Definition of Unchastity
Unchastity includes all the action, whether of body or mind, which is forbidden by the seventh commandment. And all that is therein forbidden, may be included under the two following heads:
1. Unchastity of the mind.
2. Unchastity of the conduct.
By unchastity of the mind, is meant the conception of unchastity in the mind, the cherishing of impure desire. All sin has its seat in the mind. The seventh commandment, like every other, extends to "thoughts, and intents of the heart." "This," says Dwight, "is unanswerable evident from our Saviour's comment on this precept (the seventh commandment), 'Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' " (Matt. 5:28) And with this agrees another scripture, which says, "Out of the heart proceedeth ... adulteries."
By unchastity of the conduct, we are to understand the acting out of unchastity in any of its various ways of developing sinful thoughts, as,
1. By unchaste conversation, writing, looks, and gestures. "Speech is the mirror of the soul." And hence it is that "by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Matt. 12:37) But significant looks, writing, gestures etc., being but substitutes for words and the tongue, are, like them, capable of being made the ministers of sin; hence, also, they must be subject to the same general law.
Unchastity in the sight of god
Unchastity, loathsome and abhorrent as it is in the sight of good men, is infinitely more so in the sight of God. This is sufficiently evident in the conduct of the divine Being in relation to it. The prominent place he has given to the law forbidding it--having written it in common with nine others, on tables of stone, for the universal government of universal man--and, also, the sanction he has placed upon it--having announced it amid the most sublime and awful, symbols of the divine presence which the world ever witnessed--these considerations make it abundantly evident that God looks upon unchastity with the extreme of loathing and abhorrence.
This view, however, is further evidenced in the fact that throughout both Testaments, unchastity is made the subject of frequent rebuke, in language of the greatest detestation. Against no other form of sin are men more frequently and earnestly admonished.
Effects of unchastity upon the body
"Sexual desire, cherished by the mind, and dwelt upon by the imagination, not only increases the excitability and peculiar sensibility of the genital organs themselves; but always throws an influence equal to the intensity of the affection, over the whole nervous domain; disturbing all the functions depending on them for vital energy, which is thereby increased upon, or distracted from, them--and if this excitement is frequently repeated or long continued, it inevitably induces an increased degree of irritability and debility and relaxation generally, throughout the whole nervous and muscular tissues, and especially the nerves of organic life. And hence, those lascivious DAY-DREAMS and amorous reveries, in which young people--and especially the idle and the voluptuous, and the sedentary and the nervous--are exceedingly apt to indulge, are often the sources of general debility, effeminacy, disordered functions, and premature disease, and even premature death, without the actual exercise of the general organs! Indeed, this unchastity of thought--this adultery of the mind--is the beginning of immeasurable evil to the human family."[1]
Solitary vice
Testimony to the evil effects of solitary vice comes in from all quarters. Dr. Clarke, the excellent commentator, says that selfpollution "excites the powers to undue action, and produces violent secretions, which necessarily and speedily exhaust the vital principle and energy." The doctor goes on to speak of its consequences, as disease and death, and then adds: "Reader, this is no caricature, nor are the colors overcharged in this shocking picture. Worse woes than my pen can relate, I have witnessed in those addicted to this fascinating, unnatural and most destructive of crimes. If thou hast entered the snare, flee from the destruction of both soul and body that awaits thee."
Physiology also bears its testimony. Says Sylvester Graham, "By far the worst form of venereal indulgence is self-pollution." This testimony perfectly accords with that of the divine quoted above. Says Mrs. Grove, the celebrated physiological lectures, "There is hardly an end to these diseases"--diseases caused by solitary vice. Says the Rev. E. M. P. Wells, teacher in the school of moral discipline, Boston, "Respecting the habit of sexual self-indulgence, I should hope it was unnecessary to speak of its dangerous and evil effects."
Wm. C. Woodbridge, well known to the educational world, speaks of it as a "solitary but fatal vice, spreading desolation through our schools and families, unnoticed or unknown." Tissot speaks of it as the cause of painful, long, disgusting disease. Says Dr. Woodward, the justly-celebrated superintendent of the Mass. State Lunatic Hospital, "A great number of the ills which come upon the young at and after the age of puberty, arise from this habit, persisted in so long as to waste the vital energies, and enervate the physical and mental powers of the man."
Todd, in his "Student's Manual," p. 147, says, "I have known very many young persons who have daily polluted themselves with this vice--and that, too, for a number of years. ... I have lamented the fall of many whom I have seen fall victims to premature death, for this foul cause alone--some, while in the halls of education, and others, soon after leaving college, adorned with its higher honors."
We have already heard Mrs. Grove say, "There is hardly an end to these diseases" (diseases caused by this vice). She enumerates "dyspepsia, spinal complaint, headache, epilepsy, impaired eyesight, palpitation of the heart, pain in the side, bleeding at the lungs, spasms of the heart and lungs, diabetes, or incontinence of urine, fluor albus, or whites, inflammation of the urinary organs." Dr. Deslandes, besides many of these, instances rheumatism, affected perspiration, consumption, asthma, catarrh, polypus of the heart, affection of the bones, fevers, priapism strangury, polypus uteri, blood discharges, etc., etc.
