PURITY.
Be chaste. I dare say you know what that means. Whatever bad examples you may have had, you should now and henceforth keep from that destructive vice which God has forbidden in the seventh commandment. It is, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This means, to keep to your own wife, and the wife keep to her own husband. If you break over this bound, you break God’s law. In slavery, this vice or wickedness has not been thought so very bad; and perhaps, in some instances, it may even have been encouraged. But it was wicked then, and it is wicked now. Whatever apologies you may have made for it before, you are now out of the house of bondage, and under the same laws that all are. A woman’s character, married or unmarried, is blasted if she is impure; and in the sight of God an impure man is equally sinful.
All young people should guard against this vice. They have a character to form and to maintain; and how can that be done if this vile habit is indulged? A virtuous character is as precious to a colored woman as it is to any woman. And with regard to men and women both, the Bible says, “Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”