The Crime of Silence

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ...of the night, especially in our large centres of population. The whole influence of our modern city life is calculated to over-stimulate the lower nature; and, unfortunately, the city offers all sorts of opportunities for secret indulgences in vice. This makes cities much more dangerous for the young than the country and the smaller towns. No one knows and no one cares what a lone boy or girl in a great city does, and the worst feature of the dangerous fascinations of all the city's lures from vile sources is that their appeal is strongest, their power to tempt greatest just at the time when young people are struggling with an inner passion, which utterly bewilders and surprises them, especially if they have had no safeguard of knowledge thrown up to protect them. It is the first step that counts, whether on the up or on the down grade. Job tells us that "man is born to evil as the sparks fly upward," and it certainly seems to be the great trouble with many of us that we are more inclined to take the downward than the upward step; that, instead of obeying the call of the higher man and ascending to the heights where purity and blessedness dwell, we are but too ready to listen to the call of the beast and go down to the depths. And oh, it is so fatally easy to yield to the wrong after the first false step! After the first sin it becomes easier and easier to do wrong, until the habit is formed and the protest within becomes fainter and fainter, less and less insistent, until gradually self-respect dies out and the downward course is accelerated. Thousands of women have regretted all their lives the drinking of their first cocktail, or allowing the first kiss, the first embrace, or other familiarity of their male companions. Tens...