Positive Signs.—The absolutely positive signs of solitary vice are very few. Of course the most certainly positive of all is detection in the act. So… - John Harvey Kellogg

Corruption in Schools.-Says Dr. Acton, “I cannot venture to print the accounts patients have given me for what they have seen or even been drawn into at schools. I would fain hope that such abominations are things of the past.” The entrance of a single corrupt boy into a school which may have been previously pure-though such schools must be extremely rare-will speedily corrupt almost the entire membership. The evil infection spreads more rapidly than the contagion of smallpox or yellow fever, and it is scarcely less fatal. This danger exists not in public or city schools alone, but in the most select and private schools. A father who had kept his two sons under the care of a private governess for several years, and then placed them in a small school taught by a lady, and composed of a few small children from the most select families, was greatly astonished when informed by a physician that his sons showed symptoms of the effects of self0abuse. He was totally incredulous, but an investigation showed that they had already practices the vile habit for several years, having learned it of an infantile school-mate. We are acquainted with one instance in which a primary school in a secluded and select community was nearly broken up by the introduction of this vile habit through a corrupt student. Many a watchful teacher has seen the light of growing intelligence suddenly dim and wane in the eye of his favorite student just when he was giving the most promise of developing unusual talents in literature, mathematics, or some one of the natural of physical sciences, and has been compelled to watch the devastating influence of this deadly upas tree that often claims the best and fairest human flowers as its victims.

Testimony of Eminent Authors.—Says a medical writer, "In my opinion, neither the plague, nor war, nor small-pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of onanism; it is the destroying element of civilized societies, which is constantly in action, and gradually undermines the health of a nation." "The sin of self-pollution, which is generally considered to be that of Onan, is one of the most destructive evils ever practiced by fallen man. In many respects it is several degrees worse than common whoredom, and has in its train more awful consequences, though practiced by numbers who would shudder at the thought of criminal connection with a prostitute.”

Travelers among the North American Indians have been struck with the almost entire absence of that abandonment to vice which might be expected in a race uninfluenced by the moral restraints of Christianity. When first discovered in their native wilds, they were free from both the vices and the consequent diseases of civilization. This fact points unmistakably to the conclusion that there must be something in the refinements and perversions of civilized life which is unfavorable to chastity, notwithstanding all the restraints which religion and the conventionalisms of society impose. Can we find such influences? Yes; they abound on every hand and leave their blight in most unwelcome places, oft unsuspected, even, till the work of ruin is complete.