The following startling case occurred but a few miles from the residence of the writer. It is received on credible information. A boy, about four years old, was afflicted with weakness and stiffness of limbs. (The exact symptoms the writer has not learned.) His parents at length carried him to a distant physician. The physician, after sufficient inquiry, told them that the child "handled himself too much." They returned, doubting what this could mean. Suggesting the matter to some of their neighbors, their eyes were opened. "Well," said they, "we will stop that." And they did stop it, by bandaging the genitals. And lo! the child soon stopped being feeble and lame. He is now a healthy boy.
Dr. Goupil, as quoted by Deslandes, gives a full and particular account of a little boy who at two years old was epileptic, from this cause. The vice was taught him by his nurse. We say taught him--perhaps we should say fastened upon him at early infancy only as a notion. A notion, however, which hurried on excitement and rendered him paralytic. By the most vigilant use of mechanical means for confining the hands, covering the genitals, etc., the child was at length cured; he now enjoys good health, "and, with the exception of a remarkable loss of memory, retains no trace of his former indiscretions."
Instances like the above are, doubtless, of very rare occurrence, and when they do occur, must be supposed to be the result of the combined action of all the circumstances, constitutional and external, favorable to their development. That the debasing habit is often commenced before puberty, and in the language of an eminent physiological observer, "frequently many years before," is, however, quite indisputable.
But, after all, very little of the mischief of this sin is known. It is a secret vice, a vice which its patrons are ashamed to confess. And hence, provided they themselves know it to be the cause of their suffering, they are slow to acknowledge it. Or, if knowing this, they abandon it, and so get well; feeling under no obligation to publish their indiscretion, some medicinal nostrum obtains all the credit of their cure. And further, if knowing its evils they persist in it, in spite of them, why, they have then no motive for exposing it. But if, as is generally the case, they are ignorant of its injuriousness, then certainly, they will not reveal it. So that, every way, the conclusion forces itself upon us, that comparatively very little of the mischief of solitary vice is known. Indeed, very little of it is known to the victims themselves; much less, then, to the community. This will appear still more evident in the fact that it is only quite recently that many discoveries calculated to excite any general alarm and inquiry have been made--and also in the fact that the more general effects of the vice, being only a sort of general debility, are not among the ignorant masses calculated to excite much careful inquiry into their causes. Upon the whole, it must plainly appear that what are known of the consequences of solitary vice, can, at most, be regarded only as indices to what actually exist.
This evil is confined to neither sex. Its ravages, though not as extensive, are, however, most dreadful among the females. We have before us numerous published cases of the horrible nature, taken from the history of both sexes.
The foregoing are among the causes which at present occur to our mind for the pre-eminently-sad physical consequences of solitary vice. But whatever view the reader take of these causes, we charge him never to hazard their consequences! And this charge we give in the name of his own health and life. Whatever be his age, and however temperate he resolve to be, he must not indulge in this sin. Total abstinence must be his law. One glass excites the appetite for another. One enemy admitted, another clamors for admission; while the one admitted is weakening his power of resistance. In a word, in the language of Deslandes, "It is clear that there is no possible security for the onanist." But especially let every praying man either cease to sip of this cup of foulness, or cease to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." Otherwise "his prayer itself will become sin."
Effects of unchastity upon the mind
Unchastity, as we have already seen, deranges, debilitates and ruins the body. Now, out of this startling fact arises another fact, if possible more startling. It is that unchastity deranges, debilitates and ruins the mind. That this latter fact must follow the former, is clear in the consideration that the body is the seat of the mind, and the medium through which it acts. The mind gets its simple ideas through the medium of the body. And in proportion to the perfectness of this medium does the mind improve. But when the body is debilitated, languid, sick, it is injured, and ruined as a medium for the action of the mind. Consequently the mind is then shut up to itself in weakness and destitution. Moreover, the mind increases its stock of knowledge and its energy by the reflection upon its ideas. So that on ideas, by reflection, ideas grow. But when the body is feeble and sick, reflection cannot be supported. (Witness the case of thousands of invalids.) As, then, reflection is necessary to mental improvement, and as a sound body is necessary to clear and continued reflection, so is a sound body necessary to high mental improvement. Once more--the ability of the mind to use the knowledge it has, is dependent upon the body. Thus, whatever weakens the body, in so far locks up the mental treasure-house against even itself. But unchastity does weaken and debilitate the body, and by consequence, as we have above seen, the mind also. But to be a little more particular:
1. By unchastity, especially by solitary vice, the mind suffers lassitude. By lassitude, we mean that dozy indifference which the victims of venereal excesses often feel.
To be sure, sensation and conscious energy may be, for a time and at intervals, exalted, under the influence of this unnaturalness. But unless they be exalted to the point of insanity, the system soon relapses, and sinks into the condition above mentioned. This condition is the perfectly-natural result of the exhaustion of the nervous energy upon the venereal passion. It is indicted by a general feeling of irresolution, and this more especially in the morning. Students, as many of them as are vicious, are the sorest sufferers from it. And, in general, persons of sedentary habits are most liable to it, although no victim of solitary vice is safe from it. Says Dr. Deslandes, "Young men who previously showed considerable vivacity of mind and aptitude for study, become, after being addicted to this habit [solitary vice], stupid and incapable of applying themselves. It is evident that this transitory state which immediately succeeds the act of venery, becomes continued when this act is frequently repeated, because time is not allowed for the effects of it to pass off." But if unchastity--more especially solitary vice--unfits students for their work, so does it young farmers, mechanics, seamstresses, etc., for theirs. It is always and every where, "evil, only evil, and that continually."
