Let no one suppose, however, that consciousness of God has no relation to the sexual side of life. Far from it. What the man who submits to God will find is, firstly, that he is helped to clean and reverent living, and to mastery over his body. But he will also find that when at last real love calls him up into complete companionship of body and soul with a woman he loves, God Himself will enter into that life and become associated with all the emotions and activities which spring from the sex element in our beings. Such men will come to thank God that He made them with sexual powers in their natures. They will thank Him that passion is a fact. They will say with utter conviction that love with all it means both for the bodily and the spiritual life is the greatest of all God's gifts to man.
Only to have experience of that quality a man must come to marriage undefiled. That is the fact that makes the struggle worth while. That is what Browning meant when he said it was
"worth
That a man should strive and agonize
And taste a veriest hell on earth
For the hope of such a prize."
God does not call us men to a meaningless struggle. The fierceness of temptation is not mere cruelty. The prizes in this part of life are great beyond all telling. If any man who reads these pages will but brace himself for the struggle and put forth all his manhood in order to win through, the day will come when he and a woman who is dear to him will thank God that he did fight, and will understand that it was abundantly worth while. She is waiting for you out there in the future. She hopes and prays that when you do find her, you will be such a man as can be honored and truly loved. She probably keeps herself for you, even though you have not yet met her, with some delicate and shy reserve. You will never really be worthy of all that she will give you, but you may at least prepare for her and yourself a great and holy experience. To know the full beauty of the thing that married life may be is nearly if not quite the greatest of human attainments. To spoil it beforehand is the most pitiful of all pities.
Wherefore get up and fight!
ADDENDUM,
ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG MEN STRUGGLING WITH SELF-ABUSE
It is in this form that sexual temptation comes into the lives of a very great many men, including many able, high-minded men. All the general things already said in this chapter are relevant to your case, but I wish to add some direct words to you because I have acute sympathy with you in your trial.
You ought, of course, to have been warned when you were very young, and then you might have escaped the danger. Possibly you slipped into the habit without at first realizing that it was wrong; and probably now you hate the habit, and even sometimes hate yourselves because of it. It is quite likely, too, that false and exaggerated things have been said to you about it and made you miserably afraid.
Now it is a bad habit. It is bad because you feel it to be unworthy and rather unclean, and it creates unhappy associations in your mind in connection with sex, which is a very unfortunate thing for you. And it is a perversion. It is an unnatural way of satisfying sexual craving, and, as you know, it leaves psychic disturbance behind it. The one perfect way of satisfying sexual desire is complete union with a woman you truly and honorably love. That leaves behind it a feeling of complete satisfaction and rest. All other ways leave psychic disturbance. Further, this habit often leads to active homosexuality. I hear of men who talk as if homosexuality was quite a normal and right thing with men of a certain type. It is, in fact, always a regression (see quotation from Dr. Crichton Miller in chapter for girls, p. 107). Do get that fixed in your mind. It is an abnormal, unnatural thing which has definite and evil nervous results.