Anointing

“ In what way is anointing prohibited? It is forbidden to rub with oil, anything whatsoever, if one intends [anointing] for enjoyment. But if it is to remove scum, it is permitted. And it is not even necessary to say that because of health, too, [it is permitted] , for example when he has boils on his head. ”

“ Or, as bringing out the same truth of the gradual progression of sin, notice how Ananias apparently first thought over the sin in his own heart: then spoke of it to his wife, and agreed with her that it could be done: and then how together they carried it out. Thought, speech, action: how often are these the successive links by which a man is led on from one degree of sin to another? The lesson is surely to resist at the very outset: so much depends upon the first step. We must not give place to even the first thought of evil: nor listen to the tempter's whisper, whisper he ever so softly. ”

“ If the evil has gone on for several years, there will be a general unhealthy appearance, of a character so marked as to enable an experienced observer at once to detect the cause. In the case of onanists especially there is a peculiar rank odor emitted from the body, by which they may be readily distinguished. One striking peculiarity of all these patients is, that they cannot look a man in the face! ”

“ Ever and anon, after his collapses into the petty and the shameful, he rose up again, and, stubborn in spirit, strong in his power to start afresh, set out once more in his male pride of being to fulfil the hidden passion of his spirit. ”

“ Behold how these malignants keep guard. When they should be watchful, they are eating and drinking, or slumbering on their posts. They have broken their bridge to hinder us, yet have they foolishly laid down a plank whereby we may pass over and destroy them. Of a truth this is the Lord's doing. He has delivered them into our hands. Thou, corporal, art chosen for the work. Take with thee a score of musketeers on whom thou canst best rely. Cross over the plank as quickly as thou mayest, and possess thyself of the church. ”

“ I believe that onanism has changed the inborn feeling into a burning passion. I might long ago have put an end to my misery, since I have no fear of death, and since in religion—which, strange to say, has not departed from my impure heart—I find no warning against suicide. But the consciousness that I am not alone responsible, and that a worm has nipped my whole life in the bud,—a certain comfort that has sprung up of late out of indescribable suffering,—leads me to see whether comparative happiness in life cannot be obtained on an entirely new basis: something which fills the whole heart. ”

“ We find them kneeling, standing, just alighting, often with the wind of swift movement still in their garments and almost always on the left hand of the picture, with the Virgin in the place of honour on the right. The Annunciation, the announcing of the near approach of ‘the dayspring from on high,’ which was to bring light and joy and freedom to a world groping in the twilight of an imperfect revelation, was an incident which particularly appealed to minds rejoicing in the intellectual liberation of the Renaissance. ”

“ Day by day his passion has grown stronger, although with every wind her manner toward him seems to vary,—now kind, to-morrow cold, anon so full of treacherous fancies and disdainful glances as to make him wonder whether in truth it is hatred and not love for her that fills his heart to overflowing. ”

“ If the resources of nature had been known to those who thus abandon themselves to despair; if they had witnessed, as we have, the rapidity with which the health is restored, 63 when onanism is arrested, if they had believed in the healing power of time, they would have seen that their pains might disappear, their strength might have been restored, and they might have enjoyed a long and happy life. The following case will teach onanists not to despair. ”

“ When I stated before that it might be lack of satisfaction which breaks up the autoerotic ring of the displaced sexual activity transferred to the body itself, and thus opens wider fields of culture, I did not mention that this loosely closed ring of the displaced onanistic activity could be much more firmly closed, when man makes the other great discovery, that of true onanism. ”

“ He lives alone with his sister, the sweetest creature that ever has breathed the air of earth—alone with her, in the dwelling full of light and silence, as in a prayer, a consecration. Now, imagine one that unconsciously drinks poison, a philter, I know not what impure thing, which poisons his blood and corrupts his thoughts—suddenly, while his soul is at peace. ”

“ We boldly proclaim that the roues among boys outnumber the onanists by thousands, and that, destructive and revolting as is the latter vice, it is even more tolerable to contemplate than the other. The one, if persevered in, must reveal itself; the other keeps secret its hidden transactions. The one wrecks body and mind; the other grows and fattens to invest the subtlest of demons. ”

“ But anon there comes a trouble o'er her face, like as when a little wind doth run across a gray pool at eventide, and her lips begin to tremble, like as though some red flower a-growing on th' bank was shaken by 't, and her eyes all full o' woe, like th' eyes o' some dumb thing as cannot word its sorrow; and all at once she falls upon her knees, and thence upon her forehead on the ground, and afterwards to her whole length, with her strong hands grasping th' flowers and grass on either side o' her, and tearing them up with th' crackling noise that a horse makes when 't grazes. ”

“ Familiarity with, and investigation of Spiritualism, proves beyond all cavil, that while thousands of all other sorts of debauchees claim to reappear and manifest, yet that not one single Onanist has ever been known to demonstrate. They are Dead!—just as all such transgressors must and will inevitably die—soul and body, unless they turn right about and begin the salvatory life as recommended in this and other works by the same author. ”

“ Because he hath seen in a vision such a man coming to him, to restore him to his sight; and Ananias's coming to him must answer his dream, for it was of God (v. 12) : He hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias, and just such a man as thou art, coming in seasonably for his relief, and putting his hand on him that he might receive his sight. Now this vision which Paul had may be considered, [1.] As an immediate answer to his prayer, and the keeping up of that communion with God which he had entered into by prayer. ”

“ Annunciation is the very last place under the sun. In other towns in Italy the people lie around quietly and wait for you to ask them a question or do some overt act that can be charged for—but in Annunciation they have lost even that fragment of delicacy; they seize a lady’s shawl from a chair and hand it to her and charge a penny; they open a carriage door, and charge for it—shut it when you get out, and charge for it; they help you to take off a duster—two cents; brush your clothes and make them worse than they were before—two cents; smile upon you—two cents ”

