He is young, eager, filled with that excess of activity in blood and nerve, with which Nature always nourishes her fresh creative efforts. At this important stage of life, when self-control, hygiene, mental and moral influence, are of vital importance, the fatal results of his weakened will and a corrupt society, ensue. Opportunity tempts his wavering innocence, thoughtless or vicious companions undertake to ‘form’ him, laugh at his scruples, sneer at his conscience, excite him with allurements. Or a deadly counsel meets him--meets him from those he is bound to respect. The most powerful morbid stimulant that exists--a stimulant to every drop of his seething young blood--is advised viz., the resort to prostitutes. When this fatal step has been taken, when the natural modesty of youth and the respect for womanhood is broken down, when he has broken with the restraints of family life, with the voice of Conscience, with the dictates of religion, a return to virtue is indeed difficult--nay, often impossible. He has tasted the physical delights of sex, separated from its more exquisite spiritual joys. This unnatural divorce degrades whilst it intoxicates him. Having tasted these physical pleasures, often he can no more do without them than the drunkard without his dram. He ignorantly tramples under foot his birthright of rich, compound, infinite human love, enthralled by the simple limited animal passion. His Will is no longer free. He has destroyed that grand endowment of Man, that freedom of the youthful Will, which is the priceless possession of innocence and of virtue, and has subjected himself to the slavery of lust. He is no longer his own master; he is the servant of his passions. Those whose interest it is to retain their victim employ every art of drink, of dress, of excess, to urge him on. The youthful eagerness of his own nature lends itself to these arts. The power of resistance is gradually lost, until one glance of a prostitute’s eye passing in the street, one token of allurement, will often overturn his best resolutions and outweigh the wisest counsel of friends! The physiological ignorance and moral blindness which actually lead some parents to provide a mistress for their sons, in the hope of keeping them from houses of public debauchery, is an effort as unavailing as it is corrupt. Place a youth on the wrong course instead of on the right one, lead him into the career of sensual indulgence and selfish disregard for womanhood instead of into manly self-control, and the parent has, by his own act, launched his child into the current of vice, which rapidly hurries him beyond his control.