e prevalent. Dissipation
and indiscretions of all kind are working ruin. Purity of life and
temperate habits are being too generally disregarded.

5. YOUNG WOMEN.--the vast majority of graduates from the schools and
colleges of our land to-day, and two-thirds of the membership of our
churches, and three-fourths of the charitable workers, are females.
Everywhere girls are carrying off most of the prizes in competitive
examinations, because women, as a sex, naturally maintain a better
character, take better care of their bodies, and are less addicted
to bad and injurious habits. While all this is true in reference to
females, you will find that the male sex furnishes almost the entire
number of criminals. The saloons, gambling dens, the brothels, and bad
literature are drawing down all that the public schools can build
up. Seventy per cent. Of the young men of this land do not darken the
church door. They are not interested in moral improvement or moral
education. Eighty-five per cent. Leave school under 15 years of age;
prefer the loafer's honors to the benefit of school.

6. PROMOTION.--the world is full of good places for good young men,
and all the positions of trust now occupied by the present generation
will soon be filled by the competent young men of the coming
generation; and he that keeps his record clean, lives a pure life, and
avoids excesses or dissipations of all kinds, and fortifies his life
with good habits, is the young man who will be heard from, and a
thousand places will be open for his services.

7. PERSONAL PURITY.--Dr. George F. Hall says: "why not pay careful
attention to man in all his elements of strength, physical, mental,
and moral? Why not make personal purity a fixed principle in the
manhood of the present and coming generation, and thus insure the best
men the world has ever seen? It can be done. Let every reader of these
lines resolve that he will be one to help do it."

[Illustration: Charles Dickens' chair and desk.]

* * * * *

IMMORALITY, DISEASE AND DEATH.

1. THE POLICY OF SILENCE.--there is no greater delusion than to
suppose that vast number of boys know nothing about practices of sin.
Some parents are afraid that unclean thoughts may be suggested by
these very defences. The danger is slight. Such cases are barely
possible, but when the untold thousands are thought of on the other
side, who have been demoralized from childhood through ignor