“ This fact may be remarked, whatever may have been the cause of derangement: for many individuals become affected with onanistic satyriasis, because they are imbecile or idiotic. Finally, idiocy may be the effect and cause of onanism. Sometimes the disease appears first, sometimes the habit—but as soon as they exist they strive continually to increase, and we are unable to say which of the two exercises the stronger influence on the other. ”

“ Nor can educated man so believe, for that way madness lies, and he who dwells long and closely upon this unutterable dogma, anon himself feels the first flickering of the undying flame. It scorches, not his body, but his brain, and a lunatic asylum presently shuts him from a sane world unless medical aid quickly brings healthy relief. ”

“ We are not unfamiliar with stories of children of noble, perhaps of royal, descent, who have been abducted and brought up among people of low tastes and habits. But ever and anon, in gesture or inclination or bent of life, the blood shows itself, and to an attentive eye tells of the gentler and loftier sphere from which it came. ”

“ If the venereal 30 passion be equally developed in the two sexes, why is onanism more common in males than in females, notwithstanding certain conditions ought to produce a contrary state of things? And farther do not many wives yield themselves to the caresses of their husbands, without desire and without enjoyment? and yet this indifference does not prevent conception, for the sensation of love is not with them, as with the male, an indispensable condition of the work of generation. ”

“ How often, also, does he refrain from asking necessary questions, for fear of wounding the modesty of the young patient, of teaching him a thing of which perhaps he is ignorant, or at least of exciting in him a dangerous curiosity! Finally how frequently are his doubts removed by the art with which those who indulge in onanism, even when young, know how to conceal a habit at which they blush in secret. ”

“ Those that boast of good works they never did, or promise good works they never do, or make the good works they do, more or better than really they are, come under the guilt of Ananias's lie; which it concerns us all to dread the thought of. [2.] He told this lie to the Holy Ghost. It was not so much to the apostles, as to the Holy Ghost in them, that the money was brought, and that was said, which was said, v. 4. Thou hast not lied unto men, not to men only, not to men chiefly, though the apostles be but men; but thou hast lied unto God. ”

“ Hundreds of times I have said to myself that, in order to have a normal sexual sense, it would be necessary for me, first of all, to overcome my irresistible passion for onanism,—a practice so repugnant to my æsthetic feeling. ”

“ This cause of disease is often entirely overlooked even by medical men, either from false notions of delicacy, or because their attention has not been drawn by fearful experience to cases which are ascribable merely to onanism. The patient is unconscious of his danger, and perseveres in his vicious habit—the physician treats him symptomatically, and death soon closes the scene. ”

“ By a sort of intoxication, a species of madness, resulting from the severity of his sufferings, he rushed blindly into new and ever more cruel and senseless torments; aggravating and complicating his miserable state in a thousand ways; passing from perversion to perversion, from aberration to aberration, without being able to hold back or to stop for one moment in his giddy descent. He seemed to be devoured by an inextinguishable fever, the heat of which made all the germs of human lust lying dormant in the hidden depths of his being flourish and grow big. ”

“ Anon she dances in mad glee, and next her arms are solemnly stretched upward in grotesque similitude to one in prayer. When she is hungry, she will, one by one, take off those weedy trophies from her back and feed upon them. ”

“ I tapped it.
"Only three persons know of your misbehavior last night," I said. "If
you ever breathe it to a soul that you soiled that child by your touch,
the next time I get hold of you it will not be your nose: it will be
your neck!" ”

“ When onanism confronts the physician as a symptom it does so frequently under the symbol of secret pilfering, or crafty imposition, which always signifies the concealed fulfilment of a forbidden wish. ”

“ He glanced at their disfigured faces.
“Nay, what the devil have you got yourselves up this way for?” he exclaimed, and they began to dance again, like vain children when overmuch notice is taken of them. “Let's begin, let's begin!” they cried, and already some had set their lanterns down before the furnace-doors. ”

“ This swelling is attended with a painful feeling of anxiety, which exists in these unfortunates at other periods of the day, and impels them to avoid society. They are more disposed to sorrow than to joy—that is, the news of an unfortunate event brings with it more sorrow than that of a happy event causes pleasure. In them, as in onanists, there is a want of intelligence; they are stupid; natural sleep does not refresh them; the memory and sight are particularly debilitated. And this is the state of things, until the patient becomes affected with phthisis. ”

“ One may not anoint a part of the body any more than the whole body. But if one is sick, or has an itch, he may anoint without apprehension. The disciples of Manasseh taught: A woman may wash her hand in water, and present bread to the children, without apprehension. ”

“ I have hung up my heart—both Catholic and Pagan—as an ex-voto between the obelisk of the Trinità and the column of the Conception.'
She laughed as she spoke. A sonnet to this suspended heart rose instantly to his lips, but he did not give it utterance, for he was in no mood to continue their conversation in this light vein of false sentiment, which broke the sweet spell she had been weaving about him. He was silent therefore. ”

“ Onanism, though called the solitary vice, is essentially gregarious in its origin. It is, indeed, by unrestrained intercourse with each other that boys are taught and encouraged to pursue this destructive practice. ”

“ Then he recognised that his thoughts were morbid. By an effort of will he put them aside, and sat for a while listening to the faint creakings and tickings and rappings within his panelling.... If only he could have married her!... But he couldn't. Her face had risen before him again as he had seen it on the stairs, drawn with pain and ugly and swollen with tears. ”