old-saucy, dirty mouthed and indolent. Such individuals, and every generation furnishes a crop, cannot be expected to do more than drift with the wind, tide and crowd, no matter in what direction they may be impelled.

The old are not always friends to the young. It is a difficult thing for those who have grown old to be in full sympathy with, and heartily encourage, their juniors. The man who gracefully welcomes his young rival with: "You must increase, but I must decrease," shows a rare martyrdom. A frog has no regard for a tadpole, having ceased to be one himself, and most men are similarly constituted. Old men, as a rule, distrust the capabilities, opinions and methods of young men.

But few children receive from their fathers the benefits of a wholesome discipline and training in ordinary business affairs. The wealth and wealth producing interests of America are, largely in the hands of men who have passed the prime of life. These men represent the past rather than the present, or rapidly unfolding future. It is too often the case that when a man dies, his children, for the first time, obtain an insight into the details of his business. Much of the inherited wealth, in consequence, proves an injury instead of a blessing. The eagle stirs her nest, bears her young upon her wings and teaches them to

fly; mother goose gives her goslings swimming lessons in the nearest puddle, but thousands of young men are required to enter upon their life's work, and fail and go astray, because selfish and jealous greed, and not the Golden Rule, has been their school-master.

Multitudes of young men are led astray by evil companionships. Boys are taught profanity and vulgarity, taught to smoke and drink, taught personal defilement and licentiousness at a very early age. A blunt but most excellent man who spent his life among young men said: "The average boy of twelve is ruined." Thousands are dosed during infancy with soothing syrup, paregoric and other opiates and alcoholics, thus forever perverting their appetites. Vulgarity and obscenity circulate in the streets and among school children, and wherever boys and young men crowd together these things, as a rule, are freely indulged. Boys form bad habits and practice vice, indeed are often enslaved, before they know that such things are injurious and wrong.

Much of the literature of the present day is a curse to young men. Vulgarly illustrated periodicals and immoral fiction do incalculable harm. The great metropolitan daily newspapers keep up a constant panorama of crime, murder, conjugal lapses, prize fights and sensational exaggerations. The Sunday news

paper is the worst of all, and it is more read by young men than any week-day issue. The Sunday newspaper is the Church's worst enemy. Many of those published seem to know no propriety except what the law demands. Such literature destroys the finer qualities of the mind, and creates morbid imaginations which almost inevitably lead to immoral habits.

The New York Society for the Suppression of vice during a single year seized 63,139 pounds of obscene books, 836,096 obscene pictures, 1,577,441 circulars, songs, etc., and 32,883 papers, and arrested over 2,000 persons for being engaged therein. The names and addresses of 1,102,620 persons were seized. Dealers in this class of literature use every means to get the names of boys and young men, and the business they do is tremendous. Says Mr. Anthony Comstock: "The degrading of the youth of this nation by the sickening details of loathsome crimes, the horrors of blood and thunder stories, the dime and half-dime novel and paper, and the foul oozings of defiled minds in many weekly papers, to say nothing of the nameless books and papers, is one of the highest crimes that can be committed against the future of this nation. These brutal assaults upon the native innocence of youth and children are laying burdens upon the rising generation which will be grievous to the future."

"A perpetual assault is made upon the cita

del of thought. Secret hours are spent dreaming over the story of vice and crime. The receptive mind of youth drinks in sensational, foul and criminal story with an avidity that is fearful to contemplate. To those who have seen the results of these worse than sting of asps, no surprise is felt, when in after years is heard the moan of the aged person praying to be delivered from the sins of his youth."

The millions of quack medicine pamphlets distributed by "Private Disease" and "Lost Manhood" charlatans, inflict upon the minds of young men an exceedingly vile impression. They often create imaginary diseases similar to those they are advertised to cure. There are many books written upon immoral subjects, ostensibly to teach moral lessons, but most of them have been written simply to sell. Nearly all of them are to young men. Some of these books are most excellent but others are highly injurious. It is almost impossible to profitably moralize upon immoral subjects. "It is only in exceptional natures that familiarity with vice increases the horror of it." It is impossible to build up a chaste and manly character by parading sensuality, even in pious language under sanctimonious headlines. Rot is rot, and it is never more rotten than when it is sandwiched between religious quotations and antiquated poetry.

The discussion of the mysteries of sex, and of the transmission of life are subjects which, though important and sacred, have polluted more minds than any other one thing. Knowledge of these matters comes to ninety-nine boys in a hundred clothed in language as low and vile as the most depraved carnality can. conceive. It would seem that the entire subject of sex and human biology has been handed over to the powers of evil to lead boys and young men astray. The influence of morbid teachings is blighting to the minds of the young and, in consequence, thousands are not allowed to indulge an unmolested chaste thought nor experience an untainted joy.

Parents are criminally guilty in neglecting to instruct children regarding these matters. Every father and mother should take their children into their confidence, and at a proper age, reveal to them the mysteries of sex, and the physiological laws pertaining thereto. They should not wait until it is too late, but do it early. This would prevent morbid curiosity, and give to a knowledge of these subjects the force of chastity and sacredness. I wish to here solemnly declare that if parents would intelligently and thoroughly do their duty regarding this matter a revolution in morals would ensue. When will boys and young men cease to learn of these things through