision for the expul- sion of all effete and injurious properties which may accumulate in the body; but on the other hand she i-etains and utilizes all life-sustaining pro[)erties. She does not cast off elements which make brain, and nerve, and bone, and muscle. Semen is such an element, and nature uses it for the purposes intended ; and when we needlessly expend it we pauperize nature and she pauperizes us. In addition to all this, re lu ember that the secretion of this life fluid does not take ])lace without a mental act, either in our sleeping or in our waking moments. You will hear men say, " I am so constituted, so organized, that it seems impossible for ^flfll 1 i' i ^ 128 MANHOOD: W HECK ED AND liE.SCUJW. me to control this piussioii." The difficulty with sucli men is that they do not control their thoui^hts. They are always thinking and talking about women, and so they set fire to their sexual passion. There is true philosophy in that remarkable passage in James i, 13-15 : "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man : but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. Then the lust, when it hath conceiv^ed, bear- eth sin : and the sin, when it is full- grown, bringeth forth death " (Revised Vei'sion). j The meaning is that we are to look for the cause of every sin in ourselves, and not outside of ourselves ; and when we cherish an evil thought it will blossom into an act of sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, ^vill bring forth death, A YOUTHFUL WHECK. 199 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. We derive our most simple and impress- ive view of the human nervous system from the analogy between it and a tele- graphic system. Think of a thousand wires entering a central office in a great city and connecting this central office with smaller offices all over the land ; think of many thousands of cells generating elec- tricity in these offices, and you have some idea of the nervous system in man. The brain is the central office, and in it there are nine hundred million cells generating nerve iluid, and apart from the brain a still larger number ; so that in the entire human body there are some two billion cells generating nerve fluid to keep up a current of sensation and supply motor power to the muscular system. Thus the several parts of the body are connected with the central office in the head, 9 130 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RE8CUED. A lUJNDLE OF NEKVES. For a long time the opinion prevailed that the nerves were solid threads like the strings of a violin, and a sensitive person was spoken of as "a bundle of nerves," operated upon by change of weather, or by stinging words, just as a musical instru- ment is affected by the condition of the atmosphere, or by the manipulation of the artist. But a better knowledge of anatomy and physiology i-eveals the fact that each white thread of nerve is a minute tube filled with substance through which nerve force is communicated, and which makes the nerve threads look like a glass tube filled with a clear liquid. DOUBLE NERVE SYSTEM. The brain with its twelve pair of nerve cables, and the spinal cord with its thirty^ A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 181 one pair, compose the cerebro-spiiial sys- tem. Tlirv embrace the nerves of sensa- tion and t nerves of motion which communicate directly ^vith the brain, and to which tliey go for information, orders, and commands. Then there is tlie sympathetic nervous system, binding together all pai'ts of the body; its fibers forming an interlacing network, penetrating and uniting the internal organs. The nerves of the sym- pathetic system are not under the control of the will, and do not receive their commands and directions from the mind and through the brain, but fi'om God himself. We breathe and digest food, not by an act of the will, but by the action of the sym- pathetic nervous system, \rliich receives its commands from God, " in whom we live, and move, and have our being ; " and when he ceases to issue the commands we cease to breathe and live. il 134 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. sometimes, disorganization. And this vio- lent paroxysm is <_jenerally succeeded by great exliaustion, relaxation, lassitude, and even prostration." I ITS MOST DEADLY WORK. And here it is that tlie solitary vice does its most deadly work. It is a mental as well as a physical act. The imagination is whipped and spurred into activitj^ ; thoughts of female form and beauty fill the mind until it becomes a playground for unclean devils ; and when at last the unhappy victim seeks to expel the fiends they refuse to be exorcised, and come into the chambers of his soul in his sleeping hours, and torment him witn lascivious dreams and involuntary emissions, from which he arises in the morning exhausted and nerveless, utterly unfitted for the duties of the day. And in the daytime, too, these fiends flutter around him like devils A YOUTHFUL WRECK. id5 from the pit ; he canuot look upon a fair woman without hiscivious thoughts. With what terse and vivid language does St. Peter depict the men who have reduced themselves to this wretched condition : "Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin ; beguiling unstable souls." 2 Peter ii, 14. The Greek is more literally, liamng eyes full of an adulteress I the images of nude women and sinful acts are constantly before their disordered imairi nation. TO PARENTS AIS^D BOYS. Let no boy or young man imagine that his sin can be hidden from an experienced eye. And let parents, guardians, and teachers be careful to learn and note the fij'st symptoms of masturbation, and ad- minister counsel and rebuke at the very beginning. The first indication is frequently a strange bashfulness. The boy becomes ifrT 136 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND liESCUKl). I I sliy and reticent, and seeks to be alone; his eyes do not meet yours with a steady, frank, and honest gaze, but he looks sheepish, as if conscious of wrongdoing and fearful of detection. Now is the time to question and warn him against the practice, and point out its evil con- sequences. Do not scold or upbraid him, but speak kindly to him, for the strong probability is that he is entirely ignorant of the sinful and ruinous character of the act, and felic- itates himself on the fact that he has dis- covered this easy and agreeable method of allaying strong and tormenting desires. The bashfulness and sheepishuess, and apparent consciousness of wrongdoing, may not result from any feeling of guilt, but from innate modesty. No words of censure should be uttered, but in tender, loving words the sin of the act and the destructiveness of its character should be ■ A YOUTHFUL WRECK. isr pointed out before the habit puts its hooks of steel into his very soul. Another indication may be seen in the ajipetite, whicli becomes variable — to-day voracious and to-morrow defective. The mind, too, feels the effects of this drain upon the system ; the speech is embar- rassed and the memory is impaired, and as the sickening work goes on the whole sys- tem is deranged ; the boy becomes an in- valid ; the face is pale, and sometimes pimpled ; the hands are cold and clammy, and he is unfit for work or stu(^.y. Conscious now of the injury wrought, he resolves to abandon the habit, when, to his horror and amazement, he finds him- self polluted l)y nocturnal emission,^: ac- companied by lascivious dreams ; and as the weakness progresses the semen passes away without dreams, and he wakes in the morning tired and unrefreshed, and finds the stains upon his linen. , ■ PTS" 138 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. Then his agony l)egins in earnest. He becomes nervous and despondent and irrital>le in tem])er, and longs to be free from the body of death which chains him to its foul carcass. QUACKS AND CHARLATANS. He is now an easy prey for quacks and charlatans. He is ashamed to tell his fa- ther, and ashamed to consult a resident and respectable physician ; and he reads the* advertisements of the sharks and sends for their pamphlets, and if he can raise the money he puts himself into their hands, and his ruin is complete. I have secured liundreds of these pam- phlets, and I pronounce them without ex- ception a snare and a delusion. They so depict the symptoms as to work upon the fears of the man while he is in a condition of bodily and mental \veakness, and their authors never let the victim go until his A YOUTHFUL WRECK. 130 money is exhausted. I do not deny that seminal weakness may i-esull in death, but it is cruel to associate with it almost every disease that flesh is heir to. The victim deserves our pity and our sympathy, and needs to be told that if he will but abandon the habit there is hope, and life, and joy for him. As I have al- ready intimated, it is generally contracted in ignorance of its sinfuhiess and its con- sequences. It is indulged in by young men ■who are Church members, Sunday school teachers, theological, art, and medical stu- dents. It is indulged in by men who would scorn to visit a house of shame, or seduce a virtuous young woman ; and, when at last they find their very life draining away, they would give their weight in gold, did they possess it, if they could only be men again. To all such I say, avoid the quacks ; if you must have medical advice, consult some respectable physician in your own t?»,.«*^ 140 MANHOOD: WltECKEl) AND UESCUED. neigliborhood. You need not fear to give him your confidence; he will not betray you, neither will he poison you with drugs, but give you some simple medicine, and the real benefit w^ill be his sympathy and his words of encouragement. But again I affirm that not one drop or grain of medi- cine is needful in the treatment of seminal weakness. Dr. Kellogg tells of a quack who advertised himself as a returned mis- sionary from South Africa, and who of- fered a free recipe for the cure of seminal weakness. The insured ients could not be found in the drug store, and tire swindler intimated in his pamphlet that in case a local druggist could not put up the prep- aration he would supply it at |3.50 a pack- age. AVhen some time ago this scoundi'el died he was found to be worth half a million dollars, and it was also ascertained that he was neither a missionary nor a clergyman, and had ad vertised under an assumed name. Bf ' ! m m A WRECK ESCAPED. 