If cohabitation is not a physical and sexual necessity, or conducive to health, why do married people live longer and have better health than those who remain single?—As a rule married people are more temperate in their sexual lives than are the single. But this does not prove that sexual gratification is ever conducive to health and long life. All nature contradicts such a conclusion. The embodiment of life in seed is a universal sacrifice. Many flowering plants wither, fade and die as soon as they embody life in their seed. If young fruit trees bear fruit too early in life, they are stunted in their growth and die prematurely. There is a suspension of growth in all the vegetable kingdom as soon as the function of reproduction is completed. Among the lowest forms of animal life, as soon as the eggs are fertilized, the animal dies. Among all the higher animals, including man, there is abundant evidence of some bodily depression and nervous exhaustion after each act of cohabitation, showing the act to be one of sacrifice. The arrested growth, susceptibility to disease and premature decay among plants, trees and animals, when premature or over-production occurs, are significant illustrations of the baneful effects of youthful dissipation of the sex principle and of marital excesses.
All nature teaches that the normal expression of sex is the unselfish act of embodying life in a new being and that means sacrifice. The story of the cross is typical of all nature. Christ sacrificed his life that humanity might have redemptive life through a process of spiritual reproduction, regeneration.
Through centuries of bad heredity, a misunderstanding of the nature and true function of sex and years of violation of sex laws have combined to give men an abnormal sex nature. It has remained for the people of this country to discover and apply the laws of heredity, to learn the true nature and function of sex and to restore to humanity a normal sex nature. The results of centuries cannot be corrected in one generation. Few men will be able to reach the ideal life, but it is the privilege of every man to struggle toward the ideal.
For young people to regard sexual gratification as the one reason for marriage is positively degrading and shows that our ideas of marriage should be corrected. There are many reasons why the married life is the ideal life. Man is a social being. He needs a companion. He is not complete in himself. He represents only one-half of a complete being. He is never quite satisfied until he finds the other half, the complement of himself. A demand for companionship is found in the very physical, mental and moral natures of man and woman. Their constant association, their mutual home interests and sacrifice for their children are very conducive to health, happiness and a long life.
What is the philosophy of the relation of sex to a happy courtship and marriage?—The sexual life forms the basis of these experiences. Without the creative principle, these social relations would be impossible. The love and magnetism that draw the sexes together in courtship and marriage, that harmonize their differences and blend their personalities and make the husband and wife one are the expressions of the sexual life. Young people who get the idea that marriage means unrestricted sexual privilege, will sooner or later land in the divorce court, or be compelled to live miserably together. If they live in harmony with the laws of sex, their honeymoon will be lifelong.
My subject is before you. While we may differ as to some minor particulars, we are agreed that the violation of the laws of sex is the most prolific source of wrecked manhood, and that a pure life is the only possible road to perfect manhood. I have tried to lead you to loathe and abhor all forms of sexual impurity and to form a purpose as lasting as life and as strong as death, that you will never again violate the laws of sexual purity. The attainment and maintenance of perfect manhood, the recovery of wrecked manhood, the transmission of potential perfect manhood to your offspring, all absolutely depend upon your faithfulness to the principles of sexual purity enunciated in this book. If the truths presented in this book keep one boy out of the pit of sensuality, or if they lead one poor faltering man to form an undying purpose to become pure, or if just one man finds help, strength and life through faith in Christ, the author is repaid a thousand-fold. It is a higher honor to wear a crown of perfect manhood than to wear the crown of an angel.
CHAPTER XLII
PHYSICAL CULTURE
The cuts illustrating the first eleven exercises with descriptive matter, are taken from “Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise” by permission of the authors Bernarr MacFadden and Felix Oswald, A.M., M.D.—The Author.
The importance of physical culture.—This chapter is added for the reason that perfect health, perfect development, perfect virility, perfect manhood is not possible without physical culture. Physical culture includes bathing and exercise. The healthful functioning, of the entire digestive system, the kidneys, the liver, the lungs, the heart and the brain, are related, vitally, to physical culture. Likewise the retention, absorption, distribution and assimilation of the creative life are also vitally related. Bathing and massaging the body and physical exercise have a remedial effect upon almost all physical disorders.
The functions of the skin.-Stop the functions of the skin three minutes and death follows. The skin has two functions, one is to eliminate poisons from the body and the other is to conserve and regulate the heat of the body.