ung man will study the laws and functions of the human frame
for himself. This would do more towards promoting individual purity and
public happiness, than all the reasoning in the world can accomplish
without it. Men, old or young, must see for themselves how 'fearfully'
as well as 'wonderfully' they are made, before they can have a thorough
and abiding conviction of the nature of _disobedience_, or of the
penalties that attend, as well as follow it. And in proportion, as the
subject is studied and understood, may we not hope celibacy will become
less frequent, and marriage--honorable, and, if you please, _early_
marriage--be more highly estimated?

This work is not addressed to parents; but should it be read by any who
have sons, at an age, and in circumstances, which expose them to
temptation, and in a way which will be very apt to secure their fall,
let them beware.[14]

Still, the matter must be finally decided by the young themselves.
They, in short, must determine the question whether they will rise in
the scale of being, through every period of their existence, or sink
lower and lower in the depths of degradation and wo. They must be,
after all, the arbiters of their own fate. No influences, human or
divine, will ever _force_ them to happiness.

The remainder of this section will be devoted to remarks on the causes
which operate to form licentious feelings and habits in the young. My
limits, however, will permit me to do little more than mention them.
And if some of them might be addressed with more force to parents than
to young men, let it be remembered that the young _may be_ parents, and
if they cannot recall the past, and correct the errors in their own
education, they can, at least, hope to prevent the same errors in the
education of others.

[14] Parents who _inform_ their children on this subject,
generally begin too late. Familiar conversational explanation,
begun as soon as there is reason to apprehend danger, and
judiciously pursued, is perhaps the most successful method of
preventing evil.

1. FALSE DELICACY.

Too much of real delicacy can never be inculcated; but in our early
management, we seem to implant the _false_, instead of the true. The
language we use, in answering the curious questions of children, often
leads to erroneous associations of ideas; and it is much better to be
silent. By the falsehoods which we think it necessary to tell, we often
excite st