He who does betray the future
for fear of the present should tread timidly upon his Mother Earth lest
he awake her to gape and bury her treacherous son.
Something is known by the general public of the individual consequences
of syphilis. It is known by many, also, that there is such a thing as
hereditary syphilis--babies being born alive but rotted through for
life. Further, it is not at all generally known, though the fact is
established, that of the comparatively few survivors to adult life from
amongst such babies, some may transmit the disease even to the third
generation. There is a school of so-called moralists who regard all this
as the legitimate and providential punishment for vice, even though ten
innocent be destroyed for one guilty. Such moralists, more loathsome
than syphilis itself, may be left in the gathering gloom to the company
of their ghastly creed. Love and man and woman are going forward to the
dawn, and if they inherit from the past no God that is fit to be their
companion, they and the Divine within them will not lose heart.
The public knowledge of syphilis, though far short of the truth, is not
merely so inadequate as that of gonorrh[oe]a.
"No worse than a bad cold" is the kind of lie with which youth is
fooled. The disease may sometimes be little worse than a bad cold in
men, though very often it is far more serious; it may kill, may cause
lasting damage to the coverings of the heart and to the joints, and
often may prevent all possibility of future fatherhood.
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