on it is
impossible to form any just estimate of their frequency. The
incontinence of husbands and the unchastity of wives will only appear
in their enormity at that awful day when every one shall "stand before
the judgment-seat" and hear the penalty of his guilty deeds.

Unchastity of the Ancients.--We are prone to believe that the present
is the most licentious age the world has ever known; that in the
nineteenth century the climax of evil has been reached; that the
libidinous blood of all the ages has culminated to produce a race of
men more carnal than all predecessors. It is a sickening thought that
any previous epoch could have been more vile than this; but history
presents facts which disclose in ancient times periods when lust was
even more uncontrolled than now; when vice was universal; and when
virtue was a thing unknown. A few references to historical facts will
establish this point. We do not make these allusions in any way to
justify the present immorality, but to show the part which vice has
acted in the overthrow of nations.

From the sacred record we may judge that before the flood a state of
corruption prevailed which was even greater and more general than any
that has ever since been reached; only eight persons were fit to survive
the calamity which swept into eternity that lustful generation with
their filthy deeds.

But men soon fell into vice again, for we find among the early Assyrians
a total disregard of chastity. Her kings reveled in the grossest
sensuality.

No excess of vice could surpass the licentiousness of the Ptolemies,
who made of Alexandria a bagnio, and all Egypt a hot-bed of vice.
Herodotus relates that "the pyramid of Cheops was built by the lovers
of the daughter of this king; and that she never would have raised this
monument to such a height except by multiplying her prostitutions."
History also relates the adventures of that queenly courtesan,
Cleopatra, who captivated and seduced by her charms two masters of the
world, and whose lewdness surpassed even her beauty.

Tyre and Sidon, Media, Phoenicia, Syria, and all the Orient, were sunk
in sensuality. Fornication was made a part of their worship. Women
carried through the streets of the cities the most obscene and revolting
representations. Among all these nations a virtuous woman was not to
be found; for, according to Herodotus, the young women were by the laws
of the land "obliged, once in their lives, to give themselves u