The Young Man's Guide Part 20

In the progress of an intimate acquaintance, should it be discovered that there are certain traits of character in one of the parties, which both are fully convinced will be a source of unhappiness, through life, there _may_ be no special impropriety in separating. And yet even then I would say, avoid haste. Better consider for an hour than repent for a year, or for life. But let it be remembered, that before measures of this kind are even hinted at, there must be a full conviction of their necessity, and the mutual and hearty concurrence of both parties. Any steps of this kind, the reasons for which are not fully understood on both sides, and mutually satisfactory, as well as easily explicable to those friends who have a right to inquire on the subject, are criminal;--nay more; they are brutal.

I have alluded to _indirect_ promises of marriage, because I conceive that the frequent opinion among young men that nothing is binding but a direct promise, in so many words, is not only erroneous, but highly dishonorable to those who hold it. The strongest pledges are frequently given without the interchange of words. Actions speak louder than words; and there is an attachment sometimes formed, and a confidence reposed, which would be, in effect, weakened by formalities. The man who would break a silent engagement, merely because it is a silent one, especially when he has taken a course of conduct which he knew would be likely to result in such engagement, and which perhaps he even designed, is deserving of the public contempt. He is even a monster unfit to live in decent society.

But there are such monsters on the earth's surface. There are individuals to be found, who boast of their inhuman depredations on those whom it ought to be their highest happiness to protect and aid, rather than injure. They can witness, almost without emotion, the heavings of a bosom rent with pangs which themselves have inflicted.

They can behold their unoffending victim, as unmoved as one who views a philosophical experiment;--not expiring, it is true, but despoiled of what is vastly dearer to her than life--her reputation. They can witness all this, I say, without emotion, and without a single compunction of conscience. And yet they go on, sometimes with apparent prosperity and inward peace. At any rate, they _live_. No lightning blasts them; no volcano pours over them its floods of lava; no earthquake engulfs them. They are permitted to fill up the measure of their wickedness. Perhaps they riot in ease, and become bloated with luxury. But let this description of beings--men I am almost afraid to call them--remember that punishment, though long deferred, cannot be always evaded. A day of retribution must and will arrive. For though they may not be visited by what a portion of the community call special 'judgments,' yet their punishment is not the less certain. The wretch who can commit the crime to which I have referred, against a fellow being, and sport with those promises, which, whether direct or indirect, are of all things earthly among the most sacred, will not, unless he repents, rest here. He will go on from step to step in wickedness. He will harden himself against every sensibility to the woes of others, till he becomes a fiend accursed, and whether on this side of the grave, or the other, cannot but be completely miserable. A single sin may not always break in upon habits of virtue so as to ruin an individual at once; but the vices go in gangs, or companies. One admitted and indulged, and the whole gang soon follow. And misery must follow sin, at a distance more or less near, as inevitably as a stone falls to the ground, or the needle points to the pole.

Some young men reason thus with themselves. If doubts about the future have already risen--if my affections already begin to waver at times--what is not to be expected after marriage? And is it not better to separate, even without a mutual concurrence, than to make others, perhaps many others, unhappy for life?

In reply, I would observe, in the first place, that though this is the usual reason which is a.s.signed in such cases, it is not generally the true one. The fact is, the imagination is suffered to wander where it ought not; and the affections are not guarded and restrained, and confined to their proper object. And if there be a diminution of attachment, it is not owing to any change in others, but in ourselves.

If our affection has become less ardent, let us look within, for the cause. Shall others suffer for our own fault?

But, secondly, we may do much to control the affections, even after they have begun to wander. We still seek the happiness of the object of our choice, more, perhaps, than that of any other individual. Then let us make it our constant study to promote it. It is a law of our natures, as irrevocable as that of the attraction of gravitation, that doing good to others produces love to them. And for myself I do not believe the affections of a young man _can_ diminish towards one whose happiness he is constantly studying to promote by every means in his power, admitting there is no obvious change in her character. So that no young person of principle ought ever to antic.i.p.ate any such result.

Nor has a man any right to _sport_ with the affections of a young woman, in any way whatever. Vanity is generally the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by the women; a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of your language and deportment has that meaning; you know that your meaning is so understood; and if you have not such meaning; if you be fixed by some previous engagement with, or greater liking for another; if you know you are here sowing the seeds of disappointment; and if you persevere, in spite of the admonitions of conscience, you are guilty of deliberate deception, injustice and cruelty. You make to G.o.d an ungrateful return for those endowments which have enabled you to achieve this inglorious and unmanly triumph; and if, as is frequently the case, you _glory_ in such triumph, you may have person, riches, talents to excite envy; but every just and humane man will abhor your heart.

