Onania: or, the heinous sin of self-pollution and all its frightful consequences (in both sexes) considered with spiritual and physical advice to those who have already injured themselves by this abominable practice.

Date:
1756
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Onania: or, the heinous sin of self-pollution and all its frightful consequences (in both sexes) considered with spiritual and physical advice to those who have already injured themselves by this abominable practice. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    moft great Sinners before they die feel a deep Remorfe, and are torn* ■ itfi t),c bitter Swings of Confcience, upbraiding then, vui their Guilt, and representing it to them in its true Colours, and molt frightful Forms. What Comfort muft a Mara have, in reflecting on the pan: Ac tions of his Life, who, hardly coming to Half the Age he mi^ht reafonably have expected to arrive at, finds himfelf enervated by the Practice of oelf-Pollutign, his Spirits funk', his Body wafted, and his Strength decayed ; in continual Danger of being forced to refign his impure Breath upon the leaft Rigour of the Seafon, or any other fmall Accident ? What Comfort, I fay, muft a Man have, when his Crime, reprefenting itfelf before him in its moft ghaftly Shape, fhall upbraid his Conference, that, by fo many repeated A&s of Murder, he has at hit deft roved himfelf before he is thirty Years of Age, as by my own Experience! have known it the Cafe of feveral ? • If fuch great Misfortunes Happen but feldom, there are other In- firmities that may occafion very difagreeable Reflections. When Perfons of good Eftates, in the Flower of their Age, find themfelves bereft of their Manhood, and con- fciousof their impotence, and the curfed Caufe of it, are forced to decline the moft advantageous Matches, and, without the leaft Hopes of Poflerity, remain the Contempt of others, and a Burden to themfelves; to which, per- haps the Mortification fhall be added, that the Name and Honour of an antieht Family, extinct with themfelves, muft be forever buried in Oblivion, whilft the magnificent Seats, and venerable Structures, of their more virtuous Anceftors, are inherited, or pulled down, by Strangers. OTHERS again, who cannot be faid to die without Offspring, have puny lingering Children, more brought up by Phyfic than Kitchen Diet, which they are forced to leave at fourteen or fifteen Years of Age, perhaps younger,withoutany Probability that they fhall ever come to Maturity: When Perfons of large PofTeffions have no better Views to turn to than thefe, and withal fo much Reafon to lay all the Blame upon themfelves, as the fre- quent Practice of Self-Pollution, in their Youth, can furnifh them with, the Profpeet can be but melan- choly. Some Women likewife, though married to kind