UNCHASTITY 323 



the true function of the reproductive organs, though 

 living in matrimony for many years. Some of the con- 

 sequences of this ignorance have been portrayed in 

 previous pages. 



* ' Oh ! why did not some kind friend tell me of the 

 harm I was doing myself!" has been the exclamation 

 of many an unfortunate sufferer from this vice. A 

 warning voice should be raised to save those who are 

 ignorantly working their own destruction. Parents, 

 teachers, ministers, all who have access to the youth, 

 should sound the note of alarm in their ears, that if 

 possible they may be saved from the terrible thraldom 

 pictured by a writer in the following lines: 



A Dark Picture.— "The waters have gone over 

 me. But, could I be heard out of the black depths, I 

 would cry to all those who have set a foot in the peril- 

 ous flood. Could the youth look into my desolation, 

 and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is 

 when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice 

 with open eyes and passive will— to see his destruction 

 and have no power to stop it, and yet to feel it all the 

 way emanating from himself ; to perceive all goodness 

 emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a 

 time when it was otherwise; to bear about with him 

 the spectacle of his own self -ruin; could he feel the 

 body of death out of which I cry hourly with feebler 

 and feebler outcry to be delivered." 



CURATIVE TREATMENT OF THE EFFECTS OF SELF-ABUSE. 



Wlien the habit and its effects are of very short 

 duration, a cure is very readily accomplished, espe- 

 cially in the cases of children and females, as in them 

 the evils begun are not continued in the form of in- 



