Poor, poor remorseful, unhappy wife and mother, my heart aches for you as you realize the sowing and weep over the prospective reaping. Long since you have grown cold in your Christian experience. You realize it today as never before. You wonder what you are going to do about it? The older children have outgrown your jurisdiction. Mary is running with company you do not approve of, to balls, theaters, and other demoralizing places; wanting finery you are not able to afford, although you do your best. You can't get any help from her; for, when not otherwise engaged, she is absorbed in novel-reading. It does no good to complain to her father; in fact, that seems only to make a bad matter worse. You haven't an atom of her confidence. When she was younger, you never really encouraged her to give it, and now, though but fifteen, she laughs at you because she thinks that she knows so much and that you know so little. All her confidence is given to those you do not approve of, and you are dreading the outcome, the inevitable. Then there's thirteen-year-old Tom. While you sat up mending his torn coat the other night after he had gone to bed, you found some tobacco and cigarette paper in his pocket. When you quietly asked him next morning what it meant, he only laughed and replied, "That's nothing. All us kids smoke nowadays. _It won't hurt us any more than it will father. He smokes._" You are wondering how you can find out whether he has contracted any more of his father's bad habits, and while searching his room, you come across a dirty pack of playing-cards hidden in the back part of one of the bureau drawers. Awful vision of the future of these two older children is yours as you ponder what you can do to subvert the growing evil in your home. You indulge much in vain regrets--vain, indeed, so far as you are concerned. But listen, mother--you who would lay down your life to spare Mary from disgrace and eventually an ignominious death; you who love Tom so dearly you would give all the world were it yours to make him understand that the habits he is contracting lead only to impaired health and disgrace, ofttimes to imprisonment, sometimes to the scaffold. It is not too late yet, distressed mother, particularly with the two younger children, who are just beginning to ask leading questions. These you must, _you must answer_, so that your little son and daughter will find no need of inquiring of other children concerning the beautiful plan of life, which should never be imparted to them by any other than you yourself. "What must I do? What can I do?" you ask. Listen. I'm going to tell you.