outhed libertine on the street, or some giddy girl
at school? Mothers! fathers! which think you is the most sensible and
fraught with the least danger to your darling boy or girl?

6. DELAY IS FRAUGHT WITH DANGER.--Knowledge on a subject so vitally
connected with moral health must not be deferred. It is safe to say
that no child, no boy at least in these days of excitement and unrest,
reaches the age of ten years without getting some idea of nature's
laws regarding parenthood. And ninety-nine chances to one, those ideas
will be vile and pernicious unless they come from a wise, loving and
pure parent. Now, we entreat you, parents, mothers! do not wait; begin
before a false notion has had chance to find lodgment in the childish
mind. But remember this is a lesson of life, it cannot be told in one
chapter, it is as important as the lessons of love and duty.

7. THE FIRST LESSONS.--Should you be asked by your four or five-year
old, "Mamma, where did you get me?" Instead of saying, "The doctor
brought you," or "God made you and a stork brought you from Babyland
on his back," tell him the truth as you would about any ordinary
question. One mother's explanation was something like this: "My
dear, you were not made any more than apples are made, or the little
chickens are made. Your dolly was made, but it has no life like you
have. God has provided that all living things such as plants, trees,
little chickens, little kittens, little babies, etc., should grow from
seeds or little tiny eggs. Apples grow, little chickens grow, little
babies grow. Apple and peach trees grow from seeds that are planted
in the ground, and the apples and peaches grow on the trees. Baby
chickens grow inside the eggs that are kept warm by the mother hen
for a certain time. Baby boys and girls do not grow inside an egg, but
they start to grow inside of a snug warm nest, from an egg that is
so small you cannot see it with just your eye." This was not given at
once, but from time to time as the child asked questions and in the
simplest language, with many illustrations from plant and animal
life. It may have occupied months, but in time the lesson was fully
understood.

8. THE SECOND LESSON.--The second lesson came with the question, "But
_where_ is the nest?" The ice is now broken, as it were; it was an
easy matter for the mother to say, "The nest in which you grew, dear,
was close to your mother's heart inside her body. All things that
do not grow insi