And undoubtedly she was right, for such a wife is more precious than rubies.
It is assuredly the duty of parents to be very careful in training up their children in the ways of virtue, and to have a due regard for their honour and reputation: and more especially to young women, when grown up to be marriageable. Parental authority in most cases ought to be obeyed by children; but when an undue severity is exercised by parents in attempting to thwart the affections of a son or daughter, and compel the one or the other to violently snap asunder the tenderest ties, then that authority becomes questionable; and except for the most weighty reasons, ought not to be exercised. Alas! what numerous lamentable illustrations of undue parental authority in regard to the affections of their children are constantly occurring—sons leaving the parental abode, rushing into the haunts of vice and dissipation, and wrecking their fair prospects on the numerous shoals and quicksands which are so fatal to the unwary—daughters flying from the domestic assylum, which ought to shelter them from every storm, and subjecting themselves to perhaps a far worse condition than that they are fleeing from, in being exposed to the attacks of the human wolves who are nightly prowling in the streets of our large cities, in search of the defenceless females who are wandering about homeless and disconsolate. And when these victims of parental severity have fallen into the pit which has been dug for them, probably the parents, too late, repent of their severity, which has brought an indelible stain upon their family. Parents, be cautious of thwarting the affection of your children.
Vicious indulgence is certain to produce its legitimate results, and bring down ruin upon the man or woman who is addicted to the same. Cast your eyes upon the blighted wrecks of what was once female beauty, but now loathsome to behold, notwithstanding the adventitious aid of paint, and all the adjuncts of tawdry finery that may be put on to hide the miserable wrecks of humanity. Traverse the streets in our large cities, and though illuminated by the glare of gaslight, numbers with unblushing fronts meet you at almost every step. These are the victims of vicious indulgence. Ask any of these to tell you whether she feels herself happy in the “gay” life she is pursuing; and if she is sincere, she will answer you with a heart-breaking sigh that she is far from being happy—that she is most miserable—that she remembers a happier time—remembrances which she attempts to stifle by quaffing liquid slow poison at the gin-palace. She had a home once—and she remembers her mother—dead a long time ago—and oh, agony! she remembers the day when her own foot first turned into the path of guilt. Peradventure she was the victim of some base libertine, and was decoyed away from virtue’s path by a deceptive tale; or, probably, she may have willingly swerved from that chaste and virtuous life which is the brightest adornment in female attire. Whatever was the cause there she is—a miserable wreck of humanity! Better, far better, that she had died; that the grass had grown rank over her corpse as it mouldered away in the portion of ground allotted to the pauper dead. Thus it is with the wretched female who gives way to vicious indulgence.—The once gay courtezan eventually is bereft of all splendour; no devoted admirer rushes to her aid; she coughs her way through life; and sinks into an early grave—perhaps a watery grave. Beware, young women, of the siren tempter! Deviate not in the least from the paths of virtue! Chastity is your brightest adornment, and that once sullied, your fair fame is irretrievably damaged.
The baneful effects of giving way to vicious indulgence may probably not, in every case, be so serious to the male portion of the creation as to that of the female, yet there are numerous instances of the libertine and debauchee having had to pay the penalty of their misdeeds by an emaciated frame, a broken constitution, and an early death. How many young men have commenced the struggle of life with fair fame and bright prospects, with business habits which gave them buoyant hopes of gaining an independence, who, giving way to vicious indulgence, have ruined their health, blighted their fair fame, and become bankrupts in every thing that belongs to the man of honour and integrity. Young man, beware of giving way to vicious indulgence!
Love is a passion of the human soul; and when properly under control, it is capable of affording the greatest amount of happiness; but, like other passions of the heart, when uncontrolled, or wrongly directed, it entails great misery on those who experience it. This may be the case with that love which is called forth by family relationship and intimate friendship, as well as that intense love which is felt by the opposite sex, man for woman, woman for man.
Various are the means which the libertine and debauchee adopt to gratify their sensual appetite. Some will follow the “strange woman”—the street harlot to her den of infamy and shame; others will attempt to allure the simple trusting maiden by promises, oaths as false and deceitful as ever were uttered by the arch enemy of our souls:—and by these means the trusting and confiding are lured to commit the sin which society condemns in the female, but which is treated with lenity and forbearance in regard to the male transgressor.
Examine the first of these two cases. “A young man deficient in understanding,” seeks the company of unfortunate women, and exhausts his precious vigour and stamina in criminal pleasure. The period of youth is the heyday of nature, and the healthful development of all the resources of strength in our nature is the glory of our youth. It is a most lamentable spectacle to behold, in the streets of the metropolis, and large towns, such numbers of men, young in years, but through sensual gratification, broken down in strength, emaciated in body, and apparently worn-out decrepid old men. And alas! how numerous are the allurements spread to entrap the unwary, and cause them to enter on a vicious course of life. “The lips of a strange woman drop as a honey-comb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.” Every attraction which beauty can borrow from art is employed; prostitution wears various kinds of guises to accomplish its object, but is most dangerous when decked out the fairest, and sports the best. And, therefore, the wise teacher before quoted, very appropriately remarks, “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eye-lids.” The disastrous consequences of such “pleasures,” are as certain as they are terrible. The sweetness of the honey never provides an antidote for the sting. Such a course most frequently ruins the prospects of success in life—“a man is brought to a piece of bread;” “it ruins the health,”—“thy flesh and thy body are consumed, till a dart strike through thy liver.” And along with property and health goes the character, for “the name of the wicked shall rot,” and their end is shrouded in gloom; their “feet go down to death, and their steps take hold on hell.”
CHAPTER V.
THE VAGARIES OF NATURE, IN THE BIRTHS OF MONSTERS.
The pleasing anticipations of the wedded pair are sometimes disappointed and seriously blighted by the birth of a deformed and malformed offspring. Sometimes the child is born with some one or more of the usual members of the body deficient; at others there are births of children possessed with more than the usual members of the body; and in various ways the eccentricities of nature are displayed in the production of the fruits of the womb contrary to the usual construction of the human frame.
It would be presumptuous in any finite creature to attempt to give a clear and uncontrovertible reason for these monstrous births. Suffice it to say, that several have at various times been recorded in history; a few of those we shall now introduce to the notice of the reader.