9.  SIGNS OF VIRILITY.—­As the young man develops in strength and years the sexual appetite will manifest itself.  The secretion of the male known as the seed or semen depends for the life-transmitting power upon little minute bodies called spermatozoa.  These are very active and numerous in a healthy secretion, being many hundreds in a single drop and a single one of them is capable to bring about conception in a female.  Dr. Napheys in his “Transmission of Life,” says:  “The secreted fluid has been frozen and kept at a temperature of zero for four days, yet when it was thawed these animalcules, as they are supposed to be, were as active as ever.  They are not, however, always present, and when present may be of variable activity.  In young men, just past puberty, and in aged men, they are often scarce and languid in motion.”  At the proper age the secretion is supposed to be the most active, generally at the age of twenty-five, and decreases as age increases.

10.  HYGIENIC RULE.—­The man at mid-life should guard carefully his passions and the husband his virile powers, and as the years progress, steadily wean himself more from his desire, for his passions will become weaker with age and any excitement in middle life may soon debilitate and destroy his virile powers.

11.  FOLLIES OF YOUTH.—­Dr. Napheys says:  “Not many men can fritter away a decade or two of years in dissipation and excess, and ever hope to make up their losses by rigid surveillance in later years.”  “The sins of youth are expiated in age,” is a proverb which daily examples illustrate.  In proportion as puberty is precocious, will decadence be premature; the excesses of middle life draw heavily on the fortune of later years.  “The mill of the gods grinds slow, but it grinds exceedingly fine,” and though nature may be a tardy creditor, she is found at last to be an inexorable one.

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OUR SECRET SINS.

1.  PASSIONS.—­Every healthful man has sexual desires and he might as well refuse to satisfy his hunger as to deny their existence.  The Creator has given us various appetites intended they should be indulged, and has provided the means.

2.  REASON.—­While it is true that a healthy man has strongly developed sexual passions, yet, God has crowned man with reason, and with a proper exercise of this wonderful faculty of the human mind no lascivious thoughts need to control the passions.  A pure heart will develop pure thoughts and bring out a good life.

3.  RIOTING IN VISIONS.—­Dr. Lewis says:  “Rioting in visions of nude women may exhaust one as much as an excess in actual intercourse.  There are multitudes who would never spend the night with an abandoned female, but who rarely meet a young girl that their imaginations are not busy with her person.  This species of indulgence is well-nigh universal; and it is the source of all other forms the fountain from which the external vices spring, and the nursery of masturbation.”