143 CHAPTER V. A WRECK ESCAPED, I DEEM it desirable at this stage of the discussion to introduce a short chapter on the continence of young men, and in that phrase I include the continence of all un- married men. Webster says: "Content without lawful venery is continence ; with out unlawful, is chastity." But just now I use the word continence in the sense of abstinence from all sexual indulgence, and from self-abuse as well. I do not speak of conjugal continence, as I propose to deal with that subject in a subsequent publication. I. ; IS CONTINENCE POSSIBLE ? At the outset we are met by this perti- nent question : Is continence possible ? Can f 144 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. a well-sexed and liealtliy young man live a cLaste and continent life from the age of puberty to the time of marriage, which may not take place before his thirtieth or even his fortieth year? Let it be remend)ered that the sexual appetite is the strongest in our nature ; there is no other appetite to compare with it ; and herein we see the wisdom and goodness of God, for if it Avere not strong beyond compare the human race would soon become extinct. Witness the wretched devices of modern society to pre- vent conception and thus escape the trou- ble and expense of raising a family ; but in spite of all these the population of the Avorld is maintained, although in some localities these devices are blotting out the native population, and handing the country over to foreigners. I simply note the fact tliat the sexual appetite is super- latively strong, and may well evoke the A WRECK EFiCA PRD. U.* question, Is continence outside of wed- lock possible ? The first answer to this question comes with an emphasis which startles, and it comes from a thousand lips : " No, it is not possible, and not one young man in a hun- dred lives a continent life ; he either vis- its the house of shame, or keeps a paid woman, or practices masturbation, and in this way keeps his passion down." Now I most emphatically deny that statement. It is a libel against God, who never created a human being with an un- governable appetite or passion. It is a part of the discipline of life to grapple with and bring into subjection every part of our animal nature. Paul said, " I keep undt . my body, and bring it into subjec- tion ; " and it is the glory of man that he can. do this. There are thousands upon thousands of young men who live a pure, chaste, and JO 140 .VANiroOD: WliECh'hW AND nKSaUED. continent life. They have esscaped the perils of masturbation and fornication he- cause they were early instructed and cau- tioned. It is only when a man gives license to his passions that they become regnant and lead him captive at their will. When you hear one declare that no unmarried man can live a continent life, and that in fact all young men have sexual intercourse occasionally before marriage, you may set that man down as an impure man. He judges others by himself; he associates with young men like himself, snaps his fingers and curls his lip, and says, " They ail do it." He is a liar, and libels thousands of pure men who would sooner pluck out the right eye than defile themselves by il- licit intercoui'se. Human nature is sufficiently degraded, and sensuality is sufficiently rampant, but, thank God, all are not vile and impure. There are thousands of men who never r ■"^1 .1 WRECK ESCAPED. 147 il- r know what sexual intercourse is until mar- riage, and who struggle lieroically against tlieir passion and concjuer manfully. There are well-sexed men who never many and yet live a pure, chaste, continent life to the day of their death. But if a young man give reins to his imagination, and associate Avitli vulgar, foul-mouthed companions, whose conversation is principally about women, no wonder that he cannot control his passion, for he is pouring oil on the fire all the time. AN0TIIP:K (ilJESTION. Another practical (piestion arises at this point, and is sometimes presented in this form : When a young man makes every honest effort to control his passion, but fails, what is he to do ? Shall he resort to masturbation, or seek connection with some woman free from disease and \vho may be willing to indulge him for money ? I an- 1 ,.\ 11. -^ I Ik! 14R yrANlIOOD: WRKCKED AND ItKSCUED. suer, he must do neither the one nor the other. Let us, first of all, understand what he means when he declares that he has made every honest effort to control his pas- sion. The Avhole question of diet, recrea- tion, amusements, literature, companions, manner of life and habits of thought, is in- volved in an honest effort to control desire and live a virtuous life. But just now I invite attention to the testimony of a few scholarly men who have made sexual sci- ence a specialty, and w^.lJ, while they rec- ognize the tremendous power of sexual lip- petite in some temperaments, do not hesitate to assure \u that this powei"ful appetite may be subdued, regulated, and con- trolled. I begin with the sentiments of Dr. Kel- logg: "It would be just as reasonable to offer the appetite for liquoi as an apology for its use, and a good evidence of the physiological necessity for alcoholio stimu- A WRECK ESCAPED. MO laiits, as to tin'ue that sexual miliil<xence 7 O is a physiological need for the iucliv^idual, whereas no such necessity exists unless pro- duced by erotic thoughts or other condi- tions within the individual's own control, or by morbid and diseased conditions, and which will be a^iji-ravated rather than re- lieved by the gratification of the desire for indulgence/' In the next place we have so high an authority as Mayer declaring that : " At the outset the sexual necessities are not so un- conti'olled as is generally supposed, and they can be put down by a little energetic will. There is, therefore, as it appears to us, as much injustice in accusing nature of disorders which are dependent upon the genital senses badly directed as there would be in attributing to it a sprain or a fracture accidentally produced." And then we have the testimony of that distinguislied Englisli physician, Dr. loO MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. Acton, who gives liis personal experience for tlie encourai^cemenfc of others. He says : 4/ " You may be surprised by the statement I am about to make to you, that before my marriage I lived a perfectly continent life. During my university career my passions ■were very str(jng, sometimes almost uncon- trollable, but I have the satisfaction of thinking I mastered them. It was, however, by great efforts. I obliged myself to take violent physical exertion. I was the l)est oar of my year, and when I felt particu- larly strong sexual desire I sallied out to take my exercise. I was victorious always, and I never connnitted fornication. Yovi see in what vigorous health I am ; it was exercise that saved me." Dr. Carpenter says : '' Try the effect of close mental application to some of those ennobling pursuits to which your profes- sion introduces you, in combination with Mii. A WRECK ESCAPED. m vigorous bodily exercise, before you assert that the appetite is unrestrainable antl act upon that assertion." A DISGRACE TO TIIP: PROFESSION. If all medical luen were as wise and honest as these witnesses, it would be a blessing to society ; but it is a lamentable fact that there are men bearing the diplomas of respectable medical colleges, but who are utterly devoid of moral principle, who actually encourage their patients to gratify their desires outside of wedlock. I have had sad cases brought under my own observation ; young men deeply convicted of sin have confessed to me that for months and years they have aiyain and ascain committed fornication on the advice of a doctor. The doctor has told them that inasmuch as the Creator has implanted these desires he intends their gratification, and therefore it is Law- ^•.nivuF^wm^ iiim-'i 1.V2 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND MEHGUED. fill to keep a woman for this purpose, only be sure that she is not contaminated by disease. The penitentiary is too good a place for such creatures, and medical councils ought to expel them, as a disgrace to the profession. Dr. Dio Lewis deals out merited rebuke to these scoundrels when he says: "There is a vast deal of loose and most reprehen- sible gabble among doctors of a certain class about the dictates of nature. In the case under consideration they will shake tlieir wise heads, and draw down tlieir lionest faces, and talk solemnly of following nature — that nature knows what she is about. I know^ one of this fraternity, doing a large and very profit- able business (to himself), who constant- ly advises young men to keep a mis- tress, and gravely warns them against the clanger of accumulation of semen, which may attack the brain. Is there A WRECK ESCAPED. 15:] no Lnv Ly wliicli such miscreauts may be suppressed ? " DIET AND EXERCISE. If a young man would subdue and I'egu- late liis passions he must attend to liis diet as well as exercise. Strong drink, even in its mildest forms, inflames tlie passions, and tobacco is only second to strong drink, and both should be rigidly abstained from. All rich and highly seasoned foods must be avoided. With proper diet and bathing, constant employment or hard study will consume the vitality which each day supplies, keep the mind free from lascivious thoughts, and make sleep sweet and refreshing. Add to all these right conceptions of the purity and dignity of womanhood. It is true that some women are giddy and foolish, some are loose and immoral, and the market is always full of Avretched i \\ I ^ 1 * 11 154 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. creatures willing to sell body and soul for money; but women are not half so bad as men. Where is tlie young man who would marry a woman who has lost her vii*tue? Then why should you offer your hand to a virtuous woman when you have sinned against virtue? Where is the husband who Avould live with his wife if he knew that she admitted other men to her embrace ? Then ^vliy should he seek clandestine pleasure with other women and still claim the confidence and affection of his wife? Womanhood is a pure and holy thing until man seduces and ruins it. J* MARRIAGE. Mari'iage is a divine institution for the propagation of the race, and for the natural gratification of sexual desire. Paul says, " To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her A WRECK ESCAPED. 15.