A Solemn Appeal - James White

indulge with the opposite sex; and have known
hundreds ruined by it before they entered their
teens.' 'I have been consulted in cases almost
without number by those on the brink of ruin who
sought relief from the consequences of this vice. I
know it by its infallible signs, and go where I will,
in the busy street, in the lecture-room, in the
family, they throng me like leaves in autumn.' "Dr.
Woodward says: 'I have never conversed with a lad
twelve years of age who did not know all about the
practice, and understand the language used to
describe it.'
"William C. Woodbridge says: 'This solitary,
but fatal, vice is spreading desolation throughout
our schools and families, unnoticed and unknown.'
"E. M. R. Wells, a teacher in Boston, says:
'Thousands of pureminded and amiable boys and
young men are undermining their physical
constitutions, and prospectively corrupting their
souls,by a pleasurable, and to many of them
innocent, gratification.'
104