If you would be a perfect man.—While it is now very rare for a boy to be made a eunuch, yet it is very common to see young men who are dull and stupid, lifeless and lazy, stunted and ugly. In most cases this is due to their having wasted this energy.
From these illustrations we see that the sexual energy strengthens and develops every organ of the body, faculty of the mind and power of the soul. If a boy would have a strong, healthy and perfect body, this energy must be kept in the body and built into the muscles. If he would have a strong and brilliant mind, this energy must be directed to the brain. If he would be strong in moral character, he must learn how to use it in his moral nature. In the chapter on how to live a pure life this will all be made plain to you.
CHAPTER XXIII
FATHER’S THIRD TALK—IMPERFECT BOYS BECOME IMPERFECT MEN
Why some trees, kittens, calves, colts, do not become perfect.—In the last chapter we found how perfect boys become perfect men. In this chapter we shall find why some boys do not become perfect men. If a crooked sprout is not made straight before it gets to be a young tree, it can never entirely outgrow the defect. If it received a wound before it grew to be a young tree, nature may heal the wound but the scar will indicate a weak place when it is grown. If the wound is a deep one, decay may follow and its life greatly shortened. If a kitten, calf or colt be starved or crippled while young, they will rarely outgrow these defects.
Boys may injure themselves.—There are many ways by which a boy may injure himself physically, mentally and morally and prevent perfection in his manhood. We have learned that when the mind is kept pure and no bad habits are formed, that the sexual life will gradually change a boy into a perfect man. Now we are to study the bad effects of wasting this energy. Why are there so many men with defective bodies? When we study the lower animals in their wild state, or when the domestic animals have been well kept by their owners, we find nearly all of them to be perfect. This is due to the fact that the lower animals have not violated the laws of sex. They do not waste their sexual energy.
Many defective men.—If you were to visit some of the insane asylums and look into the faces of from one to two thousand of the unfortunates, you would see some who do not possess a sign of intelligence. Many of them were born of parents who had violated these laws. Many are personally guilty and have brought on their own ruin. In the penitentiaries and hospitals we find that many are there because they have been guilty of the same wrongs. If many of these poor people had read the book you are reading, they would now be well and happy.
The following story is told by an author:
Robbing a vine of its life.—“When I was only a small boy, one lovely spring morning, I stepped up to a vigorous young grapevine, at the time the sap was rising and flowing out the branches to every bursting bud and cluster of blooms. I had watched my father bore holes in the sugar maple trees, a century old, and we would use the sap to make syrup and maple sugar. I did not know that this really injured the old trees and that tapping them when ten or twenty years old would have very seriously injured them. So, with my knife, I cut a hole in the vine some two feet from the ground. At once the sap flowed as freely as from an old sugar tree. I stood by proudly and watched the sap flow out. Soon a puddle of sap had formed at the foot of the vine and the ground became damp all around. An hour passed and still the sap flowed. I became frightened. I wondered whether, at that rate, the vine would not disappear after a while. With mud, made from the sap and soil, I tried to stop up the wound and stop the flow. Quickly the flowing sap dissolved the mud and washed it down. After repeated failures, I ran to the house and got some rags and strings and tried to stop the flow, but soon the rags would get damp and the sap flowed as before.
“I decided to leave the vine to its own fate. The next morning I ventured out to see what had occurred. The vine looked as it did the day before. I found that kind nature had formed a reddish substance and had filled the wound and stopped the flow. That day I cut another hole in the vine. Again the sap flowed but not so freely as the day before. Day after day I repeated this for ten days. Will you be surprised when I tell you that the buds never matured into full size leaves, the clusters of blooms never matured into large clusters of grapes, and that the vine did not live many years? I had robbed the vine of its very life.”
Some boys and men sap their life.—Now there is an act that is performed by many boys and men by which they waste the vital fluid from their bodies. This act soon becomes a habit. It has the same effect upon them that we found in the vine. Instead of their eyes glowing with luster, they become dull and sunken. Instead of their cheeks having the rosy look of youth and health the face becomes pale. Instead of offering a hearty warm handshake, it is lifeless and cold. Instead of muscles being hard and elastic, they are soft and weak. Instead of bright, alert minds, they are dull and listless. Instead of an elastic bearing and a straightforward step, there are the languid movements and the swaggering walk.