380 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



wreck of an individual as this, especially when the 

 habit is begun at an early age. It wastes the most pre- 

 cious part of the blood, uses up the vital forces, and 

 finally leaves the poor victim a most utterly ruined 

 and loathsome object. If a boy should be deprived of 

 ooth hands and feet, and should lose his eyesight, he 

 would still be infinitely better off than the boy who for 

 years gives himself up to the gratification of lust in 

 secret vice. For such a boy to become a strong, vig- 

 orous man is just as impossible as it would be to make 

 a mammoth tree out of a worm-eaten bush. Such a 

 man will necessarily be short-lived. He will always 

 suffer from the effects of his folly, even though he 

 marry. He may become incapable of having children ; 

 but if he have any, they will be quite certain to be puny, 

 weak, scrofulous, consumptive, rickety, nervous, de- 

 praved in body and mind, or otherwise deprived of the 

 happiness which grows out of the possession of "a 

 sound mind in a sound body." 



Let us notice a little more closely the terrible effects 

 resulting from this most unnatural and abominable 

 vice. 



What Makes Boys Dwarfs?— How many times 

 have we seen boys who were born with good constitu- 

 tions, with force and stamina sufficient to develop them 

 into large, vigorous men, become puny dwarfs. At the 

 time when they ought to begin to grow and develop 

 more rapidly than ever before, their growth is checked, 

 and they cease to develop. They are, in fact, stunted, 

 dwarfed, like a plant which has a cankerworm eating 

 away at its roots. Indeed, there is a veritable canker- 

 worm sapping their vitality, undermining their consti- 

 tutions, and destroying their prospects for time and for 

 eternity. Anxious friends may attribute the unhappy 



