But now, let us try another supposition. Let us suppose that your darling boy of eighteen should come to you again and say, "Mother dear, some of the boys are going to spend this evening in a brothel, and I have decided to go along." Would you think that was the most absurd thing you had ever heard in all your born days? Or would you answer, "Yes, of course, my boy; that is what I had in mind when I made you give up the girl you loved"? No, you would not answer that. But here is the vital fact--it doesn't matter what you would answer, for you would never have a chance to answer. When a mother's darling wants to get married, he comes and asks his mother's blessing; but never does a mother's darling ask a blessing before he goes with the other boys to a brothel. He just goes. Maybe he borrows the money from some other fellow, and next day tells you he went to a theater. Or maybe he picks up some poor man's daughter on the street, and takes her into the park, or up on the roof of a tenement. Some such thing he does, to find satisfaction for an instinct which you in your worldly wisdom or your heavenly piety spurn and ridicule. I do not wish to exaggerate. If you are an exceptionally wise and tactful mother, you may keep the confidence of your boy, and guide him day by day through his temptations and miseries, and keep him chaste. But the more you try that, the more apt you will be to come to my conclusion, that late marriage is a crime against the race; the more aware you will be of the danger, either that his boy friends may break him down, or that some lewd woman may come to his bedroom in the night-time. Never will you be able to be quite sure that he is not lying to you, because of his shame, and the pain he cannot bear to inflict upon you. Never will you be quite sure that he is not hiding some cruel disease, sneaking off to some quack who takes his money and leaves him worse than before--until finally he shoots off his head, as happened to a nephew of an old and dear friend of mine.