Men, Women, and God | Page 7

associate the idea of sin in the first case with this subject at all. What you can do is to implant a certain reverence in a child's mind in relation to the whole matter, and if you succeed in that you will have forearmed your child against sin. I long to know that children are learning about sex not in association with scoldings, reproofs, and warnings, but rather as part of the splendid truth of God. It is the association of the facts of sex with the sins of men and women that has spoilt this part of life for most minds. Of course it is only kind to tell boys and girls where it is that they may go wrong--it is necessary to put them on their guard. But that should be a secondary matter--a mere addition to your teaching.
My own experience as a minister has brought to my knowledge several very pathetic instances of how young girls get into very serious trouble just through lack of the knowledge their mothers ought to have given them. It seems possible still for a girl even of seventeen or eighteen, or even much older, to be almost incredibly ignorant, and no words are too strong to describe the cruelty of allowing them to face life in that condition.
In any case let your teaching be, in general terms at least, complete before adolescence. If you wait till adolescence has begun, the telling may cause undue excitement. If you finish your general teaching before that stage it will save your child from much unwholesome curiosity.
And here, though the subject must necessarily be distasteful to many, as it is to myself, I must put in a word about self-abuse. [Footnote: Knowing from experience that a good many parents do not even know what self-abuse means, let me simply say that it consists in such handling of the genital organs as creates emotional and physical sexual excitement of a kind that is obviously unnatural.] In recent years a large number of men have given me their confidence, so that I am not speaking from hearsay when I state that a percentage of men which probably approximates to seventy-five are, at least for a time, victims of this habit.
I know that it is easy to exaggerate the physical and mental evil effects of it. But what is beyond all question is that it produces bad psychic consequences, and does so leave men out of conceit with themselves that when they realize that they have become victims to the habit their mental sufferings are often pitifully acute. Indeed, it is because my pity and sympathy have been so drawn out to many men I know that I cannot forbear to speak on behalf of those who may yet be saved from it. The facts about it are that the habit is often begun at an almost inconceivably early age. It is very often begun without any sense that it is wrong, and certainly without any knowledge of how evil it is. And once it has been begun, it is horribly hard to abandon. Uncounted good men have to confess to-day that in their younger days they never did achieve liberation in spite of constant efforts. Uncounted men have brought about in this way a certain perversion of their natures with regard to their sexual functions which clouded their lives for many years. And yet the cure for this situation is very simple and almost easy. The men who have completely escaped practically all testify that they owe their immunity to the kindly and timely advice of some wise senior. The habit is not natural, and therefore it is not hard never to begin it. If it has not been begun in boyhood a very little determination will keep an adult man from falling into it. And this means that in this case parents can, if they will, save the rising generation. Perhaps it is mothers chiefly who will have to render this service just because the habit is begun so very early, while boys are still in very close association with their mothers. I may seem to be contradicting what I have just said about mere warnings, but I would certainly say that any sort of arresting warning is better than inaction in the matter. Yet even in this matter any kind of harsh warning is not the best way. A boy can be taught that there is a certain sanctity about certain parts of his body. He can be taught to treat them scrupulously and hardily. He can be given positive ideas which will save him, though I also believe that he ought to be told with definiteness to avoid this particular snare. I know of no other case in which a little wise love and