2. By unchastity, especially by solitary vice, the mind suffers permanent debility. Dr. Woodward says that loss of memory and power of application shows the devastating effects of solitary vice upon the mind. Says Todd in his "Student's Manual," "Remember that the fruits of this habit (solitary vice) are, (1) great debility of the memory, (2) great prostration of foolish imbecility of the mind."
But while the memory suffers so much from this vice that it has been marked by all who have written upon this subject, still it does not suffer alone. All the mental faculties partake of the general blight. Perception is made dull and obtuse, the reasoning powers are blunted. Nothing is seen clearly--nothing is understood perfectly. The whole mental man is sunk; and this, more or less, according to the degree of venereal abuse. To all this the reflecting reader will assent.
3. From debility the mind often sinks into idiocy. We have already seen that Dr. Woodward reckons idiocy among the consequences of solitary vice. And it is no marvel that whatever induces mental lassitude and debility, should finally induce vacant idiocy itself. The tendency is all that way. "Last fall," says the author of "Facts and Important Information," etc., "I saw a young woman in a town in Massachusetts who had made herself an idiot by masturbation. A most miserable creature she was. Her looks and gestures were indescribable; licentiousness, like a foul plague, had blasted everything beautiful in her face, everything noble and lovely in her soul." Says Dr. Clarke, by this vice the mind is 'often debilitated even to idiotism.'
In the fall of 1844, the writer visited the Massachusetts State Lunatic Hospital. While being conducted through the various apartments, mingling promiscuously with the insane, our attention was suddenly arrested by the peculiarly haggard, frantic, wild, and fiendish appearance of a young man, turning from us with his eye turned back over his shoulder. Struck with his shocking aspect, we inquired of our attendant, a young physician, what was the cause of his insanity. "Solitary vice," was the ready reply. Thought we, solitary vice produces solitary insanity! for we never saw the like before. We further asked, Have you many here from that cause? "A large proportion," was the reply. More than from intemperance? "Oh, yes, far more." Do you find ladies alike victims of that practice? "We know no difference." We were now passing through a large room where a number of beautiful and apparently intelligent young ladies sat gazing mutely upon us. But, doctor, what are your prospects of cure in such cases? "When there is reason enough left to make the patients see and feel that by abandoning the habit they may be cured, we have good hope; but not otherwise." This last sentiment agrees perfectly with a remark of Deslandes', that "when they (crazy persons) do indulge, this act must be considered as a bad symptom, since it constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to the cure: it destroys the strength, and finally produces, in the patients, stupidity, phthisis, marasmus, and death." And surely nothing but death was wanting to fill this picture in the case of the young man to whom we have just alluded.
Effects of licentiousness upon the morals
Lust fills the chambers of the whole soul with moral pestilence and mildew; and this, too, whatever be its mode of operating. So that solitary vice, in its depraving power, falls but little short of libertinism itself. Its tendency is downward--downward--DOWNWARD! It rapidly weakens and debases the moral character, especially if the sinfulness of it be known. We have already seen how often it hurries its victims to insanity. But far more frequently it sinks them deep in depravity without destroying their accountability.
It is the parent of very much of that moral corruption so generally ascribed to the fall of Adam! Sapping the moral nature early, it saps it effectually. Reason and conscience, struggling ineffectually for a season, at length throw loose the controlling reins, and then the work is done. Few, if any, confirmed onanists, but are depraved to the level of any and every form of venereal sin. And certainly, they who are thus depraved, will shrink from very few acts of crime, whenever their interest or their passion shall summon them to wickedness. Selfish and interested motives may, to be sure, afford many, and sometimes strong, restraints. But when right--right in the sight of God--moral right is the only question, it is believed that the subjects of licentiousness will generally care but little for it.
Causes of unchastity
We notice bad education as a cause of unchastity. Children are born in a perfectly uneducated state. They know absolutely nothing until they learn something. Now, by education, we mean the conveying of knowledge to the mind in any and every possible way. Thus, if the mind be compared to an unsoiled, white sheet, then the writing and impressing of ideas thereon we call education. Well has the poet said:
" 'Tis education forms the common mind;" and certainly it has much to do in forming the moral character. By bad education we mean the filling of the mind with bad ideas. And it is this that we are now to consider as a cause of the prevalence of unchastity, as discussed in former chapters.
Paul says that "evil communications corrupt good manners." No sooner is it said, "A child is born," than an infant is subjected to "evil communications," i.e., put in communication with an evil, sensual world. And that manners are thereby corrupted, has been often proved while the child has been yet in the nurse's arms, and this, too, in a most serious manner. Nurses, by manipulating infants to cure their crying, have been known to give them a notion, which has resulted in the habit of solitary vice. This, the reader will say, is early education with a vengeance. And yet, numbers of instances of this kind are on record. The reader must judge for himself how many are un-recorded. In these cases, the victims, with a fatal precocity, live but to linger a little, unless they are saved by some happy influence next to miraculous.
