od of insuring
all persons, young or old, against the abuses of any part, organ,
function, or faculty of the wondrous machinery of life, is to teach
them its use. "Train a child in the way it should go" or be sure it
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--restles