-) own husbaiul." Thiit does not teach that marriage is a refuge house for lust. It simply points to the fact that the sexual appetite is to find its legitimate gratification only in the marriage relation. But some young man says, "I cannot afford to marry ; I am not in a j)osition to support a home. I am a student, and my education is not completed. Must I struggle on against these tormenting desires which almost driv^e me crazy ? " Shame on yoii ! What is your manhood worth if, after the experience of Dr. Acton, and after tlie rules here laid down for the regulation of this passion, you still whine out the complaint, "What can I do?" Be a man. Drive out impure thoughts ; avoid impure companions ; work hard ; study hard ; and look forward to the time when, with your business established or your profession acquired, you may select, as the companion of life's joys and sorrows, T" I m u ! ) lo6 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RKSCUED. some pure and noble woman to whom you can bring a mind unpolluted and a body unstained, and enjoy the pleasures of the marriage relation in love and not in lust. THE RESCUE BEGUN. Nil' . THE HKSCUK BEG UN. 150 CHAPTER VI. THE RESCUE BEGUN. May I hope that the reader who has fallen into the snares depicted in these pages is now convinced that his conrse is leading him directly to rnin, and that with this conviction established he earnestly and honestly asks the question : Is there rescue from such a wreckage, is there a way back to purity? My brother, there is, and I now proceed to point it out. Listen : " If the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, lie shall surely live, he shall not die. All his ti'ansgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him : in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live," Ezek. xviii, 21, 22. ! I ICO MANHOOD. WRECKED AND RESCUED. That is God's \void of promise to every sinner. But it is sometimes said that while God forgives, nature never forgives. But what is nature l)ut God in action ? Nat- ural law is simply God's method of oi)era- tion. Forgiveness in the moral realm may ))e of a higher type than foi-giveness in the natural realm, but they are both divine foi'giveness. A man may, in consequence of a course of dissipation, break down his constitution, so that, for example, one lung may be gone ; no repentance and foi'give- ness can restore that lung, but the new life which the man now lives will help him to preserve the lung that remains. In all cases of weakness and infirmity brought on by violation of natural law, the moment a man ceases to violate the law nature comes to the rescue and begins the work of repair. If nature does not forgive, as God forgives in the moral sphere, she repairs and re- stores. There is a merciful and restorative THE UKSCUE liEGUK Hit principle at work, and ready to coo[)erate with man, in every dej)artinent of God's natural and moral govei'mnent. The recu- perative power of nature cannot be over- estimated, and to the victim of seminal weakness it is the very inspiration of hope. I take it for granted that the facts set forth in the preceding pages are sufficient to deter the man who has not as yet en- tered the house of the harlot or contracted the habit of masturbation, but who may, at times, be sorely tempted in one or the other of these directions, or in both. My bi'other, let me plead with you as you value your health, your manhood, your purity, resist the temptation. Fight against it with the energy of an uncon- querable will, and you ^vill come off victo- rious. But when I address myself to those who have already yielded to the tempter, and are now anxious to escape, I would 11 I * 162 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. speak words of sympathy and encoiirage- iiieiit, for the enemy is a giant and you are a weakling. Take the following as sam- ples of a flood of letters whicli came pour- ing in upon me during the delivei'y of my addresses to men only, in St. James Church in the autumn of 1892 : " Montreal, Not. 38, 1892. " Rev. W. J. Hunter, D.D.— "Deau Sir: Since you have inaugu- rated your Sunday evening talks to men I have attended each one, and have been very much struck with the able and lucid way you have treated each subject. Now, sir, I was specially struck last Sunday with your address. It is perhaps humiliating to confess, but I have been for years a victim of the sin of mjisturbation ; the consequence is that often work has become distasteful ; and loss of energy. Will you kindl}^ still further advise me as to the THE liEtiUUE BEOUN. 168 best method to atlo[)t to avoid a recurrence of this evil, and also let me know if hy discontinuing now a young man can regain that lost vigor ? I do not wish you to be put to the trouble of communicating with me personally. Perhaps you will be kind enough to enlarge on this subject next Sunday night. " Yours respectfully, A AVOKD OF COMMENT. Here is a letter written in a fine busi- ness hand, and, as the style of composition indicates, by a young man of good educa- tion ; and yet, with a knowledge of the sin- fulness and consecpiences of masturbation, he is still a slave to it. Could there be a greater proof of the tremenaous power of this habit when once it has taken a firm grip of its victim I Now to the question of my correspondent, which is the (j[u 38tiou ii 10^ MANHOOD: WRKCKKD AND liKSCUlW. asked by every man wlio seeks my advice, " If ))y discontinuing now can a young man regain his lost vigor ? " In answer let me say that some men })ractice mastur- bation for years and are not afflicted with involuntary emissions. Why? because they expend the semen as fast as nature manufactures it, and not until thev wake up to a consciousness of the fact that this incessant drain upon vitality causes "loss of energy " and makes " work distasteful " do they resolve, if possible, to abandon the hal>it. But no sooner do they carry that resolution into practice than they find themselves the victims of emissions durins; sleep, and they go back to self-polhition in oi'der to prevent involuntary emissions. That is a fatal mistake. The emissions are not a cause^ but an effect. The sinful practice is the cause, and when the cause is permanently removed, in due time the effect will cease, because the source of supply is THE Itl'JSVUi: BEQVN. 105 cut off. Let me say, therefore, under no circumstances must you revert to the prac- tice which you have resolved to abandon. Burn the bridges behind you and cut off all possibility of retreat, and your ultimate cure is as certain as the rising of to-morrow'« sun if you carry out the directions given in subsequent chapters of this book. ANOTHER T.EITER. Here is a communication that is tinged with sadness ; for while it contains some of the elements of genuine repentance it lacks, to a large extent, the element of liope : "Montreal, Dec. 6, 1892. " Dear Sir : I was present at your last lecture to men, subject, ' The Solitary Vice.' It was with much interest, and also sad- ness, I heard you speak of what was meant for me. At an early age I learned self- abuse, and practiced it up to the age of I 1 i ■ I 160 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. niueteeu. From nineteen to twenty-two years of age I led an immoral life. No doubt many of your congregation ^vould say, if they heard this statement, I was a foolish and vicious young man. Perha2)s so, but I Fay to you, sir, my surroundings at a public school were anything but good. I emigrated alone to Montreal, and have hardly any friends I can call friends here. The church I was recommended to was a fashionable church, and its minister and congregation cared little if I went in or out of its doors. Now I am more settled, l)ut am a physical and mental wreck, and can you blame me entirely, Dr. Iluntei' 'i In conclusion I will say, I don't mind your reading this out, as I know you Avould not give me away, and it may help some young fellow there from going to the same excess as I did. " I am, sir, yours respectfully, u V i THE RESCUE BEGUN. 167 Tliei'e is indeed a tinge of sadness, al- most despair, in this letter. As I approach the end of a pastorate of thirty years in large cities I feel most deeply that the Church must direct her attention and her energies more and more to the salvation of the young. The great mistake of the Church is in the erection of costly build- ings, Avitli heavy debts and large current expenses, and no funds for the employment of qualified assistants. Every large city church should have a man of age and ex- perience devoted to pastoral work alone, leaving the minister in charge to prepare and deliver his sermons and superintend the church ^vork in general. The man devoted to the pastoral work would then have time to find out and visit every young man and woman in the congrega- tion ; he would become their friend and adv^iser, and the next generation would be saved fi'om the pitfalls into which ^ 168 MANHOOD: WItECKEI) AND RESCUED. our young people are slipping in tliou- simds. But the great question for every man who finds himself in the condition of my cor- respondent is not, What contributed to my fall ? but, How can I get up and be a man again ? Do not despair. Do not say, No- body cares for me. God cares for you, cind if you are determined to lead a new life you will soon find human hands stretched out to help you and hunuin hearts ready to sympathize with you. STILL ANOTHER LETTER. " MoNTiiEAi,, Nov. 23, 1803. " Kev. Dr. Hunter — " Dear Sir : I write this letter to thank you foi" that grand address which you gave to men on Sunday evening last. I am a young man of t^venty-three years, and I have been leading an immoral life ever since I was eighteen years, and I have THE ItESCCE BEGUX. Kill I tried to give it u}), Init O how liurd ! and liovv many times T Imve fallen I am un- able to tell. I went down on my knees and prayed to God to give me the strength to resist this evil hahit of sexual inter- course, but the strong desire would over- master me, and I would fall again and again, until at last I gave up all hope of ever mastering it. But on Sunday evening I remained to hear your address to men, and I have a resolution, God helping me, to break this awful chain that is fast drag- ging me to an early grave. I would ask you to pray to God to give me the help that I need to overmaster this demon. 1 ^vill be at your service next Sunday even- ing to hear your next subject, God sj^ar- ing me till then. T trust you will forgive me for writing such a letter, but something is telling me ever since Sunday evening to do it. "I remain, — » i no MANHOOD: WRECKED AND UESCUED. A DIFFICULTY. I am fully a^^'al•e of the difficult task assuuietl when I promise you recovery from an infirmity with which you have grappled for years, and that, too, with- out a grain or drop of medicine. If I should announce the discovery of some plant from which a medicine at five dollars a bottle had been prepared for the cure of all forms of seminal ^veak- ness I could make a fortune in a year. But when I })romise a cui'e without med- icine you think it too good news to be true. I do not say that the effects of a long course of self -abuse can be entirely blotted out. You may never be the man you Avould have been but for this practice, but you may arrest the process of debility, husband your remaining vitality, and add to it as the years go by. TlIM RESCUE BEGUN. 171 NOT GOING TO DIE. Settle it in your mind at the beginning that if you see the sinfulness of self-pollu- tion and determine to abandon it you are not going to die from tlie effects of your past misconduct. But do not men die of this disease? Yes, they do, and hundreds go to the lunatic asylum demented for life. But you are not among that number if you are alarmed at your present condition. If you have intelligence enough left to read and understand what I vviite you need not die from the weakness engendered by masturbation. No ; you are not going to die if you " cease to do evil and learn to do well." Banish your fears and say, " With God's help I will be a man again." That is the first victory in the battle for life, the fii'st step back to purity, the first note of the rescue song of manhood re- gained. I ** .m»'"^ 1 72 MANlIOOn : WUKCKED AND UK.. • I : ' i ll A NOTI I K R 1) 1 1^' FIO ULT Y. Another difticulty wliicli I desire to re- mov^e at this stage is a difticulty growing out cf the simplicity of the cure and the treatment prescribed. It is the old story over again. When Elisha tlie prophet sent his servant out to Naanian the Syrian and bade him go and wash in Jordan seven times and his leprosy would be cured, "Naamaii was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and sti'ike his hand over the place, and recover the leper." He could believe in Elisha's touchy but staggered at his simple tvord. kSo it is with you. Pills, powders, galvanic belts, vacuum appliances — something with a liigh-sounding name and an air of mys- tery about it — O, how you clutch at these, and throw a^vay your money for THE JiEJSCUE BE GUN. 1 1 •> that wliicli is iiotliiiig aiul worse tliaii notliiiig! CUT LOOSE FROM CIIAULATANS. I ask you, therefore, at the outset, to cut loose from charhitaiis. Do not read their advertisements in the newspapers; bui'u their pamphlets as fast as they come to you ; save your money and your life. I am not a crank ; when I have sickness in my family I call in a doctor, but seminal weak- ness needs no medicine. Dr. Kellogg says : " If drugs, ^^r se, will cure invalids of any class, they are certainly not satisfactory in this class of patients. The whole materia medica affords no root, herb, extract, or compound that, alone, will cure a pei'son suffering fi'oni emissions. Thousands of unfortunates have been ruined by long-continued drugging." Dr. Dio Lewis was not a man to trifle with suffering humanity; he was a scholar ii!