rls and being in love, till
he really selects a sweet-heart.

2. THE LOSS OF MAIDEN PURITY AND NATURAL DELICACY.--I will not lift
the veil, nor expose the conduct of children among themselves. And
all this because adults have filled their heads with those impurities
which surfeit their own. What could more effectually wear off that
natural delicacy, that maiden purity and bashfulness, which form the
main barriers against the influx of vitiated Amativeness? How often do
those whose modesty has been worn smooth, even take pleasure in thus
saying and doing things to raise the blush on the cheek of youth and
innocence, merely to witness the effect of this improper illusion
upon them; little realizing that they are thereby breaking down the
barriers of their virtue, and prematurely kindling the fires of animal
passion!

3. BALLS. PARTIES AND AMUSEMENTS.--The entire machinery of balls
and parties, of dances and other amusements of young people, tend to
excite and inflame this passion. Thinking it a fine thing to get in
love, they court and form attachments long before either their mental
or physical powers are matured. Of course, these young loves, these
green-house exotics, must be broken off, and their miserable subjects
left burning up with the fierce fires of a flaming passion, which, if
left alone, would have slumbered on for years, till they were prepared
for its proper management and exercise.

4. SOWING THE SEEDS FOR FUTURE RUIN.--Nor is it merely the
conversation of adults that does all this mischief; their manners also
increase it. Young men take the hands of girls from six to thirteen
years old, kiss them, press them, and play with them so as, in a great
variety of ways, to excite their innocent passions, combined, I grant,
with friendship and refinement--for all this is genteely done. They
intend no harm, and parents dream of none: and yet their embryo love
is awakened, to be again still more easily excited. Maiden ladies, and
even married women, often express similar feelings towards lads, not
perhaps positively improper in themselves, yet injurious in their
ultimate effects.

5. READING NOVELS.--How often have I seen girls not twelve years old,
as hungry for a story or novel as they should be for their dinners! A
sickly sentimentalism is thus formed, and their minds are sullied with
impure desires. Every fashionable young lady must of course read every
new novel, though nearly all of them contain exceptiona