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Appeal to the Church
413
control their passions. We have labored for some earnestly, we have
entreated, we have wept and prayed over them; yet we have known
that right amid all our earnest effort and distress the force of sinful
habit has obtained the mastery, and these sins have been committed.
Through severe attacks of sickness or by powerful conviction
the consciences of some of the guilty have been aroused and have so
scourged them that it has led to confession of these things with deep
humiliation. Others are equally guilty. They have practiced this sin
nearly their whole lifetime and, in their broken-down constitutions
and sievelike memories, are reaping the result of this pernicious
habit; yet they are too proud to confess. They are secretive, and
have not shown compunctions of conscience for this great sin. My
confidence in the Christian experience of such is very small. They
seem to be insensible to the influence of the Spirit of God. The
sacred and common are alike to them. The common practice of a
vice so degrading as the polluting of their own bodies has not led
to bitter tears and heartfelt repentance. They feel that their sin is
against themselves alone. Here they mistake. Are they diseased in
body or mind, others are made to feel, others suffer. The imagination
is at fault, the memory is deficient, mistakes are made, and there is
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a deficiency everywhere which seriously affects those with whom
they live and who associate with them. Mortification and regret are
felt because these things are known by others.
I have mentioned these cases to illustrate the power of this soul-
and-body-destroying vice. The entire mind is given up to low pas-
sion. The moral and intellectual faculties are over-borne by the baser
powers. The body is enervated, the brain weakened. The material
deposited there to nourish the system is squandered. The drain upon
the system is great. The fine nerves of the brain, being excited to
unnatural action, become benumbed and in a measure paralyzed.
The moral and intellectual powers are weakening, while the animal
passions are strengthening and being more largely developed by
exercise. The appetite for unhealthful food clamors for indulgence.
When persons are addicted to the habit of self-abuse, it is impossible
to arouse their moral sensibilities to appreciate eternal things or to
delight in spiritual exercises. Impure thoughts seize and control
the imagination and fascinate the mind, and next follows an almost
uncontrollable desire for the performance of impure actions. If the