We read of knights of old fighting for 'fayre ladye,' of heroes who
died to save wives and children; we cannot take up a book of poetry
without realizing how love of men and women has been the inspiration of
the poet in all ages. And this is not all that we owe to sex. In all
organic life we find the same force at work. The song of the nightingale
is a call to his mate, the chirp of cricket, the song of the thrush, the
note of the grasshopper, every charming voice in wild nature are notes
of love, and were it not for these, field and forest would be silent.
Among the animals we can trace the beauty of form and of covering to the
same source. And even in the inanimate world of plants and trees we find
sex as the source of life and beauty. The bright tinted flowers are the
homes of the father and mother and babies of the plant and without the
male and female principle in plants there would be no bud or blossom and
no fruit. Remember when you see the beauty of the apple orchard in the
spring and the glowing fruit in the autumn that these are the expression
of sex-life in the tree."

"My!" exclaimed Carl, "I never thought of all that before."

"I presume not, and many who are older than you have no thoughts of sex
but those which are low and vile. But when you consider how the same
principle reaches through all nature, and upon it depends so much that
is beautiful and charming you cannot believe that is in itself vile and
unholy, can you? If we are to think God's thoughts after him we must
come to look upon sex as something to be thought of and spoken of only
with reverence, never to be jested about or debased in any way. You
begin to see that more is involved in the coming into manhood than you
had supposed. But we have not gone over the whole matter yet. You have
read the first chapter of Genesis how that God made man in his own
image, and out of the dust of the earth. We do not suppose that he made
him out of dirt and water, as a child makes mud-pies, but we may accept
this as a statement of the scientific fact that in man are found the
same elements as in the earth, such as iron, soda, lime, etc. What we
want to think of now is the statement that God created man by his direct
power. Then we are told he made woman also. These are the first living
human beings of whom we have record. Who is the third?"

"Cain."

"And who made Cain?"

"God," answered Carl glibly, as if that must be the only orthodox
answer.

"In the