A CHAPTER FOR GIRLS 445 



purity of any sort, to become so depraved by sin as to 

 be willing to devote themselves to so vile and filthy a 

 practice. Yet the frequency with which cases have 

 come under our observation, which clearly indicate the 

 alarming prevalence of the practice, even among girls 

 and young women who would naturally be least sus- 

 pected, compels us to recognize the fact. The testi- 

 mony of many eminent physicians whose opportunities 

 for observation have been very extensive, shows that 

 the evil is enormously greater than people generally 

 are aware. Instructors of the youth, of large experi- 

 ence, assert the same. Nor is the evil greater in 

 America than in some other countries. One writer 

 declares that the vice is almost universal among the 

 girls of Russia, which may be due to the low condition 

 in which the women of that country are kept. 



Terrible Effects of Secret Vice. —The awful 

 effects of this sin against God and nature become 

 speedily visible in those who are guilty of it. The ex- 

 perienced eye needs no confession on the part of the 

 victim to read the whole story of sinful indulgence and 

 consequent disease. The vice stamps its insignia upon 

 the countenance; it shows itself in the walk, in the 

 changed disposition, and the loss of healthy vigor. It 

 is not only impossible for a victim of this sinful prac- 

 tice to hide from the all- seeing eye of God the vileness 

 perpetrated in secret, but it is also useless to attempt 

 to hide from human eyes the awful truth. 



Headache, sideache, backache, pains in the chest, 

 and wandering pains in various parts of the body,— 

 these are but a few of the painful ailments from which 

 girls who are guilty of this sin suffer. Tenderness 

 of the spine, which causes great solicitude on the part 

 of parents and physicians, who fear that serious dis- 



