The Conservation of Vitality. 



thus the confusion has arisen. Chastity means 

 sexual purity, virginity ; whereas celibacy means 

 merely an unmarried state. A person may be 

 celibate, and yet be profligate ; but it would be 

 impossible for one to be profligate and still be 

 chaste. 



The clergy have, perhaps, had most to do with 

 the calumny brought on the fair name of 

 chastity, for, although pretending to lead lives 

 of chastity, the clergy, as a body, were never 

 chaste, and we read that as a class they were at 

 times sunk far below the level of the laity. 

 Says Lecky : " The writers of the middle ages 

 are full of accounts of nunneries that were like 

 brothels, of the vast numbers of infanticides 

 within their walls, and of the inveterate preva- 

 lence of incest among the clergy, which ren- 

 dered it necessary again and again to issue the 

 most stringent enactments that priests should 

 not be permitted to live with their mothers and 

 sisters." (" Hist. European Morals/' vol. II., p. 



330-) 



Is it to be wondered at that consumption, 

 cancer, and such diseases, should have found 

 their way into such places, or that chastity 

 should have borne the blame, for which 

 debauchery and unnatural vices were really 

 answerable ? The apparently continent have 

 ever been the greatest hindrance to the cause of 

 chastity. 



Objections will never alter facts. We find 

 ourselves in a very awkward predicament, from 

 which we must extricate ourselves. The only 

 way is to put on a bold front, acknowledge our 



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