liberately taken their own lives? O! for the pen of a
Milton or a Pollock! But this would not suffice, because these questions
can only be answered at the Judgment Bar of God, when the secrets of all
hearts shall be made known.
THEY WILL BE ANSWERED THEN.
How many girls have innocently and _ignorantly_ killed themselves, or
have sown the seed of some terrible lingering disease, by checking the
course of nature, by bathing or otherwise, in their preparation for the
ball room, which they would not have done to attend any other place? How
many women, all over the country, are suffering the pangs of death from
this cause alone?
One of the handsomest and most accomplished girls I ever knew, at the
age of eighteen, ignorantly killed herself in this way. I know through
physicians of many others who have wrecked their health in the same way.
Let the invalids among the women tell their physicians the _truth_, and
then let the physicians and the _graves_ speak out, and the world would
be horror-stricken at the awful report. Whiskey has slain its thousands,
but the ball, the hop, the dance, its tens of thousands.
In this connection I wish to give young men some wholesome advice,
which, if observed, will keep them out of a great deal of trouble, and
save the payment of a great many bills. Whenever you hear that an old
clock, an old carriage, an old saw-mill, an old steamboat, or a woman or
girl who is _passionately_ fond of dancing is on the market, be certain
to remain in bed or get the sheriff, which is much safer, to put you in
jail until these articles are disposed of. I respectfully refer to all
who have had any of these articles _knocked off on them_.
When the ball closes, the young men take the girls to their homes. In a
little while the girls--darling angels--are in the land of dreams, but
they certainly never dream that they have been "sowing the seeds of
eternal shame, sowing the seeds of a maddened brain." They never dream
_that they are responsible for all the sins and crimes that flow from
the ball room_, BUT THEY CERTAINLY ARE, because if they would not go to
these places, there never would be another ball or hop or dance upon the
face of all the earth.
MEN WILL NOT DANCE BY THEMSELVES.
If they do, they will not injure any one but themselves, and they will
be certain not to keep late hours. While the girls are dreaming, the
young men are assembling at some favorite room or corner down in town.
If Jim ge
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