The society of unchaste parents educates children in unchastity. It is surprising to see how early the child catches the traits of the parental character. So intimate is the parental relation, that to avoid this is quite impossible. The looks, the gestures, the words, the insinuations, at first a mystery to the child, are soon solved by its tiny reflection. Children are listeners at a very early age; and the smile of approbative indifference with which the parent speaks of deeds of lewdness, as they are occasionally occurring in community, is very soon transmitted to the little listener; and the child concluding, of course, that that cannot be very wrong which is smiled over, learns to look upon such deeds without abhorrence.
Again, children are ever associating with their superiors in age, in a series, extending from earliest childhood, up through youth, to manhood and womanhood. And this association is so intimate that generally what one knows all know, and what one does all are tempted to do. Now, through this series of associations, every licentious adult necessarily throws a licentious influence back down to the borders of the nursery. Thus, while one instructed child becomes himself an instructor, and indeed, while every child is both pupil and teacher--receiving lessons from the older, and handing them down to the younger--it is by no means wonderful that the process of education goes on so rapidly. And when this education is of a sensual character, why should it be thought remarkable that some of the forms of unchastity should be found in very early childhood. The writer knows a large family, one of the boys of which (perhaps five years old) has been repeatedly caught practicing fornication with his little sister, and also trying to seduce other little girls. He knows another little boy who will practice upon little girls, what in older persons would be pronounced the hight of immodesty and imposition. But in all this there is nothing singular, when the educational influences of society are considered.
Children at school are sometimes educated more in wickedness by bad associates, than they are in righteousness by their proper teachers. But even the education proper of the schools has sometimes been very unfavorable to chastity. The mind has, even there, sometimes lost its balance by constant efforts to strain upon the intellect to the neglect and expense of the moral sentiments. The animal propensities left to a constant revel, man grows sensual and brutish.
We notice ignorance as one of the causes of unchastity. Ignorance of the extent of the claims of the law of chastity is a negative cause of sad mischief. That this law demands a chaste mind, as well as chaste words and actions, is to many a new idea. That it forbids solitary vice, is unknown to very many of the oldest men of our day. And many who deem solitary vice wrong, see nothing wrong in the cherishing of amorous reveries and "lascivious daydreams," And still more are they who have no idea of the excesses of married life being by this law forbidden. The consequences of this ignorance are, as we have already seen, just what might be expected--one is a mental adulterer, another is an onanist, and another still is a married, legal, sensualist--and all three, if not perfectly at ease morally, are kind of conscientious, and think themselves innocent of any violation of revealed law! Now who will wonder that unchastity should, under these circumstances, spread itself so rapidly?
Parents, through ignorance leave their children an easy prey to filthy vice. Parental love, however solicitous and careful, cannot teach children lessons which itself has never learned; nor guard them against dangers which it has never itself discovered. And hence while many parents are "verily guilty concerning the blood of their children," many more are doomed to see their children ruined, in perfect ignorance of what might have been done to save them. For the latter, ignorance may be a sufficient apology, when to the former it shall be said:
"Ye knew your duty, but ye did it not!"
Parents have hitherto been generally and deplorably ignorant of the destructiveness of some of the forms of unchastity, and of solitary vice in particular. The consequence of this ignorance is just what might have been expected. Their children, altogether uninstructed in their danger, have sought enjoyment in what seemed to them but an innocent gratification, and thus they have been ruined.
We notice bad diet as a cause of unchastity. By bad diet we mean the use of food and drinks of bad qualities and unreasonable quantities. Nothing pertaining to the body is more important to man than to know when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat; and when to drink, what to drink, and how much to drink. Man is made over again every few years; and the new bones, blood, and muscles, are manufactured from what is eaten and drank. The physical health and strength of man must, therefore, depend very much upon the food and drink he takes into his stomach. No one doubts this. Some substances actually poison the body to death, others produce but little perceivable injury, while others still produce results of a doubtful character, and yet others do the system some good; and, finally, others support, invigorate, and strengthen, to the greatest possible degree. All this seems plain. And plain must therefore seem the importance of that knowledge of which we have above spoken.
But, while the state of the body depends so much and so evidently upon the diet, the state of the mind generally--and of some of the passions in particular--is by no means independent of it. The stomach, in its relation to the body, has been very justly called "the center of sympathies." In its relation to the mind, it may certainly be safely called the seat of strong sympathies. Take, as an illustration, the passion of combativeness. Who has not seen this passion raised to a fury in a few hours by what has been thrown into the stomach? But it will be said that strong drink is no part of diet. And to be sure it ought not to be, and is very generally abandoned. But so specific are alcoholic liquors, in their action upon the venereal passion, that harlots and libertines use them, almost exclusively, for raising and supporting the exhausted venereal energies!
Now, if alcohol can thus work upon the passions, through the medium of the stomach, why may not other articles received there into? Most certainly they may. There is an open thoroughfare between the former and the latter. Thus are the passions well or illy affected by everything of substance that is eaten or drank.
