Appeal to Mothers
11
Mothers allow themselves to be deceived in regard to their daugh-
ters. If they labor, and then appear languid and indisposed, the indul-
gent mother fears that she has overtaxed them, and resolves hencefor-
ward to lighten their task. The mother bears the extra amount of labor
which should have been performed by the daughters. If the true facts
in the case of many were known, it would be seen that it was not the
labor which was the cause of the difficulty, but wrong habits which
were prostrating the vital energies, and bringing upon them a sense of
weakness and great debility. In such cases, when mothers relieve their
daughters from active labor, they, by so doing, virtually give them up
to idleness, to reserve their energies. to consume upon the altar of lust.
They remove the obstacles, giving the mind more freedom to run in
a wrong channel, where they will more surely carry on the work of
self-ruin.
The state of our world is alarming. Everywhere we look, we
see imbecility, dwarfed forms, crippled limbs, misshapen heads, and
[63]
deformity of every description. Sin and crime, and the violation of
nature’s laws, are the causes of this accumulation of human woe
and suffering. A large share of the youth now living are worthless.
Corrupt habits are wasting their energies, and bringing upon them
loathsome and complicated diseases. Unsuspecting parents will try
the skill of physicians, one after another, who prescribe drugs, when
they generally know the real cause of the failing health; but for fear
of offending, and losing their fees, they keep silent, when, as faithful
physicians, they should expose the real cause. Their drugs only add a
second great burden for abused nature to struggle against; and in this
struggle nature often breaks down in her efforts, and the victim dies.
And the friends look upon the death as a mysterious dispensation of
Providence, when the most mysterious part of the matter is, that nature
bore up as long as she did against her violated laws. Health, reason,
and life, were sacrificed to depraved lusts.
Children who practice self-indulgence previous to puberty, or the
period of merging into manhood or womanhood, must pay the penalty
of nature’s violated laws at that critical period. Many sink into an early
grave, while others have sufficient force of constitution to pass this
[64]
ordeal. If the practice is continued from the age of fifteen and upward,
nature will protest against the abuse she has suffered, and continues to
suffer, and will make them pay the penalty for the transgression of her