ul is bewildered, not knowing which
to heed. Surely nurture is needed, for the choices of Adolescence are in
all probability the choices of eternity.

2. These are the years of the greatest susceptibility to influence.

Everything that comes to the life now has an impelling force that it
did not have in childhood. Life is in a state of unstable equilibrium,
and a touch may move it. The influence of one book, of one friend, of
one hasty word of criticism or passing word of encouragement may
determine the future of a soul.

3. During this period habits become permanent.

The pathways traced through childhood and adolescence become settled,
the cells gradually lose power to change, and by the close of
Adolescence, character is practically determined, unless a Divine power
"makes all things new."

4. The influence of heredity is strongly felt during the early part of
Adolescence.

A child may be defrauded of his inheritance in stocks and bonds and
estates, but the bequest of tendencies to which his parents and
grandparents and the long line back have made him heir, can not be
diverted.

There is danger of over-emphasizing the doctrine of heredity and
lessening the sense of personal responsibility for conduct. There is
also danger of minimizing it, and consequently failing to give the help
that many a life needs in its effort to overcome an evil inheritance.

Heredity means simply a pull upon the life in a certain direction,
because of the way those before have lived. It is easier to climb
upward, if "the hands of twenty generations are reached down from the
heights to help, than as if they reached up from below to drag down."
But whatever the inherited tendencies, any life may have the "antithetic
heredity," which is a part of its glorious inheritance in Jesus Christ.

5. This period contains the largest number of first commitments for
crime.

Three coincident facts demand serious and careful consideration.

First. The greatest number of first commitments occur from twelve to
sixteen.

Second. The greatest spiritual awakenings occur between twelve and
sixteen.

Third. "Girls are most susceptible to influence for good or evil between
eleven to seventeen, with the climax about fourteen, and boys from
twelve to nineteen, with the climax about sixteen." Is not the work of
nurture plain?

6. During the early part of this period, by far the heaviest losses from
church and Sunday School occur.

"While thy serv