ear of young men can afford this eternal silence
concerning a subject that so vitally affects character, society, and
the race to which we belong.

There are many reasons why this sin of impurity seems to be on the
increase. The old order of town and country is fast breaking up, and
practically the whole migration and emigration is to the former.
Britain is fast becoming a series of congested centres of population.
One consequence is the increasing number of women and girls who find it
terribly hard to survive in the pitiless struggle to exist. And we
know what this means in so many cases. It is no secret how the scanty
earnings of a growing body of girls are eked out. This is not a matter
on which to dwell, and while it is serious enough to compel some very
searching thoughts, I refer to it in order to say how much I want to
see the day when every calling, profession, and trade in which a woman
can earn her bread and efficiently make her way, shall be open to her
equally with a man. The education of our girls should be the care of
parents and the State, every whit as much as the education of our lads.
There are positions in which I should not care to see women, and hence
I would work all the harder to bring about the economic conditions in
which sex, and the means of livelihood, can have some fitting
correspondence. This I say, that he who would exclude a woman because
of her sex from any place where she can turn to honest account her
capacities and industry, is the enemy of women. To the extent you
restrict what is called the sphere of a woman who is dependent upon her
own toil, you set up temptations which every man worthy the name of man
should sacrifice much to make impossible.

There is also the growing reluctance of young men, more especially in
the upper and middle classes, to undertake the responsibilities of
married life; so rarely now are they content to creep before they walk.
They must begin where their parents leave off in position, appearances,
and comforts. This often means to defer marriage until these can be
secured; but it does not always mean that these men keep a clean record
in the meanwhile. A sinister consideration which has much to answer
for in the existence of a class of women which, in turn, takes a
terrible revenge on its makers! Nor are parents always as free from
blame as they might be. I have known fathers and mothers who had the
reputation of being good men and women, sternly