^ 174 MANIWOJ): WltHCKED AND liKSVUKlK and a geiitleiiiaii, and stood in tlie front rank of liiy profession. Tlicse are liis^ words anent the sulgect now before lis: "The vdctinis of sperniatorrhcea nmst not hope for relief in the use of medicines, but must seek restoration in determined absti- nence from all sexual indulgences and lil)idinous fancies, conjoined to a faithful observance of the laws of health. One of the obstacles to cure in this common and afflicting malady is the notion that the disease may be got I'id of by opening the moutli and swallowing medicine. The patient cannot understand you when you assure him that he must cure himself. All the specific medicines, patent rings, cauteri- zations, etc., are each and all a deception and a snared'' Now I ask you to ponder this testimony. It comes from the heart and head of an honest man — a man who made sexual sci- ence a special study, and who might have THE llESCUE liEGUN. 173 filled his pockets with thousands of dolhirs every month, by imposing on the cicdulity of the suffering ; but he scoined to do so, and accepted only the usual consultation fee, and told his patients to live in harmony with the laws of nature. There is, in many cases, great benefit in consulting a respectable })hysician, but the benefit lies in the fact that while he may give you some harmless medicine he will encourage you to cultivate pure thoughts, and teach you how to live, and this will be worth far more than his medicine. IS 3[AKIUA«E A CUKE? Every man who has given me his con- fidence and sought my advice has asked this question. As preparatory to a direct answer, and as a further protest against the vicious advice of unprincipled or ig- norant physicians who recommend illicit intercourse as a remedy for seminal ! 'i 17G MANIKjOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. emissions, I append some testimonies addi- tional to tliose given in a former chapter: " In all solemn earnestness T pi'otest against such false treatment. There is a terrible significance in the \v'ise man's words, ' None that go to her return again, neither take tliey hold of the path of life/ " — Dr. Alton. " It may cause a diminution in the nund)er of emissions, but this is only a delusion; the semen is still thro\vn off; the flame still continues to be exhausted ; the genital organs and nervous system are still harassed by the incessant tax, and the p'ltient is all the while lay- ing ^he foundation of impotence." — Dr. Milton. ''In i)ur?uinii: tliis course, one form of emission is only substituted for another at the best; but more tlian this, an involun- tary result of disease is converted into a voluntary sin of tlie Ijlackest character. /.M^' TUE RESCUE HEQUK 177 a a crime in which two participate, ajid wliich is uot ouly an outrage iij)()ii na- ture, but against morality as welh" — Dr. Kellogg. "It is hardly credible, and yet .*t is true, that there are medical men of re- spectability who do not hesitate to advise illicit intercourse as a remedy for mastur- bation. In other words, they destroy two souls and bodies under pretense of saving one. No man with Christian pi'incii)le, or even with a due respect for the common- wealth, can approve for a moment such a course as this." — Dr. Napheys. Now, all this may throw some light on the (paestion of marriage as a remedy for seminal emissions, and yet we enter a veiy wide field when we touch this (juestion. There are marriages, nud marriages. There are marriages which contemplate oidy a good settlement in life, and all such ai'e a pi'ostitution of a holy institu- 12 178 MANHOOD: WHECKED AND RESCUED. tion to a most unworthy eud. There are marriages which are the outcome of mere ahiiual love, and such a marriage is the worst possible thing for one afflicted with seminal weakness. It giv^es license to his passion, and in excess of riot he hastens to the grave, ruins the health of his wife, and entails weakness and disease on his off- spring, if, indeed, offspring I'esult from such a marriage. But I have known a good many men afflicted with emissions, and ^vho have married pure, virtuous women, the mar- I'iage being the result of soul love, and who have been moderate in marital rela- tions, and mari'iage has made men of them. So that while I would pronounce it wrong and perilous for one with pro- nounced seminal ^v^eakness to marry, yet a man with emissions which do not mate- rially affect his general health will find in marriage a help and a safeguard. •i«Juii«4oiiJi«iaM;«w*(l- , THE RESCUE BEGUX 179 men luive nuir- and rela- u of unce pro- yet a mate- nd In BACK TO PARTICULARS. We are speaking of the rescue from self-abuse. I have given as the first direc- tion, that you cut loose from charhitans and quacks ; and now I give as the second direction — nay, demand as a condition of recovery — that you promise and resolve, by the help of God, that you will abandon at once and forever the habit of mastur- l)ation, and that you will forego all illicit intercourse. I have no prescription for the vile and al)andoned, who desire resto- ration to health and sexual vigor only that they may again indulge their lusts and passions. If you belong to this class we part company right here. Close the book or burn it ; there is nothing in it for you. JVb poiver on earth o?' in heaven, can save you until you abandon the cause of your wrech Turn t.:; the fifth chapter of Proverbs, and read it over and over yn I \r '■ ; 180 MANUOOU: WRECKEl) AND RESCUED. again. It is the sad, bitter experience of Solomon. He speaks of the strange wom- an, and dechires that " her feet go down to death ; her steps take hold on hell." He asks the question, "And w^hy wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?" And then follow two verses containing a philosophy true as God, and a law exact as gi-avitation : " His own inicjuities shall take the wicked himself, and ho shall V)e hohlen with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruc- tion ; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray." The words need no comment. If a man will deliberately cherish a habit whicli, by the operation of a natural and necessary law, gathei's strength and facility by repetition, he puts himself beyond all help, human or divine. When I insist on the abandonment of THE RESCUE BEGUN. 181 or of the practice of masturbation as a necessity to recovery your common sense assents to the requirement. If you are subject to bleeding at the nose, and if the blood al- ways starts when you blow the nose vio- lentl}", you will learn to treat the nasal oro;an Avith tenderness and consideration. Promise me, then, before we take an- other step, promise in the name of mother, sister, wife, God, and heaven, that you will sooner cut off your I'iglit hand, and your left one too, than again make them the in- struments of an act so vile and polluting and degrading. But j^ou say, " I will for- get the promise, and break it when the passion comes on." Very likely you will, again and again, l)ut that is no reason why you should despair and hesitate to renew the promise. It is the renewal of the promise and the reassertion of your man- hood that will give you the victory at last. And when for the first time you gain the 'I If i 182 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. mastery you will feel like a new man ; it will give you new lioj^e ; it will elevate, strengthen, inspire you. IJE A COWARD. Co^var(ls are usually despised, but it is wise to be a coAvard sometimes and under some circumstances. Better run out of the back door and live tlian face an armed bura^lar at the front door and die. "A prudent man forcseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on and are j)unished." The man who is never a coward is a fool. You have reason to be a coward in the face of a passion which has mastered you hundreds of times. And therefore I say, run away from it if need be. If it seize you in the daytiine,in leisure moments, go out for a walk or visit a friend or go to work. If the paroxysm come on in the night, rise from your bed in a moment. THE RE8GUK BEGUN. 183 Do uot dally with the tempter ; in snni- mer or winter, late or early, spring out of bed in a moment, walk briskly across the room a few times, bathe the parts in cold water, and sit down and read a few pages of this book. It is intended to be a friend and companion to which you may turn for sympathy and direction in the climax of }'our embarrassment. What if you do have a horrid dream and a debilitating emission when you fall asleep again ? Never mind that just now. A\niat you have to settle is the resolute determination that if you perish it \vill not be by your own hand. One thing at a time ; and a long step toward final rescue lies in this — Hands off ! BE A ]\[AN. What is the distinguishing characteris- tic of a man, that which separates him as by a gulf from all other animal orders? 184 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. We say it is tlie gift of speech ; or ^ve say it is the marvelous endowment of reason, the ability to analyze and compare and judge, the capacitj^to invent and improve; the almost unlimited capacity to acquire knowledge and apply it to the pi'actical affairs of life. In a word, it is his higher mental nature and his pui-ely spiritual na- ture. I have said in a former chapter that the sexual act is a mental as well as a physical act. It is an act of the soul as well as the body, and the I'elation between soul and body is so intimate that tliey constantly act and react on one another. The intimate and mysterious connection bet'veen soul and body is a factor which cannot be overlooked in the discussion of a subject like this. You sit at the table very hungry, and have just commenced to eat, Avhen a telegram is put into your hand announcing the death of a dear relative, and in a moment all relish for food is gone. p THE RKSCUK BEGUN. 