The tendencies of civilization must be studied in our chief cities. The rapid growth of large towns during the last half-century and the comparatively stationary condition of the country population show where the full and complete results of those principles which are most active in our civilization must be sought for. London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, New York, are not exceptions, but examples. They show the mature results towards which smaller towns are tending. Those who live in quiet country districts often flatter themselves that the rampant vice of large towns has nothing to do with villages, small communities, and the country at large. This is a delusion. The condition of large towns has a direct relation to the country. In these focal points of civilization we observe, as examples of sexual relationship, two great institutions existing side by side--two institutions in direct antagonism--viz., Marriage and Prostitution, the latter steadily gaining ground over the former. In examining these two institutions, the larger signification of licentiousness must be given to prostitution, applicable to men and women. Marriage is the recognised union of two, sharing responsibilities, providing for and educating a family. Prostitution is the indiscriminate union of many, with no object but physical gratification, with no responsibilities, and no care for offspring. It is essential to study the effects, both upon men and women and upon mankind at large, of this great fact of licentiousness, if we are to appreciate the true laws of sexual union in their full force, and the aims, importance, and wide bearing of Moral Education. We shall only here refer to its effects upon the young. We may justly speak of licentiousness as an institution. It is considered by a large portion of society as an essential part of itself. It possesses its code of written and unwritten laws, its sources of supply, its various resorts, from the poorest hovel to the gaudiest mansion, its endless grade, from the coarsest and most ignorant to the refined and cultivated. It has its special amusements and places of public resort. It has its police, its hospitals, its prisons, and it has its literature. The organized manner in which portions of the press are engaged in promoting licentiousness, reaching, not thousands, but millions of readers, is a fact of weighty importance. The one item of vicious advertisements falls into distinct categories of corruption. Growing, therefore, as it does, constantly and rapidly, licentiousness becomes a fact of primary importance in society. Its character and origin must be studied by all who take an interest in the growth of the human race, and who believe in the maintenance of marriage, and the family, as the foundation of human progress.