es at the root of
all these questions is a spiritual question. It is not the white
slaves who are the "lost" human beings; they are the victims of a
universal act of perdition and slavery. If such a grave spiritual
danger is hanging over us, what external hygiene can save us, unless
it is preceded by a direct struggle against this danger? The really
"lost" are those who persist in a state of death, without perceiving
it.

If any one perceives the danger, he may by this mere fact find himself
in the way of salvation. The so-called white slaves, held in scorn by
society and oppressed by punishment, cry vengeance in the sight of the
universe, and cover mankind with shame; but they are not the really
lost--they are not the only slaves. He who is lost is the innocent,
well-educated young man who, without remorse, unconscious of his own
degradation, takes advantage of a human being who is made a slave for
him, and, moreover, covers her with contempt, without hearing the
voice of conscience which admonishes him: "Why beholdest thou the mote
which is in thy brother's eye? Cast out the beam which is in thine own
eye." This man, who seeks, perhaps, to protect his own body from
disastrous consequences, although very often it is not possible to
escape them, and therefore risks, for nothing, suicide of his own
person and of his species; and who only cares to seek a social
position for himself and an honored family--this is the man who is
really lost in darkness, and reduced to slavery.

And his mother is also a slave, for she cannot follow her son, whom
she brought up with so much care for his body, and who cared for his
moral good with all the passionate love of her heart; she is a slave,
when her son is forced away from her, to go perhaps to death or to the
ruin of his physical health, and to descend into moral degradation,
while she can do nothing but watch him, silent and immovable. She
excuses herself sadly, saying that her dignity and purity forbid her
to follow her son in these paths. It is as if she were to say, "There
is my son, wounded and bleeding; but I cannot follow him, because the
road is muddy, and I might dirty my boots." Where is the heart of a
true mother? How can maternal sentiment fall so low? "She only is
dignified and pure," cries Madame de Hericourt, "who is capable of
bringing up her son in such a way that he will never have anything
shameful to confess to his mother."

The mother who has lost all her au