185 You watch at .tho hedt-lde uf a dying friend and refuse to eat or sleep. Now this phenomenon is most impor- tant to the subject in hand. If you keep your thought and imagination i)ure the demon of sensuality can have no power over you. Di*. Dio Lewis says : "Where one person is injured by sexual commerce many are made feverish and nervous by harboring lewd thoughts. Rioting in vis- ions of nude women may exhaust one as much as an excess in actual intercourse. Tliere are multitudes who would never spend the niglit witli an abandoned female, but who rarely meet a young girl that their imaginations are not busy with her person. This species of indulgence is well-nigli uni- versal, and it is the source from which all other forms, the fountain from which tlie external vices spring — the nursery ox mas- turbation and excessive coitus. I am sur- prised to find how little is said about it. 186 MANHOOD: WltECKED AND RESCUED. I Inive looked over many volumes on sex- ual abuses, but do not recall a single earnest discussion of this point. Believing that this incontinence of the ima2:ination woi"ks more mischief than all other forms of evil — that, indeed, it gives rise to all the rest — I am astonished that it has received so little attention. All overt sins and crimes begin, we know, in the thoughts or imagination. A young man allows him- self to conjure up visions of naked females ; these become habitual and haunt him, until at last the sexual passion absorbs not only his waking thoughts but his very dreams." A COVENANT WITH THE EYES. As a general rule, and at thefii'st, temp- tation comes to us from without and through the senses. Thus it came to Eve. She " saiv that the tree Avas good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a THE RESCUE BEG UK. 187 tree to be desired to make one wise," aud " she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat." The temptation came through tlie eyes. Tn tliis way temptation came to David in the case of Bathsheba. He saw the beautiful woman in a state of nudity taking a bath, and instead of turning his eyes in another direction lie gazcnl on, till a spark of pas- sion wrapped his soul in a flame of lust, and the strong man fell and lay prone. OLD-TIME PJIILOSOniY. No one can doubt that Job was a phi- losopher. Ilis knowledge of the laws of nature, and of luen and things, is a marvel to the diligent student of his wonderful utterances There are some remarkable verses in the thirty-first chapter of the book which hears his name. In verse 1 he says, " I made a coN-enrait with mine eyes ; why then should I think upon a maid ? " In verses 9-12 he says; "If mine heart have %. %^^ o . V^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) ^ ^ =^ // ^/ m>. ■:<'-'/%' £p. :a r/j fA 1.0 I.I IM (MO ^ IM mm 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ (," _ ». % <^ /} ^l 'el ~4: Vf Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. \4580 (716) 872-4503 I i' « X? &?- L^/ 6> ^ ^ v\ ^ m 188 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. l)eeii deceived by a woman, or it* 1 Lave laid ^vait at my iieiglibor's door ; then let my wife grind unto another, and let others bow down upon hei'. For this is a heinous crime ; yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by the judges. For it is a fire that con- sumeth to destruction, and would I'oot out all mine increase." He speaks like an expert who has stud- ied physiology and sexual hygiene. He speaks of illicit intercourse as " a heinous crime." It inflicts the deepest wound ; it destroys virtue and home ; it covers two souls with shame and dishonor, and is well termed a heinous crime. He speaks of a double punishmeut due to this crime : first that of civil law, and secondly that of nat- ural law. " It is an iniquity to be pun- ished by the judges." Among the Jews it was a capital crime in some of its forms, and in all civilized nations it is an offense against law and order. As a sin against ^mmmmmtm THE RESCUE BEOUK. m nature he calls it a " fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase." How full of raeanincj these words are, and how ti'ue to nature ! Sen- suality is a fire that consumes health, hap- piness, home, family, and at last the soul itself in eternal perdition. But I ask you to note specially Job's I'ecipe for chastity : " I made a covenant with mine eyes ; why then should I think upon a maid ? " He recognizes the eye as the inlet of lust. We have seen that Eve's looking at the forbidden fruit let sin into the world and laid the family of man be- neath the curse ; David's looking at Bath- sheba let sin into his heart and culminated in murder and adultery. Lot's wife looked back on Sodom and perished, and Dinah's idle curiosity to see the heathen women cost her the loss of her own virtue. The eye is the inlet of lust and sin, and if you would keep out evil thoughts and cherish 17 100 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. good ones you must make a covenant with yo'ar eyes that you will not look upon any thing that is immodest or impure. A 3UG CONTRACT. Now that is a big contract. It covers impure literature ; it covers many dramatic representations ; it covei-s many of the so- cial manners and customs of our modern society. This book is not written as a critic and judge of society in general, but I shall not be deterred from expressing the conviction that the social customs of society need a radical reformation if fol- lowing generations are to grow up pure in thouglit and virtuous in life. Woman ought to prize what Christianity has done for her, bat when woman appears in so- called full dress she appeals to passions in the opposite sex which must respond so long as human nature is human nature. Many of the plays put upon the boards of mm THE RESCUE BEGUK 191 modern theaters, and the costumes of the actresses, are a direct appeal to man's pas- sional nature, and make masturbators, lib- ertines, and fornicators of thousands of young men, while the round dances of so- ciety have a tendency in the same direc- tion. The posters which adorn the fences and bill-boards of our cities and towns are, in many instances, an insidt to every instinct of modesty, and even the pictures in some of our society papers are an outrage on modesty. The novels which abound with sensational love stories, elopements, and betrayals add fuel to sexual passion and set it on fire of hell. To all these the eye becomes the inlet of lust and passion, and if you would get back to purity you must make a covenant with your eyes that you will not look upon anything that begets impure thoughts or awakens impure desires. 1 i I I ! Iii2 VAXnOOI): WUECKET) AND RESCUED. AN AMULET. And now I give you an amulet that you may \vear near your heart in moments of temptation. It is composed of five words which I ask you to photograph on heart and memory and repeat over and over again ^vhen the paroxysm of passion as- sails you : Mother — Sister — Wife — God — Heaven. Pronounce these words, and go to the embrace of a harlot if you can. Pronounce these words, and betray an in- nocent girl if you can. Pronounce these words, and use the hand of the mastur- bator if you can. Nay, you cannot. You v\ ill think of your own mother, wife, or sister, and say, " God forgive me ! " and once more you will gain the mastery and say, " Hands off ! " PERSEVERANCE. You must not expect to be cured in a week or a month ; pei'liaps not in a year. THE RESCUE BEGUN. 193 That will depend on the progress which the disease has made, and the resolution and determination with which you address yourself to the work of restoration. But do not be discouraged. Consider for how many years you have outraged nature^s laws and diminished her vital force, and do not ask her to restore all tiiis in a month. Consider how the parts affected are irritated and inflamed, or weakened and relaxed. Consider how your will power is correspondingly weak, and your resolution enfeebled, and do not despair at apparent delay in the improvement of the symptoms. The cure is as certain as if you had it in your hand and could look at it this very moment. Courage^ my hrotlier! 13 'f;'' ■< m' THE RESCUE CONTINUED, M : ■ili ■— idfai THE ItESCllE CONTmUKl). 197 CHAPTER VII. THE RESCUE CONTINUED. Having begun tlie Avork of self-rescue in earnest, you will be ready to continue it if your resolution is such as I have dwelt upon in the preceding chapter, but you will not succeed without patient persever- ance. And I'ight at this point lies your danger. The man whose health is com- pletely broken and wlio looks down into his own grave, who is utterly unfitted for work or business, is willing to do anything, and spends his last dollar, if he can be as- sured of restoration to health. How care- ful he is in the matter of diet and exercise, jind with Avhat fidelity does he carry out the directions of his physician ! But you are not sick enough for that. You are able to attend to your work or business, i mi 108 MANHOOD: WHECKED AND H^SCUEI). • or to pursue your studies after a fashion, thougli you do sometimes feel dead and alive, and live under the shadow of a great fear. And the danger is that as soou as you find vitality and sexual power return- ing you ^vill hasten to use them up again, and not give nature a chance to reestablish you in perfect manhood. Or, if you do not go back to your old habits, you will grow tired o'f living by rule, relax your efforts, and arrest the health-restoring process. This would be a great blundei*, for not only do I insist on the conditions and recpiirements of the last chapter, but now proceed to give some further counsel and directions. We have seen that excesses of this nature produce an irritation and engorge- ment of the parts, on the one hand, or an extreme relaxation, on the other hand. There is also a derangement, more or less marked, of the entire nervous system, oc- »■ THE RESCUE CONTINUED. lUU casioned by the expeuditure of uerve fluid or semen which ought to be reabsorbed and taken into the circulation to impai-t strength and vitality. IMPERATIVE. What is imperative, therefore, is the avoidance of anything and everything which has a tendency to provoke and keep up nei'vous irritation. I would have you note carefully the following facts: Noth- ing but rest and nourishment can recover a man from nervous exhaustion. By the word rest I do not mean, in the case of seminal emissions, idleness, or freedom from useful employment, for work, study, recreation, exercise, are of great importance in all these cases. I speak now of a gen- eral physiological law touching the nerv- ous system in general ; and its applica- tion to seminal weakness will be readily perceived by the intelligent reader. The Hi pi . "•ncaeimaa :!9RSi 1*1 200 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. la^v and its rationale are clearly presented by an eminent physiologist in calling attention to the' difference between nei-vous function and muscular power. He says : " By frequent exercise the muscular sys- tem increases in .strength, and decreases in irritability; but the nei've force, by repeated calls upon it, increases in irritability, but decreases in strength. The more tVequently sensation is evoked in a nerve the greater is its sensitiveness and its debility. This physiological law, first distinctly enunci- ated by a celebrated French anatomist, is constantly ovei'looked. From it we learn that, in order to preserve in the gi'eatest vigor and most perfect health any nervous function, our aim should be to excite and stimidateit as little cs possible. Nowhere does this law find a r,iore striking illustra- tion than in those functions which pertain to sex. And the secret, therefore, of pre- serving their activity to advanced Aears THE RESCUE CONTrNUED. 