Part 57 (1/2)

{430}

The Road to Shame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUICIDE LAKE.]

1. INSULT TO MOTHER OR SISTER.--Young men, it can never under any circ.u.mstances be right for you to do to a woman that, which, if another man did to your mother or sister, you could never forgive! The very thought is revolting. Let us suppose a man guilty of this shameful sin, and I apprehend that each of us would feel ready to shoot the villain. We are not justifying the shooting, but appealing to your instinctive sense of right, in order to show the enormity of this fearful crime, and to fasten strong conviction in your mind against this sin. {431}

2. A RUINED SISTER.--What would you think of a man, no matter what his wealth, culture, or gentlemanly bearing, who should lay himself out for the seduction and shame of your beloved sister? Her very name now reminds you of the purest affection: think of her, if you can bear it, ruined in character, and soon to become an unhappy mother. To whom can you introduce her? What can you say concerning her? How can her own brothers and sisters a.s.sociate with her? and, mark! all this personal and relative misery caused by this genteel villain's degrading pa.s.sion.

3. YOUNG MAN LOST.--Another terrible result of this sin is the practical overthrow of natural affection which it effects. A young man comes from his father's house to Chicago. Either through his own l.u.s.t or through the corrupt companions that he finds in the house of business where he resides, he becomes the companion of lewd women. The immediate result is a bad conscience, a sense of shame, and a breach in the affections of home.

Letters are less frequent, careless, and brief. He cannot manifest true love now. He begins to shrink from his sister and mother, and well he may.

4. THE HARLOT'S INFLUENCE.--He has spent the strength of his affection and love for home. In their stead the wretched harlot has filled him with unholy l.u.s.t. His brain and heart refuse to yield him the love of the son and brother. His hand can not write as aforetime, or at best, his expressions become a hypocritical pretence. Fallen into the degradation of the fornicator, he has changed a mother's love and sister's affection for the cursed fellows.h.i.+p of the woman ”whose house is the way to h.e.l.l.” (Prov.

VII. 27.)

5. THE WAY OF DEATH.--Observe, that directly the law of G.o.d is broken, and wherever promiscuous intercourse between the s.e.xes takes place, gonorrhoea, syphilis, and every other form of venereal disease is seen in hideous variety. It is only true to say that thousands of both s.e.xes are slain annually by these horrible diseases. What must be the moral enormity of a sin, which, when committed, produces in vast numbers of cases such frightful physical and moral destruction as that which is here portrayed?

6. A HARLOT'S WOES.--Would to G.o.d that something might be done to rescue fallen women from their low estate. We speak of them as ”fallen women”.

Fallen, indeed, they are, but surely not more deserving of the application of that term than the ”fallen men” who are their partners and paramours. It is easy to use the words, ”a fallen woman”, but who can apprehend all that is involved in the {432} expression, seeing that every purpose for which G.o.d created woman is prost.i.tuted and destroyed? She is now neither maiden, wife, nor mother; the sweet names of sister and betrothed can have no legitimate application in her case.

7. THE PENALTIES FOR LOST VIRTUE.--Can the harlot be welcomed where either children, brothers, sisters, wife, or husband are found? Surely, no. Home is a sphere alien to the harlot's estate. See such an one wherever you may--she is a fallen outcast from woman's high estate. Her existence--for she does not live--now culminates in one dread issue, viz., prost.i.tution.

She sleeps, but awakes a harlot. She rises in the late morning hours, but her object is prost.i.tution; she washes, dresses, and braids her hair, but it is with one foul purpose before her. To this end she eats, drinks, and is clothed. To this end her house is hidden and the blinds are drawn.