Food, too, which is not in its nature unduly stimulating, from being taken in too large quantities, produces alarming disturbances among the passions. Whatever is taken into the stomach must be disposed of in some way or other; otherwise health fails, and the body dies. Moreover, the organs of digestion, nutrition, and elimination, are capable of disposing of no more than a certain quantity of food and drink without injury. The instant, therefore that they are tasked beyond the design of their organization, they suffer fatigue and irritation. When the overtasked system is in good tone, it will, for a time, perhaps, relieve itself by vomiting, diarrhea, etc. But it soon becomes incapable of thus relieving itself, and either dies in the attempt or sinks into a decline. Now, with all this, and especially with whatever pertains to the stomach, the nervous system strongly sympathizes, and through that the passions are disturbed, irritated, and inflamed.
The disturbance produced by excessive alimentation is quite mechanical. The food, passing from the stomach but half digested--for it is obliged to pass out to give place to more--irritates the mucous membrane, or inner coating of the bowels, with its coarseness and its crudity, while from it the lacteals are capable of extracting but very imperfect chyle. Now for the same reason that the half-digested food irritated the bowels, this poor chyle irritates the duet through which it is conveyed into the circulation. And now the blood, loaded with this crude chyle, goes irritating through its million channels. The blood being thus imperfect, the glandular secretions from the blood are imperfect also. The liver secretes crude and acrid bile, while the acrid secretions of the kidneys go scalding along the ureters, inducing stranguary and every species of disease about the urinary system.
Now, not to be too tedious, we affirm that any person of common sense and common reflection, must see that this general mechanical irritation of the system must seriously affect the passions generally, and the venereal passion in particular. The location of the genital system is right in the way of this irritation, and necessarily participates largely in it.
Now, in view of the connection between the stomach and the passions, who can wonder that unchastity so much prevails in this land of gluttony? Who, in view of this, can wonder that venereal propensities are so early and strongly developed in children? Weaned of pork, and brought up to eat all they can of the most exciting articles of food--all they can at regular hours, and all they can between meals--who is surprised that they should be early drunk with amative passion? especially when it is considered, as has been already remarked, that the acting organs of this passion are so located as to feel the full force of these dietetic abuses. Say the author of "Facts and Important Information," "If children are brought up in an idle, effeminate, and luxurious manner, the passions are, like tinder, ignited by the first spark that falls upon them. If the laws of physiology were obeyed, and external excitements removed, the sexual appetite would sleep on, as nature designed, till the transition from boyhood to manhood, instead of being forced into action at from five to ten years of age, as we have often seen."
Says O.S. Fowler, as quoted by the same, "The diet or food of the young prematurely develops amativeness. There unquestionably exists a reciprocal relation between the body and the animal propensities. We have no room to introduce the proof of this principle, although it is indispensable in order to enforce the inference that tea, coffee, snuff, tobacco, candies, flesh, etc., stimulate the animal propensities and excite amativeness. The position, however, is undeniable, that whatever artificially excites the body, thereby stimulates the animal propensities more than the intellectual and moral faculties. Tea, coffee, flesh, spice, etc., are unquestionably highly stimulating, much more so than cold water, breadstuffs, vegetables, etc., and therefore kindle the animal propensities; and as the relation between the body--and especially the stomach and amativeness--is more direct and powerful than between the other parts, the evidence is inevitable that they proportionably kindle impure desires."
Says Graham, "This [the sexual] propensity is more or less powerful and imperious, according as the dietetic and other habits are more or less correct."
Dr. Woodward, of the Massachusetts State Lunatic Hospital, expresses the same sentiment. And, indeed, to this sentiment all dietetic writers which we have seen, agree. And who does not? The sentiment is almost as plain as a geometrical axiom.
Sedentary habits, unrelieved by sufficient exercise, increase the liabilities to unchastity. Exercise is the law of the human constitution. It is penal in its claims. Sedentariness ever brings suffering, while virtuous activity is health, strength, and peace. This is as evident in philosophy as it is in fact. One might as well look for limpid and pure cold waters in the stagnant marsh, as for the freshness and vigor of health, whether of body or mind, in the victim of unrelieved sedentariness! By it the circulation is rendered irregular, the fluids of the system gravitate to a point, while the body lacks the elasticity necessary to restore the equilibrium. The lower abdominal region stagnates and becomes irritable and uneasy, inducing costiveness, urinary difficulties, etc. But, from this Sedentariness the genital system is perhaps the greatest sufferer. Excited in common with the bowels, etc., almost, and often quite, to inflammation, its secretions become profuse, and its peculiar excitement often nearly constant. This excitement is thrown back upon the brain, thereby filling the mind with lascivious thoughts, and painting lascivious images upon the canvas of the imagination.
Bad books, pictures, etc., are a powerfully exciting cause of licentiousness. No one has ever seriously disputed the apostolic declaration that "evil communications corrupt good manners." Neither is the old proverb questioned that "a man is known by the company he keeps." But evil communication with books, no less than with men, corrupts good manners. And the sentiment is worthy of passing into a proverb, that a man is known by the books he reads. Books are men. Not paper men, but men on paper. And these influence the character of their readers as do men in the flesh the character of their companions. Show me a man's books, the books of his choice, and I will show you the man himself. Let me control the reading of a rising generation, and I will prophesy. A bad book is a bad associate; a good book, a good one. Sensual books tend strongly to make sensual readers. Many novel readers know this, and every reflecting, candid person will admit it. How can the person who is ever feasting his senses with fancy scenes in the history of sensual lovers, drawn out to the very life by the masterly hand of some intellectual sensualist, and all aglow with the high colorings of their author's amorous imagination; how can such a person fail to assimilate his own character more or less with that of his books? As well may a person take coals in his bosom and not be burned.