The most direct injury against the spiritual nature of a fellow being is, by leading him into vice. I have heard one young man, who was entrusted six days in the week to form the immortal minds and hearts of a score or two of his fellow beings, deliberately boast of the number of the other s.e.x he had misled. What can be more base? And must not a terrible retribution await such Heaven daring miscreants? Whether they accomplish their purposes by solicitation, by imposing on the judgment, or by powerful compulsion, the wrong is the same, or at least of the same nature; and nothing but timely and hearty repentance can save a wretch of this description from punishment, either here or hereafter.

'Some tempers,' says Burgh, (for nothing can be more in point than his own words) 'are so impotently ductile, that they can refuse nothing to repeated solicitation. Whoever takes the advantage of such persons is guilty of the lowest baseness. Yet nothing is more common than for the debauched part of our s.e.x to show their heroism by a poor triumph, over weak, easy, thoughtless woman!--Nothing is more frequent than to hear them boast of the ruin of that virtue, of which they ought to have been the defenders. "Poor fool! she loved me, and therefore could refuse me nothing."--Base coward! Dost thou boast of thy conquest over one, who, by thy own confession, was disabled for resistance,--disabled by her affection for thy worthless self! Does affection deserve such a return Is superior understanding, or rather deeper craft, to be used against thoughtless simplicity, and its shameful success to be boasted of? Dost thou pride thyself that thou hast had art enough to decoy the harmless lamb to thy hand, that thou mightest shed its blood?'

And yet there are such monsters as Burgh alludes to. There are just such beings scattered up and down even the fairest portions of the world we live in, to mar its beauty. We may hope, for the honor of human nature, they are few. He who can bring himself to believe their number to be as great as one in a thousand, may well be disposed to blush

'And hang his head, to own himself a man.'

I have sometimes wished these beings--_men_ they are not--would _reflect_, if it were but for one short moment. They will not deny the excellency of the golden rule, of doing to others as they wish others to do by themselves. I say they will not deny it, in theory; why then should they despise it in practice?

Let them _think_ a moment. Let them imagine themselves in the place of the injured party. Could this point be gained; could they be induced to reflect long enough to see the enormity of their guilt as it really is, or as the Father in heaven may be supposed to see it, there might be hope in their case. Or if they find it difficult to view themselves as the injured, let them suppose, rather, a sister or a daughter. What seducer is so lost to all natural affection as not to have his whole soul revolt at the bare thought of having a beloved daughter experience the treatment which he has inflicted? Yet the being whom he has ruined had brothers or parents; and those brothers had a sister; and those parents a daughter!

SECTION II. _Licentiousness._

I wish it were in my power to finish my remarks in this place, without feeling that I had made an important omission. But such is the tendency of human nature, especially in the case of the young and ardent, to turn the most valuable blessings conferred on man into curses,--and poison, at their very sources, the purest streams of human felicity,--that it will be necessary to advert briefly but plainly to some of the most frequent forms of youthful irregularity.

Large cities and thinly settled places are the _extremes_ of social life. Here, of course, vice will be found in its worst forms. It is more difficult to say which extreme is worst, among _an equal number of individuals_; but probably the city; for in the country, vice is oftener solitary, and less frequently social; while in the city it is not only _social_ but also _solitary_.

A well informed gentleman from New Orleans, of whose own virtue by the way, I have not the _highest_ confidence, expressed, lately the strongest apprehension that the whole race of young men in our cities, of the present generation, will be ruined. Others have a.s.sured me that in the more northern cities, the prospect is little, if any, more favorable.

It is to be regretted that legislators have not found out the means of abolishing those haunts in cities which might be appropriately termed schools of licentiousness, and thus diminishing an aggregate of temptation already sufficiently large. But the vices, like their votaries, go in companies. Until, therefore, the various haunts of intemperance in eating and drinking, and of gambling and stage-playing, can be broken up, it may be considered vain to hope for the disappearance of those sties of pollution which are their almost inevitable results. We might as well think of drying up the channel of a mighty river, while the fountains which feed it continue to flow as usual.

There is now in Pennsylvania,--it seems unnecessary to name the place--a man thirty-five years old, with all the infirmities of 'three score and ten.' Yet his premature old age, his bending and tottering form, wrinkled face, and h.o.a.ry head, might be traced to solitary and social _licentiousness_.

This man is not alone. There are thousands in every city who are going the same road; some with slow and cautious steps, others with a fearful rapidity. Thousands of youth on whom high expectations have been placed, are already on the highway that will probably lead down to disease and premature death.

