the wasted hand, the putty-like skin, the black-ringed, lack-lustre
eyes, the heavy lip, the labored breath--read the consequences of his
sin and crime in his shame-faced way, his shambling gait, his nerveless
hands, his fluttering heart, his weakened muscles, and his tottering
memory and mind.

Must he needs lie dead at our feet before these skeptics can be
convinced? Is not such a state a living death? Must these men visit
him in the cell of the asylum, watch him as a raving maniac, gaze upon
him as a hopeless idiot or a driveling imbecile, before they will be
convinced? Such proof is at hand. Not an asylum in any country but has
its score of such; not an asylum record-book but chronicles the sad
histories of thousands of these poor, lost creatures--male and female;
not an asylum nurse or doctor but will sadly point out these creatures
to you, bereft of every trace of reason, all sense of shame, still
practicing the horrible vice that has driven every semblance of humanity
from their faces and the very light of reason from their eyes.

True, every boy or man who practices this vice does not come to this
end. But who shall discriminate? There are thousands such, and who shall
say which it shall be, or at what moment it shall occur? Ah! happy,
rosy-cheeked boy, so gay and thoughtless now, so free from misery,
disease and care, beware! It may be your turn next. A little thoughtless
indulgence, the imitation of friend or companion, though apparently
harmless now, may blanch your rosy cheek, destroy your peace and
happiness of mind, and make a life-long, hopeless, suffering invalid
of you--may shut the door of all earthly enjoyment in your face, blast
your hopes, disease or destroy your offspring, alienate you from friends
and family, and cut off from all communion with your race, make you an
object of shame and disgust to your fellow-men, sink you into an early