Not long since, a young murderer imputed the deed which brought him to the gallows to the reading of a popular novel. But thousands are they, who, from the time that Alcman wrote the tune of amorous love, have imputed--and might have imputed--their fall from virtue to the reading of voluptuous writings. By these we do not mean merely or chiefly such writings as, from their open obscenity, are read only by the grossly corrupt, and that only in secret. These are comparatively harmless, in the present state of society. But we rather mean such writings as make a show of modesty, are interspersed with excellent sentiments, and set off with fine embellishments, while, at the same time, by their designed associations and sly allusions, they play in upon the animal passions, and keep them under constant excitement. And it is because very much of modern reading is of this very character that the animal passions, unstayed by instinct, are prevailing with so much force throughout the community. Speaking of unchastity, Dr. Dwight says, "Most unhappily, aids and allurements to this licentious indulgence are never wanting. Genius, in every age and in every country, has, to a great extent prostituted its elevated powers for the deplorable purpose of seducing thoughtless minds to this sin. The unsuspecting imagination, ignorant of the dangers spread out before it, has, by this gay and fiery serpent, glittering with spots of gold, and painted with colors of enchantment, been allured to pluck the fruit of this forbidden tree, and hazard the death denounced against the transgressor. The numbers of the poet, the delightful melody of song, the fascinations of the chisel, and the spell of the pencil, have been all volunteered in the service of Satan, for the moral destruction of unhappy man."
French novels are generally reckoned among the worst. And they do much to make and keep France what she is for unchastity.
Look at the young lady with the last novel of the French school in her hand! You know what it is, and therefore you know what her thoughts are, and what her taste is. And if purity, the stainless whiteness of an angel's breast, is the bosom whose companionship you seek, you turn from her society, and seek a friend whose loveliness of soul has never been profaned by such communings.
Margaret Prior, that fearless friend of the friendless, says in her journal, "Several instances of the baleful influences of novelreading having recently come under my observation, I feel constrained to lift a note of warning against the indulgence of this pernicious habit. . . . Nothing tends more to destroy virtuous principles, or promote the growth of unholy appetites and passions. It is a real barrier to all useful acquirements, and, if persisted in, will effectually counteract the most faithful religious instruction." Novels are my prayers, said the dying harlot. The evils of licentiousness can never be stayed, so long as voluptuous reading keeps up the excitement of the public imagination.
Want of employment. Constant, laudable employment is every way important to mankind. Neither body nor mind can be preserved in health and purity without it. Of this fact, the history of man affords abundant and conclusive evidence. He only is secure who has some good and settled object at which he aims, and who is diligent in pursuing it. But he is comparatively secure. This is evident in the consideration that, attracted constantly ahead, and with all his powers properly tasked in the prosecution of his design, he can have no time to parley with passion, or to range the imaginary fields of sensual pleasure. He is doing a work at least, if not a great work, and cannot come down. We would not be understood to say that laudable employment, either of the body or mind, taken alone, is so great a safeguard against sin; but we mean the employment of both together.
But on the other hand, when the mind and the body are not properly employed, and the person is living on without any sufficient object, a sort of sluggish inanity pervades the system, time hangs heavily, and he feels that a want of employment is a want of happiness. The restless imagination now roves the fields of sensuality in pursuit of pleasure. It revels amid the amours and loves of its own creation, and soon brings the system under strong lascivious influences. The higher feelings of the soul finding no objects worthy their activity, the lower feelings--the propensities--enter into it, and take possession. Hence it is that the idle and the lazy are far more generally the victims of vile habits, and especially of licentious ones. He who has nothing to do is almost certain to do wickedly, and become the pest of society. But whether he become a pest to society or not, he is a pest to himself. Nor is it long before he resorts to unlawful and filthy means for relieving himself of the burden of himself. Every lascivious person knows that when he is without any settled object, and out of employ, he is far more subject to passion than when he is diligently pursuing some interesting object. He knows that, for instance, in the morning when he feels no sufficient call of business to bring him early off from his bed, he is almost sure to lounge amid lascivious, imaginary scenes, and the clamor of sensualty. And so of every hour of dreamish leisure.
Want of employment, then--laudable, interesting employment--during the hours of waking, is a prominent cause of the evil we are discussing. And considering the number of young persons in both city and country--but in the former more especially--who are brought up to idleness--street dandies and parlor ladies--who can wonder that sexual sensuality so much prevails?
Cure of unchastity
We notice good education as a means of cure. We have already noticed bad education as a cause of unchastity. We now remark that in so far as bad education is a cause of this evil, in so far is good education a cure. Let all those then, who would perform a part in the removal of this evil from society, have an eye to correct and sufficiently moral, physical, and intellectual education. A good, moral education is of the highest importance in this matter. As the moral sentiments do most to form the character, so should they be most carefully educated. Children should be taught the importance of right and wrong, and the consequences of them. They should be early taught to make right a primary source of enjoyment, and to look upon wrong as a primary source of misery. They will then see that a life of mere sensuality is quite unworthy of their dignity, and hence will look higher into the sublimer region of the moral virtues for the means of happiness.
