2.  LIVING ILLUSTRATION.—­without fear of truthful contradiction, we affirm that the homes, public assemblies, and streets of all our large cities abound to-day with living illustrations and proofs of the widespread existence of this physical and moral scourge.  An enervated and stunted manhood, a badly developed physique, a marked absence of manly and womanly strength and beauty, are painfully common everywhere.  Boys and girls, young men and women, exist by thousands, of whom it may be said, they were badly born and ill-developed.  Many of them are, to some extent, bearing the penalty of the [transcriber’s note:  the text appears to read “sins” but it is unclear] and excesses of their parents, especially their fathers, whilst the great majority are reaping the fruits of their own immorality in a dwarfed and ill-formed body, and effeminate appearance, weak and enervated mind.

3.  EFFEMINATE AND SICKLY YOUNG MEN.—­the purposeless and aimless life of any number of effeminate and sickly young men, is to be distinctly attributed to these sins.  The large class of mentally impotent “ne’er-do-wells” are being constantly recruited and added to by those who practice what the celebrated Erichson calls “that hideous sin engendered by vice, and practiced in solitude”—­the sin, be it observed, which is the common cause of physical and mental weakness, and of the fearfully impoverishing night-emissions, or as they are commonly called, “wet-dreams.”

4.  WEAKNESS, DISEASE, DEFORMITY, AND DEATH.—­Through self-pollution and fornication the land is being corrupted with weakness, disease, deformity, and death.  We regret to say that we cannot speak with confidence concerning the moral character of the Jew; but we have people amongst us who have deservedly a high character for the tone of their moral life—­we refer to the members of the Society of Friends.  The average of life amongst these reaches no less than fifty-six years; and, whilst some allowance must be made for the fact that amongst the Friends the poor have not a large representation, these figures show conclusively the soundness of this position.

5.  SOWING THEIR WILD OATS.—­It is monstrous to suppose that healthy children should die just as they are coming to manhood.  The fact that thousands of young people do reach the age of sixteen or eighteen, and then decline and die, should arouse parents to ask the question:  Why?  Certainly it would not be difficult to tell the reason in thousands of instances, and yet the habit and practice of the deadly sin of self-pollution is actually ignored; it is even spoken of as a boyish folly not to be mentioned, and young men literally burning up with lust are mildly spoken of as “sowing their wild oats.”  Thus the cemetery is being filled with masses of the youth of America who, as in Egypt of old, fill up the graves of uncleanness and lust.  Some time since a prominent Christian man was taking exception to my addressing men on this subject; observe this! one of his own sons was at that very time near the lunatic asylum through these disgusting sins.  What folly and madness this is!