e
relation of the sexes, one of the most fertile sources of crime and
degradation would be removed. Physicians know too well what sad
consequences are constantly occurring from a lack of proper knowledge on
these important subjects.

8. A CONSISTENT CONSIDERATION.--Let the reader of this work study its pages
carefully and be able to give safe counsel and advice to others, and
remember that purity of purpose and purity of character are the brightest
jewels in the crown of immortality.

* * * * *

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The Beginning of Life.

[Illustration: Beginning Right.]

1. THE BEGINNING.--There is a charm in opening manhood which has commended
itself to the imagination in every age. The undefined hopes and promises of
the future--the dawning strength of intellect--the vigorous flow of
passion--the very exchange of home ties and protected joys for free and
manly pleasures, give to this period an interest and excitement unfelt,
perhaps, at any other.

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2. THE GROWTH OF INDEPENDENCE.--Hitherto life has been to boys, as to
girls, a dependent existence--a sucker from the parent growth--a home
discipline of authority and guidance and communicated impulse. But
henceforth it is a transplanted growth of its own--a new and free power of
activity in which the mainspring is no longer authority or law from
without, but principle or opinion within. The shoot which has been
nourished under the shelter of the parent stem, and bent according to its
inclination, is transferred to the open world, where of its own impulse and
character it must take root, and grow into strength, or sink into weakness
and vice.

3. HOME TIES.--The thought of home must excite a pang even in the first
moments of freedom. Its glad shelter--its kindly guidance--its very
restraints, how dear and tender must they seem in parting! How brightly
must they shine in the retrospect as the youth turns from them to the
hardened and unfamiliar face of the world! With what a sweet,
sadly-cheering pathos they must linger in the memory! And then what chance
and hazard is there in his newly-gotten freedom! What instincts of warning
in its very novelty and dim inexperience! What possibilities of failure as
well as of success in the unknown future as it stretches before him!

4. VICE OR VIRTUE.--Certainly there is a grave importance as well as a
pleasant charm in the beginning of life. There is awe as well as excitement
in it when rightly vi