be sure it {454} will, amid the ten thousand
surrounding temptations, find out a way in which it should not go. Keeping
a child in ignorant innocence is, I aver, no part of the "training" which
has been taught by a wiser than Solomon. Boys and girls do know, will know,
and must know, that between them are important anatomical differences and
interesting physiological relations. Teach them, I repeat, their use, or
expect their abuse. Hardly a young person in the world would ever become
addicted to self-pollution if he or she understood clearly the
consequences; if he or she knew at the outset that the practice was
directly destroying the bodily stamina, vitiating the moral tone, and
enfeebling the intellect. No one would pursue the disgusting habit if he or
she was fully aware that it was blasting all prospects of health and
happiness in the approaching period of manhood and womanhood.

GENERAL SYMPTOMS OF THE SECRET HABIT.

The effects of either self-pollution or excessive sexual indulgence, appear
in many forms. It would seem as if God had written an instinctive law of
remonstrance, in the innate moral sense, against this filthy vice.

All who give themselves up to the excesses of this debasing indulgence,
carry about with them, continually, a consciousness of their defilement,
and cherish a secret suspicion that others look upon them as debased
beings. They feel none of that manly confidence and gallant spirit, and
chaste delight in the presence of virtuous females, which stimulate young
men to pursue the course of ennobling refinement, and mature them for the
social relations and enjoyments of life.

This shamefacedness, or unhappy quailing of the countenance, on meeting the
look of others, often follows them through life, in some instances even
after they have entirely abandoned the habit, and became married men and
respectable members of society.

In some cases, the only complaint the patient will make on consulting you,
is that he is suffering under a kind of continued fever. He will probably
present a hot, dry skin, with something of a hectic appearance. Though all
the ordinary means of arresting such symptoms have been tried, he is none
the better.

The sleep seems to be irregular and unrefreshing--restlessness during the
early part of the night, and in the advanced stages of the disease, profuse
sweats before morning. There is also frequent starting in the sleep, from
{455} disturbing dreams. The characte