Thus educated, and thus vainly imagining, a large proportion of our boys pass from childhood into youth, with the preconceived idea they soon find apparently confirmed by their own sensations, that it is not good to be alone. Let Kingsley tell us what is but too often the very reasonable result. Lancelot had discovered “a new natural object, including in itself all—more than all yet found beauties and wonders—Woman. What was to be expected? Pleasant things were pleasant, there was no doubt of that, whatever else might be doubtful. He had read Byron by stealth; he had been flogged into reading Ovid and Tibullus, and commanded by his private tutor to read Martial and Juvenal for the improvement of his style. All conversation on the subject of love had been prudishly avoided, as usual, by his parents and teacher. The parts of the Bible which spoke of it had been kept out of his sight. Love had been to him, practically, ground tabooed and carnal. What was to be expected? Just what happened. If woman’s beauty had nothing holy in it, why should his fondness for it? Just what happens every day—that he had to sow his wild oats for himself, and eat the fruit thereof, and the dirt thereof also.”[11] “Here, then,” says Acton, “is our problem: A natural instinct, a great longing, has arisen in a boy’s heart, together with the appearance of the powers requisite to gratify it. Everything, the habits of the world, the keen appetite of youth for all that is new, the example of companions, the pride of health and strength, opportunity, all combine to urge him to give the rein to what seems a natural propensity. The boy does not know that to his immature frame every sexual indulgence is unmitigated evil. He does not think that to his inexperienced mind and heart every illicit pleasure is a degradation, to be bitterly regretted hereafter; a link in a chain that does not need many to be too strong to break.”[12] The only answer to this problem is for the boy to learn to possess his soul in patience, and through example and advice, and earnest, prayerful effort, to compel his own self-control, till he attains that full and complete development of all his powers that distinguishes the man. How small the proportion of all my readers who can lay their hands upon their hearts and say, with perfect truthfulness, that up to the time of reaching their majority they had never, for the sake of selfish or illicit gratification, been guilty of any offence against purity! With these reflections, which are not of a character to make us particularly self-confident or vainglorious, I approach the second chapter of my task. FOOTNOTES: [5] Why Not? A Book for Every Woman. Lee & Shepard, Boston. [6] Dr. Thomas W. Blatchford, of Troy, N. Y., died on the 7th of January, 1866. One of the oldest and most influential members of the American Medical Association, he was _beloved_ by all who knew him. [7] Hints to Young Men on the True Relation of the Sexes. Boston, 1850.