ulation of age, or monkish austerity. It is sober matter
of fact.

It is said that young men are sometimes in circumstances which forbid
their conforming to these laws, were they disposed to do so.

Not so often however, as is commonly supposed. Marriage is not such a
mountain of difficulty as many imagine. This I have already attempted
to show. One circumstance to be considered, in connection with this
subject, is, that in any society, the more there is of criminal
indulgence, whether secret or social, the more strongly are excuses for
neglecting matrimony urged. Every step which a young man takes in
forbidden paths, affords him a plea in behalf of the next. The farther
he goes, the less the probability of his returning to the ways of
purity, or entering those of domestic felicity.

People in such places as London and Paris, marry much later in life,
upon the average, than in country places. And is not the cause obvious?
And is not the same cause beginning to produce similar effects in our
own American cities?

But suppose celibacy in some cases, to _be_ unavoidable, can a life of
continence, in the fullest sense of the term, be favorable to _health_?
This question is answered by those to whose writings I have already
referred, in the affirmative. But it is also answered by facts, though
from the nature of the case these facts are not always easy of access.
We have good reason to believe that Sir Isaac Newton and Dr.
Fothergill, never for once in their lives deviated from the strict laws
of rectitude on this point. And we have no evidence that they were
sufferers for their rigid course of virtue. The former certainly
enjoyed a measure of health and reached an age, to which few, in any
circumstances, attain; and the latter led an active and useful life to
nearly three-score and ten. There are living examples of the same
purity of character, but they cannot, of course, be mentioned in this
work.

Several erroneous views in regard to the animal economy which have led
to the very general opinion that a life of celibacy--strictly so, I
mean--cannot be a life of health, might here be exposed, did either the
limits or the nature of the work permit. It is not that a state of
celibacy--entirely so, I always mean--is positively _injurious_; but
that a state of matrimony is more _useful_; and, as a general rule,
attended with _more happiness_.

It is most ardently to be hoped, that the day is not far distant when
every yo