201 resolves itself into avoiding all stimulants and excitants; to observe temperance and discretion, to limit one's self in the use of those articles of food or drink which by stimulating ultimately debilitate, and to govern one's life by sound laws of health and morals." That paragraph needs to be read and studied with great attention, and if acted upon in life it ^vill be worth more than gold, in the length of days it will bring to the man who observes it. The law is sim- ple, and \ve know how true it is. Exei'- cise increases the strength of the rniscular system and decreases its irritability, but exercise increases the irritability and de- creases the strength of the ner\ous system. This does not imply that the muscular sys- tem can endure any amount of exercise, for it may be broken down l)y hard work or violent exercise. And on the other hand it does not imply that no tax should i: 203 MANHOOD: WHECKED AND ItESCUEl). be put upon the nervous system, for brain and mind need exercise as well as bone and muscle. But the general law is true with- out exception : " The more frequently sensation is evoked in a nerve, the greater is its sensitiveness and its debility." This is why worry and grief break men down, and why incessant mental application breaks men down, and why preachers and statesmen who must appear so often before the public are liable to break down from nervous exhaustion. Masturbation and excess in the marriage relation are a tremendous strain upon the nervous system, producing at once debility and irritability. TWO BAD HABITS. I come now to speak of two bad habits, one or the other of which — both in many instances— is very often associated with sexual perversion. I refer to the drink The rescue COnTINllED. 20:^ . habit and the tobacco habit, and the word md is scarcely strong enough to fitly desig- "Viate them. It would be more correct to call them fatal habits, for, alas ! they are fatal in thousands of instances, as is the opium habit in all its forms. Alcohol is said to possess stimulant, narcotic, and nervine properties, and the same is said of tobacco; but while alcohol is aid to be also caustic and irritant, tobacco is said to be sedative and anti-irritant. It is not dif- ficult to distinguish betw'een a stimulant, an irritant, a narcotic, a sedative, and a nutrient. A stimulant increases the activ- ity of the system, or of one or more parts of it. A narcotic depresses nervous action by its influence upon ti'« brain and spinal marrow. An irritant causes heat, or in- flammation, or pain. A sedative diminishes the nervous, muscular, and arterial forces. A nutrient nourishes by promoting growth or repairing waste. Anything ^vhich uw«|iUUU »WH! iifr 304 MANHOOD: WUEGKED AND RESCUED. creates an appetite for itself, or which either irritates or depresses the nervous system, is destructive of health and life. But a nutrient never does this. You never hear of a man becoming addicted to the bread habit, the meat or potato or fruit habit. Some j)eople prefer one kind of food to another; they may eat this from childhood, but it never creates what we call a habit or an appetite. Not so with alcohol, tobacco, opiimi, and the like. They are not foods, but sedatives, narcotics, or irritants as the case may be; they depress and stupefy the nerves, or they excite them and produce a momentary exhilaration, fol- lowed by relaxation and exhaustion which call for a repetition of the sedative or ex- citant, and that, too, in gradually increas- ing quantities. I have not met with a work on seminal weakness which does not prohibit strong drink in all its forms. Even the quacks and charlatans prohibit THE HE S CUE CONTINUED. 205 liquor and tobacco, and furnish rules of diet and bathing, and depend on these, and not on the medicines they supply. TOBACCO. It is not probable that the reader will stumble at these remarks about strong drink, for all intelligent men know that it is a great evil. But the tobacco question is a more difficult one, for its use is so gen- eral, and by all classes of the community, including clergymen, physicians, professors, and teachers. Its effects are not so imme- diate and destructive, but, in spite of all this, it is a great nerve destroyer, especially, when used to excess or used at an early period in life. WHAT IS IT? Let us see what tobacco is. Authorities tell us that its active principle is a deadly narcotic poison. The minute glands which I HI PMiwia ti3wn i 206 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESGUKD. (lot its surface contain a peculiar liquid known as the essential oil of tobacco. It is composed of a bitter, dark, resinous extract, a volatile substance of peculiar odor, and a transparent fluid alkaloid called 'nicotine. The leaf contains a large amount of salts, consisting of chlorides, sulphates, ammonium, malatesof potassium, and other destructive elements. In Brown's Elements of Physiology and Hygiene we are told : " Tobacco is among the most pow^erful of the narcotic poisons which the vegetable kingdom affords. As alcohol, is the active poison in all the various forms of intoxicating drinks, so nicotine is the exhilaratinsf; aojent in tobac- CO, whether it be chewed, smoked, or taken in snuff. Tobacco exerts its characteristic influence on the intellectual faculties. Its action is slow, and its exhilaration at any time almost imperceptible ; but in a series of years it works most disastrous conse' THE RESCUE CONTINUED. 207 quence*, impairing first the power of deci- sion — the will power; after that the mem- ory feels its effects, the finer moral feelings are blunted, the mental perceptions are impaired, and the whole mental fabric, slowly undermined, falls into ruin. So steady is its approach, so insidious its march, that neither the victim nor his friends suspect the cause of his feeble health and failing mind; and even when the faithful physician has the sagacity to detect the cause, and the professional honor to tell the whole truth without conceal- ment, the chances are greatly against the patient's being able to exercise self-control enough to apply the proper remedy." In the London Lancet Dr.Pidduck writes: " In no instance is the sin of the fathers more strikingly visited on the children than in the sin of tobacco smoking. The enervation, the hypochondriasis, the hys- teria^ the insanity, the suffering lives and r 208 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND ItESCUED. early deatlis of the cliildreii of inveterate sniokei's bear ample testimony to the fee- bleness and unsoundness of the constitu- tion transmitted by this pernicious habit." Dr. Gunn says : " Tobacco has spoiled and utterly ruined thousands of boys ; in- ducing a dangerous precocity, developing the passions, softening and weakening the bones, greatly injuring the spinal marrow, the brain, and the whole nervous fluid." Dr. Bremer writes in the Hartford Journal of Inebriety, July, 1892: "All observers agree that in our country many conditions conspire to make us a nerv- ous people, to produce what has been styled American nervousness. This nerv- ousness, in other words, means a weakness, an instability, a vulnerability of the nerv- ous system. Add to this the unquestion- ably strong quality of the tobacco which the taste of the American public exacts from the manufacturer, and it becomes ^i^^F TITK UEFiCUE CONTINUED. 209 plain that there exist two cogent I'easons why we should be on our guard against the indiscriminate use of the article. French medical observers are of the opinion that one of the factors causing the dep()])ulati<)n of Fi'ance is the excessive use of tobacco ; for the offspring of inveterate tobacco con- sumers are notoriously puny and stunted in stature, and lace the normal power of resistance, especially on the part of the nervous system. Again, it is a significant fact that an astonishing percentage of the candidates for admission at AVest Point, and other military schools, are rejected on account of tobacco-heart. Some persons labor under the delusion that tobacco in- creases their working power, that the flow of thought becomes easier, and that with- out tobacco they are unable to do any mental work. Instances are cited bv themof great men, inveterate and excessive tobacco consumers. They do not considev 210 VAyrrooD: wrecket) Ayn nFJsruRD. the possibility that these men accomplished what they did in s[>ite, but not in conse- quence of, or aided by, their halnt. There is only one way to lessen the evil — it is the dissemination of knowledge of the baleful effects of tobacco among the rising gener- ation, initiated and sustained by teachers, clergymen, and physicians. Of course, they ought to practice first what they are going to preach." now TO CUKE THE HABIT. I have heard men say, " I can give it up any day," and ten years afterward I have heard these same men say, " I would give a thousand dollars to be free from the habit." If you can give it up to-day, I be- seech you do so, for I know by experience what a tremendous struggle awaits you when you make the effort in earnest. Men who have got free from the liquor habit and the tobacco habit have assured me ^■RPliP mmmmmmfi THE 11E8CUK CONTINUED. 211 that the latter was the most difficult to master. Again and again the victim will resolve to quit it forever ; he will fling a l)lug of tobacco into the lane or into the back yard, and in a day or two he will search for it as for " hid treasure." me THE (iOLl) CTRE. We hear a great deal about the gold cure, the Gale cure, the German cure for alcohol, opium, and tobacco. I can only hope that they may prove effectual, for the Avorld is full of men and women who would give their last dollar to be free from these awful habits. When the tobacco habit is not one of long standing a resolute determination of the will may enable a man to break it ; but when it has grown for years the strength of a Samson is needful to break its iron fetters. As a Christian and a minister of the Gospel, and a firm believer in the efficacy 212 MANHOOD: WliEGKKl) AND liEtiCUKD. of prayer and in the almighty power of God, I must here state my conviction, based on personal experience, and on a most extended observation, that when we are brought into right rehitions with God we shall find his grace sufficient to overcome tliis and all other hal)its which we know to be sinful and injurious. And I must testify to the fact that thousands of men have been rescued from this habit by re- nouncing it in the name of God, and look- ing to him for "grace to help in time of need." But all men have not this faith, and to such as have it not I recommend THE GRADUAL CURE. The gradual cure is a natural cure ; it is coming out as you Avent in. One who has had large experience in helping men to get free from the tobacco habit quotes the scriptural injunction, "Let hifu that stole, steal no more," and proceeds to }*e- THE RESCUE CONTINUED. 