“It is the premature excitement of the nervous and sexual system that should be avoided. The licentious characters presented in all the glowing tints of a depraved imagination cannot fail to injuriously affect the youthful organism.”
The dissolute and immoral characters whom we debar from the personal friendship of our sons and daughters, whom we exclude from our parlors, and even street recognition, are sugared over, and, between gilded covers, passed freely into the boudoirs, school-rooms, and seminaries of our children, for their companionship at their leisure. The vile characters in person would be far less injurious, for in that case their hideousness would the surer be revealed.
“Nothing can be more certain than the production of these works of a precocious evidence of puberty. The forces of the young heart and vascular system are thus prematurely goaded into ephemeral action by the stimulus of an imagination alternately moved to laughter, and tears, and sexual passion.”
Mr. Baxter, in Part 2, ch. xxi., direction 1, of his Christian Directory, which is a direction for reading other books than the Bible, says, “I pre-suppose that you keep the devil’s books out of your hands and house. I mean cards, and idle tales, and play-books, and romances or love-books, and false, bewitching stories, and the seducting books of false teachers.... For where these are suffered to corrupt the mind, all grave and useful writings are forestalled; and it is a wonder to see how powerfully these poison the minds of children, and many other empty heads.”
It would astonish and shame some parents if they would take pains to look over the books which are daily and nightly perused by their children. It is not enough for you to know that such books were obtained from a “dear friend,” or from a respectable publisher, or pious bookseller, or that they are lawful publications. Parents and guardians, I pray you take warning.
“Our Girls.”
I want everybody, male and female, old and young, to read that most excellent book, “Our Girls,” by Dr. Dio Lewis. It will do you good. For humanity’s sake, and particularly for the benefit of females, I recommend it. Lest some of my readers should not follow this advice, I want to tell you what it says about
Low Neck and Short Sleeves.
“Many a modest woman appears at a party with her arms nude, and so much of her chest exposed that you can see nearly half of the mammal glands. Many a modest mother permits her daughters to make this model-artist exhibition of themselves.