They should be guided by the finest and holiest thought, for _they are the elect angels of God to the physical life of man_. But what is done with them? Oh, sad! The parents have been led to think it is not quite the thing to talk to their children of these things and the child has not developed sufficient brain activity to reason about them and to understand them and translate them into elements of beauty and sacred service. Here the young life stands like a beautiful deer before the on-coming prairie fire, it feels the tremendous swish of the flood of feelings and physical life, like the hissing of the flames behind the deer. If only the deer can reach the lake for which he pants and swim out into its cool depths he will be safe; and if the child could creep, as it were, into the heart of father or mother and hear glorious, tender, holy words spoken of this flood of feelings, which is all so strange to it, and which sweeps up through its being like a storm in the forest, and have an intelligence translate them into God’s own beauty of life, what a joy it would be! When I see the mighty army of beautiful youth standing unprotected and in ignorance of the great danger before them, with no one to teach them and the very parents that gave them being, indifferent, is it any wonder that my heart cries out, Oh, sad? IGNORANT PARENTS――RUINED CHILDREN What usually happens if one of these elfs of human life has the temerity to speak to father or mother about these strange impulses? A blush of shame, perhaps, and the expression, “You better be thinking of something else,” or “You should be ashamed to be talking of such things,” ends the conversation. A lady in high station said to the writer, when talking upon this subject, “I went to my mother a few days before my marriage and asked her to tell me about the marriage state. My mother was a good woman, but all she said was, ‘You will find out soon enough.’” God forgive and pity the ignorance of such mothers! Rebuffed at home, what happens? This child goes out upon the streets and from vulgar playmates, older than it is, through vulgar stories and suggestions, gets a base and lewd conception of all this in his or her life which God meant for beauty, for His glory and the glory of the race, or what is almost as bad, remains in stupid and dangerous ignorance till some vile octopus throws his tentacles about this dream of beauty and sparkling, buoyant youth, and the end of the tragedy is a ruined life, or what more often happens, two of these ignorant young people get together and because of their ignorance commit those acts against chastity which bring ruin and disgrace. “But,” you say, “such cases as you depict above are the exception and not the rule and I am not afraid of my child being caught in such ways.” YOUR CHILD IS NOT SAFE