213 l*e- iiiiii'k : " That is good doctiiue in regard to crime, but we are dealing with a physio- logical c^uestiou, and with a habit gradu- ally and ignorantly, and therefore in most cases innocently, acquired. I'he craving for the drug, whatever it may be, is not moral, but physical, and always the habit is gi'adually formed ; and the sure, and natural, and easy, and permanent way to become free from it is to go out of it as we came in. No man at once becomes a heavy smoker, chewer, snuffer, drinker, or user of moi'phine or arsenic. Boys or men see others smoke or chew, and they will nibble moderately as a matter of social imitation. It takes a whole year to form a clamorous habit, and the amount used is increased from week to w^eek. Mean- while the nervous system gradually be- comes able to bear it, and the habit is a disease, and the nervous system is the victim. I quit the use of tobacco sud- "5 it m 214 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. denly many a time, but only those who have tried it can imagine the mighty struggle, and the despondent and hopeless desperation with which one tuins back to his foe. If I were a user of tobacco now I would adoj^t the gradual method of quitting it. For more than thirty years I have recommended to individuals the gradual method w^hen I httd doubts it the victim's strength of purpose, constitution, and nerve were equal to the task, and hundreds of cases have proved the virtue of the prescription." I accept that presentation as a rational and physiological statement of the case. HOW TO DO IT. You are ready to ask, How shall this method be reduced to practice ? My an- swer is, Do not reduce it to j)rj,ctice at all unless you are in dead earnest. You must honestly desire to be free from the habit, PPPPPPHP ■nil THE RESCUE CONTINUED. 216 and you must make a covenant with your manhood that you will conscientiously obey the following directions : If you smoke, count the number of cigars or weigh the quantity of tobacco consumed in a week, and then take off ten per cent the first week, and the following week ten per cent off the remaining ninety per cent, and so on, week after week, and when you come to the last ten per cent you will throw it away and say, " I can do without it altogether." Adopt the same rule in regard to the quantity of tobacco chewed in a week. Be in earnest; be honest; do not waver, and your complete and easy emancipation is as certain as the rising of the sun and the flowing of the tide. WHAT TO EAT AND DKINK. It is of vital importance that the system be supplied with good, nourishing food. T >}ili>lil i4i 216 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. The Iminnii body is composed of cells filled with protoplasm, and these are constantly breaking down and passing away, and are replaced by new cells made out of the food we eat. It is a matter of great importance, therefore, to all people, sick or well, to know what kind of food to eat, in order to repair the constant waste going on. Every thing taken into the circulation exerts an influence, beneficial or harmful, on everv part of the body in general, and on some parts of it in particular. Seminal weakness is a disease which specially requires care and wisdom in regard to food and drink. I am not a crank on the diet question. Every thing which God has given to man for food in the vegetable and animal kingdoms is good food in its proper season, in proper quanti- ties properly prepared. This book may fall into the hands of vegetarians; if you find that you can sustain nature on a vege- THE RESCUE CONTINUED. 317 table diet I congratulate you ou that fact, while I am of opinion that most persons in northern climates require a meat diet as well. God knew the requirements of the human system under the changed condi- tions of life after the flood, when he said to Noah: "Every moving thing that liv^eth shall be meat for yon ; even as the green herb have I given you all things." Gen. ix, 3. He did not mean that toads and reptiles should be eaten, but that clean flesh meats should be eaten as well as the green herb. If the reader will consult the eleventh chapter of Leviticus he will find a minute inventory of AN'hat animal food may, and what may not, be eaten ; and we shall find it in the interest of good health to limit ourselves to the meats allowed in that inventory. Clean animals feed on grasses, and animal tissues are similar in structure and composition to those of the human body, and why should we not let the ox 218 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESGITBD. with Lis enormous digestive power make these tissues for us, rather than make them for oui*selves ? Dr. Forrest displays much sagacity when he says : " Life is too short, and man's work in the world is too important and pressing, to spend unnecessary time and force in changing the raw material into brain, nerve, and muscle in deference to a theory. These remarks apply specially to nervous, sedentary people who have weak digestive j)ower, on the one hand, and increased demands on the nervous system, on the other hand. They should take a mod- erate (Quantity of concentrated, easily digested, and easily assimilated food; in other woi'ds, their diet should be largely composed of meat and bread. Bread is made from wheat, which contains in con- centrated form all the elements necessaiy to support life. Good meat, such as beef and mutton, is a highly concentrated food, THE RESCUE CONTINUED. 219 very similar in character to the huiiiaii tissues. Milk and eggs may be taken if they agree. Fruit in season, in modera- tion, and vegetables in small quantities are not to be barred, unless dyspepsia be present." But in the case of strong sexual passions meat must be eaten in small quantities, and the starving j^rocess for a time will prove highly beneficial. I do not mean abstinence from all food, but a reduction to the smallest possible quantity of plain food sufficient to sustain nature. In cases of seminal weakness eat in moderation always, and let the evening meal be spe- cially light. Oatmeal porridge and good milk, dry toast and sweet buttei-, beef, lamb, and mutton in small quantities, fresh eggs, vegetables, and fruit, are all blood- producing and health-giving foods. Fresh fish and Graham bread may be added to the list, but there must be persistent absti- 11 wmar 220 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. nence from pork and fat meats, and all salted meats ; from rich pastries, stimu- lating condiments, spirituous and malt liq- uors. Drink pure water, and if hot put a little milk and sugar in it. EMPLOYMENT. " Satan finds some misclilef still For idle hands to do.'' The solitary vice is most destructive to those who have nothing to do. liCt your every waking moment be filled up by some useful employment or recreation. If you are a farmer or a mechanic you will be tired enough when the day's work is done, and what you need is fii'st of all to wasli and clean up, and then spend an hour or two in the society of virtuous men and ^vomen, or in reading some good book. If your work is in the office or the store, and you have all the evening hours at THE UESCUE COXTTNUKD. 231 '^ your disposal, it is of the utmost impor- tance that they be filled up with study or recreation. The society of virtuous and intelligent ladies is much to be de- sired. Innocent amusement should be cultivated, some course of readino' marked out and pursued ; walking, skat- ing> gymnastic exercise— anything to keep the mind preoccupied by good thoughts. It was to the empty house, swept and garnished, that the devil returned with seven other devils worse than himself. BATHING. Bathing is always necessary in seminal Aveakness. Let the water be warm, tepid, or cold, as the system may prefer; a full bath once a week if possible, and a sponge bath night and morning, followed by brisk rubbing with a coarse towel. The Turkish bath is excellent in these diseases, lit* 232 MANTTOOn: WRECKED AND RESCUED. SLEEP. Beware of late hours. Retire as early as possible and sleep as long as you can ; but if you wake early in the morning get up and dress, and go to work, or read some good book. You will sleep better next night for the early rising. Do not fall asleep again after "wakiug in the morn- ing, for this second sleep is almost sure to be attended by an emission. Never sleep on a feather bed, but select a hard bed and hard pillows, and let the covering be as light as possible, barely enough to keep you from catching cold. Do not lie on your back, but on your side, the right side being preferable. THE FEAR OF GOD. " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Thousands of men have been saved from drunkenness, from sensuality, THE liKSCUE CONTTNUED. 333 from sins of all kinds and degrees, through faith in the Lord Jesus. TJiey have be- come new men, and have lived and died in the triumphs of Christian faith. ** Ask the Saviour to help you, Comfort, strengthen, and keep you; He is willing to aid you, He will carry you through," ^■l '. n 1 B- i J 1: ^■H^ '' .1^^^ HB^ ' '^1 1 1 THE RESCUE COMPLETED. 15 " TIIK RESCUE COMPLETED. 227 CHAPTER VIII. THE REbt^LE COMPLETED. In the last two chapters I have marked out the path by which the erring one may come back to purity and health, and be- fore I proceed to indicate a simple natural treatment by a simple natural element as supplementary and auxiliary to all the rest, suffer me once for all to set myself right with THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. The science of medicine has reached a very high standard in our day. In the dissecting room and in the laboratory every part of the human body is inspected and analyzed ; and the man Avho attempts to become his o^vn doctor is a fool. We cannot afford to trifle with the delicate m w^ 228 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. mechanism of the bucly vvlieii it gets out of order; and therefore I say again, if you feel that you would like to have the ad- vice of an educated physician, b}' all means seek it, but do not put yourself into the hands of medical companies and charlatans w^iose advertisements you see in the news- papei*s, or whose pamphlets reach }ou through the mail. Consult a resident physician; he will be honest with you, and his charges will be reasonable. But when I have said all this I do not forget that medical works, like those on theology, are within reach of all who de- sire to read them. Every position assumed in this book is fortified by expert medical testimony, and none more strongly t.ian the position that medicine is not required in the uure of seminal emissions. I have already given the testimony of distinguished of the medical fj membei dty point, and I take the liberty to add the THE RESCUE COMPLETED. 