8. LOST FOREVER.--To this end she applies the unnatural cosmetique, and covers herself with sweet perfumes, which vainly try to hide her disease and shame. To this end she decks herself with das.h.i.+ng finery and tawdry trappings, and with bold, unwomanly mien essays the streets of the great city. To this end she is loud and coa.r.s.e and impudent. To this end she is the prost.i.tuted ”lady,” with simpering words, and smiles, and glamour of refined deceit. To this end an angel face, a devil in disguise. There is one foul and ghastly purpose towards which all her energies now tend. So low has she fallen, so lost is she to all the design of woman, that she exists for one foul purpose only, viz., to excite, stimulate, and gratify the l.u.s.ts of degraded, unG.o.dly men. Verily, the word ”prost.i.tute” has an awful meaning. What plummet can sound the depths of a woman's fall who has become a harlot?

9. SOUND THE ALARM.--Remember, young man, you can never rise above the degradation of the companions.h.i.+p of lewd women. Your virtue once lost is lost forever. Remember, young woman, your wealth or riches is your good name and good character--you have nothing else. Give a man your virtue and he will forsake you, and you will be forsaken by all the world. Remember that purity of purpose brings n.o.bility of character, and an honorable life is the joy and security of mankind.

{433}

The Curse of Manhood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GREAT PHILANTHROPIST.]

1. MORAL LEPERS.--We cannot but denounce in the strongest terms, the profligacy of many married men. Not content with the moderation permitted in the divine appointed relations.h.i.+p of marriage, they become adulterers, in order to gratify their accursed l.u.s.t. The man in them is trodden down by the sensual beast which reigns supreme. These are the moral outlaws that make light of this scandalous social iniquity, and by their d.a.m.nable example encourage young men to sin.

2. A SAD CONDITION.--It is constantly affirmed by prost.i.tutes, that amongst married men are found their chief supporters. Evidence from such a quarter must be received with considerable caution. Nevertheless, we believe that there is much truth in this statement. Here, again, we lay {434} the ax to the root of the tree; the married man who dares affirm that there is a particle of physical necessity for this sin, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Whether these men be princes, peers, legislators, professional men, mechanics, or workmen, they are moral pests, a scandal to the social state, and a curse to the nation.

3. EXCESSES.--Many married men exhaust themselves by these excesses; they become irritable, liable to cold, to rheumatic affections, and nervous depression. They find themselves weary when they rise in the morning.

Unfitted for close application to business, they become dilatory and careless, often lapsing into entire lack of energy, and not seldom into the love of intoxicating stimulants. Numbers of husbands and wives entering upon these experiences lose the charm of health, the cheerfulness of life and converse. Home duties become irksome to the wife; the brightness, vivacity, and bloom natural to her earlier years, decline; she is spoken of as highly nervous, poorly, and weak, when the whole truth is that she is suffering from physical exhaustion which she cannot bear. Her features become angular, her hair prematurely gray, she rapidly settles down into the nervous invalid, constantly needing medical aid, and, if possible, change of air.

4. IGNORANCE.--These conditions are brought about in many cases through ignorance on the part of those who are married. Mult.i.tudes of men have neither read, heard, nor known the truth of this question. We sympathize with our fellow-men in this, that we have been left in practical ignorance concerning the exceeding value and legitimate uses of these functions of our being. Some know, that, had they known these things in the early days of their married life, it would have proved to them knowledge of exceeding value. If this counsel is followed, thousands of homes will scarcely know the need of the physician's presence.

5. ANIMAL Pa.s.sION.--Common-sense teaches that children who are begotten in the heat of animal pa.s.sion, are likely to be licentious when they grow up.

Many parents through excesses of eating and drinking, become inflamed with wine and strong drink., They are sensualists, and consequently, morally diseased. Now, if in such conditions men beget their children, who can affect surprise if they develop licentious tendencies? Are not such parents largely to blame? Are they not criminals in a high degree? Have they not fouled their own nest, and transmitted to their children predisposition to moral evil?

6. FAST YOUNG MEN.--Many of our ”fast young men” have been thus corrupted, even as the children of the {435} intemperate are proved to have been.