Year: 1875

duce vi evil. si


Mrs. Moulton is only one of a
large class of women whose lack OF
knowledge in human nature leads them
to feel that men, in an extremity OF
distress, need to be petted and kissed
like children. A goodly portion of
them go into hospital service during
war excitements, and do an irnmeasur-
able amount Of nischief. In my own
experience among thousands of men, to
whom l have sustained an intimate
personal relationship as helper in the
hour of great distress-often as their
only hope for life, or guide to that fu-
ture hope beyond the tomb,-I have
met but one who seemed to need kiss.
ing. | left him at midnight, with the
hope that some day he might need
wooden leg with good knee joint,
and next morning found his place va
cant. [ got key aud screw driver,
and followed him to the "dead house."
let myself in, unscrewed the coffin lid,
and removed it to see if be was really
dead. There could be no doubt of it;
and, as | looked at the fragment of a
body which had held his soul for some
weeks, end at the boyish face, with it's
haunting look of patient heroism, left
kiss with some tears upon it before
replaced the lid I knew then that
the touch of woman lips would never
call unholy fire into the chilled veins,
and not one of the other four men in
the room would be injured in their
moral life by my evidence of weakness,
Tor they were all screwed fast in their
collins; and reflection teaches me to
believe that did all the kissing re-
quired of me-all that could have been
OF use to the men I was anxious to
serve. Yet God knows I loved them
as my own flesh and blood-loved them
so that, if by kissing I could have
saved some of them an hour of that
terrible pain, [ would have covered
with kisses, not only their faces, but
also their hands and feet; but no ca
ress that might be construed as the ex-
preston of or invitation to love born
of passion ever should be permitted be-
tween persons of opposite sexes, whose
duty it is to be friends, helpers, and
nothing more.


We can all see the impropriety of
verbal declarations of passion in such
cases, and how much more unsafe any
act bearing such interpretation! Where
ever men and women meet in friendly
or business relations, one or both must
be constantly mindful of the difference
and dangers of sex-must guard look,
words, and actions, and in no moment
of overwrought sympathy can the stern
barriers of decorum be safely broken
down. Before kissing Mr.. Beecher,
Mrs. Moulton should have waited until
he had taken that powder, until it had
done its work, and the undertaken had
the body ready for burial. Only in
his coffin is it safe for even ga section
of the Day of Judgment" in the shape
OF woman, to kiss any one man in a
thousand. There seems to be no room
for doubt that she is, or was, perfect
ly upright woman; but her childish
act shows the atmosphere in which
these men have been living-shows the
unconscious steps by which they passed
from virtue to vice, ought to
awaken all lovers of virtue to more
careful guard of her outside defenses.
Chastity is not the natural condition of
the race, but the very opposite, and it
can only be secured by ages of culture
and constant vigilance. 1t is a some
thing to be acquired and maintained
through grace and watchfulness; and
those who open doors through which
the enemy enters and causes the fall of
others, are responsible for their negli-
gence and mistaken confidence.