by a poor triumph, over
weak, easy, thoughtless woman!--Nothing is more frequent than to hear
them boast of the ruin of that virtue, of which they ought to have been
the defenders. "Poor fool! she loved me, and therefore could refuse me
nothing."--Base coward! Dost thou boast of thy conquest over one, who,
by thy own confession, was disabled for resistance,--disabled by her
affection for thy worthless self! Does affection deserve such a return
Is superior understanding, or rather deeper craft, to be used against
thoughtless simplicity, and its shameful success to be boasted of? Dost
thou pride thyself that thou hast had art enough to decoy the harmless
lamb to thy hand, that thou mightest shed its blood?'

And yet there are such monsters as Burgh alludes to. There are just
such beings scattered up and down even the fairest portions of the
world we live in, to mar its beauty. We may hope, for the honor of
human nature, they are few. He who can bring himself to believe their
number to be as great as one in a thousand, may well be disposed to
blush

'And hang his head, to own himself a man.'

I have sometimes wished these beings--_men_ they are not--would
_reflect_, if it were but for one short moment. They will not deny the
excellency of the golden rule, of doing to others as they wish others
to do by themselves. I say they will not deny it, in theory; why then
should they despise it in practice?

Let them _think_ a moment. Let them imagine themselves in the place of
the injured party. Could this point be gained; could they be induced to
reflect long enough to see the enormity of their guilt as it really is,
or as the Father in heaven may be supposed to see it, there might be
hope in their case. Or if they find it difficult to view themselves as
the injured, let them suppose, rather, a sister or a daughter. What
seducer is so lost to all natural affection as not to have his whole
soul revolt at the bare thought of having a beloved daughter experience
the treatment which he has inflicted? Yet the being whom he has ruined
had brothers or parents; and those brothers had a sister; and those
parents a daughter!

SECTION II. _Licentiousness._

I wish it were in my power to finish my remarks in this place, without
feeling that I had made an important omission. But such is the tendency
of human nature, especially in the case of the young and ardent, to
turn the most valuable blessings conferred on man into curses,--