ren among themselves. And all this
because adults have filled their heads with those impurities which surfeit
their own. What could more effectually wear off that natural delicacy, that
maiden purity and bashfulness, which form the main barriers against the
influx of vitiated Amativeness? How often do those whose modesty has been
worn smooth, even take pleasure in thus saying and doing things to raise
the blush on the cheek of youth and innocence, merely to witness the effect
of this improper illusion upon them; little realizing that they are thereby
breaking down the barriers of their virtue, and prematurely kindling the
fires of animal passion!

3. BALLS, PARTIES AND AMUSEMENTS.--The entire machinery of balls and
parties, of dances and other amusements of young people, tend to excite and
inflame this passion. Thinking it a fine thing to get in love, they court
and form attachments long before either their mental or physical powers are
matured. Of course, these young loves, these green-house exotics, must be
broken off, and their miserable subjects left burning up with the fierce
fires of a flaming passion, which, if left alone, would have slumbered on
for years, till they were prepared for its proper management and exercise.

4. SOWING THE SEEDS FOR FUTURE RUIN.--Nor is it merely the conversation of
adults that does all this mischief; their manners also increase it. Young
men take the hands of girls from six to thirteen years old, kiss them,
press them, and play with them so as, in a great variety of ways, to excite
their innocent passions, combined, I grant, with friendship and
refinement--for all this is genteely done. They {405} intend no harm, and
parents dream of none: and yet their embryo love is awakened, to be again
still more easily excited. Maiden ladies, and even married women, often
express similar feelings towards lads, not perhaps positively improper in
themselves, yet injurious in their ultimate effects.

5. READING NOVELS.--How often have I seen girls not twelve years old, as
hungry for a story or novel as they should be for their dinners! A sickly
sentimentalism is thus formed, and their minds are sullied with impure
desires. Every fashionable young lady must of course read every new novel,
though nearly all of them contain exceptionable allusions, perhaps
delicately covered over with a thin gauze of fashionable refinement; yet,
on that very account, the more objectionable. If this work contained one