We have seen that the careful guidance of youth in relation to the faculty of sex, an improvement in the tone of society, and provision for early marriage, are fundamental points which should engage the earnest thought of every mother. It would be, however, a most serious mistake to suppose that the methods of carrying out these principles devolve upon the mother only. It is too frequently the case that the father, absorbed in outdoor pursuits, regards the indoor life as exclusively the business of his wife, and takes little or no part in the education of his children; but no true home can ever be formed without the mutual aid of father and mother. The division of labour may be different, but the joint influence should ever be felt in this closest of partnerships. As the wise wife is the most trusty confidant of the general business life of the husband, so he is the natural counsellor and support in all that concerns the occupations, amusements, society, and influence of his home. No home can be a happy one, if the father’s keenest interest and enjoyment do not centre in his family life. There are, however, special duties to the family required from the father, owing to his position as a citizen, and these hold an intimate relation to the future of his children. A large view of home duty must necessarily lead to a fulfilment of citizen duty. There are few men who, in their special business or occupation, do not possess large opportunities for encouraging a nobler idea respecting the relations of men and women than now prevails; few who cannot show their respect for virtue and in some way discourage vice. Men, not only as fathers, but as educators of youth—clergymen, physicians, employers of labour—hold an immense power in their hands for raising the tone of a community into which their sons and daughters must soon enter, and through the ceaseless temptations of which the effects of the most careful family education may be destroyed. No occupation can stand isolated from the rest of life; the interlinkings are innumerable. The man who throws a temptation in the way of a weaker neighbour, or ignores the struggles of his dependents, or fails to speak the encouraging word to those whom he influences, may be placing a pitfall in the way of his own son and daughter.
A mighty power which fathers hold in trust for the future of their children, is the character of the legislation which they establish or sanction. It is almost inconceivable how intelligent and well-meaning individuals, knowing the weakness of human nature and its inevitable growth towards good or evil through circumstances, can fail to see the immense moral bearing of legislation. The laws of a country are powerful educators of the rising generation. They reach all classes; their influence is a national one, silently exercising a never-ceasing effect on the community. Every new act of legislation is a power which will work much more strongly upon the young than the old. The adult who makes the law has grown up to complete manhood under other influences; he is moulded by the laws of a previous generation, and no new legislative action can change his fixed character. It is the young and unformed who will grow in the direction made easiest to them by our laws. Whether the subject of legislation be the increase of standing armies, the promotion of the liquor traffic, the regulation of factory labour, the arrangement of national education, or the establishment of railways—these subjects affect the moral condition of a people. It would be difficult to find a subject of legislation which has not some moral issue, more or less directly connected with it, and which will not influence the rising generation more powerfully than the generation that establishes the law. Legislation, therefore, has an inevitable and most important bearing upon the welfare of the family, and must be considered in relation to its effect upon the youth of the nation. Every mother has a right to ask this from the legislators of a country. No parental legislator should ever lose sight of the central family point of view in legislation—viz., How can good conquer evil? How can it be made easier for children to grow up virtuous than vicious?
The power of the human race to place itself under any restrictions which its welfare requires, has already been shown in the control which society exercises over the intense craving of hunger. Strong as the faculty of sex is, its abnegation does not destroy the individual as does starvation from lack of food. This instinct, therefore, cannot be considered more imperative than that of hunger; it must be as susceptible of restraint. Indeed, the relations of sex have already been placed under a certain amount of restriction by both law and custom, only these restrictions are not nearly of such severity or universal application as those which govern the instinct of hunger, showing that the human race, in their present stage of development, have not felt that it was such a pressing question. Society has not hitherto recognised such restraint as essential to its own existence and welfare. This conviction, however, is now awakened, and when once established, it will be found that the dominion of law is as powerful in one direction as in the other. Every great question of society is a necessary subject of legislation. The necessity of protecting property and the ability to do so, even against the terrible power of slow starvation, is shown by every civilized nation. This experience conclusively proves that chastity also may be protected by legislation, as soon as the growing common-sense of a community awakes to the fact that it also is a property—the most valuable property that a great nation can possess—and that licentiousness is a growing evil that may be checked by legislation. The true principle to be held to, in legislating for the evils that afflict society, cannot be too often insisted on. In legislating for any evil, it is necessary to seek out the deepest source of the evil, and check that source. Attention must not be limited to the effects of the evil. This is eminently true of all legislation which deals with the evils caused by licentiousness—a branch of legislation which, more than any other, has a direct and powerful bearing upon the welfare of the family.
