Part 90

5. UNJUST DEMANDS.--The greater the injustice a husband does to his wife, the less he is willing to submit to from her; the oftener he becomes unfaithful to her, the stricter he is in demanding faithfulness from her. We see that despotism nowhere denies its own nature: the more a despot deceives and abuses his people, the more submissiveness and faithfulness he demands of them.

6. SUFFERING WOMEN.--Who can be astonished at the many unhappy marriages, if he knows how unworthy most men are of their wives? Their virtues they rarely can appreciate, and their vices they generally call out by their own. Thousands of women suffer from the results of a mode of life of which they, having remained pure in their thought, have no conception whatever; and many an unsuspecting wife nurses her husband with tenderest care in sicknesses which are nothing more than the consequences of his amours with other women.

7. AN INHUMAN CRIMINAL.--When at last, after long years of delusion and endurance, the scales drop from the eyes of the wife, and revenge or despair drives her into a hostile position towards her lord and master, she is an inhuman criminal, and the hue and cry against the fickleness of women and the falsity of their nature is endless. Oh, the injustice of society and the injustice of cruel man. Is there no relief for helpless women that are bound by the ties of marriage to men who are nothing but rotten corruption?

8. VULGAR DESIRE.--The habit of regarding the end and aim of woman only from the most vulgar side--not to respect in her the noble human being, but to see in her only the instrument of sensual desire--is carried so far among men that they will allow it to force into the background considerations among themselves, which they otherwise pretend to rank very high.

9. THE ONLY REMEDY.--But when the feeling of women has once been driven to indignation with respect to the position which they occupy, it is to be hoped that they will compel men to be pure before marriage, and they will remain loyal after marriage.

10. WORSE THAN SAVAGES.--With all our civilization we are put to shame even by the savages. The savages know of no fastidiousness of the sexual instinct and of no brothels. We are, indeed, likewise savages, but in quite a different sense. Proof of this is especially furnished by our youth. But that our students, and young men in general, usually pass through the school of corruption and drag the filth of the road which they have traversed before marriage along {429} with them throughout life, is not their fault so much as the fault of prejudices and of our political and social conditions that prohibits a proper education, and the placing of the right kind of literature on these subjects into the hands of young people.

11. REASON AND REMEDY.--Keep the youth pure by a thorough system of plain unrestricted training. The seeds of immorality are sown in youth, and the secret vice eats out their young manhood often before the age of puberty. They develop a bad character as they grow older. Young girls are ruined, and licentiousness and prostitution flourish. Keep the boys pure and the harlot would soon lose her vocation. Elevate the morals of the boys, and you will have pure men and moral husbands.

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{430}

The Road to Shame.

1. INSULT TO MOTHER OR SISTER.--Young men, it can never under any circumstances 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 associate with her? and, mark! all this personal and relative misery caused by this genteel villain's degrading passion.

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 lust 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 lust. 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 fellowship of the woman "whose house is the way to hell." (Prov. VII. 27.)

5. THE WAY OF DEATH.--Observe, that directly the law of God is broken, and wherever promiscuous intercourse between the sexes 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 sexes 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 God 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 God created woman is prostituted 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., prostitution. She sleeps, but awakes a harlot. She rises in the late morning hours, but her object is prostitution; 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 dashing finery and tawdry trappings, and with bold, unwomanly mien essays the streets of the great city. To this end she is loud and coarse and impudent. To this end she is the prostituted "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 lusts of degraded, ungodly men. Verily, the word "prostitute" 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 companionship 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 nobility of character, and an honorable life is the joy and security of mankind.

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{433}

The Curse of Manhood.

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 relationship of marriage, they become adulterers, in order to gratify their accursed lust. 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 damnable example encourage young men to sin.

2. A SAD CONDITION.--It is constantly affirmed by prostitutes, 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. Multitudes 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 PASSION.--Common-sense teaches that children who are begotten in the heat of animal passion, 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. Certainly no one can deny that many of our "well-bred" young men are little better than "high-class dogs" so lawless are they, and ready for the arena of licentiousness.