Could the mult.i.tude of once active, sprightly, and promising young men, whose souls detested open vice, and who, without dreaming of danger, only found their way occasionally to a lottery office, and still more rarely to the theatre or the gambling house, until led on step by step they ventured down those avenues which lead to the chambers of death, from which few ever return, and none uninjured;--could the mult.i.tudes of such beings, which in the United States alone, (though admitted to be the paradise of the world,) have gone down to infamy through licentiousness, be presented to our view, at once, how would it strike us with horror! Their very numbers would astonish us, but how much more their appearance! I am supposing them to appear as they went to the graves, in their bloated and disfigured faces, their emaciated and tottering frames, bending at thirty years of age under the appearance of three or four score; diseased externally and internally; and positively disgusting,--not only to the eye, but to some of the other senses.

One such monster is enough to fill the soul of those who are but moderately virtuous with horror; what then would be the effect of beholding thousands? In view of such a scene, is there a young man in the world, who would not form the strongest resolution not to enter upon a road which ends in wo so remediless?

But it should be remembered that these thousands were once the friends--the children, the brothers,--yes, sometimes the _nearer_ relatives of _other_ thousands. They had parents, sisters, brothers; sometimes (would it were not true) wives and infants. Suppose the young man whom temptation solicits, were not only to behold the wretched thousands already mentioned, but the many more thousands of dear relatives mourning their loss;--not by death, for that were tolerable--but by an everlasting destruction from the presence of all purity or excellence. Would he not shrink back from the door which he was about to enter, ashamed and aghast, and resolve in the strength of his Creator, never more to indulge a thought of a crime so disastrous in its consequences?

And let every one remember that the army of ruined immortals which have been here presented to the imagination, is by no means a mere fancy sketch. There is a day to come which will disclose a scene of which I have given but a faint picture. For though the thousands who have thus destroyed their own bodies and souls, with their agonized friends and relatives, are scattered among several millions of their fellow citizens, and, for a time, not a few of them elude the public gaze, yet their existence is much a reality, as if they were a.s.sembled in one place.

'All this,' it may be said, 'I have often heard, and it may be true.

But it does not apply to me. I am in no danger. You speak of a path, I have never entered; or if I have ever done so, I have no idea of returning to it, habitually. I know my own strength; how far to go, and when and where to stop.'

But is there one of all the miserable, in the future world, who did not once think the same? Is there one among the thousands who have thus ruined themselves and those who had been as dear to them as themselves, that did not once feel a proud consciousness that he 'knew his own strength?' Yet now where is he?

Beware, then. Take not the first step. Nay, indulge not for an instant, the _thought_ of a first step. Here you are safe. Every where else is danger. Take one step, and the next is more easy; the temptation harder to resist.

Do you call this preaching? Be it so then. I feel, and deeply too, that your immortal minds, those gems which were created to sparkle and shine in the firmament of heaven, are in danger of having their l.u.s.tre for ever tarnished, and their brightness everlastingly hid beneath a thicker darkness than that which once covered the land of Egypt.

C. S. was educated by New England parents, in one of the most flourishing of New England villages. He was all that anxious friends could hope or desire; all that a happy community could love and esteem.

As he rose to manhood he evinced a full share of 'Yankee' activity and enterprise. Some of the youth in the neighborhood were traders to the southern States, and C. concluded to try his fortune among the rest.

He was furnished with two excellent horses and a wagon, and every thing necessary to ensure success. His theatre of action was the low country of Virginia and North Carolina, and his head-quarters, N----, whither he used to return after an excursion of a month or six week, to spend a few days in that dissipated village.

Young C. gradually yielded to the temptations which the place afforded.

First, he engaged in occasional 'drinking bouts,' next in gaming; lastly, he frequented a house of ill fame. This was about the year 1819.

At the end of the year 1820, I saw him, but--now changed! The eye that once beamed with health, and vigor, and cheerfulness, was now dimmed and flattened. The countenance which once shone with love and good-will to man, was pale and suspicious, or occasionally suffused with stagnant, and sickly, and crimson streams. The teeth, which were once as white as ivory, were now blackened by the use of poisonous medicine, given to counteract a still more poisonous and loathsome disease. The frame, which had once been as erect as the stately cedar of Lebanon, was, at the early age of thirty, beginning to bend as with years. The voice, which once spoke forth the sentiments of a soul of comparative purity, now not unfrequently gave vent to the licentious song, the impure jest, and the most shocking oaths, and heaven-daring impiety and blasphemy. The hands which were once like the spirit within, were now not unfrequently joined in the dance, with the vilest of the vile!

I looked, too, at his external circ.u.mstances Once he had friends whom he loved to see, and from whom he was glad to hear. Now it was a matter of indifference both to him and them whether they ever saw each other.

