rrant bush. Such a man will necessarily be
short-lived. He will always suffer from the effects of his folly, even
though he shall marry. If he has children--he may become
incapable--they will be quite certain to be puny, weak, scrofulous,
consumptive, rickety, nervous, depraved in body and mind, or otherwise
deprived of the happiness which grows out of the possession of "a sound
mind in a sound body."

Let us notice a little more closely the terrible effects resulting from
this most unnatural and abominable vice.

What Makes Boys Dwarfs.--How many times have we seen boys who were born
with good constitutions, with force and stamina sufficient to develop
them into large, vigorous men, become puny dwarfs. At the time when
they ought to begin to grow and develop more rapidly than ever before,
their growth is checked and they cease to develop. They are, in fact,
stunted, dwarfed, like a plant which has a canker-worm eating away at
its roots. Indeed, there is a veritable canker-worm sapping their
vitality, undermining their constitutions, and destroying their
prospects for time and for eternity. Anxious friends may attribute the
unhappy change to overwork, overstudy, or some similar cause; but from
a somewhat extended observation we are thoroughly convinced that the
very vice which we are considering is the viper which blights the
prospects and poisons the existence of many of these promising boys.

A boy who gives himself up to the practice of secret vice at an early
age, say as early as seven to ten years of age, is certain to make himself
a wreck. Instead of having a healthy, vigorous body, with strong muscles
and a hardy constitution, he will be weak, scrawny, sickly, always
complaining, never well, and will never know anything about that joyous
exuberance of life and animal spirits which the young antelope feels
as it bounds over the plain, or the vigorous young colt as it frisks
about its pasture, and which every youth ought to feel.

Scrawny, Hollow-Eyed Boys.--Boys ought to be fresh and vigorous as
little lambs. They ought to be plump, rosy, bright-eyed, and sprightly.
A boy who is pale, scrawny, hollow-eyed, dull, listless, has something
the matter with him. Self-abuse makes thousands of just such boys every
year; and it is just such boys that make vicious, shiftless, haggard,
unhappy men. This horrible vice steals away the health and vitality
which are needed to develop the body and the mind; and the lad that
o