PHYSICAL AND MORAL DEGENERACY.
1. MORAL PRINCIPLE.—"Edgar Allen Poe, Lord Byron, and Robert Burns," says Dr. Geo. F. Hall, "were men of marvelous strength intellectually. But measured by the true rule of high moral principle, they were very weak. Superior endowment in a single direction—physical, mental, or spiritual—is not of itself sufficient to make one strong in all that that heroic word means.
2. INSANE ASYLUM.—many a good man spiritually has gone to an untimely grave because of impaired physical powers. Many a good man spiritually has gone to the insane asylum because of bodily and mental weaknesses. Many a good man spiritually has fallen from virtue in an evil moment because of a weakened will, or a too demanding fleshly passion, or, worse than either, too lax views on the subject of personal chastity."
3. BOYS LEARNING VICES.—some ignorant and timid people argue that boys and young men in reading a work of this character will learn vices concerning which they had never so much as dreamed of before. This is, however, certain, that vices cannot be condemned unless they are mentioned; and if the condemnation is strong enough it surely will be a source of strength and of security. If light and education, on these important subjects, does injury, then all knowledge likewise must do more wrong than good. Knowledge is power, and the only hope of the race is enlightenment on all subjects pertaining to their being.
4. MORAL MANHOOD.—it is clearly visible that the American manhood is rotting down—decaying at the center. The present generation shows many men of a small body and weak principles, and men and women of this kind are becoming more and more prevalent. Dissipation and indiscretions of all kind are working ruin. Purity of life and temperate habits are being too generally disregarded.
5. YOUNG WOMEN.—the vast majority of graduates from the schools and colleges of our land to-day, and two-thirds of the membership of our churches, and three-fourths of the charitable workers, are females. Everywhere girls are carrying off most of the prizes in competitive examinations, because women, as a sex, naturally maintain a better character, take better care of their bodies, and are less addicted to bad and injurious habits. While all this is true in reference to females, you will find that the male sex furnishes almost the entire number of criminals. The saloons, gambling dens, the brothels, and bad literature are drawing down all that the public schools can build up. Seventy per cent. Of the young men of this land do not darken the church door. They are not interested in moral improvement or moral education. Eighty-five per cent. Leave school under 15 years of age; prefer the loafer's honors to the benefit of school.
6. PROMOTION.—the world is full of good places for good young men, and all the positions of trust now occupied by the present generation will soon be filled by the competent young men of the coming generation; and he that keeps his record clean, lives a pure life, and avoids excesses or dissipations of all kinds, and fortifies his life with good habits, is the young man who will be heard from, and a thousand places will be open for his services.
7. PERSONAL PURITY.—Dr. George F. Hall says: "why not pay careful attention to man in all his elements of strength, physical, mental, and moral? Why not make personal purity a fixed principle in the manhood of the present and coming generation, and thus insure the best men the world has ever seen? It can be done. Let every reader of these lines resolve that he will be one to help do it."