of
purity and order.

These very young men or youths, as they progress through adolescence,
may become tempted in a variety of ways, some to the use of ardent
spirits or tobacco, others to lie, to steal, to forge, &c.; but the
approach to all these evils is gradual and first comes through the mind.
They first think about the action, turn it over and over in their minds
until they come to greatly desire and then, later, to commit the evil
which would not have been ultimated if the mind had been persistently
set against it in the beginning. This is an indisputable fact.

In this manner many promising youths, just as they are blossoming into
the pride of early manhood, begin to indulge in sexual thoughts and to
allow these thoughts to influence their minds until they commit some of
the evils to which perverted and unchaste passions lead them. If this
evil be masturbation, then they are on the direct road to ruin, as will
be seen described further on. If it be the commission of sexual
intercourse with women, their ruin is still more certain, and in the
latter case they are exposed to one of the worst poisons that can
possibly infect the human race. I do not overdraw the picture when I
declare that _millions of human beings die annually from the effects of
poison contracted in this way_, in some form of suffering or another;
for, by insinuating its effects into and poisoning the whole man, it
complicates various disorders and renders them incurable. When
gonorrhoea is contracted, although frequently suppressed by local
treatment in the form of injections, it is never perfectly cured
thereby. No; the hidden poison runs on for a life time producing
strictures, dysuria, gleet and kindred diseases; finally, in old men, a
horrible prostatitis results from which the balance of one's life is
rendered miserable indeed. If inflammation of the lungs supervenes,
there is often a translation of the virus to these vital organs, causing
what is termed "plastic pneumonia," where one lobule after another
becomes gradually sealed up, till nearly the whole of both lungs becomes
impervious to air, and death results from asphyxia.

This horrible infection sometimes becomes engrafted upon other acute
diseases when lingering disorders follow, causing years of misery, and
only terminating in death.

If real syphilis, in the form of chancre, should be contracted, and in
that form suppressed, we have buboes often of a malignant type,
ulceration