From The Laws of Life we extract the language of a clergyman:
“I have officiated at forty weddings since I came here, and in every case save one, I felt that the bride was running an awful risk. Young men of bad habits and fast tendencies never marry girls of their own sort, but demand a wife above suspicion. So, pure, sweet women, kept from the touch of evil through the years of their girlhood, give themselves, with all their costly dower of womanhood, into the keeping of men who, in base associations, have learned to undervalue all that belong to them, and then find no time for repentance in the sad after years. There is but one way out of this that I can see, and that is for you—the young women of the country—to require, in association and marriage, purity for purity, sobriety for sobriety, and honor for honor. There is no reason why the young men of this Christian land should not be just as virtuous as its young women; and if the loss of your society and love be the price they are forced to pay for vice, they will not pay it. I admit, with sadness, that not all our young women are capable of this high standard for themselves or others, but I believe there are enough earnest, thoughtful girls in the society of our country to work wonders if faithfully aroused.”
[Sodomy], or sexual contact of a human being with an animal, is an ancient practice and but little indulged in at the present day; as our laws are very rigid against such degraded and inhuman treatment of animals. There has been a civilizing influence, since human beings have organized societies for the “Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.” But it will nevertheless be remarked, that this elevating tendency came about entirely through the respect for animals, and not for human beings. Were it not for love of animal property and legal watch-care over our animals, and plenty of opportunity to gratify the sexual desire in other ways, the habits of the people would be no better than in ancient times, when sodomy so extensively prevailed. This beastiality may have been a cause of venereal disease—syphilis—which can be traced back to ancient times, without a doubt.
In addition to such abuses, there were worships quite as degrading. Phallus was a figure of the virile member, which was carried about at the festival of Bacchus as a symbol of the generative powers of nature. The Athenians, who refused to show proper respect to Phallus, were punished by Bacchus with a severe disease of the penis. Such may be concluded from the “History of the Phallus in Greece.” Priapus is now supposed to have been a venereal specialist, differing in no respect from such modern specialists, to whom, it is said, votive offerings were donated, and his great skill caused him to be worshipped and deified; hence the term priapismus, which is commonly applied to morbid erections, so frequently occurring in gonorrhœa and paralysis of the insane, and which is also applied to the active stage of the condition otherwise known as satyriasis.
[CHAPTER III.]
[Onanism.]—I have adopted the term Onanism, more especially to illustrate a class of conjugal sins, and shall not use it, as generally applied, as a synonym for masturbation, but will define the term as it should be used. That the meaning of the word may be fully understood I will quote the two verses from Genesis xxxviii, 8, 9:
“And Judah said unto Onan, go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.
“And Onan knew that the seed should not be his. And it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.”