The intellectual education of children must also be attended to. The power of perception and of reasoning from causes to consequences must be early improved. Then will they be far more likely to see and flee from the sins of destruction. They will be more capable of appreciating any arguments used with them against their evil practices--and indeed they will be far more likely to discover the evil of any secret practice, of the evil of which they may never have been admonished.
When the intellect and moral sentiments are justly cultivated, the subject may be regarded as comparatively safe. But the cultivation of these would be far less important, were it not that when they are healthy and active, the lower passions, and especially the amative one, find far less motive power in the imagination, and consequently are comparatively and sufficiently quiet. The person with an active intellect, sanctified by the moral sentiments, rises above the world of passionate sensuality, and looks down upon it with unmingled disgust.
We have elsewhere noticed society as an educator. Parents and guardians will see the importance of withdrawing their children as much as possible from bad society. Children, however, must not be secluded from society altogether. This were, under ordinary circumstances, as injudicious as it is judicious to give them the purest society which their case and location admit. Let parents and guardians remember, too, that they are necessarily the prime educators of their children, and govern themselves as an enlightened love for children will dictate. Much may be done, too, by school-teachers, ministers, and indeed by every one whose influence extends to children. But, in order to teach, parents, teachers, ministers, etc., must be themselves instructed. But some there are who tell us that instruction on the subject of unchastity can serve only to aggravate the evil, or at least that it does more hurt than good.
"The whole question, therefore," to apply the language of Dr. Combe, "resolves itself into this, whether it is more beneficial to enlighten the understanding so as to dispose and enable it to control and direct this feeling, or (under the influence of error in philosophy and false delicacy founded upon it,) to admit it to riot in all the fierceness of animal instinct, withdrawn from the eye of reason, but not thereby deprived of its vehemence and importunity." We hope every reader--and especially every doubting one--will pause a minute over this last quotation, and ask himself, whether is it better that man should be governed by passion, than that passion should itself be subject to enlightened reason, and he be governed by the latter, aided by revelation? If it be not better, then let reason be enlightened upon the subject. If light is better than darkness (and Jesus says he that walketh in the dark stumbleth), then let light be poured upon the path of every son and daughter of Adam. Raise the light over the shoals! Lift the beacon indicating the whirlpool. Hoist the flag over the precipice! Point to the cloud in which wrathful fires are gathering, and cry in the ears of all, DANGER! DANGER! "Do thyself no harm!" "Because there is wrath, beware!!!" In a word, say anything--do anything which can serve to alarm the old, the young, the middle aged, of the dangers from any and all the forms of unchastity.
The prevention and cure of unchastity require strict attention to diet. It requires neither feasting, nor fasting, however; but a plain, moderate, and yet sufficient, diet. A living made up of articles of food which, while they are sufficiently nutritious, and easy of digestion, are at the same time free from acrid and exciting qualities. And hence all greasy, highly-seasoned, rich, and mixed dishes should be carefully avoided. Not irritants, but emollients, are demanded by the delicate, mucous coatings of the internal system. And therefore it is that ardent spirits of every kind, as well as fashionable table teas, coffee, etc., are so mischievous in their operations. These may excite the passions, but never allay them. For this last purpose no beverage is so excellent as that soft, limpid element which gushes from a thousand springs.
A diet chiefly or wholly farinaceous and vegetable, is evidently best adapted to allay passionate excitement. Flesh-meat diet is more stimulating than vegetable. Consequently it is plain that all those who suffer, or are exposed to suffering, from too high venereal excitement, should abandon it. All food need be, and is, stimulating; some kinds more, and some less.[2] Some persons also can bear the more stimulating. But every person who is already suffering from excitement in the passions should seek the plainest, softest table articles--avoiding recipied cakes, pastries, too much salt, saleratus, etc., etc.
When children shall be taught correct habits of diet, much, very much, will be done toward the removal of secret vice and other species of unchastity from society. A good diet is of great price; but especially so to children whose systems are yet in their greenness, but rapidly advancing to maturity. The fabric takes its character very much from the material wrought into it. Let parents bear this in mind. Let them lay this to heart; and cease to encourage precocious and extravagant venereal excitement in their children, by pampering them with miserable dainties--meat instead of milk--pork instead of bread! For by such indulgent pampering, a growth of passion has, in numberless instances, been excited, which has eventually brought down the parents' gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Activity. Nothing is more important to the prevention and cure of unchastity, than activity. More lust is generated during the leisure hours of sluggish inactivity than during all others. It is during these stupid seasons of dreamishness, that the blood accumulates upon the venereal system, while the imagination strolls about creation, bringing in the fruits and flowers of every forbidden tree. A lascivious mood resulting in lascivious conduct, is of course the consequence. Whereas, on the other hand, during the hours of laudable, engrossing activity, the blood flows regularly, and cheerfully, and impartially, throughout the whole system. Consequently, no part of the system is unhealthfully excited. At the same time, the mind being engaged in directing the body's exertions, the imagination has no opportunity for arousing and pampering the passions, and so they remain tranquil. Doubtless this is according to the experience of all who have any experience in this matter. Said a physician to the writer a short time since, "I have had repeated application for advice from young men who had become so enslaved to solitary vice that they knew not how to break away, unless the temptation could be softened. And my advise," said he, "to all is, Be active! When you awake in the morning, get up--go out--work--keep active during the day. When night comes, go to bed only to sleep--follow up this course day after day--etc." Now this advice is to the point. And those who follow it will do more to shun temptation and sin, than can be done for them by all the medical prescriptions for this matter by all the sons of AEsculapius, since the world began. Let lascivious sufferers take the idea. Let parents take the hint, and bring up their children to active labor. Yes, labor, ye sons and daughters of idleness, and of the parlor. Labor is what your delicate constitutions need. Sow to idle fashion if ye will, but be assured that if you sow to this fashion, you will reap; lasciviousness, which you may not control without a struggle.
