Suppose a youth does, through innocence, or lack of temptation, or by reason of fortitude, arrive at maturity with a clean record; is he not still beset with danger? Not by any means so much so if he fully understands the shallowness of the pleasures in comparison with the depth of the penalties. Thousands upon thousands of men would remain pure if they fully understood the responsibilities and dangers incurred by a life of impurity; and to those who do gain a just information upon these matters there is added an increase of responsibility, for they can then no longer offer the excuse that ignorance mitigates their offences.
Parents, too often entirely ignorant themselves, say little or nothing to their children about these subjects, leaving them dependent for their views upon the foolish and vicious advice of their companions; and, unfortunately, those children who are perversely inclined do the most talking and exert the most influence.
Whatever counsel or warning in reference to future conduct young people get is usually given to them by their elders either in a way which is unintelligible, or without any appeal to their reason, and too often the vita sexuxdis, or sexual life, of the child is left to unfold as an undirected instinct.
How much safer and better it would be if the whole truth were expounded with proper discrimination at suitable periods in the development of the child's functions of body and brain!
It is amazing how much ignorance even the shrewdest and most intellectual men display upon these topics. Men who in affairs of business carefully consider every aspect
of a case before acting, too often put aside all serious regard for their physical or moral health.
It is this unenlightened condition which is productive of so much harm, and such a misconception may well be called the " devil's tool" by which men make excuses to their consciences for their wrong deeds.
The ignorant or wrongly instructed man with lowered ideals is the one to fall into great harm, being unfortified to cope with the pressing temptations which will surely assail him. On the other hand, the man who knows what he is about will probably keep his record clean, and will be more apt to transfer to the future the indulgence of his impulses.
The sexual functions being without dispute the second most powerful of the natural instincts, there should, then, be given to the consideration of their care and conservation the most healthy attention.
It is futile to hope for a perfect condition of things in a sexual way while civilization remains as it is. Deviations from what is proper in the sexual domain can no more be done away with entirely than can murder, theft, drunkenness, lying, swearing, or other crimes and vices, and yet thousands can be effectively influenced for good if they are properly informed.
Impurity cannot be stamped out by making it illegal, but it can be made impossible, to many altruistically inclined individuals at least, by replacing this sin with the law of love for one's neighbor.
Until the members of society are actuated by this principle of love a word which in itself sums up the fundamental rules of moral action some of the selfish ones will continue to rend the weaker to pieces for their own personal gratification.
The aim of modern medical science is getting to be more and more not so much to cure as to prevent disease; and prophylaxis, or defending against morbid processes, is now fully recognized to be of paramount importance.
Especially does this apply to growing boys and young persons in relation to their sexual conduct, for prevention is far better and more hopeful than cure. In fact, a cure of the physical and mental disease and corruption is too often impossible brain stains being hard to wash out and disease being often incurable.