229 testimony of Dr. Jackson, of the Dansville Sanitarium,* New York Stale, wlio is known in every part of the world. His experi- ence lias been long, varied, and extensive. These are his words: " There is no disease prevalent with our young men which is so terribly destruct- ive, because of its widespread blight and blasting of prospects and of character, as seminal weakness exhibitive of seminal losses. I have given it the best thought, under a very large practice, for investiga- tion of its nature and its legitimate effects on the human organism, and the best means of overcoming it, and I am satisfied that no plan of medication which involves the taking into the circulation of anodynes^ sedatives^ excitants^ or alteratives xoill meet the necessities of the case. It has its origin in bad hal)its of living, and while these exist the causes exist; and v/hile these exist it is impossible for any man, representing 230 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. auy school of medicine, however skiLful he may be, to make the effects cease. Only by inducing the subject of it to return to great simplicity in all his habits, and to have a mucli larger proportion of these strictly hygienic, can we hope to be effec- tually rid of this teri-ible scourge. . . . Without wishing to say anything deroga- tory of the medical profession, I do dis- tinctly declare my conviction that medi- cines internally administered^ no matter hy what physician, of whatever school, for this disease will not produce a curative effect, I do not believe that out of ten thousand or more young men who have first and last consulted me with a view to their deliver- ance from this form of weakness, and their possible restoration to health, there have been a dozen who had not, before coming to me, faithfully tried the specific remedies offered them by physicians of almost all the drug schools. In many instances the THE RESCUE COMPLETED. 231 medicines which they had taken served only to intensify the morbid sensibility of the genitals and to render their resumption of normal action all the more difficult. They Avce just so much worse than they would have been had they taken no medi- cine, as the effect of the medicines taken had been sensibly felt. Every dose they took, whether tinctures or powders, pellets or pills, little or large, did them actual damage. This experience, running over a very wide field, has forced me to the be- lief that for this form of debility drug specifics are not demanded, but that suffer- ers from seminal weakness should relate themselves, by constitutional and functional conditions, where their vital energies can begin to work naturally, and after a while reinstate natural relations between the vital force and the organs whose general and specific office it is to express that force according to law." Illl^ 111 m 233 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. Now I think 1 have sufficiently estab- lished the position that medicine is not needful to the cure of this disease. But, on the other hand, I I'ecognize the fact that nature may sometimes be assisted in her efforts to return to a normal and healthy condition. It will greatly assist us to fix our attention for a moment on THE PARTS AFFECTED in seminal weakness. The leader vvlio is at all acquainted with the anatomy of the body will understand the intimate rela- tion of the rectum to the bladder, the sem- inal vesicles, and the prostate gland. It is set forth very clearly by Holden in his Landmarks., Medical and Surgical^ when he says : " Many valuable landmarks may be felt by introducing the finger into the rectum, with a catheter at the same time in the urethra. About one inch and a half or two inches from the anus the ■'^. THE RESCUE COMPLETED. 233 fiuger comes upou the prostate gland. The gland lies in close contact with the bowel, and can be detected by its shape and hard feel. The finger moved from side to side can examine the size of its lateral lobes, their consistence and sensibility. The finger introduced still farther can reach beyond the prostate, as far as the apex of the trigone of the bladder." Now, this will help us in determining at least one great difficulty to be removed in the case of seminal emissions. Dr. Kellogg observes that : " In males, one of the most general physical causes of sexual excitement is constipation. The vesicida seminalis., in which the seminal fluid is stored, is situated, as will be remembered, at the base of the bladder. It thus has the bladder in front and the rectum be- hind. In constipation the rectum becomes distended with faeces — effete matter which should have been promptly evacuated in- ■Ak'.' m 234 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. stead of being allowed to accumulate. This hardened mass presses upon the parts most intimately concerned in the sexual act, causing excessive local excitement." Another authority says: "The prostate gland is that bulb-like formation just ovei* the anus or mouth of the rectum. See how, when the rectum is engorged with excre- mentitious matter, the gland and vesicles are pressed. Unless the person so affected is remarkably strong in these parts there must be inevitably an involuntary exuda- tion of both semen and prostatic fluid. Especially must this be the case at stool, when by straining this pressure is aggra- vated. Then, too, when the anus becomes irritated and inflamed by the straining and f I'iction, the irritation is almost always communicated to the prostate gland and spermatic vessels, producing, or greatly aggravating, involuntary nocturnal emis- sions. 7? THE RESCUE COMPLETED. 235 Tliis rational explaiiatiuu ui one of the primary causes, and a general aggravating cause, of seminal emissions lets -u a flood of liglit, and suggests a simple and nat- ural method of treatment. The rectum must be kept free from the accumulation of faecal matter, and the bowels must be kept in a condition of great regularity, and in the meantime all irritation or in- flammation of the parts must be sub- dued. How shall this be done? Not by swallowing pills and powders. There is a more excellent way. For the cure of constipation and the regulation of the bowels the simple and natural treat- ment is to take injections of warm water. The water may be as wai'm as the hands can comfortably remain in ; a little castile soap may be rubbed into it, or if the con- stipation be obstinate a little molasses may be added. A common bulb syringe "will answer the purpose, but a fountain 236 MANHOOD: WRECKED AND RESCUED. syringe, which any druggist can supply, is preferable ; and you need not fear to inject a quart, or even two quarts, if necessary to produce an evacuation. A little diffi- culty may be experienced at first, but per- severance will soon overcome it, and you will never again swallow pills to keep the bowels in a condition of regularity. SPECIAL FOR SEMINAL WEAKNESS. But for seminal weakness, for piles, for enlargement of the prostate gland, and for irritation of the bladder, the treatment is special, and a fountain syringe must be used. I have intimated that in these affections there is irritation, inflammation, or engorge- ment, on the one hand, or relaxation and debility, on the other hand. And nothing will so speedily and permanently remove these symptoms as applications of warm water. Such applications used externally THE RESCUE COMPLETED. 287 will remove the pain and swelling of a bruise and prevent discoloration. But how shall we apply this remedy internally ? The answer is simple. Use the fountain syringe ; let the water be reasonably w^arm, but not so warm as that injected into the bowels; each night l)ef()re retii'ing, or in the daytime if not convenient at night, allow two or three quarts to pass into the rectum and flow out as quickly as it flows in. A slight bearing down will cause it thus to flow^ out, and in this operation a constant stream of warm water is brought in contact with the neck of the bladder, the prostate gland, find the seminal vesicles. The effect is most soothing and strength- ening; it allays irritation, i-educes inflam- mation, tones up relaxation, and keeps the I'ectum free fi'om accumulations of effete matter. I could fill pages with the grate- fri acknowledgments of men who have come to me on the verge of despair, and i i ■ iiik..:. 238 MANTTOOn: WRECKED AND RESCUED. who, by a strict observance of the recom- mendations recited in this book, have in a few months rejoiced in perfect deliverance from afflictions which made life a burden. To those who live in towns and cities, Avith closets in the liouse, there is no incon- venience ; to those who live in the coun- try, with outside closets, tliere need be but slight inconvenience except in the cold winter months, when the treatment may be taken indoors by the aid of suitable con- veniences. PILES AND URINARY TROUBLES. For piles, enlargement of the prostate gland, and irritation of the bladder, to one or all of which most men past fifty years are subjected, this simple treatment is in- valuable. The piles may continue to an extent, but they become soft and are greatly reduced in size, and if they come down at stool may be readily pushed back with the THE RESCUE COMPLETED. 239 finger wet and rubbed on a piece of castile soap. I speak from happy experience ; for, after years of martyrdom and three sui'gical operations, I find no difficulty, with this treatment once or twice a week, in keeping the piles in complete subjection. Great relief is also affoi'ded in all cases of iri-ita- tion of the bladder and enlarged prostate, and any man afflicted with these maladies may, by this treatment, attend to his busi- ness or profession and end his days in peace, so far as these troubles are concerned. IT IS YOUR LIFE. In his dying charge to the children of Israel Moses enforced the necessity of im- plicit obedience to the divine command- mental, and sai '- : " It is not a vain thing for you ; because it is your life : and th-ough this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it." I say the same to vou. Your ■I\ if Mr t|!,<| 240 }rANnOOD: WRECKED AND nESCUED. life, your happiness, your usefulness in society, and the length of your earthly existence depend on the fidelity and per- severance with whicli you cairy out the instructions given in these pages. MENTAL, NOT PHYSICAL. But do not forget that the rules of life and the methoJ of treatment now set be- fore you have reference to effects and not to causes. The cause is mental rather than physical ; certain physical effects fol- low in its train, and the treatment has refer- ence to these. But the cause lies deeper, and in that direction you must search for the cure. YOU MUST CHERISH PURE THOUGHTS OR Hlk. Nothing can save you if you .allow your imagination to revel in impure thoughts. What I have recommended will remove the effects ; you must arrest the cause, THE HKHiJUE COMPLETED. 241 You must make a covenant with your eyes, your eaj*H, your imagination, that you will not look upon, listen to, noi- think of any- thing that is low, sensual, and degrading. WOKTH A S'i'IlUGGLE. Is it not worth a struggle to regain lost manhood— to stand erect in God's image with a crown upon your biow ? Is he not a man wlio says to th(^ demon of sensuality, Begone, foul demon ! By the mother who bore me, by the angels who guard me, by the God Avho made me, I bid thee begone, foul demon of sensuality? Do not despair though you fail again and again. Little by little you will gain the mastery: ^uid at last, adorned with the ci-own of manhood, your glad heart will say, I am a man ! I am FREE ! f 16 THE END. iH;