And "what shall we do?" was the significant inquiry of certain persons of John the Baptist. Would to God that this might be the language of all my readers in view of the claims of the cause of moral purity. Now we do not profess to stand in the place of Christ's forerunner. But, as reflection and examination have taught us something, we think we may safely presume to give some directions to as many readers as are sincerely asking the above question. And,
First, we will suppose our inquirer to be a parent. As a parent, then, you are to consider well the exposure of your children. You are to read with interest whatever professes to be able to open your eyes on this point. You are to feel the exposure of your children, and count no labor too great or too expensive to secure them in virtue. You must shut up from them the avenues to unchastity. You must early make them see that you are solicitous for them, and also make them understand why you are so. Against the mischievous habit of solitary vice, you must watch and warn faithfully. You must begin this work early. If you wait till foul society has filled their minds with lascivious idea and images, you will not only find the task of instructing them far more difficult, but also far less promising of permanent good. Begin early, then. Fix a pure habit upon a child, and a fear of breaking it while it is yet greatly incapable of understanding the whys and wherefores of your wishes. But do not neglect the whys and wherefores too long. Introduce these into the minds of your children as soon as their minds open sufficiently to receive them. John Newton said he had no fear of the enemy's filling the hearts of the young with tares if he could first get them filled with wheat. But be assured, parent, that in order to get the advance of Satan in this matter, you must begin early, even at break of day.
Your own example, as we have elsewhere intimated, must be every way correct. You must make your children see that you discountenance and detest unchastity in all its forms. You must watch the social influences which your children are receiving from abroad. It is easy to crush the viper in the egg. Whenever your children become impurely insinuating, as is too often the case among children generally, correct at once by judicious measures (but always more by moral suasion than by force), the dangerous symptom. Pay strict regard to diet, to cleanliness, to education. Be judicious in the selection of pictures, books, etc., for the amusement and improvement of your children. But for more of this see above, where we have already considered some of these points.
But if your children are already large, and your duties yet undone, even in this case do not despair. To be sure, no future faithfulness can atone for past neglect. For this you must seek forgiveness. But still you may do much for their benefit and salvation. Instruct them at once; not, however, in the nature of the sin; nine-tenths of them understand this already; but instruct them in the consequences. Lift up the glowing horrors of solitary vice before them, and bid them see and understand. By this means as many as are hitherto uncorrupted will be confirmed in virtue. Those few who may be supposed to be ignorant of the action of the sin, as they have no habit formed, will, of course, form none in view of such awful hazard. And as to those who are already corrupted, they will, in the picture set before them, see a strong reason why they should flee out of Sodom before sundown. So that every way instruction is safe. Give it! Give it! By the love you bear your children, withhold it not.
Or finally, is my inquirer a victim of solitary vice, or of excessive legal commerce? Pale and exhausted, you would find relief. Well, thank God, relief is at hand! Abstinence will relieve you. It will cure you, provided your constitution is not too much injured. But how shall I abstain? say you. That's the question at issue. For, haunted day and night, worried down and overcome by temptation, it seems as though "the hand of necessity is upon me." You are right; the hand of necessity is upon you--necessity for your abstinence. You must abstain, or live uselessly, both to yourself and others--and die prematurely; and, added to this, die amid horrible reflections! You are destroying yourself--you must not persevere. "But," say you, "even the visions of the night provoke unchastity. We are defiled even in our dreams." But you know that the character of our sensations while asleep, depend very much upon the character of our thoughts and actions while awake. You must be chaste while awake, if you would be so while asleep.
But your case demands that we be a little more particular. Would you be purified, you must pay strict attention to your diet. Avoid condiments, spices, and all highly-seasoned and highlystimulating food and drinks. Confine yourself to a light vegetable diet; a diet which, if possible, shall overcome all tendency to costiveness. This is very important. Drink only water. Eat light suppers. Rise early--as early as you awake. You know your danger from morning lounging. Be active. Labor all you can without great fatigue. Bathe often in cold, or nearly cold, water. Carefully avoid excitement of every kind. Consider your dignity as a moral and intellectual being, "bearing the impress of Divinity." Rise above sensual thoughts. Remember that you are allied to angels no less than to brutes--to the purely spiritual no less than to the exclusively sensual. Lift up your head and heart. Feel above sensuality, and, under God, you will soon be above it.
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