Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1882-02-14
s.The PeriIs of YOUTH p

The subject of the sermon delivered by Rev.
w. E. Baker, last Sunday night was. ''The
Perils of YOUTH" founded on the text Psalm
cxix: 9-"Wherewiths shall young man cleanse
his way? By taking heed thereto according to
thy word"
Though it is true now he said, that the large
majority of church members are females. yet
this was not the case in the old testam ent
times, and even in the earlier ages of the chris
tian era for then the men predominated in
piety-and in heather lands at this day, the
women are more degraded than the men. Boys
have as good hearts naturally as the girls, and
souls as precious, and with the same care and
training they would be as pure and pious as
the girls; but the boys are given over as almost
hopeless cases from their childhood, and chris
tians do not exert as much effort in their be-
half as in that of the girls and this is the first
peril to which they are subjected.
The boys are allowed to run at large, night as
well as day. and to witness vice, indulge in
profanity, and visit scenes of riot and dissipa-
ton, which cannot but result in corrupting
their souls, whilst the girls are sedulOusly
guarded with argus eyes. carefully protected,
tenderly restrained, and kept strangers to all
manner of vice, and the result is that their
souls are kept pure, and are better prepared to
receive religious impressions, and to be attract
ed by the beauties of holiness, and hence they
are more pious, and more of them church
members
Such are the temptations to which boys are
subjected that it's better not to be born at all
than to be born boy. This is true. and would
be even If extended to include both sexes) So
ciety allows boys and the young men TO do
many things with fmpunity for which girls and
young ladies would be exiled from the social
paradise, and would be branded with disgrace.
If girls were to collect in numbers in front of
the churches to observe and make remarks a.
bout the young men as they passed in or out of
them, they would find their characters consid-
cred doubtful; and If they used profane lam
guage, engaged in carousals, visited places of
dissipation, and participated in vice, as boys
and men do, they would find that true ofthem-
selves that papa has ungallantly said Of their
sex-"that women have no characters at all"
Society protects females with wall of fire.
butt allows the males to range the fields of
worldliness without restraint, and they are full
of perils and pitfalls.
Nothing but careful training can keep them
pure and nothing but the power of religion
can prevent them from being corrupted, not
only by the vices of society. but their business
vOcatlons in life for even these dull the sensi-
bilities of their souls anu corrupt them.- and
unfit them to receive proper religious nnpres7
sions, and hence there are comparatively SO
few men in the churches. Some of his remarks
recalled to our mind the remark of the late
John Loff1and, the milford Bard" Of Balti-
more, that there were many more good women
than good men, and that there were nine wo-
men in heaven to one man but that when wo-
men were bad, they were worse than men-that
when they fell. they were devils incarnate. He
seemed to think of women as bill Arp" of
Virginians when he said, that when Vir-
ginian falls, he falls fur and heauy."