37. Epileptic fits in children are not infrequently the result of vicious habits. 38. Wetting the bed is an evidence of irritation which may be conne… - John Harvey Kellogg

Flirtation.-We cannot find language sufficiently emphatic to express proper condemnation of one of the most popular forms of amusement indulged in at the present day in this country, under the guise of innocent association of the sexes. By the majority of people, flirtation is looked upon as harmless, if not useful, as some even consider, claiming that the experience gained by such associations is valuable to young persons, by making them familiar with the customs of society and the ways of the world. We have not the slightest hesitation in pronouncing flirtation as pernicious in the extreme. In exerts a malign influence alike upon the mental, the moral, and the physical constitution of those who indulge it. The young lady who has become infatuated with a passion for flirting, courting the society of young men simply for the pleasure derived from their attentions, is educating herself in a school which will totally unfit her for the enjoyment of domestic peace and happiness should she have all the conditions necessary for such enjoyment other than those which she herself must furnish. More than this, she is very likely laying the foundation for lifelong disease by the dissipation, late hours, late suppers, evening exposures, fashionable dressing, etc., the almost certain accompaniments of the vice we are considering. She is surely sacrificing a life of real true happiness for the transient fascinations of unreal enjoyment, pernicious excitement. It may be true, and undoubtedly is the case, that the greater share of the guilt of flirtation lies at the door of the female sex; but there do exist such detestable creature as male flirts. In general, the male flirt is a much less worthy character than the young lady who makes a pastime of flirtation. He is something more than a flirt. In nine cases out of ten, he is a rake as well. His object in flirting is to gratify a mean propensity at the expense of those who are pure and unsophisticated. He is skilled in the arts of fascination and intrigue. Slowly he winds his coils about his victim, and before she is aware of his real character, she has lost her own. Such wretches ought to be punished in a purgatory by themselves, made seven times hotter than for ordinary criminals. Society is full of these lecherous villains. They insinuate themselves into the drawing-rooms of the most respectable families; they are always on hands at social gathering of every sort. They haunt the ball-room the theater, and the church, when they can forward their infamous plans by seeming to be pious. Not infrequently they are well supplied with a stock of pious cant, which they employ on occasion to make an impression. They are the sharks of society, and often seize in their voracious maws the fairest and brightest ornaments of a community. The male flirt is a monster. Every man ought to despise him; and every woman ought to spurn him as a loathsome social leper.

Woman’s Rights.-A woman does not, upon the performance of the marriage ceremony surrender all her personal rights. The law recognizes this fact if her husband beats her, or in any way injures her by physical force, or even by neglect. Why may she not claim protection from other maltreatment as well ? or, at least, why may she not, refuse to lend herself to beastly lust? She remains the proprietor of her own body, though married ; and who is so lost to all sense of justice, equity, and even morality, as to claim that she is under any moral obligation to allow her body to be abused?

Mental Unchastity.-It is vain for a man to suppose himself chaste who allows his imagination to run riot amid scenes of amorous associations. The man whose lips delight in tales of licentiousness, whose eyes feast upon obscene pictures, who is every ready to pervert the meaning of a harmless word or act into uncleanliness, who finds delight in reading vivid portrayals of acts lewdness,-such a one is not a virtuous man. Though he may never have committed an overt act of unchastity, if he cannot pass a handsome female in the street without, in imagination, approaching the secrets of her person, he is but one grade above the open libertine, and is as truly unchaste as the veriest debauchee. Man may not see these mental adulteries, he may not perceive these filthy imaginings; but One sees and notes them. They leave their hideous scars upon the soul. They soil and amr the mind; and as the record of each day of life is photographed upon the books in Heaven, they each appear in bold relief, in all their innate hideousness.