The hopes of parents, and especially of 'her that bare him' were laid in the dust; and to the neighborhood of which he had once been the pride and the ornament, he was fast becoming as if he had never been.

He had travelled first with two horses, next with one; afterward on foot with a choice a.s.sortment of jewelry and other pedlar's wares; now his a.s.sortment was reduced to a mere handful. He could purchase to the value of a few dollars, take a short excursion, earn a small sum, and return--not to a respectable house, as once,--but to the lowest of resorts, to expend it.

Here, in 1821, I last saw him; a fair candidate for the worst contagious diseases which occasionally infest that region, and a pretty sure victim to the first severe attack. Or if he should even escape these, with the certainty before him of a very short existence, at best.

This is substantially the history of many a young man whose soul was once as spotless as that of C. S. Would that young men knew their strength, and their dignity; and would put forth but half the energy that G.o.d has given them. Then they would never approach the confines of those regions of dissipation, for when they have once entered them, the soul and the body are often ruined forever.

There are in every city hundreds of young men--I regret to say it,--who should heed this warning voice. _Now_ they are happily situated, beloved, respected. They are engaged in useful and respectable avocations, and looking forward to brighter and better scenes. Let them beware lest there should be causes in operation, calculated to sap the foundations of the castle which fancy's eye has builded, (and which might even be realized); and lest their morning sun, which is now going forth in splendor, be not shrouded in darkness ere it has yet attained its meridian height.

Every city affords places and means of amus.e.m.e.nt, at once rational, satisfying, and improving. Such are collections of curiosities, natural and artificial, lectures on science, debating clubs, lyceums, &c. Then the libraries which abound, afford a source of never ending amus.e.m.e.nt and instruction. Let these suffice. At least, 'touch not, handle not'

that which an acc.u.mulated and often sorrowful experience has shown to be accursed.

Neither resort to _solitary_ vice. If this practice should not injure your system immediately, it will in the end. I am sorry to be obliged to advert to this subject; but I know there is occasion. Youth, especially those who lead a confined life, seek occasional excitement.

Such sometimes resort to this lowest,--I may say most destructive of practices. Such is the const.i.tution of things, as the Author of Nature has established it, that if every other vicious act were to escape its merited punishment in this world, the one in question could not.

Whatever its votaries may think, it never fails, in a single instance, to injure them, personally; and consequently their posterity, should any succeed them.

It is not indeed true that the foregoing vices do of themselves, produce all this mischief _directly_; but as Dr. Paley has well said, _criminal intercourse_ 'corrupts and _depraves the mind_ more than any single vice whatsoever.' It gradually benumbs the conscience, and leads on, step by step, to those blacker vices at which the youth would once have shuddered.

But debasing as this vice is, it is scarcely more so than solitary gratification. The former is not always at hand; is attended, it may be, with expense; and with more or less danger of exposure. But the latter is practicable whenever temptation or rather imagination solicits, and appears to the morbid eye of sense, to be attended with no hazard. Alas! what a sad mistake is made here! It is a fact well established by medical men, that every error on this point is injurious; and that the const.i.tution is often more surely or more effectually impaired by causes which do not appear to injure it in the least, than by occasional and heavier shocks, which rouse it to a reaction. The one case may be compared to daily _tippling_, the other to those _periodical_ drunken frolics, which, having an interval of weeks or months between them, give the system time to recover, in part, (but _in part only_) from the violence it had sustained.

I wish to put the younger portion of my readers upon their guard against a set of wretches who take pains to initiate youth, while yet almost children, into the practice of the vice to which I have here adverted. Domestics--where the young are too familiar with them--_have_ been known to be thus ungrateful to their employers. There are, however, people of several cla.s.ses, who do not hesitate to mislead, in this manner.

But the misfortune is, that this book will not be apt to fall into the hands of those to whom _these_ remarks apply, till the ruinous habit is already formed. And then it is that counsel sometimes comes too late.

Should these pages meet the eye of any who have been misled, let them remember that they have begun a career which mult.i.tudes repent bitterly; and from which few are apt to return. But there have been instances of reform; therefore none ought to despair. 'What man has done, man may do.'

They should first set before their minds the nature of the practice, and the evils to which it exposes. But here comes the difficulty. What _are_ its legitimate evils? They know indeed that the written laws of G.o.d condemn it; but the punishment which those laws threaten, appears to be remote and uncertain. Or if not, they are apt to regard it as the punishment of _excess_, merely. _They_, prudent souls, would not, for the world, plunge into excess. Besides, '_they_ injure none but _themselves_,' they tell us.