The Young Man's Guide

by William A. Alcott

Suppose, however, they really injured nobody but themselves. Have they a right to do even this? They will not maintain, for one moment, that they have a right to take away their own life. By what right, then, do they allow themselves to shorten it, or diminish its happiness while it lasts?

Here the question recurs again: Does solitary gratification actually shorten life, or diminish its happiness?

The very fact that the laws of God forbid it, is an affirmative answer to this question. For nothing is more obvious than that all other vices which that law condemns, stand in the way of our present happiness, as well as the happiness of futurity. Is this alone an exception to the general rule?

But I need not make my appeal to this kind of authority. You rely on human testimony. You believe a thousand things which yourselves never saw or heard. Why do you believe them, except upon testimony—I mean given either verbally, or, what is the same thing, in books?

Now if the accumulated testimony of medical writers from the days of Galen, and Celsus, and Hippocrates, to the present hour, could have any weight with you, it would settle the point at once. I have collected, briefly, the results of medical testimony on this subject, in the next chapter; but if you will take my statements for the present, I will assure you that I have before me documents enough to fill half a volume like this, from those who have studied deeply these subjects, whose united language is, that the practice in question, indulged in any degree, is destructive to body and mind; and that although, in vigorous young men, no striking evil may for some time appear, yet the punishment can no more be evaded, except by early death, than the motion of the earth can be hindered. And all this, too, without taking into consideration the terrors of a judgment to come.

But why, then, some may ask, are animal propensities given us, if they are not to be indulged? The appropriate reply is, they are to be indulged; but it is only in accordance with the laws of God; never otherwise. And the wisdom of these laws, did they not rest on other and better proof, is amply confirmed by that great body of medical experience already mentioned. God has delegated to man, a sort of subcreative power to perpetuate his own race. Such a wonderful work required a wonderful apparatus. And such is furnished. The texture of the organs for this purpose is of the most tender and delicate kind, scarcely equalled by that of the eye, and quite as readily injured; and this fact ought to be known, and considered. But instead of leaving to human choice or caprice the execution of the power thus delegated, the great Creator has made it a matter of duty; and has connected with the lawful discharge of that duty, as with all others, enjoyment. But when this enjoyment is sought in any way, not in accordance with the laws prescribed by reason and revelation, we diminish (whatever giddy youth may suppose,) the sum total of our own happiness. Now this is not the cold speculation of age, or monkish austerity. It is sober matter of fact.

It is said that young men are sometimes in circumstances which forbid their conforming to these laws, were they disposed to do so.

Not so often however, as is commonly supposed. Marriage is not such a mountain of difficulty as many imagine. This I have already attempted to show. One circumstance to be considered, in connection with this subject, is, that in any society, the more there is of criminal indulgence, whether secret or social, the more strongly are excuses for neglecting matrimony urged. Every step which a young man takes in forbidden paths, affords him a plea in behalf of the next. The farther he goes, the less the probability of his returning to the ways of purity, or entering those of domestic felicity.

People in such places as London and Paris, marry much later in life, upon the average, than in country places. And is not the cause obvious? And is not the same cause beginning to produce similar effects in our own American cities?

But suppose celibacy in some cases, to be unavoidable, can a life of continence, in the fullest sense of the term, be favorable to health? This question is answered by those to whose writings I have already referred, in the affirmative. But it is also answered by facts, though from the nature of the case these facts are not always easy of access. We have good reason to believe that Sir Isaac Newton and Dr. Fothergill, never for once in their lives deviated from the strict laws of rectitude on this point. And we have no evidence that they were sufferers for their rigid course of virtue. The former certainly enjoyed a measure of health and reached an age, to which few, in any circumstances, attain; and the latter led an active and useful life to nearly three-score and ten. There are living examples of the same purity of character, but they cannot, of course, be mentioned in this work.