DEVELOPMENT OF OUR YOUNG WOMEN. 219 



ness of manner, a shade more of dignity, perhaps, replaces the 

 thoughtless buoyancy of unknowing youth ; but the fine edges of 

 inherent modesty are never dulled by scientific study pursued in 

 the interest of bettering humanity. 



A broad knowledge of the temptation to break the seventh 

 commandment, surrounding our youth — a knowledge of the aw- 

 ful mental and physical suffering induced even in childhood by 

 the violation of this commandment — not only places our young 

 women in a position to be of the greatest practical aid to their 

 brothers, but also gives them a sympathetic approach to that 

 broad charity which Christ himself showed to the woman taken 

 in adultery — that sad, sweet story which has come down to us 

 through the centuries, bringing comfort to the hopeless and 

 fallen, stimulating the compassion of the fortunate and pitiless. 

 How many of us, I wonder, after being touched by the " sweet 

 reasonableness " of this lesson, in actuality say to the contrite : 

 " Neither do I condemn thee ; go and sin no more " ! 



Ultra-innocence condemns too severely or condones too readily. 

 It is incapable of inquiring into the general causes which pro- 

 duce from time to time certain disastrous individual effects. As a 

 case in point, I know of a young woman brought up in the con- 

 ventional manner in utter ignorance of the magnitude and nearness 

 of this form of sin. Left, later, with the responsibility of bring- 

 ing up two fatherless boys, shrinking from touching on these 

 matters, she relied upon the refinements of home to be a suffi- 

 cient protection against wrong living. In her happy confidence 

 she said, " I would rather cut my throat than speak to my boys 

 of these matters, or show them that I could think them untrust- 

 worthy here." I saw her later, when those boys, sent early into 

 the world, unfortified as to its temptations, had fallen into sins 

 whose shame must follow them all the rest of their days. Had 

 she known of the over-prominence of this sin, would she not have 

 worked as well as trusted ? 



On the other hand, I know well a young girl left motherless, 

 with the care of three younger brothers. Instead of dexterously 

 parrying the questions natural to young children, she took them 

 to her heart, unfolding to them gradually the mysteries of their 

 being, watching carefully over their reading and associations, 

 meeting their perplexities at every point, and warning them of 

 the strain of temptation to which all men must be sooner or later 

 exposed ; as they grew older, enlisting their sympathies in the 

 work of helping others, getting them to meet her naturally on 

 her own high plane, and finally gaining their hearty co-operation 

 in this work. Do you think she would have been able to do this 

 had she in her earlier days, before this responsibility came to her, 

 "dwelt outside the current in which such subjects are spoken 



