Certainly
it would not be difficult to tell the reason in thousands of instances, and
yet the habit and practice of the deadly sin of self-pollution is actually
ignored; it is even spoken of as a boyish folly not to be mentioned, and
young men literally burning up with lust are mildly spoken of as "sowing
their wild oats." Thus the cemetery is being filled with masses of the
youth of America who, as in Egypt of old, fill up the graves of uncleanness
and lust. Some time since a prominent Christian man was taking exception to
my addressing men on this subject; observe this! one of his own sons was at
that very time near the lunatic asylum through these disgusting sins. What
folly and madness this is!

6. DEATH TO TRUE MANHOOD.--The question for each one is, "In what way are
you going to divert the courses of the streams of energy which pertain to
youthful vigor and manhood?" To be destitute of that which may be described
as raw material in the human frame, means that no really vigorous manhood
can have place; to burn up the juices of the system in the fires of lust is
madness and wanton folly, {418} but it can be done. To divert the currents
of life and energy from blood and brain, from memory and muscle, in order
to secrete it for the shambles of prostitution, is death to true manhood;
but remember, it can be done! The generous liquid life may inspire the
brain and blood with noble impulse and vital force, or it may be sinned
away and drained out of the system until the jaded brain, the faded cheek,
the enervated young manhood, the gray hair, narrow chest, weak voice, and
the enfeebled mind show another victim in the long catalogue of the
degraded through lust.

7. THE SISTERHOOD OF SHAME AND DEATH.--Whenever we pass the sisterhood of
death, and hear the undertone of song, which is one of the harlot's methods
of advertising, let us recall the words, that these represent the
"pestilence which walketh in darkness, the destruction that wasteth at
noonday." The allusion, of course, is to the fact that the great majority
of these harlots are full of loathsome physical and moral disease; with the
face and form of an angel, these women "bite like a serpent and sting like
an adder;" their traffic is not for life, but inevitably for shame,
disease, and death. Betrayed and seduced themselves, they in their turn
betray and curse others.

8. WARNING OTHERS.--Have you never been struck with the argument of the
Apostle, who, warnin