The subject of licentiousness is justly attracting the attention of legislators of the present day to an extent which has never been witnessed before. This is a sign of dawning promise, for the worst condition of a nation is that where gross evils remain uncared for. This great evil has crept on uncared for, or referred to with hushed breath, until it bids fair to ruin our most valued institutions. Legislation has broken the spell, and will continue its work until it has aroused the conscience of the nation. The execution of wise measures can only be secured by the support of an enlightened, conscientious community. No legislation can be efficient which does not represent the best average sentiment of the country. In regard to this great question, no wise legislation is possible for any evil of licentiousness until the subject has been thoroughly considered by those who are most keenly interested in it—viz., the fathers and mothers of the nation. No specialists, of whatever class, can suggest wise measures, as specialists, in a matter which so intimately concerns the family. Only a large view of what is needed for the purity and dignity of the family, for the good of its children, for its influence in society, can secure wise laws. Anything which tends to encourage the lowest passions of human nature, either by the acceptance of base customs, by the legalization of vice, or by fostering in any other way the animal tendencies of men, must produce hereditary as well as social effects on daughters as well as sons. Customs and institutions which injure the character of women, which weaken their virtue and crush out the germs of higher life, must be the source of deadliest evil to any nation. It behoves the legislators of the present generation to be careful in their social and legal sanction of vice amongst males, lest they be blindly undermining the whole social fabric, amongst women as well as men, in a way which they would least wish to do, if they knew what they were doing.
The first step towards the moral education of the youth of a nation is a clear perception on the part of parents of the true aim of education, with the individual action to which such perception leads. The second step is combination—i.e., the determination to secure this end by the strength of union. It is true that individual efforts are the foundation on which any power must rest that wishes to lift society to a higher level, and we find at present innumerable individuals keenly alive to the evils in which we are involved, and earnest in seeking a remedy. There are very many families where father and mother work together with unwearied effort to ennoble home life, but these individual efforts, these aspirations and patient endeavours, although indispensable as a foundation, are isolated and scattered; they are continually overpowered by the evil influences existing outside the family. Organized effort is needed—resolute and united action—to meet the organized dangers of the present age. The condensed review in the preceding pages of the causes which produce the present low or diseased condition of the humanizing principle of sex, indicates the immense range of subjects which its consideration and guidance involve. No isolated individual, no single family, can work out for itself a solution of the present problem, or command the means for securing the moral welfare of the most cherished child. Change in the conditions of life may be wrought by united effort; it cannot be attained by isolated effort. When we consider the innumerable objects for which strength is gained by association, and that this rational principle is constantly extending its operation in the present age, it is evident that any strong leading principle capable of enlisting devotion and steady enthusiasm affords sound basis for combination and organization. Such a leading principle is found in the clear conviction of the nobility of the spiritual principle of sex in the human being, the binding obligation of one moral law for all, and the regenerating power of this law upon the human race. It is a principle capable of enlisting religious devotion and embodying itself in the most valuable practical action. Methods of combination inspired by this principle are clearly conceivable which would be susceptible of the widest application. Indications of such combination are already visible, and these must constantly extend themselves as this great idea of the present age—the true view of Sex—grows into complete development.
All existing efforts which tend to destroy the causes of licentiousness—such as temperance, increase of occupation and wages for women, improvement of poor dwellings, facilities for rational amusement, the abolition of enforced celibacy, and the regeneration of the army—demand and should receive the special recognition and aid of parents. These movements are all invaluable and cannot be too actively supported, being founded on true principles of growth; but something more is needed—viz., distinct open acknowledgment of the fundamental principle here laid down, and organization growing out of it. In this work the natural leader of a nation is the Church—i.e., that great body of all religious teachers and persons who believe that man cannot live by bread alone, but that the Divine instinct that urges him onwards and upwards must be expressed in the forms of our daily life. When the Church recognises that one of its difficult but glorious duties is to teach men how to carry out religious principles in practical life, it will perceive that the foundation of all righteous life is reverence for the noble human principle of sex. It will no longer shrink from enforcing this regenerating principle. The undue proportion of thought and effort now given to forms and ceremonies, to metaphysical disquisitions and subtle distinctions, will then give place to earnest united efforts to enable men to lead righteous lives. No Church performs its duty to the young that fails to raise this fundamental subject of sex into its proper human level. It is bound to rouse every young man and woman of its congregation to the perception that respect for the principle of sex, with fidelity to purity, is a fundamental condition of religious life.
The truths which have been set forth in the preceding pages may be briefly summed up in the following propositions—viz:
Early chastity strengthens the physical nature, creates force of Will, and concentrates the intellectual powers on the nobler ends of human life.
Continence is indispensable to the physical welfare of a young man until the age of twenty-one; it is advantageous until twenty-five; it is possible without physical injury throughout life.