an only characterize as tuberculosis of the moral sense, but from
which, as I have already pointed out, we cannot always guard them. We
must give them direct teaching of some kind.

First, I think our girls, as well as our boys, need far more direct
teaching than has been customary as to the sanctity of the body. This is
especially true of girls who are sent to boarding-schools, as some of
the moral evils of boys' schools are not, I am sorry to say, altogether
unknown in girls' schools, though, as far as I can ascertain, the evil
is much less in extent, and in some is non-existent. Still, all girls
need to be taught that the body is the temple of the Lord and Giver of
life, and that from the crown of their heads to the sole of their feet
those bodies belong to Christ.

Secondly, I think that they ought to have some such teaching about life
and birth as that which I have already recommended for boys, that they
may see how through the marital tie and the consequent rise of the
parental relation, a world of blind mechanical force gradually developed
into a world of life and beauty, and at last crowned itself with a
conscious love in an indissoluble union, which makes marriage the very
type of the union of the soul with God, of Christ with His Church.

Thirdly, they need to be taught that much in their own physical
constitution, which they rebel against as handicapping them in the
struggle of life, is Nature's provision for them that no merely physical
function should press upon them as we see it do in the animal creation
at certain periods of the year, but that they should be free to serve
God, whether in the married or in the unmarried state, in quietness and
godly living.

Fourthly, above all they need definite teaching on the true nature, the
sanctity, and the beauty of marriage. It appears that the line of
progress is always a spiral, and it would seem as if we were in the
backward sweep of the spiral which looks like retrogression, but will
doubtless bring us out further up in the end. The masculine view that
marriage is the one aim and end of a woman's existence, adopted also by
some careful mothers, is now exploded. Young men are no longer led to
look upon every girl that they meet as furtively, to use a vulgarism,
"setting her cap for him," and only too ready to fling herself at his
feet. So far so good. But have we not suffered our girls to drift into
the opposite extreme? In the heyday of their bright young li