Various Causes.--Bad diet, the use of stimulating and exciting articles
of food, late suppers, confectionery and dainties,--all these have a
very powerful influence in the wrong direction by exciting functions
which ought to be kept as nearly latent as possible. The use of tea
and coffee by young ladies cannot be too strongly condemned. Improper
dress, by causing local congestion, often predisposes to secret vice
by occasioning local excitement. Probably a greater cause than any of
those last mentioned is too great familiarity with the opposite sex.
The silly letters which girls sometimes allow themselves to receive
from the boys and young men of their acquaintance, and which they
encourage by letters of a similar character, must be condemned in the
most thorough manner. Upon receiving such a letter a pure-minded girl
will consider herself insulted; and has just reason for so doing. The
childish flirtations which girls and boys sometimes indulge in often
lead to evils of a most revolting character.
Modesty Woman's Safeguard.--True modesty and maidenly reserve are the
best guardians of virtue. The girl who is truly modest, who encourages
and allows no improper advances, need have no fear of annoyance from
this source. She is equally safe from temptation to sin which may come
to her in secret, when no human eye can behold. Maidenly modesty is
one of the best qualities which any young lady can possess. A young
woman who lacks modesty, who manifests boldness of manner and
carelessness in deportment, is not only liable to have her virtue
assailed by designing and unscrupulous men, but is herself likely to
fall before the temptation to indulge in secret sin, which is certain
to present itself in some way sooner or later.
This invaluable protection is speedily lost by the girl who abandons
herself to secret vice. The chances are very great, also, that by
degrees her respect for and love of virtue and chastity will diminish
until she is open to temptations to indulge in less secret sin; and
thus she travels down the road of vice until she finds herself at last
an inmate of a brothel or an outcast wanderer, rejected by friends,
and lost to virtue, purity, and all that a true woman holds most dear.
A Few Sad Cases.--Although we do not believe it right to harrow the
feelings of those who have sinned and suffered with a rehearsal of sad
cases when no good can be accomplished by such accounts, we deem it
but just that those who are not yet entangled in the meshes of vice
should have an opportunity of knowing the actual results of sin, and
profiting by the sad experience of others. It is for this purpose that
we shall mention a few cases which have come under our observation,
taking care to avoid mentioning any facts which might lead to
identification, as the facts we shall use were, many of them, received
in strict confidence from those who were glad to unburden their hearts
to some one, but had never dared to do so, even to their friends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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