WOMEN ARE PROTECTED

by a strong public sentiment around them. They have the dread of disgrace. For them to yield to their own affectionate desires, or the solicitations of a lover, is a fall, is ruin. They have the hope of a loving husband, a happy home, and the respect of society. And in woman passion has commonly less force, and the sentiment of modesty and purity more power. Women are weak in yielding to solicitation, giving

EVERYTHING FOR LOVE

but we see how protective of female virtue are these motives to vast numbers.

Men can perfectly restrain the sensual part of their natures whenever they have a strong motive to do so. A child would be simply mad who was not controlled by the presence of father, mother, and persons he respected or feared. Young men have no difficulty when they are in the company of pure women. They are in no trouble when their lives are full of mental and muscular activity, and particularly if their habits of eating simply and temperately, of refraining from heating and exciting stimulants, and sleeping in cold beds and fresh air, are such as health requires.


There needs but the strong will to live purely in any one, and at any age, the will that comes from the high motives of conscience and religion, or all motives combined. A strong sense of what is just and right controls even the motions of our bodies and actions which seem to be involuntary. A man who has a vivid sense of the right and duty of refraining from sensuality, and preserving his own purity of mind and body and the chastity of all women, will do so even in his dreams. When the will is right, all things are soon brought into its subjection. The mind controls the organization, and the life forces are directed into other channels. A strong man, full of

LIFE AND LOVE

can safely hold a virgin in his arms, and respect her virginity, if he have but the motives and the will to do so. If he be pure in his will, how can he commit impurity? If a woman be sacred in his eyes, how can he profane her? It is not that men have not the power of restraint, the power to do right; it is that they lack the motive. They have lost the sense of right; they are even impelled to do wrong by the pressure of opinion around them. Boys and young men are driven into libertinage by the ridicule of their companions. Vice is considered manly. They seek sensuality in an evil emulation, as they learn to smoke, or gamble, or drink; and, later on, vanity has often more to do with excess than the force of lust. Young men seduce girls that they may boast of it. They keep mistresses because it is the fashion. They exhaust themselves because they wish to give a high idea of their manly powers. Even in marriage, women are injured and have their health destroyed by yielding weakly, or from

A FALSE SENSE OF DUTY

to a husband whose own motive is the desire to acquit himself manfully in what he considers his marital duties. Men and women are, in thousands of cases, wretched victims to what they imagine to be the wants or expectations of each other. A man, ignorant of the nature of women and the laws of the generative function, goes on in a process of miserable exhaustion, to please his wife. She submits, sometimes in pain, often in disgust, weariness, and weakness, to what she dare not, from

LOVE OR FEAR

refuse. Men have to know what is right and to will to be right. This will is omnipotent. God helps those who have the will, who have even the desire, to do right.

If the presence of those we fear or reverence, respect or love, restrain us from sin and stimulate us to right action, faith in the existence and presence of God and angels, and the spirits of the departed, must have a more powerful and pervading influence. No one who really believes in the existence of a Supreme Being, no one who is strongly impressed with the reality of a spiritual life, can go on doing what he knows to be wrong. A religious faith is therefore the most powerful of all restraints from evil and incitement to good.