pleasures will be sacrificed to sensual indulgences. Would young men of good sense and reflection wish to have it so? Would they wish to afford an example of powers perverted and abused? Would they wish to have the diversified capacities of enjoyment absorbed in one passion? I may answer for them, they would not desire this! Their judgment, their sense of propriety, decorum, and utility, revolt at it. Let them then admit these thoughts, before desire becomes impetuous. These views of the nature and design of the emotions, which they feel rising in their bosoms, will call them to wise and manly conduct, and check the ardor of passion. They will tend to keep the temperament cool; they will assist the mastery of desire, and give a proper and just determination to the passions.

2. Let young men be also advised to resist the first calls of the sensual appetite. The ardor of desire may plead for immediate indulgence; but if immediate indulgence be given, self-government is lost. Wisdom, and the final object of those emotions, which are felt in the youthful breast, dictate resistance to them,

till years and circumstances place us in a condition to yield to them, not with innocence and purity only, but in a connection that will most effectually answer the purposes for which we are made susceptible of them. Premature gratification is, indeed, not more inconsistent with the intentions of nature, or more subversive of the dominion of reason over appetitě, than it is prejudicial to health. "Youth," saith Linneæus, "is the important period for

framing a robust constitution. Nothing is "so much to be dreaded, as the premature or "excessive indulgence of amorous pleasures. "A body that is enervated in youth never re"covers itself: old age and infirmity speedily "come on, and the thread of life is shortened." Wisdom dictated the same sentiment to the ancients. "No care," it was the remark of Plutarch, "should be neglected, that may con"tribute to the elegance and strength of the "body" "for," adds he, "the foundation "of an happy old age is a good constitution in youth temperance and moderation at that age are passports to happy grey hairs *."

✨ age

* Tissol.

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On these principles, the ancient Germans are extolled by Tacitus, the historian, for not marrying before they arrived at full vigor. 66 The youths," says he, "partake late of ve"nereal pleasures, and hence pass the age of 'puberty unexhausted; nor are the virgins. brought forward; the same maturity, the "same full growth is required; the sexes unite, equally matched, and robust; and the chil"dren inherit the vigour of their parents.' The same custom is attested, and _the_principle, on which it was established, is illustrated by a passage in Cæsar." They who are "latest in proving their virility are most com"mended. By this delay they imagine the sta

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ture is increased, the strength improved, and "the nerves fortified. To have knowledge of "the other sex before twenty years of age, is "accounted in the highest degree scanda"lous."

Such was the discipline that prevailed amongst these people, on whom we are apt to

*Dr. Aikin's Translation of Tacitus' Account of the Germans, and Life of Agricola, p. 612.

look back as a barbarous race; but whom to imitate, in this respect, would be a glory to more polished ages. The example speaks powerfully to uncorrupted young men. They can profit by it. Would they copy after this model, it would preserve the purity of the mind, and the health of the body. It is a model of manners, which, while the minister of religion must approve it, comes now enforced by political wisdom, and the judgment of the physician. These, one would hope, may be heard, when the counsel of the divine is rejected as too grave and cynical. The comfort and the length of life, which are dear to every one, though too often thoughtlessly sacrificed, are most nearly connected with a care of health in its earliest period. In the tender age of youth, the frame is growing up to vigour, but has not attained its full strength: the muscle is not firm; nor the nerve braced; and the springs of life are soon corrupted and enervated. It is to be lamented, that the apprehension of this is, with difficulty, fixed in the inattentive, careless

"Nothing exhausts and enervates the body more, or "hurries on old age faster, than premature concubinage." Dr. Mackensie ́s "History of Health," p. 388.

young mind; which thinks not of disease, nor anticipates decay. Permit the consideration to be now strongly pressed on your thoughts; that, paying a manly and determined regard to it, you may deliver your constitution unbroken to manhood and old age. The first stimulus of appetite is not, be it remembered, a call to gratification, but a summons to virtuous selfdenial and salutary discipline.

3. To proceed in the argument,, and to address you with considerations of great seriousness and weight. Let it be a fixed principle with you, that no gratification of the opening passion meets and suits the constitution of the sexes, but what is enjoyed in marriage. All other modes of indulgence to the sexual appetite are unlawful; and if persisted in, ruinous. "This is a subject I can not dwell upon; if 66 you know not what is meant by secret acts "of uncleanness, you are happy in your igno"rance, seek not to be instructed. If by bad "example you have acquired any impure ha"bit, I exhort you to leave it off, not by de

grees, but at once; it will entail on you a "thousand evils in this life, which you can "not now foresee; and it will certainly expose