Love is a passion of the human soul; and when properly under control, it is capable of affording the greatest amount of happiness; but, like other passions of the heart, when uncontrolled, or wrongly directed, it entails great misery on those who experience it. This may be the case with that love which is called forth by family relationship and intimate friendship, as well as that intense love which is felt by the opposite sex, man for woman, woman for man. Various are the means which the libertine and debauchee adopt to gratify their sensual appetite. Some will follow the “strange woman”—the street harlot to her den of infamy and shame; others will attempt to allure the simple trusting maiden by promises, oaths as false and deceitful as ever were uttered by the arch enemy of our souls:—and by these means the trusting and confiding are lured to commit the sin which society condemns in the female, but which is treated with lenity and forbearance in regard to the male transgressor. Examine the first of these two cases. “A young man deficient in understanding,” seeks the company of unfortunate women, and exhausts his precious vigour and stamina in criminal pleasure. The period of youth is the heyday of nature, and the healthful development of all the resources of strength in our nature is the glory of our youth. It is a most lamentable spectacle to behold, in the streets of the metropolis, and large towns, such numbers of men, young in years, but through sensual gratification, broken down in strength, emaciated in body, and apparently worn-out decrepid old men. And alas! how numerous are the allurements spread to entrap the unwary, and cause them to enter on a vicious course of life. “The lips of a strange woman drop as a honey-comb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.” Every attraction which beauty can borrow from art is employed; prostitution wears various kinds of guises to accomplish its object, but is most dangerous when decked out the fairest, and sports the best. And, therefore, the wise teacher before quoted, very appropriately remarks, “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eye-lids.” The disastrous consequences of such “pleasures,” are as certain as they are terrible. The sweetness of the honey never provides an antidote for the sting. Such a course most frequently ruins the prospects of success in life—“a man is brought to a piece of bread;” “it ruins the health,”—“thy flesh and thy body are consumed, till a dart strike through thy liver.” And along with property and health goes the character, for “the name of the wicked shall rot,” and their end is shrouded in gloom; their “feet go down to death, and their steps take hold on hell.” CHAPTER V. THE VAGARIES OF NATURE, IN THE BIRTHS OF MONSTERS.